Sledgehammer Games Making Call Of Duty For 2011, Activision Confirms Infinity Ward Firings
Cinemablend.com reports:
Today Activision announced that they’re creating a new business unit around their popular Call of Duty franchise. They also outlined future games for the series.
As they’ve previously stated, Treyarch is developing a new COD that will be released this fall. Infinity Ward is creating “the first two downloadable map packs” for MW2, due [...]
PS3 ‘an evolutionary leap in audio design’
Develop-Online.com reports:
The PS3’s memory reserves and native 7.1 output has provided a “vast evolutionary leap” in sound design, according to SCEE’s longstanding audio manager Dan Bardino.
In an interview with Develop, Bardino spoke of how game audio standards have advanced at lightning pace.
“There were real problems before, but I think game audio has taken quite giant [...]
First Wave of Natal Games: “Fun, Simple And Family-Oriented”
G4TV Reports:
According to Microsoft, the first games released for Xbox 360 add-on Natal will be anything but ”Core.” At a press event and Natal demo last night in Europe, Erin Hofto, Xbox 360 product manager showed off a tech demo for the system and said, “What you see here is just the beginning, this game is about 12 months old, [...]
70MB of additional RAM unlocked for PS3 developers
Joystiq.com reports:
It’s rare for a console to get a spec upgrade in the middle of its life. However, Sony has stealthily upgraded the PS3 over the past few months to unlock additional usable RAM for developers. Much like the PSP received a boost in clock speed, the latest firmware updates provide developers an additional 70MB of [...]
PS3 Benefiting From Wii Publisher Backlash
Industry Gamers.com reports:
Over the last several months, it seems that more and more publishers have publicly reconsidered their stance on how to support the Wii. Mature games and core games in general just haven’t been putting up the kind of sales numbers to justify the investments. Analysts have talked about the struggle of core games on [...]
Digital Foundry: Halo Reach Performance Analysis
Digital Foundry Reports:
Exciting times. Footage of Halo: Reach released alongside Microsoft’s X10 event gives us our first look at the game actually running in real-time. No CG, no engine-sourced cinematics, it’s all run-time, and it’s clearly a hugely significant upgrade over the old Halo 3 engine, last seen in 2009’s ODST.
There’s just over a minute [...]
Square Enix responds to doctored FFXIII screens
Examiner.com reports:
Square Enix recently released some screens for the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII. As it turns out, however, the images were actually from the Playstation 3 version of the game with the button layout altered for the Xbox 360.
Sonia Im, the Senior PR Manager of Square Enix North America, posted the following [...]
IGN: Halo Reach First Look
IGN Reports:
Just think, you only have to wait until May 3 to play Halo: Reach. That’s the official date for when the multiplayer beta, included with copies of Halo 3: ODST, will open to the public. It’s a good thing we only have to wait that long because after getting my first glimpse of Halo: Reach, [...]
Fable III’s Three Big Innovations: Touch, Weapons And Kingly Responsibility
Kotaku.com reports:
Three major shifts in gameplay mechanics will make Fable III the most innovative entry in the popular role-playing game franchise, developer Peter Molyneux told a gathering of journalists today at Microsoft’s X10 event.
Fable III will present three key changes in play: In-game touching, highly-customized weapon morphing and the challenge of ruling a kingdom. Molyneux [...]
Xbox Live dropping original Xbox support April 15
Gamespot reports:
Cessation of online play will affect all XBL-enabled games for Microsoft’s original console, including Xbox Originals and Xbox 360-optimized games like Halo 2; single-player games will function normally.
Halo 2 players better get their last frags in. At midnight, Microsoft announced that it is ceasing support for all original Xbox games, including digital copies of [...]