Headline RePLAY – 7.20.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Dead Space 3 includes co-op to tone down the scary, Final Fantasy Versus XIII may be dead and Square-Enix plans to detail its next Final Fantasy XIII project.

Consumer feedback on Dead Space 1 and 2 being “pretty scary” is the reason for including co-op play in the third installment, says EA.

“We were hearing feedback that they [consumers] love the thriller game,” EA Games’ marketing boss Laura Miele told MCV, “but it was pretty scary, and the obvious next step was that they wanted to play with someone. So we introduced co-op into the game.

“The horror of Dead Space is all there. It’s still true to its roots and no less scary, but people felt far more comfortable playing it with someone else than they did doing it on their own.”

|Source: MCV

The media silence on Final Fantasy Versus XIII at E3 2012 and last year’s Tokyo Game Show is deafening despite Square-Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura minor mentions of the title in March and May.   

A source tells Kotaku that Versus XIII was officially cancelled just a few weeks ago and affected the morale of Square-Enix and staff. The silent cancellation was due in part to possible effects on company stock prices, the source added.

Fueling the cancellations rumors is another source claiming that Versus XIII development and resources were moved into another game—the next numeric Final Fantasy series title, Final Fantasy XV. It remains unclear if that meant actual game assets and code or just staff.

“We have no information on the status of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but will be sure to update you as it becomes available,” Square-Enix told Kotaku.

|Source: Kotaku

New Final Fantasy XIII developments are to be revealed on September 1st during the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Event in Shibuya, Japan, Square-Enix announced.

The FFXIII event is titled: “Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Saga: New Developments Presentation.” The presentation will contain details on the future of the FFXIII project and will have the game’s producer, director, art director and other members of the staff in attendance.

|Source: Andriasang

Headline RePLAY – 7.19.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime admits that Diablo III’s always-online requirement is DRM, Fortnite may require constant online access and Deadpool: The Game is closer to the source material than you may think.  

In a state of the game address to Diablo III players, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime concedes that the always-online requirement is a form of DRM, but insists that it combats issues like cheating and in-game cracks while being important for the “long-term integrity of the game experience.”

“One other common topic we’ve seen in the forums is the always-connected experience, and the perception that the online requirement is nothing but an infective form of copy protection that has already been cracked” wrote Morhaime on the game’s official forums. “While we’ve never said that this requirement guarantees that there will be no cheating or game cracks, it does help us battle those problems (we have not found any fully functional cracks).

“More important to us is that the online requirement is critical for the long-term integrity of the game experience,” he continued. “I fully understand the desire to play Diablo III offline; however, Diablo III was designed from the beginning to be an online game that can be enjoyed with friends, and the always-online requirement is the best way for us to support that design.”

Morhaime elaborated by stating that features like the friends list, cross-game communication, co-op matchmaking, persistent characters, customer support, service, and security are all directly tied to the “online nature” of the game. He reiterates that the online components are “essential” to the design of Diablo III and believes that improvements can still be made to expand the “online experience” and make co-play more “rewarding.”

|Source: Blizzard

It looks like even Epic Games’ upcoming sandbox survival game, Fortnite, won’t escape the possibility of an always-online requirement. Producer Tanya Jessen, however, says that it would be used to improve the game and not as DRM to combat piracy.

“That’s [always-online requirement] something we don’t know yet,” Jessen told Rock, Paper, Shotgun. “It’s going to be really dependent on gameplay, and it’s also dependent on platform—the method of getting updates and stuff like that. So I can’t say for sure today one way or another [whether or not we’re going to use it].”

Jessen explains that the focus will be on cooperative play, and an always-online requirement may come with the territory. “Fortnite is a game that’s being developed as a co-op experience primarily,” she said. “That’s our number one focus. This is a game you’re gonna want to play with your friends, and it’s most fun with your friends. So whatever we decide to do there is gonna be more relevant to the most fun experience you can have with you friends [than I tis to piracy]. But I can’t nail that down today.”

|Source: Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Comic book fans that want authenticity in their comic book video games is getting it with Deadpool: The Game—it’s being written by the current author of the Deadpool comic series, Daniel Way.

The High Moon Studios game about the “merc with a mouth” is slated for a release sometime in 2013.

|Source: Joystiq

Headline RePLAY – 7.18.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: BioWare layoffs more Star Wars: The Old Republic staff, EA assures fans that Battlefield 3 support will continue and don’t expect to see Fez patched (again) anytime soon.

