The Gaming News Thread

[TevashSzat]

Fallout 4 due by 2011?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What we heard: It's been all of 10 years since Interplay and Black Isle Studio's Fallout 2 arrived to rapt critical reception for the PC. And if executive producer Todd Howard has his way, fans of the franchise shouldn't have to wait another decade after Fallout 3 for another postapocalyptic role-playing fix.

Speaking to Reuters, Howard addressed the franchise's long absence from the gaming scene, saying the latest installment has been too long in coming. "I think it's good for people to miss things," he said. "Ten years between Fallout is a bit long, but I think there's this nostalgia factor."

And then things get a little screwy. Seemingly unaware of the average gamers' excitability factor, Reuters then floated mention of "Fallout 4," and paraphrased the game's executive producer as saying, "he believes three years is a good time frame between games." Not unexpectedly, this one-two combo exploded with its own atomic ferocity across many a gaming Web site, with the common consensus being that Howard had confirmed Fallout 3's successor as being a mere three years off.

The official story: "He wasn't trying to say anything about how long it will be between the Fallout 3 and the next one," said a Bethesda Softworks representative. "Rather, it was a comment about the fact that 10 years was too long between the last Fallout games and Fallout 3. We aren't setting any kind of timeframe or timetable for the next Fallout. We haven't even released this one yet, though at least we're now very, very close."

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus...that a date is officially confirmed. However, given the massive hype, decade-long anticipation, and amount of critical praise Fallout 3 has already received, a sequel looks likely. Keep in mind, though, there was a four-year gap between Elder Scrolls III and IV.

Well, it looks like Fallout 3 is going to be pretty awesome so I think it would be excellent for the series to keep on going

[Martok]

This could be interesting to see where it goes:

Stardock working on non-invasive copy protection for other publishers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On Friday, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell revealed to Edge that his company is developing a non-intrusive copyright security solution for external publishers.

The initiative came in the wake of The Gamer's Bill of Rights, which implores game makers to ditch obnoxious copy protection methods. Stardock has been an advocate of non-intrusive copy protection for years, selling commercially successful games such as Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire that have no copy protection.

But as Stardock approached major publishers to agree to the terms of the Bill, they were still unwilling to go DRM-free.

Wardell said, "While Stardock doesn't put copy protection on its retail games, the fact is that most publishers are never going to agree to do that.

"So the publishers are telling us, 'Put your money where your mouth is. Why don't you guys develop something that you think is suitable that would protect our IP, but would be more acceptable to users?'

"We're investigating what would make users happy to protect their needs, but also provide some security for the publishers. ... We're actually developing a technology that would do that."

Wardell didn't divulge which piracy-fearing publishers had suggested Stardock take on the task.

He did say that one goal of Stardock's security solution would be when a consumer buys a PC game, that game, or technically the license to play it, belongs to the consumer. Often, DRM methods only allow a certain amount of installs on a certain amount of machines. "We want that license to be yours, not per machine. ... It's not your machine buying the game. It's you."

Wardell said he's exploring a system in which if a customer loses the physical copy of a game, he or she would be able to re-download the game by simply matching up a previously-registered e-mail address. "If my license is attached to my [e-mail] account, let me go online and download the whole game later."

Wardell argued that if a publisher wants a user to jump through a security hoop, that user should get something in return.

He steered away from the idea that Stardock is developing a DRM solution (presumably because of the baggage the term carries with gamers). Asked if Stardock is creating a method of "DRM," Wardell replied, "The problem with 'DRM' is that it's so loosely defined. ... Stardock's products use activation, and I wouldn't say that it's DRM. We're just verifying if you're real customer."

The CEO said that Stardock has looked to its community to ask what kind of security measures are acceptable and which ones are not. "It should be completely invisible to the user."

DRM has been a hot topic as of late, the most recent case being EA's highly-anticipated PC game Spore, which implemented protection technology from SecuROM. One customer filed a class-action lawsuit against EA over the game's DRM.

