 | Pachter: Is demand for Star Wars games still there? May 7th 2013, 16:49 Wedbush Securities analyst questions viability of sci-fi brand after The Old Republic came up short. 
Industry analyst Michael Pachter has questioned the viability of Star Wars games after massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic saw subscriber figures fall before going-free-to-play less than a year after launch. Speaking on Bloomberg TV, the Wedbush Securities analyst bluntly stated, "One has to question: is the demand still there?" His comments came in response to the recent Electronic Arts-Disney agreement that will see EA become the exclusive developer of "core" Star Wars games. New projects are already in development at Battlefield studio DICE and Dead Space outfit Visceral Games. Pachter described the Star Wars brand as a "huge fanboy experience," noting that its appeal may be starting to fade away as time moves on. He explained that he personally attended the original Star Wars movie premiere, pointing out it was more than 30 years ago. "The fanboys are pretty old. They're getting long in the tooth," he said. Despite his misgivings about the health of the Star Wars brand, Pachter said EA and Disney can be successful with the series by drawing on games from the past. "Now, the past Star Wars games have been really successful. And two of the most successful ever were made by studios owned by Electronic Arts," he said. "One of them was Pandemic; they made Battlefront. That studio's been shut down so I don't know if they can do anything with that. The other, though, is Knights of the Old Republic. That was a huge seller on the Xbox only. It sold something like 7 million copies. So it would be really profitable, even with the big fat licensing fee to Disney." Ultimately, Pachter said he believes that if EA and Disney can get it right, both companies stand to make a "ton of money." EA will report earnings this afternoon after market close. More information about the EA-Disney Star Wars deal and the recent wave of layoffs is expected to be divulged. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix launching September 10 May 7th 2013, 16:32 Square Enix compilation pack releasing at $40 later this year only on PS3; preorders get limited edition artbook. 
Square Enix today announced that Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix will launch in North America exclusively for PlayStation 3 on September 10 for $40. Previously, it was slated to arrive sometime this fall. The compilation pack includes PlayStation 2 games Re: Chain of Memories and Final Mix, as well as cutscenes from the DS game 358/2 Days. Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix also includes full Trophy support, as well as added content like new enemies, weapons, abilities, and cutscenes. Gamers who preorder the title will receive a limited edition artbook (above right) at launch. Featured artwork included images of characters like Sora, Riku, Donald Duck, and Goofy. The book includes early sketches, character renders, and final pieces artwork that were never before seen in North America. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Call of Duty: Ghosts dispute causes UK retailer to stop stocking Activision games May 7th 2013, 15:48 Activision and ShopTo butt heads over dispatching games ahead of street date. 
A UK retailer has pledged to stop selling Activision games after a dispute over stock allocation for the upcoming Call of Duty: Ghosts. ShopTo, a specialist online retailer in the UK, is unhappy with Activision refusing to allow it to dispatch Call of Duty games more than a day in advance, which the retailer claims upsets customers by forcing the copies to arrive through the letterbox days after launch. Speaking to Eurogamer, ShopTo CEO Igor Cipolletta said that "Activision's policy of only allowing e-tailers to dispatch one day before release date effectively destroys an e-tailer's pre-order campaign," adding that "many deliveries inevitably arrive post-release date." "This has the undesired effect of previously loyal and satisfied customers thinking that, if we can't 'get it right' for one of the biggest games of the year, why should they trust us with any future orders?" "Their friends and acquaintances, by word of mouth and social media, (despite possibly not having ever ordered from us), would see us (and possibly e-tailers as a whole) as unreliable. This despite all the time and hard work my team and the myriad of other publishers put into other titles during the year." "Of course this Activision policy is not for every title," continued Cipolletta, "but due to the volume and fever pitch Call of Duty seems to generate (both positive and negative), it causes the most damage to us." Call of Duty: Ghosts is not listed on ShopTo's website at time of writing, and neither is Activision's upcoming titles Deadpool and Skylanders Swap Force. Previously released Activision games are still being sold. Activision is unlikely to yield and allow ShopTo dispatch Call of Duty: Ghosts any earlier, according to Eurogamer's report, and the publisher is frustrated by online retailers breaking the street date of its games. Last November UK retailer SimplyGames publicly pledged to ship out early copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops II the weekend before the game was released. Cipolletta, who says Activision's decision to launch Call of Duty games on Tuesday forces online retailers to pay staff extra to work the previous weekend, concluded by blasting Activision for its retailing decisions for the Call of Duty series especially and has called its attempt to sell the games in previous years a "complete failure". "Unfortunately," said Cipolletta, "our experience with the Call Of Duty series in the past four years is that our campaigns have been extremely difficult to engender a supportable level of customer satisfaction and in regards to profit, a complete failure". Call of Duty: Ghosts will be released for current and next-generation platforms later this year, though presumably not at ShopTo. Activision will show off the first gameplay footage of the game as Microsoft debuts its next-generation Xbox on May 21. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Valve biofeedback studies include tracking player sweat levels May 7th 2013, 15:31 Experimental psychologist at Half-Life studio says company has conducted experiments where sweat level is measured and used to affect in-game experience. 
