Gamernode: Latest Industry News

Blizzard: No WoW for you, Uwe!

We, as gamers, all know and love the charismatic film director Uwe Boll (ok, maybe by "love" I really mean "can't friggin' stand"). The man has an affinity for making videogame-based movies, but somehow they all come out looking, smelling, sounding, and tasting (tasting? sure, why not?) like crap.

He has slain many-a-franchise with deplorable big screen adaptations, and most recently set his sights on the heroin of the videogame industry, World of Warcraft. Could the biggest thing since the microchip be the the next victim of Boll's evil pen of DOOM?

No. Luckily, Blizzard is familiar with Boll's past work, and pretty much bitch slapped him when he approached them with the idea. Boll describes the exchange:

I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, 'We will not sell the mov...

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Microsoft slams PS3's GTA IV install time

A Microsoft press release circulating around the tubes is making fun of the installation procedure that the PS3 version of GTA IV requires.

Specifically, they're mocking the time the installation takes. Here is the full press release. Keep in mind while reading this that GTA IV's PS3 install takes a whole five minutes.

"With the OXM review hitting streets today, and your own preview impressions which are looking great, hopefully you'll all be a bit wiser as to the ins and outs of GTA IV now.

I'm sure you've all seen the chatter from the 1up GTA IV Preview on the PS3 install time....just a few thoughts on what you could do in this time if you were actually playing the 360 version from the moment you insert the disc....

· Steal your first dozen or so cars and test out the improved vehic...

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Kid vs. Mom. Part II

We reported a story this week regarding a 13 year-old boy who broke the family vacuum cleaner in order to get out of his chores so he could play video games. The mom punished his son by putting his Xbox 360 on eBay for sale.

Some questions arose when the listing on eBay was suddenly delisted as "The seller ended this listing early because the item is no longer available for sale."

People immediately speculated that the mom caved in and returned the Xbox 360 to her errant and disrespectful son. But according to a post on Digg, a person who claims to be the mom in this interesting drama says she pulled the ad because Dyson gave her a free vacuum cleaner.

In the 130th comment allegedly from "The Mom," it says:

"Here is the real story on why the action ended early...I got a free Dyson...so I no l...

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DC Comics and Mortal Kombat to collide

At Midway's Gamer's Day in Vegas, they made an announcement that instantly changed the order of my "Games I Want to Buy Most" list: the next Mortal Kombat will feature DC Comics heroes. So far, the only confirmed characters are Batman and Sub-Zero, but really, do you need any more? A DC vs MK game has always been one of my dream mash-ups, and now it's a reality.

Outside of the inclusion of DC, little is known about the project other than it won't contain the traditional Mortal Kombat fatalities. (DC doesn't want Batman or Superman being torn apart, I suppose; no word on the less-fatal -alities.) Who wouldn't give up fatalties for a chance to have Batman kick Scorpion's ass, though? Even with no real information on the game, I'm going to go ahead and say it's going to be the most badass gam...

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GTA4: The Aussies Strike Back

The Aussies are mad as hell and they won't take it anymore... well at least that's what some gamers feel like. The highly awaited Grand Theft Auto 4 will be hitting Australian shores on April 29. But the big difference between their version and the US version is content. 

In order to pass the Australian media classification system, which does not have a rating of R18+, Rockstar had to tone down a lot of the game in order meet the MA15+ rating so the game could be sold in OzzieLand.

Outraged gamers have retaliated by canceling their pre-orders for GTA4 and will be resorting to purchasing import copies that are cheaper and have its content uncut.

Victorian deputy premier and attorney general Rob Hulls said, "It seems inconsistent that in Australia adults are allowed to view adult-only films, w...

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GTA IV bundled with graphical problems

With the new installment of the Grand Theft Auto series, Rockstar Games is bumping up the graphical prowess of GTAIV in order create a one of a kind, realistic perspective in a huge sandbox environment. With such a large persistent world is it surprising that GTAIV is suffering from graphical difficulties?

According to multiple previews, GTAIV contains grainy framerate issues, buildings and cars that popup out of nowhere, and long-distance fade outs.

So when you are being chased by the cops and you need a getaway car, hopefully you won't have to run into the trouble of waiting for a street car to pop up in your view to hijack. Also when you are driving fast in your car through a busy, traffic filled downtown street the framerate tends to dip a bit.

The reasons why these graphical hiccups po...

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Infogrames wants to be Atari...

David Gardner, the CEO of Infogrames, told GamesIndustry.biz that he will be thinking about leaving the Infogrames name in favor of a switch to the Atari brand that everyone knows.

