Iam8bit is at it again with Entertainment System, an international art show featuring work inspired by 1980s video games, debuting on June 7 at the iam8bit gallery in Los Angeles. Opening night is free for all ages and runs from 7pm to 11pm, with the exhibit live through June 30.

Entertainment System features more than 80 artists from around the world, including Olly Moss, Jose Emroca Flores, Aled Lewis, Alisha Murray, Zac Gorman and Edison Yan. The show will also have interactive installations, though those will be announced later.

Previous iam8bit shows at the Los Angeles gallery include its debut in 2011, Super iam8bit, and American Icons, 25 Years of Street Fighter, and a few game launch parties.

Continue Reading

Gamestop's approach to the Xbox One's nebulous pre-owned game policies – which may include charging players a fee for booting up a used game – involves emphasis on digital adaptation, and letting Microsoft do the talking.

"I figured that question would come up," Gamestop President Tony Bartel said during a financial call's Q&A segment. "Definitely Xbox has said that they do support the trade-in/resale games at retail and that they want to handle communication from this point forward on that. I think what is important to note is that all three of the consoles that have launched have now come back and they say, 'I realize the value of the buy-sell-trade model,' and they have built that into their new consoles moving forward. We anticipate that we are going to be able to leverage that, like we leverage it on the consoles today."

Microsoft has yet to clear up its used-game policy with the Xbox One, including whether it will charge a fee for pre-owned playtime. Gamestop generates the majority of its profit from used game and hardware sales, and following Microsoft's Xbox One event, Gamestop's stock fell five percent.

Responding to another Xbox One question, Gamestop executives noted that its stores have systems for selling digital content, and they've sold digital products in the past.

"Digital content can be easily discovered," Bartel said. "We will actually work with Microsoft and we will work with Sony as they come out with – I guess what you would call 'non-gaming entertainment properties.' We'll be selling those in our store." Customers will be able to pay for this content with trade-in currency, other executives said.

In the previous generation transition, Gamestop saw people trade in all of their old games and systems to start fresh, and said it expected customers to do the same this time around. In the first 48 hours after the Xbox One's reveal, 250,000 people signed up for Gamestop's first-to-know list.

"There's lots of rumors out there," Bartel said. He later continued, "I, for one, am very interested in what they're going to say at E3."

Aren't we all?

Since announcing The Witness is on its way to Sony's PS4, Jonathan Blow and his development team have remained mostly mum about development. The game is still coming along, with Blow refining all of the details before the game launches, he explains on the PlayStation Blog in a video and a written post.

Video-Blow says The Witness is a true, financially independent game: His studio has the freedom to not make a profit, since it's not beholden to a publisher and doesn't "need" to. This shifts his team's goals from money to quality, he says.

"I would definitely like to make our money back on this game and I would like to make a profit on it, but it's not actually the No. 1 priority," Blow says. "The No. 1 priority is to make the best possible game that we can make, that brings the most beneficial experience to the players."

The Witness is an open-world, non-linear puzzle game that is as deep as the player wants it to be, as Blow describes it. It has no release date yet, but it's in development for PC and PS4, with the latter as a timed console exclusive.

Gamestop's financial data for the first quarter of its fiscal 2013 have arrived like a pizza with nearly 25 percent fewer toppings than the pizza you ordered during the same 13-week period last year. Also, cheesy bread sales are way up? This may not be the strongest analogy.

In non-allegorical terms, gross revenue (overall sales) and net income (post-tax profit) were both down year-over-year, at $1.865 billion and $54.6 million, respectively. As far as net income, that's a 24.69 percent decrease from the $72.5 million Gamestop reported at the end of Q1 2012.

Meanwhile, mobile device sales were up 290 percent, though this massive increase was largely due to the fact that Gamestop's mobile trade-in/sales program was just getting started during Q1 of 2012. Digital sales also increased, to the tune of 47.3 percent year-over-year, while new software sales, both physical and digital, fell 3.8 percent.

As was the case during Q1 2012, used hardware and software sales accounted for the majority of Gamestop's pre-tax profit, with new hardware and software sales making up just 29.5 percent of the quarter's overall gross.

FIFA 14 will line up for the North American continental anthem on September 24 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The European launch is September 27.

