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A new Lego game has been on store shelves every year for almost a decade now, but the series isn’t likely to fade away anytime soon due to brand saturation. That’s according to Lego Group senior development manager of video and mobile games Darryl Kelley, who told GameSpot that each new game adds something different to the series, and this is just one reason why the brand has endured.

“I think any developer, or any publisher, or toy manufacturer would always look at [brand saturation] from an acute, strategic, and competitive point of view,” Kelley said. “And it’s important that…we’re adding novelty to each and every game. There’s always something new; there’s always something different. We’re always looking to add different layers…whether it’s a feature or a function or it’s new hardware, which we’ll have the luxury of having over the next few years. So it’s definitely always been a concern, and it’s just important to maintain a healthy balance.”

Another reason why the Lego brand of games has endured is because the Lego Group makes a conscious effort to release games that are tied to physical toy sets.

“We design every game as a support of a core product,” he said. “We’ve learned from the past that we need support to make sure that every game is supported from a core theme that we have physically available to our consumers.”

Lego Star Wars games alone have sold over 30 million copies to date, with the Lego Batman and Harry Potter franchises moving many millions of copies themselves. Looking ahead, a new Lego massively multiplayer online game from Age of Conan developer Funcom is in development, Lego: Lord of the Rings is due out next month, and Lego City Undercover is due for the Wii U by April 2013.

The rest of GameSpot’s interview with Kelley will be published next week. During the talk, Kelley addresses concerns that Lord of the Rings purists may have regarding Lego: Lord of the Rings, as well as why Funcom is the right studio to make the new Lego MMO, and how the company goes about considering new franchises for game treatment.

FIFA 13 is off to a hot start in North America. Electronic Arts announced today that its newest soccer simulator sold 353,000 copies in the United States on launch day, up 42 percent year-over-year. That figure only accounts for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 copies sold, leaving out sales of PS2, PSP, Wii, 3DS, PlayStation Vita, and PC versions.

EA also announced that FIFA 13 fans logged 1.4 million online games in the first 24 hours following launch, up 35 percent on last year’s figures. The iOS version of FIFA 13 was also a top-seller, with total downloads surging 62 percent year-over-year, in the process taking the record for “biggest global launch-day performance” of any iOS game in EA history.

FIFA 13 will launch in the rest of the world tomorrow, and EA anticipates a “historic opening.” Over 1.3 million copies of the game have been preordered worldwide, a surge of 300,000 since Tuesday.

It has been a historic year for EA Sports titles. First-week sales of Madden NFL 13 were up 8 percent to a high-definition era record 1.65 million, while NHL 13 skated to a franchise-best 491,000 in sales during its first week.

For more on FIFA 13, check out GameSpot’s review below.

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Halo 4 may not go on sale worldwide until November 6, 2012, but Major League Gaming has announced the game will form part of its Dallas Fall Championship from November 2-4. MLG has now detailed more on tournament itself, which will take place over Saturday 3 to Sunday 4, and takes the form of a four vs four tournament in competition for $40,000 in prizes.

MLG has announced that the competition will be screened in a dedicated tournament area at the event itself, as well as on the organisation’s website from Friday November 2 at 5 p.m. CST. The live stream will be hosted from Friday by Halo Pro Dave “Walshy” Walsh and Halo coach Andy “Bravo” Dudynsky.

Competitor passes are currently available for purchase from MLG for $280, which includes places for four team members and one coach. Those who enter the competition will be going up against teams such as MLG Halo Champions Instinct and Status Quo, Call of Duty team Optic, and players including Ogre 1. GameSpot will also be covering the Major League Gaming Fall Championship and will post updates from the event.

Here’s the schedule in full:

Saturday, November 3 – Broadcast occurs 10:00am – 10:00pm CST
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM Warm-Up
10:00 AM – 1:00 PM Winners Round 1
1:00 PM – 2:30 PM Losers Round 1
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Winners Round 2
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM Losers Round 2
5:30 PM – 6:15 PM Losers Round 3
4:00 PM – 7:00 PM Winners Round 3
7:00 PM – 7:45 PM Losers Round 4
8:30 PM – 10:00 PM Winners Round 4
9:15 PM – 10:00 PM Losers Round 5

Sunday, November 4 – Broadcast occurs 10:00am – 7:00pm CST
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM Warm-Up
10:00 AM – 10:45 AM Losers Round 6
10:45 AM – 11:30 AM Winners Round 5 / Losers Round 7
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM Winners Round 5 / Losers Round 8
12:15 PM – 1:00 PM Winners Round 6 / Losers Round 9
1:00 PM – 1:45 PM Winners Round 6 / Losers Round 10
1:45 PM – 2:30 PM Winners Round 7 / Losers Round 11
2:30 PM – 3:15 PM Winners Round 7 / Losers Round 12
3:15 PM – 4:00 PM Winners Final / Losers Round 13
4:00 PM – 4:45 PM Losers Final
4:45 PM – 7:00 PM Final

Halo 4 will not support Kinect for gameplay. Speaking to CVG, Halo franchise director Frank O’Connor explained that 343 Industries’ new shooter is a core game that is best suited for traditional gamepad controls.

“Halo is a core game series, and more than many others is directly linked to the muscle memory of holding an Xbox controller, going back as far as the days of the Duke on the first Xbox,” O’Connor said. “Kinect is a logical extension of the UI, and with regards to some of the sci-fi themes we’re actually pretty excited about it, but not for the controls. That’s not what it’s for, and we would never try to shoehorn that into our game.”