"I'd like to consider that, I think that would be the final mark of the transformation from Infogrames to Atari," said Gardner. "We have a new board of directors, a new management team that's less than a year old - so yes, it's really continuing.

"We like to think of Infogrames, instead of being the tired, old company, we like to think of it as the best-funded, best-branded, most energetic start-up in the history of computer gaming."

Phil Harrison, former head of SCEE, had this to say about the new direction of Infogrames, "[Gardner and I] had a very interesting series of dreams, of discussions, about if we were t...

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Guess what? A study shows games are good

So I just spent the better part of an hour looking through a study conducted by Project Tomorrow.

The study (pdf here) is all about technology and its effects on the wee ones. Not the Wii ones... just so we're clear. Basically it covers those from grades K-12 (students, teachers, and parents) and their likes and dislikes about the restrictions and freedoms of technology in and out of the classroom. Did you follow all that? Good. Lets move on.

The most interesting facts (and most relevant to this site) were the ones in the electronic gaming section. Putting aside the fact that 64% of the students said they played "online and/or electronics based games regularly" I was way more interested to learn how many students and teachers wanted to bring gaming into the classroom.

51% of students t...

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How do you feel when playing video games?

International Hobo, a game design consultancy company, asked this very question in a survey on their website. They wanted to find out just how gamers felt while playing video games and whether they were even aware of any emotions going on during gameplay.

The questionnaire also asked if gamers actively purchased games to fulfill these emotions.

The survey received 1,040 responses and of the top 10 answers, people put "amusement" as the top emotion they get from playing video games. The word obviously could also be another word for "fun."

Chris Bateman, managing director for International Hobo said, "The fewest number of people responded that they had no experience of amusement in videogames (just 1.7 percent) while a whopping 92.6 percent gave this emotion one of the top two responses, and...

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3D HDTV is here. Where are the games?

Gaming graphics have come quite a way when compared to games of yesteryear when eight bit graphics were the norm. Today graphics are pushing the realism envelope and we'll soon be playing games that will offer so much reality that it will be hard to determine what is digitally made and what is real.

With that said what is the next step for graphics and video games? The answer to that question may have been answered with a new 3D HDTV made by Hyundai. The new 46" set sports a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and produces the 3-D effect by displaying two stereoscopic images at once.

But in order to see the 3-D effect a user has to wear special Polaroid glasses that can separate the two images. The technology for 3-D broadcasts is already available in Japan and the new television will set you back ap...

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Iron Man gets some fresh looking threads

We all know that Iron Man is set for the silver screen soon, but along with the movie will be a tie-in video game scheduled for release on May 2.

We're not too sure how good the game is going to be but we do know that Tony Stark will have a wide range of nice suits to adorn himself with while fighting crime and saving the world from disaster.

The specific outfits will be for the PS3 and 360 versions of Iron Man. The armor suits look really nice and hopefully the gameplay will be just as good. Now without further ado we present a few of the Iron Man outfits.

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Most powerful Iraq leader was a hard-core gamer?

Gaming reaches people of all classes, cultures, and creeds. You can also add to this list the political and religious categories.

GamePolitics reports that one particular individual, Muqtada al-Sadr, is a hard-core gamer. Al-Sadr earned the nickname of Mullah Atari while he was a student of religion in Iraq.

"As a young seminary student, his nickname was Mullah Atari, because he preferred video games to studying the Quran. Now, Muqtada al-Sadr is a radical cleric revered by millions of poor Shiites as a modern-day Robin Hood. He also may be the most powerful man in Iraq."

USA Today said, "He says defeating the United States in Iraq is his top priority, but his cease-fire and other political maneuvering helped the U.S. military accomplish some of its key objectives, such as reducing violence...

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Ewe Boll says, "I'm not a f*cking retard!"

A few days ago it was reported that a petition was started to stop Ewe Boll from making any more movies. Boll first reacted by saying if the petition could get one million signatures, he would quit.

But it seems that the petition has gotten under his skin and he has reacted pretty forcefully regarding the campaign by slamming various movie luminaries and defenfing himself as an excellent film director.

His comments were obviously not meant for little children, Girl Scouts or small animals, but his rant is still pretty entertaining and funny even though he probably didn't mean it to be.

"I'm not a f*cking retard like Michael Bay or other people running around in the business or Eli Roth making the same sh*tty movies over and over again. If you really look at my movies you will see my real ge...

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AMD to cut 10% of its workforce -- 1,600 employees...

After a preview of its Q1 2008 financial results yesterday, notable PC component manufacturer AMD revealed intentions to cut its workforce by 10% by the end of the third quarter. The 10% cut would equal to around 1,600 workers.