Pre-orders of FIFA 14 through GameStop, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Amazon or Origin get Ultimate Team gold packs. Each pack contains 12 items – players, contracts, stadiums, managers – to support players as they create fantasy teams of real-world athletes.

FIFA 14 is one of four EA Sports games confirmed for Xbox One, Microsoft's next-gen console revealed this week. FIFA 14 will use EA's new Ignite engine on Xbox One and PS4, but not PC or current-gen consoles.

Continue Reading

Contrast, the shadow-shifting puzzle platformer from Compulsion Games, will not be released in May as previously planned. After being Greenlit on Steam, the game has since been picked up by Focus Home Interactive for a wider release. Contrast will now be released on XBLA, PSN and PC in Q4 2013.

We think Constrast could be pretty cool. Here's a new trailer to help you endure the longer wait.

Payday 2, the Overkill-developed crook sim, is set to launch in August. The news comes at the end of the trailer above, which teases a new web series set to start in two weeks.

We have yet to see any actual Payday 2 gameplay beyond a brief teaser issued in March, but feel free to case our gallery of in-game shots below. Payday 2 – which adds classes and a contracts database on top of its predecessor's core robbery mechanics – is planning its heist on Steam, PS3 and Xbox 360. Pre-orders are open on Steam right now and all who sign up early will get an in-game loot pack.

Payday 2

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

SimCity's 4.0 patch – whose numbering nomenclature has certainly sent developers everywhere into a death spiral – should arrive shortly. The update adds a new park, new region, more explicit details on what generates happiness, and the usual set of fixes.

The update comes a week before the "Amusement Park Pack," which is scheduled to launch on May 28. EA announced earlier this month that the game has gone on to sell 1.6 million copies despite its launch complications.

Continue Reading

The Warriors, Rockstar's 2005 game based on the 1979 cult movie, is coming to PSN next week. As per typical PS Store updates, it arrives in North America on May 28 for $9.99, and then in Europe the day after for £7.99/€9.99.

Rockstar Toronto reportedly worked on a spiritual successor to The Warriors, an Xbox 360 game called We Are The Mods. According to CVG, it was similar in style to The Warriors' urban brawling, but set in mid-1960s England, during the Mods and Rockers era.

Since that never came to fruition, the closest you're going to get to a current-gen Warriors game, outside of CTXM's The Warriors: Street Brawl, is next week's re-release. Like all PS2 Classics on PSN, it's only playable on PS3.

Microsoft has announced Kinect for Windows will receive the updated Kinect sensor shown at the Xbox reveal event for the Xbox One. The rub: it won't arrive until some time in 2014.

We already knew Kinect for Windows would be updated with the new sensor and a new software development kit (SDK). The improved Kinect sports a 1080p RGB camera, capable of 30 FPS in full color, and can even see in the dark through infrared. The new Kinect also has a greater field of depth which Microsoft promises will cut down on the required distance from the device. It can also read your heartbeat but we try not to think about that too much because it's scary.

This week's live Super Joystiq Podcast is all about the Xbox One. This is our second show on the topic, but a lot more info has trickled out in the last two days. We'll also get to hear the straight dope from our own Ludwig Kietzmann and Alexander Sliwinski, who both attended Microsoft's Xbox Reveal event in Washington.

And since we're on the subject of Xbox, we'll be giving away a very limited edition Xbox 360 controller – there's only one of them – featuring the Joystiq logo and long-lasting, built-in lithium-ion battery. Tune it to see how you can win.

The show goes live at 3:45 ET!

Finnish developer Housemarque announced today that it's working on a "spiritual successor" to the Super Stardust series for the PlayStation 4.

Housemarque's twin-stick shooter Super Stardust HD launched as a downloadable title during the PlayStation 3's first year of release. The company followed up with the PS3-exclusive zombie shooter Dead Nation and the multiplatform Outland, and made its PS Vita debut last year with Super Stardust Delta.

"We truly believe that better technology can lead to better gameplay," Housemarque's CEO Ilari Kuittinen explains. "The more tools and resources we have at our disposal, the better."