A new round of layoffs has hit the Star Wars: The Old Republic team in BioWare Austin, which includes executive producer Rich Vogel, who was instrumental in the development of the MMO. The second wave of firings follows news of the MMO considering a free-to-play model, a 400,000 subscription drop and layoffs back in May.

“As with the launch of any MMO, the size and skillset of the teams needed to maintain the game is different than the ones that built it,” said a statement released by BioWare. “Starting in May, there have been staff reductions in the BioWare Austin studio and Rich Vogel left BioWare in June.  Some people have been platooned to other projects at BioWare Austin and EA Sports/Austin.

“Others have been released—qualifying personnel receive severance and outplacement assistance.”

The statement concluded by reiterating BioWare’s commitment to SWTOR by delivering new game content more frequently.

|Source: IGN

EA reassured fans today that it will continue to support Battlefield 3 despite news of a fourth installment being in development on Tuesday.

“DICE and EA are dedicated to continuing our support for Battlefield 3,” said Battlefield 3 community manager Ian Tornay. “Just as we’ve continued to support and maintain Bad Company 2, we intend to continue providing the best Battlefield 3 experience we can well into the future and past release of End Game and Battlefield 4.

“There are several teams at DICE,” he explained. “Starting work on Battlefield 4 does not mean that we will be abandoning Battlefield 3 or working any less hard to bring you the best expansions we can.

“Your feedback absolutely matters. We will continue to use it to improve BF3 and to make Battlefield 4 even better from day one.”

|Source: CVG

Polytron, the developers of Fez, would fix the game-breaking issues the first patch caused—if it wasn’t for the “tens of thousands of dollars” it would cost to re-certify the game.

“We’re not going to patch the patch,” says a statement released by the developer. “Why not? Because Microsoft would charge us tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game.”

The developer continues to explain that the “save file delete bug” caused by the first patch only affects a “less than a percent of players” and that it makes “NO SENSE AT ALL” for a small independent studio to pay “so much money” to fix it.

Polytron noted that if Fez was released on Steam versus Xbox LIVE Arcade, the game would have been fixed two weeks post-release at “no cost.”

“We hope you don’t think back on your time spent in Fez as a total waste,” said the studio. “Microsoft gave us a choice: either pay a ton of money to re-certify the game and issue a new patch (which for all we know could introduce new issues, for which we’d need yet another costly patch), or simply put the patch back online. They looked into it, and the issue happens so rarely that they still consider the patch to be ‘good enough.’

“It wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end, paying such a large sum of money to jump through so many hoops just doesn’t make any sense,” Polytron concluded. “We already owe Microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform. People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM.”

|Source: Kotaku

Headline RePLAY – 7.17.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Gearbox Software maintains that Duke Nukem Forever is like Half-Life, a new Earthworm Jim is coming and Steam doesn’t “cheapen” IPs.

Despite the armada of negative press on Duke Nukem Forever, Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford insists that the game is comparable to Valve’s Half-Life.

“I still stand by that,” he told Eurogamer. “When I played what 3D Realms had been working on I was really surprised by it. Like everyone, I thought who knows what the hell those guys were doing? And here there was a lot of stuff… And when you realize what the actual gameplay is, the actual gameplay is very much like Half-Life. “

“It’s basically a linear, narrative experience, but the puzzles are derived from the environment,” he continued. “It’s not just ‘shoot the guy’. Some of it’s about, ‘how do I navigate through this? What do I manipulate in the environment to make my path?’”

“It’s almost identical, beat for beat in terms of its gameplay pacing, to Half-Life.”

|Source: Eurogamer

A new Earthworm Jim is not a matter if, but a matter of when, says Shiny Entertainment founder David Perry.

“Our problem is that the team is all doing well in whatever they’re doing right now,” Perry told Eurogamer at the Develop conference last week. “It’s just a bunch of guys who all have their own thing. Everyone has their own company. So, to get them to stop what they’re doing and work on a game is very difficult, but it’s something they all want to do.”

Perry says the group constantly talks about making the game. “We have our own little discussion group on Facebook. We’ve been having this discussion: when will this happen? When could we do it? What would make sense?”

“It’s one of those things that, no one’s got the time right now,” he said. “I’m sure it’s going to happen, I just can’t tell you exactly when.”

|Source: Eurogamer

There’s no doubt that Steam sales are a boon to consumers with their almost-too-good-to-be-true prices. Publishers are not so enthused, EA claiming that it “cheapens” intellectual property. Valve’s director of business management disagrees.  

