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Boulder Dash Announced for Xbox 360

5 Mar 2010 at 9:20am
Boulder Dash is center stage again

Radiangames JoyJoy Announced and Screens

4 Mar 2010 at 5:04pm
Twin-stick shooter coming to Xbox LIVE Indie Games

Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition Co-Op Challanges Trailer

4 Mar 2010 at 3:05pm
1:21 of gameplay footage

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Industry to rebound after February decline - Analyst

8 Mar 2010 at 8:58pm

Wedbush's Michael Pachter predicts 10% software slump to $665 million for last month, March's "phenomenal" lineup will break industry's down streak.

The good news is that analysts believe the US gaming industry is getting close to emerging from its prolonged slump at retail. The bad news is that it doesn't look like the gaming industry entered the light of day during February, despite the release of such top-tier games as BioShock 2, Heavy Rain, and Dante's Inferno.

Take has already trumpeted BioShock 2's strong opening.

In a note to investors today, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter predicted that when The NPD Group releases its annual US retail sales recap on Thursday, game software sales will have slipped 10 percent year-over-year to $665 million. Pachter attributed to the decline to what has quickly become a thorn in the gaming industry's side: the flagging music genre.

"The February comparison is not as tough (+9 percent) as it was in January (+11 percent), but we expect another precipitous decline in music genre sales to around $20 million compared to $75 million last February, and do not expect the decline to be offset by sales of the big launches during the month," he said.

Pachter believes Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is currently the subject of a heated lawsuit between the publisher and the game's creators, will make the top 10 best-seller list in February. The analyst's research indicates that EA's Mass Effect 2 and Dante's Inferno, Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus, and Take-Two's BioShock 2 also performed well during the month. (Of the latter title, Take-Two said last week that it had shipped 3 million units worldwide.)

In terms of hardware, Pachter expects the Wii to shift 455,000 units during the month, a figure down 40 percent year-over-year. The Wii's predicted decline notwithstanding, Nintendo's system is still expected to outpace the Xbox 360's 350,000 units, which itself would be down 10 percent from the year prior. Though rounding out the console sales chart, the PlayStation 3's 300,000 units represents 9 percent year-over year growth.

With February at its back, Pachter believes the remainder of 2010 will play out swimmingly for the US retail game industry.

"The release schedule over the next four months gives us great confidence in our forward forecast," Pachter wrote. "In addition to highly anticipated titles like Sony's God of War III, Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIII, Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M, and Activision's Starcraft II, we expect no fewer than 12 games released in the first half of 2010 to sell more than 1 million units apiece, with at least six selling more than 3 million units. In the first half of 2009, there were only eight games that sold more than 1 million units, with only one selling more than 3 million units."

Pachter is particularly enthused about March's "phenomenal" lineup, which includes Battlefield Bad Company 2, Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, God of War III and Final Fantasy XIII. He predicted that each of the titles will sell 1 million units during their first month of availability.

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Black creator back with Bodycount

8 Mar 2010 at 7:09pm

New destructible-environ first-person shooter from Stuart Black and Codemasters' Guildford Studio revealed via UK magazine leak.

Though it wasn't a runaway hit with critics, the 2006 PlayStation 2 and Xbox game Black got a cult following for its ultrarealistic over-the-top gunplay. It was also one of the few shooters of the last console generation to feature largely destructible environments, which allowed players to take out opponents by blowing up the structures sheltering them.

He looks friendly.

Black 2 still hasn't surfaced, even though EA Games president Frank Gibeau mentioned it was being considered in a 2008 interview with GameSpot. However, one of its creators, lead designer Stuart Black, is apparently involved in a new shooter project at Codemasters, according to a prematurely published--and quickly retracted--story by Official Xbox Magazine UK.

According to the briefly visible story, which lives on courtesy of Google Cache, Black has assembled many members of the game Black's development at Codemasters' Guilford studio. Though largely free of detail, the article says that the game will be a first-person shooter focused on weaponry. The article describes the game as "frankly mental," and the issue's cover claims the game has "astonishing destruction," implying it will once again feature destructible environments.

GameSpot will have more details on Bodycount as they become available.

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Valve opens up to Macs

8 Mar 2010 at 5:32pm

Half-Life studio announces full support of Apple's OS for Steam, catalog hits this April; Portal 2 compatibility confirmed; all future games getting simultaneous PC, Mac, 360 release.

Apple's OS X operating system for Macs has largely been regarded by game designers as the unimportant step-cousin to Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows interface for PCs. Today, Valve announced plans that may go a long way toward changing that phenomenon, announcing that its digital distribution hub Steam as well as its proprietary Source game engine will now be compatible with Mac computers.

Valv will be opening a portal to Macs.

Valve plans to launch Mac support with Steam and its personal library of games--which includes the Half-Life and Left 4 Dead series, as well as Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, and Portal--in April. Valve also said that it has updated its Steamworks development toolkit to allow a game built using the software to be interchangeable between the two desktop platforms.

"Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge," explained Valve's director of business development, Jason Holtman. "For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac."

Valve's first new game to support the Mac platform will be Portal 2 when it launches this holiday. The sequel to Valve's highly acclaimed The Orange Box pack-in, Portal 2 was officially announced for the Xbox 360 and PC last week, after a prolonged teaser campaign. The full-length, stand-alone title will include both single- and multiplayer modes in addition to other new features. Valve went on to note that the PC and Mac versions of the game are being developed in tandem.

"Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lockstep," said Portal 2 project lead Josh Weier. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."

The Bellevue, Washington-based developer went on to note that it now considers the Mac a "tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360." Further, Valve also intends to release game updates for Windows and Mac editions simultaneously. In fact, Mac and Windows users will intermingle in online matches, playing and communicating on the same servers and in the same game lobbies.

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