TOKYO, JAPAN — JANUARY 26, 2013 — Index Corporation (headquarters: Setagaya, Tokyo, CEO: Yoshimi Ogawa) has announced a collaboration with Nintendo Co., Ltd. on a new RPG for the recently launched game console, Wii U™. The collaboration was unveiled as part of the Nintendo Direct presentation on Wednesday. The title is a joint effort between the ATLUS brand and the Nintendo Fire Emblem series.
The ATLUS brand has released many popular titles including the Shin Megami Tensei series and Persona series. Recognizing the raving fan base of the Shin Megami Tensei series, and considering ATLUS brand’s commitment to high quality content and game development, the partnership is a natural fit for the two brands.
Currently, Index is earnestly proceeding with development, while Nintendo will deliver news out to the customers.
Prior to this announcement, Index had only developed and released games from its own brand, ATLUS, but this collaboration is intended to be a new step for multimedia expansion.
From this joint development, Index hopes to expand its own brand, as well as optimize the efficiency of its resource placement and increase revenue.
Source: Atlus PR
Puddle will finally be coming out on the North American eShop next week. Developer Neko Entertainment has confirmed a January 31 release.
The wait for Puddle has been abnormally long in the US. Originally, the game launched on the European eShop for the Wii U’s launch.
EA filed a new trademark for Battledrome with the USPTO.
Does that name sound familiar? Perhaps some of you have heard of Metaltech: Battledrome, an old PC game from the 90s.
EA’s trademark may or may not have any connection to the title. It’ll be interesting to see if the company puts the name to any use in the future.
Arguably the biggest travesty to have resulted from THQ’s auction this week is the lack of interest in Darksiders-maker Vigil Games. Numerous assets and studios were purchased from THQ – but not Vigil.
In an interview with Game Informer, CEO Jason Rubin explained – at least somewhat – why others may have been hesitant to make a purchase:
“Having just finished a product, Vigil was farthest from release of their next game. We were not able to garner any interest from buyers, despite a herculean effort. Additionally, they were working on a new IP, which meant even more risk for a buyer.”
It’s been made clear that Vigil’s next project was a new IP under the codename “Crawler”. Rubin noted that the game “is a fantastic idea, and truly unique.”
“When the teams got together recently to show each other their titles, Crawler dropped the most jaws. It is a fantastic idea, and truly unique. The fact that nobody bid for the team and title is a travesty. It makes no sense to me.”
A poetic story about Earthbound from series creator Shigesato Itoi
At first glance something like this comes off as a little “odd”, but when you get passed the weird translation oddities and the stigma of being weirdly artistic in this industry, I think this sort of thing is super awesome to see from a developer. The following is a (long) piece written by Earthbound series creator Shigesato Itio where he tells you exactly what the games mean to him as a person. It’s a pleasant little read if you’ve got some time to kill!
You can find it all after the break actually, since it’s pretty long.
If you’re one of the folks waiting patiently for Zen Pinball 2, you shouldn’t have to wait much longer according to the game’s developer:
The game was supposed to come out back in December, and now the tentative release date is “January”. My guess is that it’s going to be early February though, because I don’t think they can finish it up, send it to Nintendo, get it approved, and get a release date before the end of the month. It just doesn’t seem like it’d happen!
It all sounds like technical mumbo jumbo at first– after all, why should you care about the refresh rate of a console?– but when you watch the following video you should notice a difference between the left and right images:
It’s not terribly striking, is it? I didn’t think so either, but the one on the right is using a visual refresh rate of 50Hz (standard for older PAL releases) as opposed to the NTSC standard of 60Hz. What does this mean? It means, essentially, that the European version literally runs slower (visuals and music included) than the other versions of the game because their televisions used to only refresh at a rate of 50 times per second. You notice in the video that the NTSC player gets much farther much faster than the PAL player– that’s due to the PAL version’s slowdown.
It also apparently makes the image slightly blurrier and more compressed looking… apparently. Someone should capture it in full HD so I can decide whether that is worth getting up in arms about or not!
The following Rock Band Music Store songs will be made available on January 29:
- Aerosmith – “Walk This Way”
- Aerosmith – “Sweet Emotion” – Pro Guitar and Pro Bass expansions available for 100 Wii Points
- Aerosmith – “Back in the Saddle”
- Aerosmith – “Dream On (Live)” – keyboard support, Pro Guitar and Pro Bass expansions available for 100 Wii Points
- Aerosmith – “Legendary Child”
- Aerosmith – “Lover Alot”
Each song can be purchased for 200 Wii Points.
Source: Harmonix PR