Despite Wardell's distaste for intrusive DRM, he said that filing a lawsuit is going a bit overboard. "Publishers should have the right to be stupid if they want. That's their right. And it's the right of the consumer to choose not to buy."

He vouched for the huge faceless corporations that sometimes seem to be oblivious to the plight of the DRM-afflicted gamer.

"It's not that these publishers are DRM-happy. They're not completely in love with it. It's just that there aren't very many alternatives."

[Mailman653]

That's quite a task they set out for themselves, if they pull it off they would become the champion of gamers and silence their critics. If they fail, they would be the laughing stock of other publishers and probably lose some cred with gamers.

[Martok]

That's quite a task they set out for themselves, if they pull it off they would become the champion of gamers and silence their critics. If they fail, they would be the laughing stock of other publishers and probably lose some cred with gamers.

Indeed. Hence, why I said it would be interesting to see how it all turns out.


In other Stardock news, Brad has said they're going to officially announce their new fantasy strategy game next Tuesday (Nov. 4). Can't wait!

[TevashSzat]

PS3 sales near 17 million as Sony profits sink

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Electronics and financial services drag down Japanese company; game losses narrow as PS3 outpaces 360 in July-Sept.

Sony wasn't joking when it said last week that it was in for a grim fiscal year 2008. As a portent of things to come, the Japanese electronics company revised its profits projections downward an additional 39 percent for the year, which runs April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009, in all putting them off a full 59 percent from last year's performance.

Keeping in line with those expectations, Sony said today that net profits for the July-September quarter slid 72 percent, falling to ¥20.8 billion ($213 million) from ¥73.7 billion ($755 million) a year ago. Total revenue stood at ¥2.07 trillion ($21.3 billion), off half a percentage point from last year. Operating income skidded 90 percent year-over-year, falling to ¥11 billion ($113 million) from ¥111.6 billion ($1.14 billion).

Sony's bread-and-butter electronics segment, which accounts for the bulk of the company's revenues, saw a .6 percent decline in sales for the reporting period, dipping to ¥1.7 trillion ($17.4 billion). The decline comes despite stronger sales of the Bravia LCD TVs and Vaio PCs. As the company noted last week, the yen's strengthen in the global market as well as tighter profit margins due to increased competition contributed to the company's lackluster performance in this area.

Gamers will be pleased to know that Sony's games segment actually saw some gains during the period. For the quarter, Sony's games arm generated ¥269 billion ($2.76 billion), a 10 percent increase year-over-year. Naturally, the publisher attributed its performance to rising sales of the PlayStation 3 and PSP, with the former shifting 2.43 million units and the latter moving 3.18 million systems. PlayStation 2 sales continued to dwindle during the quarter, falling to 2.5 million units.

Of note, PS3 sales stood 200,000 units higher than those of the Xbox 360 over the same stretch. Last week, Microsoft said that the Xbox 360 sold 2.2 million units during the comparable period of time, which was a 20 percent increase year-over-year. To date, the PlayStation 3's global lifetime sales stand at 16.85 million units.

Though the game's unit saw increased revenue for the quarter, it remained in the red. Sony's games arm posted a ¥39.5 billion ($405 million) operating loss for the July-September period, an improvement over the ¥96.7 billion ($991 million) deficit it posted for the same period last year. Sony noted that this tightening of losses was due to a decrease in production costs on the PS3, an increase in software sales for its flagship console, and strong hardware sales of the PSP.

Not unsurprising considering the global economic crisis, Sony's financial services segment took a significant hit during the quarter, seeing an operating loss of ¥25 billion ($256 million) and falling revenues of ¥100 billion ($1.02 billion). Conversely, the movie business performed quite well--with sales increasing 3.4 percent to ¥196 billion ($2.00 billion)--on the strength of Hancock, Step Brothers, and Pineapple Express.

