Author: admin

Ubisoft has pushed back the PC edition of Assassin’s Creed III a few weeks from the console game’s October 31 launch. The publisher today confirmed that the latest installment in its open-world stealth action series will arrive in North America on November 20, with a UK debut trailing on November 23.

For Ubisoft, delaying PC versions of its games behind their console counterparts has become standard practice. In the past year alone, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Driver: San Francisco, Rayman Origins, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Shoot Many Robots, and Babel Rising have all made their PC debuts weeks–if not months–after their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions.

Set during the American Revolution, Assassin’s Creed III features a new protagonist named Connor who will involve himself in the ongoing struggle between the Templars and the Assassins. The game is being built by Ubisoft Montreal and six collaborating studios on a new engine called Ubisoft-AnvilNext.

Nearly a dozen years after its Dreamcast debut, Jet Set Radio returns to the airwaves next month. Sony today detailed September release dates and a $10 price point for the downloadable game on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

PS3 owners will get first crack at the game, with PlayStation Plus subscribers able to download it September 11. The rest of the PS3 installed base can find the game in the PlayStation Store beginning September 18. Jet Set Radio will launch for the Xbox 360 and PC (on Steam) September 19.

The game is also coming to the PS Vita, although owners of Sony’s newest handheld will have to wait until October 16 to download it. In addition, Android and iOS editions of the game are set for release this summer, although Sega hasn’t announced pricing or exact release dates for those just yet.

Jet Set Radio–known as Jet Grind Radio in North America–shipped in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast. The game stars Beat, the leader of a graffiti gang, who zips around the futuristic city of Tokyo on inline skates. Rather than settling gang disputes with violence, players steal turf from opposing crews by tagging the city with graffiti art.

For more on Jet Grind Radio, check out GameSpot’s review.

Ubisoft has pushed back the PC edition of Assassin’s Creed III a few weeks from the console game’s October 31 launch. The publisher today confirmed that the latest installment in its open-world stealth action series will arrive in North America on November 20, with a UK debut trailing on November 23.

For Ubisoft, delaying PC versions of its games behind their console counterparts has become standard practice. In the past year alone, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Driver: San Francisco, Rayman Origins, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Shoot Many Robots, and Babel Rising have all made their PC debuts weeks–if not months–after their Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 editions.

Set during the American Revolution, Assassin’s Creed III features a new protagonist named Connor who will involve himself in the ongoing struggle between the Templars and the Assassins. The game is being built by Ubisoft Montreal and six collaborating studios on a new engine called Ubisoft-AnvilNext.

The gaming industry’s summer swoon was deeper than usual this year, as the NPD Group today reported that total US retail game sales for July only amounted to $548.4 million, a 20 percent slide from July 2011. Making the decline worse is the fact that July 2011 was already the single worst month for the industry since October of 2006.

Electronic Arts’ annualized amateur pigskin sim NCAA Football 13 was the best seller for the month, and was the only new release to make the top 10. Super hero games performed well, with Lego Batman 2 the runner-up and the movie tie-in The Amazing Spider-Man finishing the month in third place. With one exception, the remaining games on the top 10 were all released in 2011. That exception was Call of Duty: Black Ops, Activision’s 2010 entry in the first-person shooter series.

Game hardware sales were particularly soft side, down 32 percent to $150.7 million. While there wasn’t much to crow about, Microsoft did announce that the Xbox 360 was the best-selling current-generation console for the 19th straight month, selling 203,000 units for July.

Accessories were the lone area of improvement for the industry, up 8 percent to $136.9 million. According to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, that number was bolstered by points and subscription cards, as well as Skylanders action figure packs. The NPD Group believes more than 25 million Skylanders figures have been purchased by customers since the game launched last October.

Frazier also cautioned anyone against expecting a miracle recovery for the industry in the back half of the year. “Based on year to date sales, and taking into account the release slate for the back five months of the year as well as the anticipated launch of the Wii U, annual sales for the new physical channel should come in around $14.5 billion for the year,” Frazier said. That would represent a drop of nearly 15 percent from the NPD Group’s 2011 US retail sales total of $17.02 billion.

JULY 2012 US GAME SALES
OVERALL DOLLAR SALES
Total consumer spend (rentals, used sales, digital estimates included): $1.1 billion
Total retail sales: $548.4 million (-20%)
Non-PC hardware: $150.7 million (-32%)
Non-PC software: $260.7 million (-23%)
Total software: $278.2 million (-23%)
Accessories: $136.9 million (+8%)

TOP 10 GAMES FOR JULY 2012
Title (Platforms) – Publisher
1. NCAA Football 13 (X360, PS3) – Electronic Arts
2. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (X360, PS3, Wii, Vita, 3DS, DS, PC) – WBIE
3. The Amazing Spider-Man (Wii, X360, PS3, 3DS, DS) – Activision
4. Just Dance 3 (Wii, X360, PS3) – Ubisoft
5. Batman: Arkham City (X360, PS3, PC) – WBIE
6. Call of Duty: Black Ops (X360, PS3, Wii, PC, DS, PC) – Activision
7. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (X360, PS3, PC) – Ubisoft
8. NBA 2K12 (X360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, PC) – Take-Two
9. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (X360, PS3, Wii, PC) – Activision
10. Dead Island (X360, PS3, PC) – Deep Silver

Early bird Tekken fans are in for a treat as Namco Bandai has announced that it will be taking preorders for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 in Southeast Asia.

