It’s official: THQ is no more, as approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
It’s something of a sad day for the gaming industry today– well, it’s been a sad few weeks anyhow– because THQ is finally, officially, irreversably gone. The U.S. Bankruptcy court approved the sale of many of the publisher’s properties to studios like Take Two, Ubisoft, and SEGA, and those that weren’t sold (Darksiders, we’re looking at you!) are being closed and added to THQ’s chapter 11 filing.
Platinum Games yesterday expressed some brief interest in purchasing the Darksiders brand “on the cheap”, but there’s no word on whether or not that will actually happen.
Disney Infinity will have yearly releases
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, News, Wii, Wii U | 0 comments
Disney Interactive will be releasing Disney Infinity games on a regular basis – each year, in fact. Activision has gotten into the same habit with its Skylanders franchise.
While speaking with VideoGamer, producer John Vignocchi discussed how yearly releases will be handled:
“With Infinity we’re looking at releasing versions that come out each year and those will feature all of the content [for] the year. One of the reasons why we did the figures was that future versions of Infinity will still respect all of those characters. So when we release a future version of Infinity, although we won’t have a Play Set that necessarily goes with the characters, the characters will still be able to play inside of the Toy Box, and we’ll add new features to future versions of Infinity as well.”
Fortunately, any character made for a Disney Infinity sequel will work with all previous games, according to Vignocchi.
XSEED not localizing any Fatal Frame games
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii | 0 comments
XSEED has done an amazing job bringing Wii games to North America. The publisher not only localized The Last Story, but also recently announced Pandora’s Tower for the states.
That begs the question: could we see any other older Wii games? How about Project Zero 2: Wii Edition?
Well, no, that’s not happening. When asked if XSEED would consider localizing Project Zero 2 for North America, Ken Berry said:
“Afraid that we have no intention of trying to publish any Fatal Frame titles. Speaking to Tecmo Koei America is going to be your best bet for that title.”
GameCenter CX – Balloon Fight Wii U VC edition
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos, Wii U eShop | 0 comments
You may remember that GameCenter CX did a special episode with Satoru Iwata late last year. That segment featured Balloon Fight. Now GameCenter has returned with a new episode focusing on the same game – this time with the Wii U VC release.
Platinum Games’ Inaba shows interest in Vigil purchase
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Practically all of THQ’s major assets and studios have been picked up by other companies. The likes of Volition and Relic have new homes, but no one has acquired Vigil Games.
But hey… maybe Platinum Games could purchase the studio.
Platinum Games Atsushi Inaba tweeted today:
“In THQ studio and IP selling off auction, Darksiders is unsold? [We] wanna buy it…on the cheap…”
Could something actually come from this? Seeing Darksiders in the hands of Platinum Games would be both strange and possibly amazing.
THQ: Who’s buying who, letter to staff
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
THQ has sold off a number of its studios and assets to a variety of different companies.
Relic is now in the hands of SEGA. Volition and Metro are going to Koch Media. Crytek now owns Homefront, while Take-Two purchased Evolve. Finally, Ubisoft has agreed to acquire Montreal and South Park.
There’s one big studio missing here: Vigil, the team behind the Darksiders titles. Vigil and some of THQ’s other IPs are not included in the sale agreement, but they’ll still be included in the Chapter 11 case. The company hopes to find new buyers for these assets.
A lengthy letter from THQ chief executive officer Brian Farrel and president Jason Rubin can be found below.
Capcom on Resident Evil Mercenaries game for consoles, Revelations HD has “extremely expanded” Raid Mode
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 0 comments
One user on the Capcom-Unity boards asked about a possible Resident Evil Mercenaries game for consoles and PC. This wouldn’t be a port of 3DS’ Mercenaries 3D. Rather, it’d be a brand new title with modern visuals.
Capcom’s Christian Svensson, responding to the note, said: “Understood on the request. Let’s talk next week on this topic.”
Svensson also had a few things to say about Resident Evil: Revelations HD’s Raid Mode. This will be “extremely expanded”.
“The other thing you should look forward to is trying out the extremely expanded raid mode (details to come in the coming months) in RE:Revelations. I find it scratches a LOT of the same itches.”
Photos of Nintendo at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, General Nintendo, Images, Wii U | 0 comments
Atari’s US division files for bankruptcy
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Podcast Stories | 0 comments
The L.A. Times today reports that Atari US has filed for bankruptcy. By doing so, the company hopes “to break free from their debt-laden French parent.”
Atari S.A., located in France, has control over each of its subsidiaries including Atari Interactive Inc. and Atari U.S. Unfortunately, the company’s overall revenue has seen a downturn over the past couple of decades.
Tales producer on avoiding westernization with the series, Japanese devs going back to their roots
Posted on 11 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Some Japanese developers have unsuccessfully produced video in order to appeal to western gamers. The staff behind Namco Bandai’s Tales franchise, however, has avoided this path.
Series producer Hideo Baba told Shacknews that he and his team “really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves” instead of “trying to copy Western developers”:
Baba said:
“With regards to the Tales franchise, we’ve never made an effort to ‘westernize’ it. We feel that Western developers are good at certain things, while Japanese developers are good at other things. Rather than us trying to copy Western developers, we really try to look within ourselves and try to improve ourselves. The Tales franchise has been a personal struggle to better ourselves and the franchise.”
Baba also spoke a bit about Japanese game development overall:
“I feel like a lot of Japanese developers, especially ourselves, we’ve really taken an effort to go back to our roots. We look at what we started with and what we’re good at, and we really tried to make an effort to strengthen what our foundations are.”