You know, I find it really hard to understand people all yelling about the doomsday of the PC gamer when consoles have not made ANY money for their producers(Microsoft and Sony here, I don't consider Nintendo's Wii as really a "hardcore" gaming console) A loss of 405 million dollars is nothing to scoff at and its only three months, making the yearly loss easily 1 billion plus. This is only after a ton of improvement too as manufacturing costs have gone down significantly as technology improved. Microsoft doesn't face much better at all and is consistently losing money too. The only reason that consoles have done so well relatively is because their companies are willing to lose billions to prop up their product. If EA tried to waste that much money, their shareholders would kill the board of directors...

[Veho Nex]

PS3 sales near 17 million as Sony profits sink

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Electronics and financial services drag down Japanese company; game losses narrow as PS3 outpaces 360 in July-Sept.

Sony wasn't joking when it said last week that it was in for a grim fiscal year 2008. As a portent of things to come, the Japanese electronics company revised its profits projections downward an additional 39 percent for the year, which runs April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009, in all putting them off a full 59 percent from last year's performance.

Keeping in line with those expectations, Sony said today that net profits for the July-September quarter slid 72 percent, falling to ¥20.8 billion ($213 million) from ¥73.7 billion ($755 million) a year ago. Total revenue stood at ¥2.07 trillion ($21.3 billion), off half a percentage point from last year. Operating income skidded 90 percent year-over-year, falling to ¥11 billion ($113 million) from ¥111.6 billion ($1.14 billion).

Sony's bread-and-butter electronics segment, which accounts for the bulk of the company's revenues, saw a .6 percent decline in sales for the reporting period, dipping to ¥1.7 trillion ($17.4 billion). The decline comes despite stronger sales of the Bravia LCD TVs and Vaio PCs. As the company noted last week, the yen's strengthen in the global market as well as tighter profit margins due to increased competition contributed to the company's lackluster performance in this area.

Gamers will be pleased to know that Sony's games segment actually saw some gains during the period. For the quarter, Sony's games arm generated ¥269 billion ($2.76 billion), a 10 percent increase year-over-year. Naturally, the publisher attributed its performance to rising sales of the PlayStation 3 and PSP, with the former shifting 2.43 million units and the latter moving 3.18 million systems. PlayStation 2 sales continued to dwindle during the quarter, falling to 2.5 million units.

Of note, PS3 sales stood 200,000 units higher than those of the Xbox 360 over the same stretch. Last week, Microsoft said that the Xbox 360 sold 2.2 million units during the comparable period of time, which was a 20 percent increase year-over-year. To date, the PlayStation 3's global lifetime sales stand at 16.85 million units.

Though the game's unit saw increased revenue for the quarter, it remained in the red. Sony's games arm posted a ¥39.5 billion ($405 million) operating loss for the July-September period, an improvement over the ¥96.7 billion ($991 million) deficit it posted for the same period last year. Sony noted that this tightening of losses was due to a decrease in production costs on the PS3, an increase in software sales for its flagship console, and strong hardware sales of the PSP.

Not unsurprising considering the global economic crisis, Sony's financial services segment took a significant hit during the quarter, seeing an operating loss of ¥25 billion ($256 million) and falling revenues of ¥100 billion ($1.02 billion). Conversely, the movie business performed quite well--with sales increasing 3.4 percent to ¥196 billion ($2.00 billion)--on the strength of Hancock, Step Brothers, and Pineapple Express.

You know, I find it really hard to understand people all yelling about the doomsday of the PC gamer when consoles have not made ANY money for their producers(Microsoft and Sony here, I don't consider Nintendo's Wii as really a "hardcore" gaming console) A loss of 405 million dollars is nothing to scoff at and its only three months, making the yearly loss easily 1 billion plus. This is only after a ton of improvement too as manufacturing costs have gone down significantly as technology improved. Microsoft doesn't face much better at all and is consistently losing money too. The only reason that consoles have done so well relatively is because their companies are willing to lose billions to prop up their product. If EA tried to waste that much money, their shareholders would kill the board of directors...

Do it ea, you've done about everything else, give us the reason to find and destroy you.

