Headline RePLAY – 7.12.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Terry Pratchett’s daughter is writing the Tomb Raider reboot, a new Darkstalkers may finally be in the works and Metal Gear’s surprise success in the West.

Crystal Dynamics, the studio that’s developing the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot, has announced that they recruited veteran writer Rhianna Pratchett for the game.  

“I grew up playing Tomb Raider, uncovering the world’s secrets and unearthing its treasures; I have lived and died as Lara Croft, but nothing comes close to the challenge of re-writing her,” said Pratchett. “Seldom do we get the opportunity to reimagine and reinvent a legend, so getting my narrative hands on Miss Croft was a once-in-a-life-time opportunity. It was going back to the genesis of videogame action heroines and exploring how to make such an iconic character meaningful and relatable for gamers today.”

Pratchett also contributed to Mirror’s Edge, Overlord and Prince of Persia.

|Source: Destructoid

Producer Yoshinori Ono asked fans at Comic-Con last year to hold up $5 or $10 bills to express support for a Darkstalkers game so he can show it as evidence of fan support to Capcom execs—he didn’t ask that out of fans this year.

“This year, you don’t have to do that, and it’s not necessarily bad news!” Ono told fans in a Blanka costume.

Does that mean that there is a Darkstalkers game at last in development at Capcom? Ono wouldn’t say, instead telling the audience that he has to be careful with what he says or he’ll get in trouble.

Notably Capcom released the original Darkstalkers on PSN last year and the ESRB rated Darkstalkers 3 for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita earlier this year.

|Source: Siliconera

The Metal Gear series is a household name in the West, but creator Hideo Kojima never expected it to be such a big hit overseas.

“I made Metal Gear Solid almost as a hobby,” he told Weekly Famitsu. “I had always been making games on minor platforms and had never stood at the forefront of the stage.”

At the time of Metal Gear Solid’s release, Kojima didn’t even realize how much of an impact it made in the U.S. and Europe until he went on global tour to promote the game. During the tour, people everywhere recognized his face.

“Metal Gear Solid was my debut as a producer, but I never really thought about markets then,” he mused. “I suppose that was a good thing.”  

|Source: Kotaku

Headline RePLAY – 6.11.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The producer of Street Fighter IV is back in action, Diablo III prepares for the Real-Money Auction House and League of Legends EU is the latest to be hit with a security breach.

Yoshinori Ono’s dedication to Capcom’s Street Fighter series is so legendary that it was instrumental in revving the franchise in 2008 with the release of Street Fighter IV—but was it the same devotion that arguably lead to his sudden illness and collapse in April?

In an interview with Eurogamer’s Simon Parkin, Ono recounts his journey from composer to producer, and his dogged persistence in proposing the fourth entry to Street Fighter to a reluctant company since the release of Street Fighter 3: Third Strike in 1999.  

“I was working on Onimusha 4 and during that time I repeatedly submitted my proposal for a new Street Fighter,” Ono recalled. “The company kept telling me: ‘It’s a dead franchise. It doesn’t make any money. We have series that make money like Resident Evil and Onimusha. Why bother with a dead franchise?”

Ultimately, Ono’s persistence paid off and he was given a small budget to create a prototype. Ono’s strategy was simple: “I had been asking all of the journalists to make noise about the series when out and about. I would always tell them that it was their responsibility to tell Capcom, not me as I don’t have the power. Journalists and fans have the power to move Capcom—not producers. With so many voices crying out for a Street Fighter game Capcom could no longer ignore it any more and so they gave the green light for a prototype and they asked me to create it.

“It’s a miracle that happened after a decade…”

Capcom was still not sold on the project, however. Fan demands may have forced the company’s hand, but Ono was constantly asked, “Ono-san, seriously why are you persisting with this? You are using so much money, budget and resources. Why don’t we use it on something else, something that will make money?”

“No one had the intention of selling it,” Ono concluded, “so I had virtually no help from other departments—they were reluctant, right up to the day of release.”

Ono’s dedication and his faith in the fans paid off in spades: Street Fighter IV was a huge success, single-handedly resurrecting the franchise.

And it probably overworked him into a hospital bed, but the producer vows that’s not enough to stop him.

“There have been rumors saying Ono is dead or retiring. None of that’s true. I want to support the next generation of fighting games. It’s my job. It’s my calling.”

|Source: Eurogamer

Diablo III’s long-disputed Real-Money Auction House is launching tomorrow, and in the wake of hacking reports that plagued the game’s release, Blizzard is requiring that players have an authenticator attached to their account in order to access the feature.

More specifically, players must have a physical or mobile Battle.net authenticator attached to their Battle.net accounts in order to use the RMAH. Players who already attached their account to Battle.net Balance, a feature that provides the option to buy and sell items on the RMAH, without an authenticator will continue to be able to do so—on the caveat that it is required to add to the balance in the future.

|Source: Blizzard

League of Legends EU is the latest to be hit by hackers, Riot Games reports that only personal player data in EU West and EU Nordic and East databases were accessed and “absolutely” no payment or billing information was compromised.

According to Riot, any personal data that was breached included e-mail addresses, encrypted account passwords, summoner [game ID] name and date of birth. The studio does note that for a “small number of players” first and last name might’ve been compromised along with encrypted security question and answer.

Riot does assure players that the security issue that hackers exploited was resolved, all EU West, EU Nordic and East players were notified via e-mail and that the investigation is still ongoing. Additionally, Riot has redirected teams to “quickly implement new security measures” to improve the safety of player data and will continue to “invest in security measures” like password hashing, data encryption, state of the art firewalls, SSL and security ninjas.

And lastly the company asks users to change their account passwords and offers steps on how to do so.

|Source: League of Legends

Headline RePLAY – 3.29.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: The producer of the Street Fighter series steps down, hackers can steal credit card information from pre-owned Xbox 360’s and Dragon’s Crown is not cancelled.

