General Gaming News II: Steam Helpdesk Site Leak

[Odin'sLaw]

Microsoft acquires the 'Gears of War' franchise from Epic Games

Microsoft already has the rights to the Halo series, and now it's adding another blockbuster to its stable of franchises: Gears of War. The company announced today that it has acquired the rights for the series from developer Epic Games. While no new Gears of War games were announced, development for the series will be handled by Microsoft Studios' Vancouver-based subsidiary Black Tusk Studios. Former series producer Rod Fergusson will be joining Black Tusk to "play a key studio leadership role" on the franchise.

"WE HOPE TO BE ABLE TO SHARE MORE NEWS ABOUT GEARS OF WAR LATER THIS YEAR."

It appears to be a similar arrangement to when Microsoft acquired the rights for Halo from developer Bungie, and passed development responsibilities off to a newly formed studio called 343 Industries, which went on to launch Halo 4. The deal includes the rights to "all existing and future games, entertainment experiences, and merchandise" in the Gears of War universe. As for when we might see the results of this new partnership, Black Tusk general manager Hanno Lemke says that "We hope to be able to share more news about Gears of War later this year."

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/27/53...rom-epic-games

is this a repeat of what happened to the Halo Dev's? hmmm

[6souls]

Also, having been to Japan I can assure you that the handheld market is heavily swinging toward cell phones over there at least. Every damn person from age 4 and up is playing games on their cell phone on the trains. I don't think I saw a single Nintendo handheld being used the entire time.

Nintendo To Release Game Demos And Information Via Mobiles

Japanese business publication Nikkei reports (via: Dr. Serkan Toto) that, this Thursday, Nintendo will announce its strategy to use mobile devices to promote its consoles and games among a larger audience.

Nikkei’s report indicates that Nintendo will release playable demos or “mini games” based on their titles on smartphones, in order to raise awareness of their games.

These releases will be accompanied by other initiatives such as video content and information, and will be meant to encourage smartphone users to buy Nintendo hardware and purchase their games. The demo/promotional content will be free, says Nikkei.

Recently, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata once again emphasized that Nintendo would not “put Mario on smartphones” and that the company was instead focusing on finding ways to use smartphones to spread awareness of Nintendo’s games, in order to combat its recent financial woes.

Nikkei’s report fits right in with these comments, and the publication has a history of being accurate with its report on developments involving Nintendo.

http://www.siliconera.com/2014/01/27...n-via-mobiles/
http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNZO...4A120C1TJ0000/
http://www.serkantoto.com/2014/01/28...o-smartphones/

[Qalbert]

CBOAT just posted this on neogaf in a thread titled "l4d3?"

http://www.dsogaming.com/wp-content/...oZCAAAPa-8.jpg

[Souj]

Is there still not even a close approximation of Binding of Isaac Rebirth release date?
This is oddly one of the games I'm most looking forward to for playing on the Vita.

[6souls]

removed

[Qalbert]

http://a.pomf.se/jojwxj.png

[Insanecyclone]

Skill tree? I'm in.

[Kaisha]

I could go for a Duke-RPG.

[Rokku]

That actually sounds pretty interesting. There's no way it could be any worse than DNF, right?

[6souls]

New Sonic coming to PS4/XBone/WiiU in 2015

Spoiler: show

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/...-fair-sign.jpg

[Souj]

And it will be horrible.

[Charismatic]

Meh, last few have been pretty decent.

[Odin'sLaw]

And it will be horrible.

i want to see how much money they throw at it and how much it'll lose....

[Doombear]

If anyone is interested, the devs from Rain World are going to be doing a dev chat stream in a bit over here on their Twitch Channel. 10am PST. Think it is just Q&A with the devs, some new screens, etc.

[Insanecyclone]

https://community.playhawken.com/new...ld-awaits-r330

HAWKEN on Steam: A New Battlefield Awaits!

Greetings pilots!

As we move forward into 2014, we're hard at work on making HAWKEN bigger and better. We know all of you love HAWKEN and have expressed the desire for it to reach a broader audience. With that in mind, we're very excited to announce that HAWKEN is coming to Steam!

Steam is the premier platform for PC gaming reaching millions of gamers worldwide and will allow us to introduce HAWKEN to a brand new audience. As we continue to focus on a full release in 2014, expanding our reach is a major priority for us.Today, we're bringing LIVE services down to begin our transition to Steam. This is quite a major shift for us, so the process will not be instantaneous. We've created a Steam Transition Guide and Steam Transition FAQ in order to address the most pressing questions, but I wanted to highlight a few points here.
From this point forward, a Steam account will be required to play HAWKEN. HAWKEN will no longer be playable using the existing launcher and the game will only be accessible through Steam.