[Husar]

So here we have two companies who actually take deep cuts into their overall profits (not losses) to please their customers and now that is a bad thing. And EA who just look for their own profits are bad as well so whatever a big company does is bad? Commie!

[frogbeastegg]

You know, I find it really hard to understand people all yelling about the doomsday of the PC gamer when consoles have not made ANY money for their producers

Console makers lose money on hardware and make a killing on games and peripherals. It's been the case for generations. A console like the PS2 having sufficient success and lifespan to end up cheap enough to build at a profit is a relatively recent development.

[Praxil]

Something ugly is going on over here...

Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly reccommend people play nice and act mature.

Seems to me that this "act" will brake some laws. Unless this is clearly informed on the game cover before the product is bought.

[Veho Nex]

This could be interesting to see where it goes:

Stardock working on non-invasive copy protection for other publishers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On Friday, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell revealed to Edge that his company is developing a non-intrusive copyright security solution for external publishers.

The initiative came in the wake of The Gamer's Bill of Rights, which implores game makers to ditch obnoxious copy protection methods. Stardock has been an advocate of non-intrusive copy protection for years, selling commercially successful games such as Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire that have no copy protection.

But as Stardock approached major publishers to agree to the terms of the Bill, they were still unwilling to go DRM-free.

Wardell said, "While Stardock doesn't put copy protection on its retail games, the fact is that most publishers are never going to agree to do that.

"So the publishers are telling us, 'Put your money where your mouth is. Why don't you guys develop something that you think is suitable that would protect our IP, but would be more acceptable to users?'

"We're investigating what would make users happy to protect their needs, but also provide some security for the publishers. ... We're actually developing a technology that would do that."

Wardell didn't divulge which piracy-fearing publishers had suggested Stardock take on the task.

He did say that one goal of Stardock's security solution would be when a consumer buys a PC game, that game, or technically the license to play it, belongs to the consumer. Often, DRM methods only allow a certain amount of installs on a certain amount of machines. "We want that license to be yours, not per machine. ... It's not your machine buying the game. It's you."

Wardell said he's exploring a system in which if a customer loses the physical copy of a game, he or she would be able to re-download the game by simply matching up a previously-registered e-mail address. "If my license is attached to my [e-mail] account, let me go online and download the whole game later."

Wardell argued that if a publisher wants a user to jump through a security hoop, that user should get something in return.

He steered away from the idea that Stardock is developing a DRM solution (presumably because of the baggage the term carries with gamers). Asked if Stardock is creating a method of "DRM," Wardell replied, "The problem with 'DRM' is that it's so loosely defined. ... Stardock's products use activation, and I wouldn't say that it's DRM. We're just verifying if you're real customer."

The CEO said that Stardock has looked to its community to ask what kind of security measures are acceptable and which ones are not. "It should be completely invisible to the user."

DRM has been a hot topic as of late, the most recent case being EA's highly-anticipated PC game Spore, which implemented protection technology from SecuROM. One customer filed a class-action lawsuit against EA over the game's DRM.

Despite Wardell's distaste for intrusive DRM, he said that filing a lawsuit is going a bit overboard. "Publishers should have the right to be stupid if they want. That's their right. And it's the right of the consumer to choose not to buy."

He vouched for the huge faceless corporations that sometimes seem to be oblivious to the plight of the DRM-afflicted gamer.

"It's not that these publishers are DRM-happy. They're not completely in love with it. It's just that there aren't very many alternatives."

I got to say, looking at the picture of the CEO makes me feel trusting, while the picture of EA's CEO makes me think of a wolf in sheeps clothing, is this normal?

[Husar]

I got to say, looking at the picture of the CEO makes me feel trusting, while the picture of EA's CEO makes me think of a wolf in sheeps clothing, is this normal?

It's called a prejudice.

[Veho Nex]

prejudice how? they're both white.

[naut]

prejudice how? they're both white.