Yoshinori Ono, the man responsible for Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter x Tekken, is stepping down as producer of the franchise in the wake of being hospitalized last week.

Ono apologized to fans on Twitter for causing concern about his welfare and wanted to thank them for all the get-well messages. The Street Fighter producer then announced that he’s stepping down “for a while,” and that an unannounced individual has taken up the reins of the franchise.

In the meantime, Ono is going to still provide support but will stay out of the “limelight” while he contemplates about the “new future of fighting games” and assured fans that he’ll try his best to “be back.”

*Source: @Yoshi_OnoChin

If you’re thinking about selling or giving away your Xbox 360, you might want to reconsider: researchers at Drexel University discovered that with just common tools, hackers and modders can access the console’s hard drive to steal credit card or personal information.  

“Microsoft does a great job of protecting their proprietary information,” Ashley Podhradsky, a researcher at Drexel University, told Kotaku in a phone interview. “But they don’t do a great job of protecting the user’s data.”

Podhradsky noted that even restoring the 360 to factory settings won’t completely remove all the data it contains. She said Microsoft was doing a “disservice” to customers by not protecting their personal data better.

Alongside Drexel University colleagues Rob D’Ovidio and Cindy Casey and Pat Engebretson from Dakota State University, Podhradsky bought a refurbished Xbox 360 from Microsoft last year to experiment on. The team downloaded a basic modding tool to use to crack the console, which gave them access to its files and folders and resultantly was able to identify and extract the original owner’s credit card information.

“A lot of them already know how to do all this,” said Podhradsky. “Anyone can freely download a lot of this software, essentially pick up a discarded game console, and have someone’s identity.”

To combat the danger of getting your personal information compromised, Podhradsky recommends detaching your 360’s hard drive, connecting it to your computer, and using a program like Darik’s Boot & Nuke to wipe everything. She cautions that reformatting won’t be enough.

“I think Microsoft has a longstanding pattern of this,” said Podhradsky. “When you go and reformat your computer, like a Windows system, it tells you that all of your data will be erased. In actuality that’s not accurate— the data is still available… so when Microsoft tells you that you’re resetting something, it’s not accurate.

“There’s a lot more that needs to be done.”

*Source: Kotaku

After Dragon’s Crown mysteriously disappeared from Amazon.com and GameInformer happened to receive reports that customers had their pre-orders cancelled, it’s no wonder why cancellation rumors began to run amuck.

In response to all the speculation, Vanillaware illustrator Shigatake leapt into the fray on Twitter to assure fans that the game is most definitely not cancelled. “I personally can’t say much, but I’ll just say, regarding Dragon’s Crown, although there lots of rumors and conjecture, it’s still in development. Please wait patiently for an official update.”

Dragon’s Crown was initially revealed at E3 2011 as a spring 2012 title, but news of the game has been scarce recently despite its rapidly approaching release date.

*Source: Andriasang

Headline RePLAY – 3.5.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: A scandal at the Pokémon Videogame Championships, Capcom responds to the Street Fighter X Tekken DLC controversy and rumors about the return of the Darkstalkers!

While the Pokémon Videogame Championships were underway in Birmingham, UK, a Spanish Team was busy with having a drunken “poo” fight in a hotel corridor. It is exactly unsavory as it sounds: human feces were involved.

PokéChamp21, a competitor, detailed the incident on the Pokémon World forums: “After 30 - 40 min. in my room relaxing with a quick snooze I awoke to the sound of banging coming from down the hall from where the 'Spanish Team' were staying in. It seems that at some point after they had turned up and when we went to Wether Spoons the Spaniards had decided to have a 'Poo' fight in the corridor and this had upset the staff and several guests (naturally) at the hotel enough to call the Police and have them leave.”

The report has been verified by other sources in attendance at the tournament.

*Source: Nintendo Life

When an enterprising hacker discovered that downloadable content already exists on Street Fighter X Tekken’s game disc, a bloc of fans were outraged. In response, Capcom issued a statement to explain the matter:

“The character information and files were intentionally included on retail versions of the PS3 and Xbox 360 game to save hard drive space and to ensure for a smooth transition when the DLC is available, allowing players who choose not to purchase the content the ability to play against players that did,” said Capcom.

“As a reminder, the retail version of the game will be the only disc-based version consumers will need to own and all future upgrades will come from post-launch DLC.”

Capcom Community Manager Brett Elston elaborates: “By including these 12 characters on the disc, the idea was to ensure easy compatibility between players who do and do not choose to download the characters when they arrive as DLC.”

“This move also furthers our desire to avoid a "Super" version of the game down the road,” said Elston. “Everything you need to enjoy this game for months (and years) to come will be accessed by the retail disc available this week.”

“I understand the reaction, but SFxT is a damn fun game with a ton of content right out of the gate and more stuff - all designed to keep this fresh - to come.”

*Source: Capcom-Unity

Rumor has it that Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono, whose credentials include Street Fighter IV and Street Fights X Tekken, is working on a long awaited Darkstalkers 4.

According to a reliable VentureBeat source, the new Darkstalkers game has been in the works since last year and will be operating under a modified version of the Street Fighter X Tekken engine.

Recently, it looks like Capcom has been trying to resurrect Darkstalkers in the public eye by releasing the original Darkstalkers on PSN last year and a recent ESRB rating on Darkstalkers 3 for the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita. 

Darkstalkers makes vampires, werewolves and even a trigger-happy Little Red Riding Hood look good, but is often eclipsed by Capcom’s Street Fighter. Darkstalkers first made its debut in arcades in 1994 and had its last major release with Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower in 2004.

*Source: VentureBeat