Gamers who order early will get the TTT2 Asia prestige edition when the game comes out on September 11 for Xbox 360 and PS3. All copies of this version will contain a 256-page art book, two soundtrack CDs containing the original tracks and remixes, a “Making of TTT2” DVD, and a Tekken wall-sticker signed by producer Katsuhiro Harada.

As a side note, all Southeast Asian fans who preorder the game early (standard or Asian prestige version) will get in-game DLC. These include four playable characters (Angel, Julia Chang, Ancient Ogre, Kunimitsu), a “Snoop Dogg”-themed battle arena, over 150 in-game costumes for each playable character, and an interlocking code so that players can link their TTT2 arcade and console progress together.

The price of this version has yet to be announced. For more information on TTT2, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

The Kingdoms of Amalur now belong to the state of Rhode Island. Bloomberg reports that the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation and the Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company have won a court approval to take hold of 38 Studios’ assets. The developer, founded by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, publicly crumbled earlier this year, and is now bankrupt.

The motion was granted by United States Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath at a hearing in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday. Rhode Island and the Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company will now attempt to sell 38 Studios’ assets, which include intellectual property rights, to make back some of the controversial $75 million loan that brought 38 Studios to Rhode Island.

In May, industry analyst Michael Pachter estimated the worth of the Amalur intellectual property at $20 million, saying “nobody is buying MMOs after [Star Wars: The Old Republic fizzled].”

38 Studios shipped console and PC role-playing game Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning in February 2012 to a warm critical reception and sales of 1.2 million in its first 90 days. The company’s Amalur MMO–codenamed Project Copernicus–was reportedly being readied for release in June 2013.

According to the report, Rhode Island and the bank said they needed to take hold of 38 Studios’ assets because if someone at the studio was granted permission to ditch computer equipment “all or substantially all of the intellectual property could be irretrievably lost.”

CD Projekt Red game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz claims gamers are being “overcharged for what they receive” from modern downloadable content. Speaking to VG247, the Witcher developer said DLC today does not offer as much content as it did in the past.

“If today’s DLCs offered the same amount of content they would be worth paying for, but in most cases players think they are overcharged for what they receive,” Tomaszkiewicz said. “That’s why we offer expansions to our game for free. This is also a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the people who decided to buy our game instead of copying it from an unauthorized source.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Tomaszkiewicz explained that CD Projekt Red has “always believed in free DLC” and that DLC should be seen as a “normal post-sale service that shouldn’t be priced.”

“Back when retail games were dominant, we had expansion packs,” he continued. “These were really large chunks of content, which were worth their price.”

Tomaszkiewicz’s comments follow a statement from CD Projekt Red cofounder and joint CEO Marcin Iwinski, who said last month that the current industry trend is to “over-exploit” gamers. He suggested publishers will lose business if they continue to charge for DLC, and can actually stand to benefit from offering such add-ons for free.

After four years in the garage, GRID is being taken out for a spin. Codemasters today announced that it is readying GRID 2 for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC next year.

Developed by Codemasters Racing Studios, GRID 2 will introduce a new handling system intended to hit a “sweet spot” between simulation and accessibility. Players will be able to get behind the wheel of cars from four decades and race them through courses throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Beyond the game’s single-player career mode, drivers will be able to race head-to-head in a split-screen mode, or through a revamped online mode integrated with the publisher’s RaceNet portal.

The original GRID debuted in 2008 to a warm critical reception. Beyond the standard racing action, it introduced a rewind feature that allowed players to undo costly mistakes, a feature that will return for the sequel.

For more on GRID 2, check out GameSpot’s first preview of the game.

The BioShock Infinite team at Irrational Games has lost two top developers. Director of product development Tim Gerritsen and 13-year studio veteran and former art director Nate Wells have left the company, according to updated LinkedIn profile pages reported on by Gamasutra.

According to Gerritsen’s LinkedIn page, he left the Boston area studio this month. Gerritsen was part of the senior management team at Irrational, overseeing the product development division of the company. As for Wells, his LinkedIn page also confirms his departure from the studio this month. He also reportedly updated his Twitter profile to say “New Job…Details to follow,” although it no longer includes that note.

[UPDATE] Following the publication of this story, Irrational creative director Ken Levine revealed over Twitter that original BioShock art director Scott Sinclair will fill Wells’ role.

“Scott Sinclair, art director of [the original BioShock], back in the art director’s chair for Infinite to bring it home. Can’t wait to show you what’s cooking,” Levine wrote.

BioShock Infinite was announced in 2010 and was originally scheduled to launch this coming October. The game was delayed in the run up to the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo–at which it was not present–to February 2013. Explaining why BioShock Infinite would skip E3, as well as this month’s Gamescom, Levine said preparing for the shows would come at the cost of development time.

“That way, the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put in the box,” he explained at the time. “Preparing for these events takes time away from development.”

When BioShock Infinite does ship, it will do so with great sales expectations. In August 2011, one analyst suggested the game would be a significant financial boon for Take-Two, saying it could ship 4.9 million copies.

BioShock: Infinite is set in a chaos-plagued airborne metropolis called Columbia. Gamers assume the role of Booker DeWitt, a former member of the feared Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was the nation’s largest security company in the late 19th century.

For more on BioShock Infinite, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.