Over the next 7 days, we'll be granting current pilots immediate access before new pilots can obtain HAWKEN via the Steam store. Read more about this process in our Steam Transition Guide.

Once you have the game downloaded on Steam, you will be able to play the latest version of HAWKEN, i.e. our February Update. This patch will be missing some core content and you may run into some of our QA testers still working on final polish. Right now, we're aiming for a formal release of the update in the next couple of weeks.

New account creation is being disabled until the full February release.
The reason we're approaching our release in this manner is so we can slowly ramp up to a full Steam launch. By the time our full February release is good to go, we want all of our existing users to have already made the transition over to Steam. This should help reduce the stress on our services immensely. All of us have worked very hard to make HAWKEN on Steam possible and we can't wait until it's available for everyone to enjoy. Thanks for your continued support, and we're looking forward to experiencing this new battlefield with all of you!

[Qalbert]

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/ama...e-helix-games/

Amazon has acquired a gaming studio called Double Helix Games, TechCrunch has learned, and Amazon now confirms. The deal was for both talent and IP, we understand. Financial terms have not been disclosed.

The Irvine, California-based company, founded in 2007 through the merger of two well-known game development shops, The Collective, Inc. and Shiny Entertainment, today employs 75 people who will now become Amazon employees and will continue to operate out of their Orange County home.

News of the deal leaked due to an invitation to joint recruiting event from Amazon and Double Helix Games taking place in L.A. on February 13th. The acquisition announcement was planned to take place at that time, most likely.

Amazon has provided TechCrunch with the following statement regarding the deal:

“Amazon has acquired Double Helix as part of our ongoing commitment to build innovate games for customers.”

The Double Helix deal may fuel to the recent rumors that Amazon is preparing to release its own gaming console in the coming months. Last week, the video game industry blog VG247.com reported that Amazon is planning to launch an Android-powered “dedicated games and entertainment device this year priced below $300… [that] will compete directly with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.” Buzz about an Amazon console has been around for a while: This past summer, the rumor was that the company was planning to debut a Qualcomm-based console system. Amazon declined to comment on the console speculation when reached today.

Of course, Amazon Game Studios also has a presence in Irvine, following the launch of its social game development arm back in 2012. Amazon’s efforts on the gaming front have been fairly quiet since then. The company has released a now-shuttered game called “Living Classics,” which retired last October. The company also has a handful of other titles now, but the Double Helix acquisition will bring more high-profile talent and IP to Amazon.

Double Helix has a history of creating popular games for nearly 20 years, when you consider the work Shiny and The Collective had done before the merger. Shiny, for example, was the creator of classic like “Earthworm Jim,”
“Sacrifice, MDK” and “Enter the Matrix,” while The Collective had previously put out titles like “Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb,” “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

As Double Helix, the firm has a decent track record as well. Its most popular game today is “Killer Instinct,” but throughout the years, it has created a number of PC and console games including “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” “Green Latern: Rise of the Manhunters,” “Silent Hill: Homecoming,” and “Front Mission Evolved,” among others. As you can tell by the titles, it specializes in large-scale action games based on blockbuster franchises.

A forthcoming title, “Strider,” is scheduled to launch this month on PS3, with others including “Dirty Harry” and “Harker” expected to follow.

Amazon says that Double Helix’s current lineup of games and other future developments will be supported, following the acquisition.

[Deader2818]

So is amazon basically just going to release an Ouya?

[SamanosukeShiva]

wrong company to acquire lol, double helix games sucks

[Hitoshura]

Wow same company that made Front Mission Devolved, they are also making the new Strider. Hm.. kinda worries me. No wonder it's $14.99

[Qalbert]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/a...-rotation.aspx

Activision has reported its financials for the quarter ending December 31, 2013. As part of that news, the publisher has announced that it is giving Infinity Ward and Treyarch longer development cycles to work on their Call of Duty games.

Sledgehammer, which worked with Infinity Ward on Modern Warfare 3, will be taking the reins of its own Call of Duty title. The studio was founded by Michael Condrey and Glen Schofield, who previously worked with Visceral on the Dead Space series. Sledgehammer is leading this year's Call of Duty game.

During the call, Activision listed three branches of the Call of Duty franchise: Modern Warfare, Black Ops, and Ghosts. With Black Ops at Treyarch and Ghosts at Infinity Ward, it seems logical to suspect Sledgehammer's entry will be a Modern Warfare title.



Our Take
Giving the Call of Duty teams an extended development cycle is great news for the franchise. That much time will allow additional experimentation and creativity that will help create greater distinction from year to year. Treyarch has the zombies game types. Infinity Ward has tinkered with Spec Ops and Extinction. I’m interested to see what Sledgehammer comes up with.