For our next video livestream replay dedicated to free-to-play games, GameSpot's Jonathan and Randolph explores The Exiled Realm of Arboria, recently revamped in early February. Warning: video may include dancing raccoons and donut golems.
Court-supervised sale process will see bidding on franchises including Darksiders, Red Faction and licensed software like Marvel Super Hero Squad.
THQ has announced that it will sell the remainder of its intellectual properties in a court-supervised sale. The publisher has already sold the majority of its studios and games following news of its bankruptcy last month.
THQ will now accept bids on franchises including Darksiders, Red Faction, Homeworld, MX; owned software including Big Beach Sports and Destroy All Humans!; as well as licensed software including Marvel Super Hero Squad, Supreme Commander, Worms, and more.
The publisher said that it expects to complete the bidding and sale process for the remaining IP assets by mid-May.
Initial bids for the properties must be submitted by April 1, 2013, with final bids required by April 15. The sales will be presented to a court for final approval in May. THQ says it has already received more than 100 expressions of interest for various titles.
Sales from the auction totalled around $72 million, though the total value is higher. THQ said that it expects the total sale process to have generated $100 million, which includes "certain assets and other intellectual properties" excluded from the sale.
Grand Theft Auto parent publisher Take-Two Interactive recently obtained the WWE license.
Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli joins Kevin, Caro, Tom, and Peter to tell us what the next generation means for him. Also: steak, s'mores, and fondue for everyone!
This week, Zo and Ed tackle an FPS with some seriously realistic gun mechanics. Will they be able to hone their skills to fight through the deadly world of Receiver?
FIFA publisher's chief technology officer says new consoles are 8-10x more powerful than current-gen, run on PC-based architecture.
Electronic Arts believes the arrival of next-generation consoles will be a watershed moment for the gaming industry. Speaking today during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference, EA chief technology officer Rajat Taneja said the new wave of consoles will usher in a new era of gaming.
"The console technology itself is a gigantic leap for our industry," Taneja said. "Any which way you look at the specifications, it is step function over what exists today. The new consoles are between 8 and 10 times the power of the current generation."
Taneja said EA is well-positioned to succeed when the PlayStation 4--and the rumored Xbox 720--arrive for three reasons. The first of which is that gamers simply will not be able to stay away, due in part to the advanced capabilities of these new machines.
"First, we no longer have to constrain our games or ration graphics or memory or bandwidth. We can let the games really flourish. 1080p, 60 frames per second, character physics on a much broader canvas, color saturation, lighting, particle effects; it will be a level of gameplay experience that is unprecedented, not been imagined before," he said. "It's going to create playing conditions for our gamers that are just going to be phenomenal."
"We no longer have to constrain our games or ration graphics or memory or bandwidth. We can let the games really flourish."
The second reason Taneja said he believes EA will succeed on future-generation platforms is due to the company's existing technology smoothly scaling to the new systems.
"The architecture of the consoles is based on standard PC components and technology. So our own investment in our backend engine…and our libraries, our tools, will very smoothly run on these and make it easier for us to innovate to the new console technologies themselves," he said. "What used to take months in the past, will now take days."
Lastly, Taneja said the fact that next-generation platforms have been built with social features and components in mind align with EA's existing ambitions in this space.
"The connected and sharing capabilities of the new consoles actually fits very directly with our strategy…of multiplayer gaming, connected gaming, social gaming," Taneja said, adding that it "helps us accelerates those features into our games."
CFO Blake Jorgensen says FIFA publisher has yet to decide on pricing for future-platform games.
Electronic Arts has yet to decide on next-generation pricing. Chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference today that he expects software costs for consumers to follow past trends.
"I think typically at the start of a cycle you've seen the pricing raise to $69 for a core piece of software and then over the life of those it's drifted down to the introduction price, typically now around $59," he said. "We haven't yet set pricing on our [next-generation games], but you'll probably see a similar trend during the start of the next cycle."
An EA representative confirmed with GameSpot that Jorgensen misspoke during his presentation, meaning to use examples of $59 and $49, not $69 and $59.
SCEA CEO Jack Tretton said last week that PlayStation 4 titles will max out at $60, putting to rest any speculation that games for Sony's future platform may cost $10 more than PlayStation 3 titles.
CFO Blake Jorgensen says microtransactions will be built into more and more of publisher's games moving forward.
Gamers are "enjoying and embracing" microtransactions, according to Electronic Arts chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen. Speaking today during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference, the executive said microtransactions will be built into more and more of the publisher's titles moving forward.
"We are building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way; to get to a higher level, to buy a new characters; to buy a truck or gun or whatever it might be," Jorgensen said. "And consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of business."
In order for EA's microtransactions platform to flourish, the correct technology must be in place, Jorgensen said. Not only has this been achieved through efforts from chief technology officer Rajat Taneja, but EA has made this business more profitable by bringing it in-house.
"We've got to have a very strong backend to make sure…if you're doing microtransactions, and you're processing credit cards for every one of those microtransactions, you'll get eaten alive. And so Rajat's team has built an amazing backend to manage that and manage that much more profitably. We've outsourced a lot of that stuff historically; we're bringing that all in-house now."
Check back later today for more comments from EA's presentation.
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