| Heavy Rain grossed $100 million - Report Apr 19th 2013, 15:36 Quantic Dream head says 2010 game was "very profitable" for Sony, claims it is a fallacy that experimental games can't be successful. 
Quantic Dream's 2010 narrative-focused Heavy Rain grossed $100 million, proving that developers should "stop thinking that innovation rhymes with unprofitable," according to studio co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere. Speaking today during the Digital Dragons game festival in Krakow, Poland, Fondaumiere said, as reported by Games Industry International, that most publisher's would strive for the sales numbers Heavy Rain was able to achieve. "These projects have been and are profitable, to some extent," he said. "I'll give you one example that I know about: Heavy Rain. Let's say it's $22 million to produce. With marketing it's maybe $30 million. With distribution, $40 million. Sony earned $100 million with the game, so it's very profitable. It's the sort of margin that most publishers would strive for, for any game." The latest official Heavy Rain sales update came in September 2011, when Quantic Dream revealed the game had sold over 2 million copies. Also at this time, Fondaumiere called the used game market one of the biggest problems in the industry, noting that the second-hand market cost Quantic Dream millions on Heavy Rain. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
|  | Peter Molyneux's Curiosity now has in-app purchases for adding cubelets Apr 19th 2013, 14:46 "Curiosity may very well rapidly degrade to reveal its innermost secret," says developer 22 Cans. 
An update for 22 Cans' block-tapping Curiosity - What's Inside The Cube has added a string of in-app purchases to allow users to add and remove chunks of cubelets. Curious Curiosity owners can now pay to add or remove blocks of 10,000, 100,000, and 500,000 cubelets. The effect is not instantaneous, however, and will instead take place when the game heads to its next layer. 10,000 cubes will cost $0.99/£0.69, 100,000 goes for $6.99/£4.99, and 500,000 cubelets will go for £7.49/$10.99. "We don't know quite what will happen in this war of attrition," said 22Cans in the description for the update. At time of writing, 13.7 million cubelets will be removed automatically from the next layer of Curiosity, while almost 4.7 million will be added. "Curiosity may very well rapidly degrade to reveal its innermost secret or maybe the effects of automatically removing cubelets will be neutralised by players keen to keep Curiosity going," said 22 Cans. Curiosity has been running since November 2012, and since its launch 260 layers of cubelets have been chipped off. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Gears of War: Judgment Call to Arms DLC out next week Apr 19th 2013, 14:44 Second expansion for shooter launching April 23 for Season Pass holders, April 30 worldwide; also introduces Masters at Arms game mode. 
Gears of War: Judgment will add the Call to Arms expansion next week, Microsoft and Epic Games announced today. The game's second expansion, which adds three new multiplayer maps and a new game mode, will be available April 23 for VIP Season Pass holders and April 30 worldwide. The content will be available as a free download for those who hold a VIP Season Pass and will sell for 1,000 Microsoft Points ($12.50) as an individual download. Season Pass holders also receive permanent multiplayer double XP. New maps included with the Call to Arms DLC for Gears of War: Judgment are Terminal, Blood Drive, and Boneyard. According to Microsoft, they are set against the backdrop of the Locust invasion of Halvo Bay and include a mix of close quarters and vertical combat. The Call to Arms DLC also introduces a new game mode called Master At Arms, a free-for-all gametype that challenges players with getting kills with each of the 20 different weapons without using melee techniques or grenades. Every kill will automatically advance players to the next available weapon until they have used each and become the "master at arms." The Call to Arms DLC also packs in 10 new achievements worth a total of 250 Gamerscore. The content follows last month's Maxim-sponsored expansion, which saw a new map (Haven) and game mode (Execution) added to Gears of War: Judgment for free thanks to its partnership with the men's magazine. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | NPD: BioShock Infinite March US sales hit 878,000 Apr 19th 2013, 14:02 Cowen & Company analyst reveals first-month sales for Irrational Games' latest, which is expected to sell around 4.5 million units during first year. 
BioShock Infinite--the top-selling title of March in the United States--sold 878,000 units during the month, according to NPD data from Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz. In a note to investors, the industry watcher said this figure is "a few hundred thousand" units above what the company had expected it to sell. Creutz said BioShock Infinite has continued to sell at a healthy clip in April--thanks to strong reviews--and is likely to sell 4.5 million units (including retail and PC copies) in its first year. The analyst also noted that Activision's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct saw "surprisingly strong" sales in March, where it was the ninth best-selling title overall. Specific sales figures were divulged. Total software sales in the US for March were up 2 percent, representing the first month of positive growth since November 2011. Creutz noted that Gears of War: Judgment and God of War: Ascension sold a few hundred thousand more units than modeled (though they both still underperformed compared to previous franchise installments), but that non-AAA titles helped boost overall software sales in the month. Creutz said fourteen March new releases sold over 100,000 units during the month, a feat that had not been equaled since November 2011 or beat since October 2009. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Razer honoring unauthorized 90% off coupon code Apr 19th 2013, 13:17 Peripheral maker CEO says company will not cancel orders placed using the code, even though company stands to lose "insane amount" of money. 
