Gaming Daily: 2nd July 2012
Welcome back to another Monday on Gaming Daily, and today’s main story sees a huge new development for Sony, one which could shape the direction they take in the next generation of consoles.
Sony Acquires Gaikai for $380 million
In a major announcement this morning, Sony revealed that it had struck a deal to purchase cloud gaming service Gaikai. Heavily rumoured around the time of E3, the move sees Sony aim to create “a new cloud service” based on the acquisition, allowing them to shortcut the research and development portion of any future services. In a press release, SCE President and Group CEO Andrew House said of the deal: “By combining Gaikai’s resources including its technological strength and engineering talent with SCE’s extensive game platform knowledge and experience, SCE will provide users with unparalleled cloud entertainment experiences. SCE will deliver a world-class cloud-streaming service that allows users to instantly enjoy a broad array of content ranging from immersive core games with rich graphics to casual content anytime, anywhere on a variety of internet-connected devices.”
Whilst the deal still hinges on competition commission approval and various other legal hoops, what it represents is a monumental leap into the cloud space for Sony. Speculating, it could possibly allow Sony to leverage their entire back catalog without the need for their consoles to require additional hardware. It could also extends their audience to anyone with a variety of internet connected deviced, including iPads, smartphones and the like, as custom hardware wouldn’t be a necessity for a cloud gaming service. Gaikai themselves recently signed a deal with Samsung enabling games to be streamed to any compatible TV’s (a deal that may come into question given Sony’s interest in the television market). While some remain skeptical of cloud based gaming due to the infancy of broadband and bandwidth and speed requirements, today’s announcement still marks an exciting time for video games, and a vision into what the future could hold for the medium. While Sony haven’t announced whether they intend to implement this on the PS3 or PS Vita, we’ll keep you up to date on any developments/announcements as they become known.
Seth Killian joins Sony Santa Monica
It seems we’ve had many stories recently of developers leaving their respective companies for pastures new. Add another story into the mix: Seth Killian, known in fighting circles as “S-Kill”, and who recently left his position as special advisor at Capcom, was today unveiled as a lead game developer in Sony’s Santa Monica studio. Killian, founder of the EVO gaming championships and pro fighting game competitor, will oversee development of the upcoming Sony All-Stars Battle Royale. Killian spoke on the US Playstation blog about the title:
“Fighting games are very close to my heart, and as someone that’s spent much of my life with traditional fighters, All-Stars has been a great opportunity to take a step back and rethink fighting fundamentals from the ground up. The entire team was put together from scratch to create this game, and they are loaded with fighting game superstars (including some impressive tournament credentials–I’m not even the first EVO finalist to join the team!) who love great combat just as much as I do… we’ll be taking All-Stars on the road and making sure you guys have plenty of opportunities to go hands-on, starting with PlayStation’s first official presence at EVO this weekend”
THQ stock reverse sees them maintain NASDAQ listing
It’s no secret that developer THQ has been in dire straits recently. Facing a delisting from the NASDAQ stock exchange, THQ took the drastic step of a reverse stock split, in essence consolidating approximately 70 million shares into around 7 million, and increasing the value of the shares from 61 cents to $6.20, retaining their stock listing for now. In order to maintain their listing, the stock will have to remain above $1 per share (NASDAQ’s minimum share price) for 10 consecutive days. It’s another in a long series of developments in THQ’s ongoing troubles, which has seen them close studios and shed licences, including the valuable UFC licence to EA, in a bid to remain afloat.
Battlefield 3 Double XP week underway
Those with a penchant for shooters will be pleasantly surprised when they turn on Battlefield 3 this week. Developers DICE are running a week long double XP event, making all those kills, revives and repairs even more valuable. Those who subscribe to the premium service will have the event available all week, whilst everyone else will only earn double XP until July 4th.
Daily Trailer: Halo 4 – Forward Unto Dawn
Each day, we end the piece with the latest trailers. Today’s teaser is from the upcoming “Forward Unto Dawn”, a live action web series coming this autumn. The series will focus on the beginning of the human/Covenant war, and will be shown on Microsoft’s Halo Waypoint service as a five episode series, as well as on Machinima.
That’s another Monday in the bag, as usual any comments are extremely welcome, either below or on twitter @michael_ormonde.
Some industry news first, and market website Bloomberg reports that Activision Blizzard parent company Vivendi could be looking to offload it’s $8.1 billion, 61% stake in the gaming giant. Activision Blizzard are arguably the biggest developer and publisher in the industry, and are responsible for some of the biggest titles in gaming including the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises. If no overall buyer is found, it’s possible that Vivendi could sell a stake in the company on the open market. It marks a turbulent time for Vivendi, which has seen their stock hit a nine year low, and who have recently ousted their CEO.
With reports that take up of Battlefield 3’s Premium subscription model has surpassed the 800,000 mark in a little over 2 weeks, EA has raised the possibility that similar models could come to their other titles. Patrick Soderlund, EA Games Executive Vice President was bullish on the service’s performance. “We are very pleased with the performance so far. We’re actually only two weeks into it, so it’s a little early to tell how this is going to pay off. It certainly it looks very promising right now.”, with another executive, Frank Gibeau, stating “longer term we think that we can bring more properties into that offering and that’ll be great for the business”. He also responded to criticism of the service’s similarity to Call of Duty’s Elite offering: “We had EA Sports subscription before Elite came out, so adding that component to the design is not a reaction. It’s something we’d always been considering and we had been looking at… We actually think our Premium service exceeds what Elite does – from a value standpoint [and] from a content standpoint”.