AMD attributed the revenue loss to the recently released ATI HD 3000 series of video cards along with price cuts to the Radeon HD 3850 and HD 3870 line of cards. More reasons should be released on April 17th.

In light of the news, the company is predicting that Q1 revenue will hit $1.15 billion. While the estimated revenue is a 22% increase over the same period last year, it'll be a 15% decrease from Q4 2007.

Nonetheless, AMD is estimating that its upcoming second quarter will be more profitable due to the impending release of its triple processors, the 780G chipset a...

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The Sega Racing Studio shuts down

The Sega Racing Studio, responsible for the game Sega Rally Revo, won't be finishing the race because Sega has made the decision to shut it down.

The studio, which was formed in 2005 in the UK, was hoping that its Rally Revo game would turn out to be a tremendous hit ,and thus warrant an extension of its existence as a game company for several more years.

Sega Rally Revo received moderately good reviews but didn't do well enough to justify a sequel of the game.

Sega officially said of the shutdown, "The decision is part of a review of SEGA's Western Development Studios to ensure that each studio is a profitable entity in its own right, and unfortunately the SEGA Racing Studio's 5 year plan would not result in a successful return for the SEGA business moving forward. SEGA would like to stres...

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Nokia will compete with Apple's iPhone

The device is a small rectangular touch screen phone and fits in the palm of your hand. If you guessed that the device was none other than the iPhone from Apple, you'd be wrong. What we just described is Nokia's new iphone killer--presently called the Tube.

Details are scarce at the moment but what is known so far is that the Tube will be powered by a new version of the Symbian operating system. The Tube may also incorporate built in Java support and DVB-mobile TV standard--hence the nickname of the Tube.

What may be of interest to gamers is Nokia's rather large library of mobile games. While the iPhone is just beginning its journey as a multi-functional device, Nokia may have a head start as far as games is concerned for their new touch screen phone. With this be the iPhone challenger?

Tom ...

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Descent, MDK, Earthworm Jim sequels coming

It looks like my prayers may be answered; despite quite a few months/years in financial straits, publisher Interplay is all set to get back into the gaming business.

According to Interplay's 2007 fiscal year financial results, the publisher is working on sequels to Earthworm Jim, Dark Alliance, Descent and my favorite from the list, MDK. To prepare themselves, Interplay restarted its in-house game development studio and has been hiring game developers.

Net revenue for the 2007 year for Interplay reached $6.01 million, which was a 502% increase during the same period in 2006. Net income for 2007 for the company was $5.86 million; $5.75 million of the earned net income was from selling the Fallout IP to Bethesda Softworks.

Lastly, Interplay is still planning to secure funding for its Fallout M...

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Epic continues to make bank on Unreal Engine 3

This winner of this console generation is not Microsoft or Nintendo or Sony. No. This generation goes to Epic. Hands down.Their newest engine, Unreal Engine 3, has been used in millions of games already. Ok, maybe not millions; but it feels like every time I load up a game I see the Unreal logo: from Gears of War, to Rainbow Six, to Army of Two, to even Undertow an XBLA game.

Even Square Enix is using it in an upcoming FF title. It certainly shows its versatility; as more game programmers become familiar with the engine, the easier it will be for them to make better looking games. Mark Rein told Videogaming 247 that Electronic Arts has been extremely satisfied with the five titles it has used UE3 for. So satisfied that they have just extended their deal with Epic to "significantly mo...

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Uwe Boll will quit if petition gets enough numbers...

Some would argue that putting Uwe Boll and the title of movie director in the same sentence is a bit of an oxymoron.

To many gamers and film critics alike, Boll represents the worst in filmmaking. With movies such as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, BloodRayne II: Deliverance, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Mr. Boll has secured a spot in history as possibly the worst film director of video game tie-in movies.

There are a lot of people out there who want to do something about Boll's film making career. In short, they want to stop it. In a recent interview conducted by fearnet.com, it was mentioned to Boll that there was a petition circulating around the Intern...

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Castaway needs inner tube to stay afloat

VP Stefan Scandizzo confirmed to Next-Gen in an e-mail on Monday the "suspension/closure" of Castaway, adding that the studio has been closed since April 1 due to lack of funding.

"There have been many letters and posts supporting us and wishing us well; on behalf of the team here at Castaway, I'd like to thank them," Scandizzo wrote. "There have also been a number of companies and individuals that have since contacted us about assisting our studio but no decisions have been made at this time as to the company's future."

Castaway, which was founded by former Blizzard North employees in 2003 created the advergame Yaris for the XBL and were in works on a Diablo-inspired title called Djinn, which at this point has had its operations suspended.

Scandizzo wasn't afriad to admit that the studio ne...

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