*This is TEKKEN Project support team*There appear to be some news articles worrying for Harada-san’s safety (cont…
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 5, 2013

…cont)However, we were able to confirm he has been logged into Steam daily, so we believe he is OK, but just has not shown up for work.
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 5, 2013

So just some kind of promotional thing on Harada’s part? He doesn’t appear to be missing at this point…

Something strange is going on with Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada. A tweet from Harada’s official Twitter account, published by the “Tekken project support team”, states that he “has been missing from office since a week ago.” The tweet continues: “We are still searching for him.”

*This is TEKKEN Project support team*Mr.Harada has been missing from office since a week ago. We are still searching for him. Thanks.
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) June 5, 2013

So what’s going on here? Is something truly up with Harada? His last tweet was on May 26 – quite a long time ago.

I’m assuming that this isn’t a joke of some sort, but you never know. I just hope Harada is alright!

Source

A look at the Tokyo Game Show 2013 main visual

Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

The Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association gave a look at the Tokyo Game Show 2013 main visual today.

This year’s main theme is “Games: Limitless Evolution”. The character above, “She”, represents this.

“She” is a futuristic woman who can transform herself into something “beyond the reach of imagination.”

Ippei Gyoubu created the Tokyo Game Show 2013 visual this year. Gyoubu has been on board with the expo since 2010.

Gyoubu commented:

“Games make a change entering a new phase that games themselves cannot imagine due to a never ending evolution. Games that continue to evolve unlimitedly have been represented. While character is the core of games, scattered parts are tools for games to evolve. The condition in which character combines with parts and transform itself depending on the needs of the age is truly the ‘infinite possibilities’ that games have.”

Source

Capcom says they’d be willing to do more “retro remakes” a la DuckTales, hint at Aliens vs. Predator (1994) possibility

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U, Wii U eShop | 0 comments

In an interview with Polygon, Capcom’s senior product manager revealed that the company would absolutely be willing to continue looking to the past for old franchises or games that could use modern remakes, similar to what they’re doing with DuckTales later this year. They’re unable to talk about exactly what games might be getting the treatment, but they did hint that Aliens vs. Predator (the 1994 side-scroller) is the one that fans have been requesting most.

We’ll let you know if they announce anything else for a remake.

Via Nintendo Life

Precursor CEO says staff is made up entirely of former Silicon Knights employees, maintains that it’s not just a Silicon Knights rebrand

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, Wii U | 0 comments

Precursor Games (the team behind the upcoming Eternal Darkness sequel “Shadow of the Eternals“) is made up entirely of former staff of Silicon Knights, according to CEO Paul Caporicci, but he maintains that the two companies are entirely separate entities.

Silicon Knights– a Canadian based developer– has been having intense legal troubles over the last 5 or 6 years after losing a lawsuit to Epic Games over Unreal Engine licensing fees, and now, some folks are worried that the skeleton of that company left and built a new company– Precursor Games– to avoid having to pay damages. This allowed them to purchase assets from Silicon Knights in order to build Shadow of the Eternals, the pseudo-sequel to a game that was built by Silicon Knights in the first place.

Quite an odd situation, but I’m happy that we’re getting a sequel to Eternal Darkness.

Via CVG

Silicon Knights appears to have closed its office, sold off assets

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

We still don’t know too much about the situation, but various outlets have been reporting that Eternal Darkness and Too Human developer Silicon Knights has closed its office and sold off their assets to other companies. This comes in light of the fact that their most famous property– Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem— is getting a spiritual successor developed by Precursor Games called “Shadow of the Eternals“, and amidst the word that Precursor had actually purchased various assets from Silicon Knights in order to work on it.

There were still rumblings yesterday from the few Silicon Knights employees left who said the company is “very much alive”, but as time chugs forward it’s starting to look like that may not be the case.

Via Joystiq

15 EA games are going to skip Wii U due to its lack of support for Frostbite 3

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories, Wii U | 0 comments

Madden is out the door, FIFA is up in the air, and now we’re hearing that a total of 15 games are set to skip out on Wii U due to the console’s poor testing when put up against EA’s ‘Frostbite 2’ and (consequently) ‘Frostbite 3’ engines. We don’t know for sure which games will be skipping the console, but it’s a safe bet that Battlefield, Mass Effect, and some of the studio’s Star Wars titles won’t be hitting Nintendo’s home console when they come to PS4 and the next generation Xbox.

So when it comes down to it, much like with Wii, Wii U owners may just have to give up on multiplatform support. We’ll certainly have good third party games (it’ll be much cheaper to developer for Wii U than PS4, after all) and great indie titles, but when it comes to these big-budget action games, we seem to be missing out on pretty much everything! Which may not be much of a loss given that most of us bought a Wii U for Nintendo first party titles and other games like that anyway.