“If that’s what we thought was happening, or that’s what we saw happening, we wouldn’t do it,” Valve’s director of business management Jason Holtman told PC Gamer at last week’s Develop conference. “Actually, all the data is contrary to that. A promotion is not a policy; a promotion is just a feature to give people more value.”

“It’s not as if a 75 percent offer or a 50 percent off sale at some point in time cannibalizes a sale that would have happened earlier, it’s just not true,” he claimed. “We’re actually seeing both of them growing. We don’t see one cannibalizing the other. If we did, we wouldn’t do it.

“People aren’t making a decision thinking ‘I’m always going to wait for perfect pricing,’” said Holtman. “There are time elements to it, there are fan elements to it, there are value elements to it. People sometimes like paying the full amount on the first day because they want to play it now and they want to be a fan.”

|Source: PC Gamer

Headline RePLAY – 7.16.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Deadpool stars in his own game, analyst Michael Pachter calls the Wii U “gimmicky” and Street Fighter X Tekken’s Mega Man and Pac-Man are forever PS3 exclusives.  

After being overshadowed by other “heroes” like Wolverine, Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth, is finally getting his own videogame, developed by High Moon Studios—the studio responsible for Transformers: The Fall of Cybertron.

Deadpool: The Game was announced at Comic-Con and is slated for a 2013 release date. No other details were released, although Deadpool seems to be voiced by Nolan North, who also voiced the merc hero in Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series.

|Source: IGN

The Wii U “isn’t going to work” says, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter at the Develop Conference in Brighton last week.   

Pachter described the original Wii as “gimmicky” and believes that Nintendo just got “lucky” with its success, but doesn’t think that luck will extend to the Wii U.

“I don’t think they suck—I just think that they really believe that, ‘If we’re still novel, everything we do will work,’” he claims. “This isn’t going to work.

“Hardcore gamers will buy them; hardcore Nintendo fanboys will buy it. They could put out a piece of cardboard and say that it’ll play Mario and they’ll buy it.”

|Source: Edge

Despite the early release of the on-disc Street Fighter X Tekken downloadable characters, Mega Man and Pac-Man will remain as PS3 exclusives, says producer Tomoyaki Ayano.  

“Unfortunately for Xbox 360 users, Mega Man and Pac-Man are exclusive to the PS3 version of the game,” Ayano told Siliconera.

“Every game has data on it that is unused,” he explained. “In this case, Street Fighter X Tekken for the Xbox 360 did have the Mega Man and Pac-Man data on it. But, we never intended to release these characters on the 360. They are PS3 exclusives and that was our intention from the very beginning. They are not going to be timed exclusives either, they’re PS3 exclusives.”

|Source: Siliconera

Headline RePLAY – 7.13.12

Today on Headline RePLAY: Nvidia gets hacked, EA is invested with always-online games and Tecmo Koei gets their own games confused.

No one is safe from the hackers, not even graphics card manufacturer Nvidia. Nvidia recently revealed that hackers have swiped up to 400,000 usernames, email addresses, “hashed passwords with random salt value” and publicly accessible “About Me’ profile information from their forums.

Nvidia assures users that the company didn’t store any passwords in “clear text” and that they are working to restore the forums soon as possible while employing additional security measures to “minimize the impact of future attacks.”

The graphics card manufacturer strongly recommends that users change any identical passwords that they might be using elsewhere.

|Source: Nvidia

EA is “investing quite a bit” into always-online games, says Maxis’ Lucy Bradshaw, emphasizing the need to provide “really great service” to make the model work.

“I think that’s why we have to be really, really good about the service that we provide,” the senior vice president told Videogamer.com. “Electronic Arts is investing quite a bit in making sure we’re locked and loaded. If you’ve seen some of our recent launches they’ve been really quite flawless. Battlefield had huge amounts of players and stayed extremely stable, and think SWTOR was one of the most absolutely stable MMO launches.”

Bradshaw also addressed the concern about internet drops with always-online play. “We have a nice, graceful way of dealing with those kind of things so that you’re not going to lose stuff. That’s the beauty of being asynchronous, is that we are able to be very graceful about how that online connection works and stuff. I think we’re going to be in a really great place.”

|Source: Videogamer.com

In what can only be defined as a major "Oops!” moment for Tecmo Koei, buyers of the PSP’s Sangokushi VIII found themselves with the copy of the wrong game on the UMD—specifically, Sangokushi VII.

Tecmo Koei is aware of the issue and posted a notice on the Game City portal site, stopped all sales of the game and is in the process of organizing a replacement program for current owners.  

|Source: Andriasang

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