Um, prejudice:

1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.
3. unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, esp. of a hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group.
4. such attitudes considered collectively: The war against prejudice is never-ending.
5. damage or injury; detriment: a law that operated to the prejudice of the majority.

Prejudice doesn't specifically apply to racism.

[Veho Nex]

But it's not... well anyways. Lets get sum new news up in har

[Praxil]

Surprise!

I was able to forge this deal with the [Pro Football Hall of Fame] that provides them with 400K per year (which is significantly below market rate) in exchange for the HOF player rights. EA owes me a huge favor because of that threat was enough to persuade Take Two to back off its plans, leaving EA as the only professional football videogame manufacturer out there.



...The per player price for most of these guys was tens of thousands of dollars less than what they were guaranteed by Take Two Interactive so it’s a real coup that we were able to pull this off so cheaply. You have to remember that EA’s total cost is only $200,000 per year. We know that Take Two offered six figure deals to several former NFL players so the total cost is millions below market prices...

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/11/...adden-monopoly

Muahaha, EA is THE baller in this industry!

[Veho Nex]

YAY EA IS DIEING!!! LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION AND THE RISE OF THE LEMUR!!

[al Roumi]

Shogun 2: Total War?

Plagiarised from RPS:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...n-2-total-war/

There’s a couple of leaks which seem to point towards it. Firstly, as reported by Kotaku, a Sega PR booked a trade show appointment with Turkish site Oyungezer for Shogun 2. Secondly, a press-release for it appeared on TWCenter, apparently leaked. The thread’s been removed though still shows up on google, but has been mirrored all over the place. We’ll only know at E3 – or with PC Gamer’s next cover, whichever comes first. The leaked alleged press-release is below, plus some initial thoughts…

[al Roumi]

Shogun 2 is confirmed!

At RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...ed/#more-31352

And by a snazy new video on the Total War website, here: http://www.totalwar.com/

Edit:

And here, at Sega: http://www.sega.co.uk/news/?n=4289

[Krusader]

Shogun 2 is confirmed!

At RPS: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...ed/#more-31352

And by a snazy new video on the Total War website, here: http://www.totalwar.com/

Edit:

And here, at Sega: http://www.sega.co.uk/news/?n=4289

Love some of the comments on RPS!
Unlike NTW I will at least keep my eyes on Shogun 2 to see if it gets any good. Although I'd rather see Shogun 1 (and Medieval 1) on gog.com.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Love some of the comments on RPS!
Unlike NTW I will at least keep my eyes on Shogun 2 to see if it gets any good. Although I'd rather see Shogun 1 (and Medieval 1) on gog.com.

YES PLEASE

Or at least patches that let you play them on non-ancient graphics cards!

As to Shogun 2, I have full faith in CA's ability to market the hell out of it. But that's about it. The heroes bit sounds dumb, too.

[johnhughthom]

Although I'd rather see Shogun 1 (and Medieval 1) on gog.com.

GamersGate has Shogun, not MTW though.

[Krusader]

GamersGate has Shogun, not MTW though.

But does it work with new graphics cards? If not, then no point in buying, as I already have original Shogun and Mongol Invasion CDs.

[johnhughthom]

After purchasing I have found the answer to that is no.

[Statybininkas18]

Hello!

Maybe can somebody recommend me an interesting game? :)

thanks!

[Fragony]

SOMA is really interesting imho, asks some deep questions. The gameplay could have been better, I recommend playing it on wuss-mode it is actually more unnerving

[edyzmedieval]

Steam Autumn Sale just wrapped up - get ready for the Winter one, probably around December 20-21.

[edyzmedieval]

The Crew 2 is on free weekend sale right now.

[edyzmedieval]

Steam Winter Sale is on - get some good stuff over on the Steam Store.

Got myself some more goodies for Euro Truck Simulator 2.

www.steampowered.com

[Husar]

There's good stuff left on Steam that I don't have already?

I still have a few games that I haven't even touched and plenty that I began but didn't finish (or "finish" in some cases), I think most of the others can wait until the next sale when I'm done with my unfinished business.