If over-the-top, balls to the wall, out and out action movies are your thing, you’ll no doubt have heard that The Expendables 2 is in production. What you may not have heard is that Ubisoft is developing a tie in game that will be available on PC, PSN and XBox Live. From the official blurb: “Building on the universe created in the high-octane, star-studded movies, The Expendables 2 Videogame invites gamers on an adventure to rescue an extremely valuable, kidnapped billionaire. It’s business as usual, until all hell breaks loose and the explosive mix of testosterone and kerosene detonates in a massive fireball that never lets up. The adventure concludes right where the new movie begins, creating a continuous story experience for fans of the Expendables’ hard-boiled brand of action.”. From screens released, the game looks to be a side scrolling shooter, and features Barney Ross, Yin Yang, Gunner Jensen and Hale Caesar (who are Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren and Terry Crews respectively).
Given the E3 was only 3 weeks ago, it’s funny that there should be anything major revealed about Microsoft’s flagship franchise that wasn’t revealed at the industry’s main get together, but details are spreading on the new entry into the Halo universe from the Microsoft ExpertZone, their online guide for retail employees to brush up on their knowledge. Highlights on the new information revealed include:
Following on from the lukewarmly received Resistance: Burning Skies on the Playstation Vita, Sony was remaining coy on the future of it’s first person shooter franchise. Danier Brooke, producer at sony is quoted as saying “The Resistance franchise has been exciting to work on, but as for the future we have no definitive plans”. That’s not to say that there won’t be another game in the series. Insomniac Games may not be working on the franchise any more, as development duties for the latest Vita incarnation fell to Nihilistic, but Sony still owns the rights to the universe, and after spending so long developing the lore, they probably aren’t ready to throw it away just yet.
We reported yesterday that Bioware finally released its much anticipated “Extended Cut” Mass Effect 3 ending DLC to the masses, and it looks like some eagle eyed gamers spotted some hints at possible upcoming DLC within its contents. Tentatively referred to as “Leviathan”, the story is said to focus on a Reaper of the same name. Bioware executives even got in on the act, taking to social networks to tease fans about the possibility of upcoming DLC. Mike Gamble is quoted on twitter as saying “As I’ve said before, we do this for you! EC was our gift to the fans. Hope you enjoyed. Also… keep your ears open over the next little while”.
Finally today, Square Enix revealed the actress set to take on the role of Lara Croft in the upcoming reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. Camilla Luddington is most well known for roles in True Blood and Californication as well as decidedly dodgy Will and Kate TV movie. Darrell Gallagher, head of studio at Crystal Dynamics spoke of the appointment: This has been one of the most important jobs for us to get right. This Tomb Raider game is very different to any other and we are demanding far more from the voice and performance acting than ever before as we take the franchise in a new direction.’
For those living under a rock, a little game called Mass Effect was released this past March to somewhat universal critical praise. However, some gamers were not happy with what they deemed an unsatisfactory narrative end to the trilogy, and were not shy about voicing those complaints online. In answer to this, Bioware today released the “Extended Cut” expansion pack.
For many people, Skyrim was last year’s game of the year. The expansive world and deep narrative allowed them to overlook what was a patchy launch across all platforms, with many players putting literally hundreds of hours into Bethesda’s open world RPG. Their wishes were granted today when the game’s first major expansion pack arrived in the form of Dawnguard on the XBox 360. A one month timed exclusive, Dawnguard retails for 1600 Microsoft Points, and introduces a new quest line, featuring the return of a Volkihar vampire lord named Harkon, who plans to use the power of the Eldar Scrolls to block out the sun. Players have the option of enlisting with the Dawnguard in protection of the realm, or choosing to instead join forces with the Volkihar vampires to help them in their quest. To begin the new quest line, players should listen out for whispering NPCs, or ask Hold Guards about enlistment into a band of vampire hunters.
Following up on yesterday’s 
One of the possible sleepers of this year could be CCP’s Dust 514. The free-to-play expansion of the Eve Online universe is shaping up nicely (there’s way too much detail cover here, but to hear how nicely, I’d recommend listening to this in depth interview from 
We start the week off with another chapter in the hacking saga involving the PSN last year. Two British teenagers, Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis, 19 and 18 respectively, have plead guilty to two separate counts of conspiracy related to the attack on the PSN, as well as a whole host of other websites such as News International and 20th Century Fox. They, along with two other suspects, Ryan Ackroyd (25) and an unnamed 17 year old, each deny charges of publishing confidential information and will face trial next year.
Finally today, when asked about the developer of upcoming Playstation Vita title Black Ops: Declassified, Treyarch’s Director of Communications John Rafecz seemed as in the dark as the rest of us. “I don’t know… With regards to the Vita, all I can tell you is that it’s quite literally declassified.” We’re sure he meant classified. Speculation abounds that ex Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero developers Neversoft have taken the reigns, while the exact nature of other CoD studio Sledgehammer’s work also remains a mystery. The signs aren’t good for Call of Duty fans on the Vita, although it could just be the developers toying with us…
Since its official announcement in January 2011, gamers everywhere have been salivating at each tidbit of news Sony have unveiled about the Playstation Vita. Originally codenamed the NGP (Next Generation Portable), the handheld boasted specs that were unheard of from a portable gaming device. Now that we have the Vita in our hands, does it live up to the lofty expectations that Sony have set for it, or is it just another piece of tech in an already crowded market. Read on to find out.
Irish News Review 