Computer peripheral maker Razer will honor an unauthorized coupon code it discovered this week that granted United Kingdom shoppers 90 percent off their orders. Writing on Facebook (via Polygon), Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan explained that Razer could legally cancel orders placed using the code, but won't because of its longstanding consumer-first policy. "While we have the option of cancelling the orders legally, we’ve always had a customer-comes-first policy at Razer and in respect of this incident, we have decided to honor the orders that were placed using the unauthorized code by Razer fans buying single products for their own use," Tan wrote. Honoring the 90 percent off code will result in Razer seeing an "insane amount of losses" due to products being sold significantly below costs, Tan said. Despite this, he explained that Razer wants to "do right by the community" and so will honor the codes. "Our focus is on doing the right thing for our fans, the gamers and the community, not for resellers or users to profit from this," Tan said. "That’s not gaming, that’s not our deal." Tan explained that it will take weeks--and months in some cases--to processes and ship all orders. This is due to the high volume of orders and the fact that many of the items users purchased were backordered to begin with. "We appreciate everyone’s patience, and we thank all of our customers for their support. Game on," he wrote. Razer recently launched its own gaming tablet, the Razer Edge. For more, check out GameSpot's extended coverage of the device. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | The Evil Within announced by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami Apr 19th 2013, 12:19 New survival horror title coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and next-gen consoles in 2014. 
Tango Gameworks, the studio helmed by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, has a new announced survival horror title called The Evil Within. The Evil Within is due to be released on next-generation consoles, Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3 in 2014. ’We’re incredibly proud to announce The Evil Within,’ Mikami said in a statement. ’My team and I are committed to creating an exciting new franchise, providing fans the perfect blend of horror and action.’ A live action trailer for the game was also released, showing a man wrapping his body in barbed wire and a four-armed monster being birthed in a pool of blood. No specifics about the game have yet been detailed. Bethesda has been teasing the game this week using social media service Vine. The publisher has previously said it will make "considerably" more noise in 2013. The logo for The Evil Within. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | 3DS US physical software sales hit 20 million Apr 19th 2013, 11:50 Strong starts from Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon help portable software sales hit new milestone. 
More than 20 million physical 3DS games have been sold in the United States since the platform launched during March 2011, Nintendo has announced, citing NPD data. Nintendo called out Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon as a top performer for March, selling 365,000 physical units in the US during the period. As revealed earlier this week, life-to-date combined physical and digital sales for the game now stand at 415,000 units. Fire Emblem: Awakening sold 64,000 combined physical and digital copies in March, Nintendo said, bringing the game's life-to-date US sales total to 240,000. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, which launched late in the month, was also a top 3DS game, selling 145,000 copies during March. Overall, total sales of 3DS software at retail jumped by more than 50 percent year-over-year, according to NPD data. This momentum is likely to grow, as Nintendo has a slew of first-party games coming to 3DS in the weeks and months ahead, including Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins (April 24), Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (May 24), Animal Crossing: New Leaf (June 9), and Mario and Luigi: Dream Team (August 11). Nintendo director of product marketing Bill Trinen said this week that thanks to a strong software lineup, 3DS sales will "really take off" in 2013. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Homeworld IP goes to unannounced owner as Kickstarter campaign offers refunds Apr 19th 2013, 11:12 Expects new owner of the franchise to be announced in May. 
A community-driven effort to resurrect the Homeworld series has been outbid on the rights to the franchise, the campaign's organisers revealed. Developer TeamPixel began a crowdsourced campaign to obtain the rights to Relic's space RTS Homeworld back in January, saying it would make Homeworld 3 for PC, Mac and Linux, and Homeworld Touch for iOS and Android. "The auction for the Homeworld license ended April 15 2013, and while we reached qualified bidder status for the bankruptcy auction, we were unable to raise the necessary funds to remain competitive against the other parties at the auction," wrote the studio in a Kickstarter update. Refunds are now being given to backers of the campaign. The new owner of the Homeworld IP was not mentioned, but TeamPixel expects an announcement during May after the sale is finalised. Homeworld creator Relic was purchased by Sega in January for $26.6 million after THQ auctioned off its assets. The rights to Homeworld were not purchased by Sega at the time. Homeworld II was the last time the series was seen. It was released in 2003. Relic's next game, WWII-themed RTS Company of Heroes 2, will be released for PC on June 25. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Hawken brings in new mech and map in Technician update Apr 19th 2013, 07:14 Technician class specializes in support and on-the-fly repairs; Front Line map is a new version of game's alpha build test maps. 
Meteor Entertainment and Adhesive Games have announced a new update for Hawken that features a new mech and a new map for players. The mech is called the Technician and it specializes in supporting units in the battlefield, just like the Medic in Team Fortress 2. It comes equipped with a Redox O2 gun that deals minimal damage but coats enemies with damage-over-time debuffs, and a Helix repair torch that both heals friendly units and deconstructs enemy units. Its special ability is a skill called amplification, which increases the repair rate of the Helix repair torch for a short amount of time. The new map introduced is called Front Line, which is a reskinned version of a Hawken alpha map called Valkyrie. The bright cityscape-tailored map is large and open, but it also has a few alleys and tunnels for players wishing to lay low during skirmishes. The update is available now. For more information on the game, check out GameSpot's recent coverage on the title. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
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