Though there will not be Kinect support for Halo 4 itself, O’Connor said Xbox Live application Halo Waypoint, which can be launched through Halo 4, will work with the motion control technology. This was not detailed.

During the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Microsoft confirmed that all first-party Xbox 360 games would utilize Kinect in some way. It is not clear if this development mindset has since changed.

Elsewhere in the interview, O’Connor claimed that Halo is not out to topple Activision’s behemoth Call of Duty series. He said though Microsoft has hired former Treyarch and Infinity Ward developers, and those staff are bringing “some of their habits” to Halo, the two franchises are intrinsically different.

“We haven’t tried to chase that tail,” O’Connor said. “[Call of Duty games are] good for specific reasons, and Halo is good for a different set of specific reasons. I think the closest we’ve come to that conversation about Call of Duty, is that we wanted to have an amazing player progression experience that wasn’t just aesthetics.”

Halo 4 is due out only for Xbox 360 November 6 worldwide. Development on the project recently came to a close, with the game now headed to certification before mass production. For more on the title, check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

In March 2009, Ensemble Studios shipped the well-received console real-time strategy game Halo Wars, a million-selling project that would stand as the studio’s last before being shut down. However, the game was never intended to be a Halo-branded title at all, and Bungie was none too pleased about it even existing, according to comments from Ensemble founder Tony Goodman at Games Industry International.

“Microsoft was pretty risk averse and they said, ‘I don’t know if we want to take the risk of creating strategy games on a console. We’d feel better if Halo were attached to it.’ The difficult part of that was it took the game back about a year in development, and I think it never quite turned out the same,” Goodman said. “They just said, ‘Why don’t you just paint over what you have with Halo stuff?’ But things aren’t quite that simple.”

Goodman described Halo Wars as a “really fantastic, under-recognized product,” but claimed that Ensemble was not only facing friction from Microsoft, but also Halo creator Bungie Studios. Goodman claims the studio was not happy the Halo brand was being used for a different genre.

“Another problem was that Bungie was never up for it… Bungie was kind of sore about the idea. What they called it was ‘the whoring out of our franchise’ or something,” he said. “Yeah, that didn’t create a great relationship between us and Bungie; they viewed us as someone infringing [on their franchise].”

A Bungie representative was not immediately available for comment.

Microsoft’s new racing simulator Forza Horizon will run gamers $60 at launch next month, but should players wish to pick up all downloadable content for the game, the total cost will exceed $100.

Microsoft has announced the Forza Horizon Season Pass, a $50 offer that includes an unnamed expansion pack due on December 18, as well as six car packs. These will be released throughout the balance of 2012 and into 2013. Each will include six new vehicles, and those who pick up the Season Pass will also score five additional cars and a “launch day pack.”

Purchased separately, all DLC for Forza Horizon will cost about $58, meaning those who pick up the Season Pass will save about 17 percent. The DLC pass for Forza Horizon is the most expensive in the series to date, significantly surpassing Forza 4’s $30 offering.

Forza Horizon is due out exclusively for Xbox 360 on October 23. The game is in development at United Kingdom-based startup Playground Games. The new company has not yet shipped a game, but it has a formidable racing pedigree.

Founded by former Codemasters (F1 series) alums, Playground Games is staffed also by veterans from now-defunct studios Black Rock and Bizarre Creations. Those two studios created Split/Second and Blur, respectively, before being shut down.

Capcom’s 1998 survival horror game Resident Evil 2 could have new life some day. Speaking to GameSpot today as part of a video question-and-answer session, Capcom producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi confirmed the studio is not working on a remake at the moment, but the door is open in the future.

“Just to lay all the cards on the table, that way there’s no rumor-mongering or things like that, no, we are not working on a Resident Evil 2 remake as of now,” Hirabayashi said. “But if the fans really clamor for it; if there’s a groundswell of support for remaking that game, then I think that’s something Capcom would take under consideration.”

Resident Evil 6 is the next entry in the series, and is due out for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 2, well ahead of its originally planned November 20 launch. A Wii U version is not in the works, and development on the PC version only just began.

Speaking to this, Hirabayashi said gamers can expect additional news regarding the PC version of Resident Evil 6 in near future, but not until the console versions ship next week. No further information was divulged.

Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport racing series draws inspiration from unexpected sources. Speaking to Spong, studio creative director Dan Greenwalt said “the worst place to look for inspiration is in your own genre,” revealing the company was deeply inspired by Pokemon, among other franchises.

“I knew that I wanted this car-collecting element to be implemented into the game,” Greenwalt said. “What game, especially back in 2002, had inspired collecting more than Pokémon?”

Greenwalt added that in the original Forza, cars had a “rarity meter,” and players had to choose a region, which made vehicles more or less rare in the game. He said this was directly inspired by Pokemon Sapphire or Ruby.

The developer also said the Forza series, over the years, has been inspired and influenced by World of Warcraft, as well as open world titles like Red Dead Redemption, Assassin’s Creed, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

The next entry in the Forza series is Forza Horizon, which is due out exclusively for the Xbox 360 on October 23. The game is in development at United Kingdom-based startup Playground Games. The new company has not yet shipped a game, but it has a formidable racing pedigree.

Founded by former Codemasters (F1 series) alums, Playground Games is staffed also by veterans from now-defunct studios Black Rock and Bizarre Creations. Those two studios created Split/Second and Blur, respectively, before being shut down.