Today on
Headline RePLAY: DOOM 4 cancellation rumors strikes again, 600,000 PS Vitas are
sold in the west and Justin Bieber gets sued over a Joustin’ Beaver app.
No news
can be bad news in the videogame industry; it leaves openings for rumors like DOOM 4 being cancelled that sent
Bethesda Softworks scrambling to respond. AllGamesBeta reported the latest
rumor that DOOM 4 was cancelled, in
addition to posting screenshots allegedly from the game.
“DOOM 4
isn’t cancelled,” Bethesda’s VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines told Joystiq.
“When we’re ready to talk about it and show it off, we’ll let everyone know.”
It’s not
the first time that Bethesda had to fend off such rumors either, back in
October the publisher had to fight back stories insisting that DOOM 4 was “indefinitely postponed.”
*Source:
Joystiq
U.S. PlayStation CEO Jack Tretton got his wish two weeks ahead of schedule: 600,000
PS Vitas were sold in just one week since its launch in the west. Add in
Japanese sales and worldwide sales equaled to over 1.2 million units sold!
According
to Media Create sales data, PS Vita sales hit 578,812 units on February 19,
which meant that around 600,000 units were sold in Latin and North America,
Europe and Australia since last Wednesday.
“PS Vita was designed to deliver the ultimate portable
entertainment experience,” said president and CEO of SCE Andrew House, “and we
couldn't be more thrilled with the reaction we're seeing from consumers and the
pace at which PS Vita is selling,”
“The market has responded and there is clear demand for a mobile
device capable of providing a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and
social connectivity within a real-world context.”
In order to sustain momentum, House assured that Sony is working
with third-party developers and publishers closely and that there will be “something
for everyone across the globe” for the remainder of 2012.
*Source:
Edge
Joustin’ Beaver is innocuous as it sounds; it’s a Justin Bieber
pun-inspired game developed by RC3 about a beaver superstar that “jousts” his
way down a river to sign “Otter-graphs” to his fans. When I said pun-inspired,
I sadly meant it.
It’s clearly a parody
about the teenage superstar, but Justin Bieber’s attorneys don’t see it that
way. The attorneys claim that the app infringes on the singer’s trademark and
publicity rights. Bieber’s attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter that
threatened legal action if the app wasn’t terminated.
RC3 countered by preemptively
launching the very legal action they were threatened with: a lawsuit against
the superstar for the right to release Joustin’
Beaver. The lawsuit claims that the game is a parody app, and is therefore
protected by the First Amendment.
The developer wants a
judge to determine that the game “doesn’t constitute misappropriation of
Bieber’s name for commercial purposes and that Joustin’ Beaver is protected by the First Amendment.”
In light of the
landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling that videogames have the same free speech
protection as other media (i.e. film, books, and music), this case can be an
important litmus test on just how protected videogames are under the U.S.
Constitution.
*Source: The Hollywood Reporter