Via VideoGamer

Will Wright talks about the three developers he admires most: Miyamoto, Molyneux, and Sid Meier

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

“[Miyamoto] always takes the player first. Right off the bat he works with the controller, what does it feel like, how tactile and kinesthetic is what he’s working on. He works from the inside out: ‘what is the first five second player experience?’ So his games have this craftsmanship behind them that’s amazing and unique.”
“I think Peter Molyneux takes a lot of risks. He’s got this vicarious thing about dealing with little worlds full of little people which very much matches my sensibilities in a way.”

“I’ve always enjoyed [Sid Meier’s] games. His games are just playable, they’re just like a comfortable chair you sit in. I grew up playing board games, and Sid did as well. Sid in some ways is recapitulating our youth, the kind of games we would play back then.”

– Will Wright

Despite some player apprehension regarding the choice of Peter Molyneux, I think Wright has made three very good choices on an idealogical level. These three developers don’t always deliver on their promises and don’t always live up to what Wright has said about them, but when they do they truly make some fantastic games. They’re the type of people that the gaming industry should be all about!

Via Joystiq

Precursor CEO talks being laid off, and how that turned into ‘Shadow of the Eternals’

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Wii U | 0 comments

“As many people can relate, being laid off is an emotionally distressing experience. When this happened to me, I was determined to turn this toward more positive ends. I began reaching out to others to see if they were interested in starting something brand new, using lessons learned from past experiences.
Denis Dyack was my first choice for Creative, as he has a keen understanding on the creative aspects of game development. It saddens me to read that people’s impressions of him are painted by anonymous accounts of other individuals. I’ve known Denis for 10 years now, and from first hand experience I consider him to be one of the most honourable people I know, and undeserving of the amount of negative accusations he receives.”

“I knew Shawn Jackson’s attention to detail, enthusiasm and experience would really balance our management team as Chief Operating Officer. The rest of the Precursor team is equally talented, and I’m amazed by the results we’ve achieved with our demo. Precursor Games has been built from the ground up to do something new, and we are excited to show and work with you on our first project—‘Shadows of the Eternals’.”

– Precursor Games CEO Paul Caporicci

It sounds like they’re definitely passionate about this project, but I’m still concerned that the likes of Dyack and Caporicci have gotten themselves into a bit of an Epic Mickey, trying to create something behind which there is far too much creative passion and not enough technical understanding. That being said, the company has said that they’re in regular contact with Nintendo about the project, and if anyone has a technical understanding of game design, it’s the Big N!

Via Siliconera

Capcom’s Svesson: “Very polarized opinions” within Capcom regarding cancelled Mega Man FPS

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments

The recently revealed (and recently cancelled) Mega Man FPS Maverick Hunter split the fan community in two. Admittedly, the opinions towards the negative were slightly more prevalent than those towards the positive, but the polarity of the opinions was nevertheless rather extreme, and Capcom’s Christian Svensson said that the thoughts on the game from within the company were also mixed:

“Given the lack of consensus in this thread alone, that should tell you what you needed to know. Suffice to say, there were very polarized opinions internally on this project as well.”

– Capcom USA Senior Vice-President Christian Svensson

Perhaps it’s for the best that the project was cancelled. I know that I certainly wasn’t the biggest fan of the style they chose for it!

Via Siliconera

Suda51 talks about working with publishers, says that the partnership with GungHo should allow sales and creativity to go hand in hand

Posted on 11 years ago by Austin(@NE_Austin) in General Gaming, News | 0 comments

“Each publisher operates a different way, has different strategic ideas, so in terms of sales, what they did, was they kept creating what they thought was good. But in terms of publishing, it was a different company’s strategic choice. So we believe that back then, when we were completely indie without a group company to be together with, we weren’t able to translate our creative directly into sales because that was the part where there was always a wall between creative and sales transition wise.”

“Now that we’re one big group together and we’ll be publishing our own titles as Grasshopper, we believe that the creative side and the sales side will have a better connection. We definitely believe that it will transfer to good sales because we will be able to choose our own strategy.”

– Suda51

I’ve gotta admit… I’m not exactly sure what Suda is saying here! It’s something relating to publishers getting in the way of creativity, and therefore sales, but it’s also sounding like he’s saying that when you work with a third-party publisher, the creativity no longer translates into sales despite still being there. Ah well. At least he says the partnership with GungHo should allow their creative vision to translate into sales for them!

Via Gamespot