Some of Valve's biofeedback tests have included tracking player sweat levels and changing gameplay experiences accordingly, according to the company's experimental psychologist. VentureBeat attended the NeuroGaming Conference and Expo last week, where Valve's Mike Ambinder discussed the various studies the Half-Life studio is conducting as it looks towards the future of gaming. "One thing we are very interested in is the notion of biofeedback and how it can be applied to game design,” Ambinder said. "There is potential on both sides of the equation, both for using physiological signals to quantify an emotional state while people are playing the game." Concerning Valve's player perspiration tests, the company has measured players' sweat and matched that to their level of arousal while playing a certain game. In one case, this data was fed into Left 4 Dead and the gameplay experience was modified to be "more fun." Ambinder also revealed that Valve conducted an experiment where a player had four minutes to shoot 100 enemies. If the player was calm, the game would advance normally, but if they became nervous, the game would unfold more quickly, leaving less time to kill the enemies. Valve is also experimenting with eye-tracking, creating a prototype version of Portal 2 that could be manipulated with eye movement. All of the company's studies are purely experimental for the time being and still have a ways to go, Ambinder said. "The more interesting side of the equation is what you can do when you incorporate physiological signals into the gameplay itself," he said. "If we could start tapping into that, we could tap into a whole wealth of data." Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | PlayStation Store adding Indie Games category May 7th 2013, 14:39 New category will house the latest indie titles in one place and aims to highlight the "most unique gaming experiences." 
The PlayStation Store will add an Indie Games category this afternoon, Sony announced today. As its name suggests, the Indie Games category will house all Sony's latest indie titles and aims to highlight "some of the most unique gaming experiences" on PlayStation platforms. The Indie Games section will launch with some of PlayStation's most well-known indie titles, including The Unfinished Swan and Journey, as well as Guacamelee and Thomas Was Alone. To mark the announcement, Sony has cut the prices and offered promotions for various games (listed below). New deals on select titles will be made available on a weekly basis. Retro City Rampage: 50 percent discount to all from May 7-21.
Papo & Yo promotional bundle containing the soundtrack and game: 40 percent discount (55 percent for PlayStation Plus subscribers) from May 7-21.
Zombie Tycoon II: Free for PlayStation Plus subscribers for a limited time.
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| | Microsoft showing 'next chapter' of Xbox at Gamescom May 7th 2013, 14:09 Xbox maker returning to Cologne, Germany trade show in August after skipping last year's event 
Microsoft will show off the "next chapter" of Xbox when it returns to Gamescom this August, the company announced today. "Xbox will be back at gamescom this August," wrote Microsoft social marketing manager Graeme Boyd on Twitter. "Next chapter of Xbox gaming experiences on show." Microsoft did not attend last year's Gamescom (or the Tokyo Game Show), saying it would instead focus on smaller events. Gamescom 2013 takes place in Cologne, Germany August 22-25. Nintendo also skipped last year's show but will attend this summer. Microsoft did not give any specifics regarding what it will show at Gamescom, but the company is widely believed to formally unveil its next Xbox during an intimate event at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington on May 21. This announcement will "mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV, and entertainment." The event will be streamed through Xbox.com, Xbox Live, and Spike TV in the United States and Canada. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | SimCity launch 'inexcusable' says Maxis co-founder Will Wright May 7th 2013, 13:13 "I can understand the outrage," says original Sim City creator Will Wright. 
Will Wright, who co-founded Maxis and created Sim City, The Sims, and Spore, has said the recent SimCity's troubled launch and server issues were "inexcusable," and that both EA and Maxis failed to correctly communicate the game's MMO intentions to consumers. SimCity's controversial launch and subsequent backlash saw customers unable to play the game due to it requiring an always-online connection to the Internet. "I could have predicted--I kind of did predict there'd be a big backlash about the DRM stuff," said Wright in an interview with GamesIndustry International, adding that SimCity is "a good game; I enjoy playing it a lot." Wright's interpretation of the consumer outrage of the game's fumbled launch is down partly to EA's reputation. "It was kind of like, 'EA is the evil empire, there was a lot of 'Let's bash EA over it,'" he said, adding that he can understand why people were unhappy. "That was basically inexcusable, that you charge somebody $60 for a game and they can't play it. I can understand the outrage." "If I was a consumer buying the game and that happened to me, I'd feel the same," added Wright. One of SimCity's biggest problems is that EA and Maxis had a hard time communicating the game as an always-online title. "I think people care if it doesn't work," he said. "If you can't play it on planes, stuff like that” I think there are some very valid concerns about it." "Also there's a perception; I don't expect to play World of Warcraft on the airplane, because my perception is it has to be on the 'Net. SimCity was in this very uncomfortable space, like the uncanny valley, almost; [it was caught] between was it a single-player game or was it a multiplayer game?" Wright's comments come as Maxis prepares to launch SimCity's 3.0 update this week, which aims to focus on refining the game's traffic management and routing systems, such as cars struggling on u-turns. Despite the complaints, SimCity managed to sell 1.1 million copies in two weeks and help EA's digital distribution platform Origin hit a peak of 1.3 million concurrent users. For more on SimCity, check out GameSpot's previous coverage. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Wolfenstein: The New Order revealed May 7th 2013, 13:00 New game from Bethesda and MachineGames coming to current- and next-gen consoles in Q4 2013. 
The rumors were right. Bethesda today announced Wolfenstein: The New Order, a new entry in the seminal first-person shooter series heading to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and next-generation consoles during Q4 2013. The New Order is set in 1960 after the Nazis won World War II. Gamers play as the familiar American war hero B.J. Blazkowicz and are tasked with launching an "impossible counter-offensive" against the Nazi powers that have taken over the world. Set in Europe, The New Order will have players infiltrating Nazi strongholds and battling legions of enemies, while taking control of "super weapons" that the Nazis have used to dominate earth--"and beyond," Bethesda teased. The New Order is in development at MachineGames, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bethesda parent company Zenimax. The studio was established in 2009 by the founders of Starbreeze Studios (Chronicles of Riddick) before being acquired by Zenimax in 2010. The game's debut trailer is available above. Check back every day this week for more coverage from GameSpot on Wolfenstein: The New Order. The most recent entry in the series was 2009's Wolfenstein, which was developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
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