Kuittinen continues: "Think of Super Stardust HD: at the time, PlayStation 3 gave us the opportunity to populate the game with thousands of interactive objects and implement the game's famous 'spherical gameplay'. Today, we can take advantage of the architecture of PlayStation 4 to create incredible visuals with direct impact on the way the new game feels."

Housemarque additionally revealed that it is working on "another unannounced PS4 project." The company will announce further details regarding both games later this year.

Sony executives are considering splitting the company's entertainment and electronics divisions, following billionaire Daniel Loeb's proposed initial public offering of its entertainment business. The entertainment arm includes all PlayStation properties, alongside Sony's film and music businesses.

Loeb, with Third Point LLC, owns a 6 percent stake in Sony worth $1.1 billion, and is Sony's biggest investor. Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai confirmed that the top brass is considering Loeb's offer, but didn't say when it would come to a decision, Bloomberg reports.

"It's only a start," Hirai said. "It's important that the board will discuss this and come to a decision that represents Sony's stance." Following Loeb's offer yesterday, Sony stock surged 9 percent.

You know Nintendo Direct – now meet Square Enix Presents. That's the name of the company's live-at-E3 video series, which it'll be broadcasting via YouTube.

Square Enix Presents promises coverage on the company's E3 line-up, which is expected to include the new Final Fantasy for PS4. It'll also feature dev interviews, game demos, and presentations on upcoming content. And, apparently, lots of chocobo music.

The shows will run across all three main days of the conference, which are June 11-13.

Square Enix America CEO Mike Fischer left the company this month and is now vice president of digital music and video for Amazon in Japan, Polygon reports. This follows news in April that Square Enix America eliminated "a number of positions" and Fischer was expected to leave in May. Those same reports said the head of marketing should be gone after E3, along with other employees in public relations.

In March, Square Enix President Yoichi Wada stepped down and the company announced widespread restructuring that it expected to cost $106 million. Square Enix posted a net loss of $134 million for fiscal year 2013, citing "weak" sales of major console games, including Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider, the last of which sold 3.4 million in its first month.

A new trailer for Destiny brings Bungie's new world into the live-action realm – with plenty of CG and story time with Breaking Bad's infamous villain. In the video, we learn about the law of the land in the upcoming, online-focused shooter, thanks to a passage from Rudyard Kipling's The Second Jungle Book.

Earlier this morning, Bungie sent Joystiq a copy of the classic story, featuring a highlighted passage detailing "The Law of the Jungle" and a note promising to see us at E3 2013. The video promises a "worldwide gameplay reveal" during Sony's E3 2013 press conference on June 10, 2013.

The passage from the book – as spoken in the trailer – reads: "Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky, And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack." A fitting passage, considering Destiny's focus as an "always-on, persistent world adventure."

According to Variety, the ad – starring Giancarlo Esposito – was directed by Jon Favreau and produced by the ad shop 72 and Sunny, with visual effects from Digital Domain. Esposito and Favreau had previously worked together on the pilot of NBC's Revolution, which stars the standout boss figure from Breaking Bad. The ad will also be broadcast during Game 3 of the NBA Western Conference Finals on May 25.

Destiny is launching on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2014.

Continue Reading

It's all about Nintendo mascots on the eShop this week. First and foremost, we've got Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, the delightful 3DS port of the challenging Wii game from 2010. Next up, Kirby gets three, count 'em, three new games on the Wii U Virtual Console: Kirby Super Star, Kirby's DreamLand 3 and Kirby's Dream Course. The Kirby games are $7.99 apiece or, from now until May 30, if you buy two you'll get the third game free.

Also running until May 30, you can grab the 3DS eShop game The Denpa Men: They Came by Wave for 20 percent off.

Continue Reading

Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two charges onto Vita in a few weeks time. SCE America announced a release date of June 18 this morning. The Vita port of the co-op game is also confirmed for Europe, although that remains undated for now.

SCE America says the Vita version, being handled by Blitz Game Studios, features ad hoc network support. Lots of the additions center on the touchscreen, including being able to control paint, thinner, and the electric beam of Oswald (the one that's not Mickey). The touchscreen can also be used to command AI and navigate the user interface, among a number of other actions.

Disney closed original developer Junction Point earlier this year. The game sold 529,000 units in the US across November and December 2012, having launched for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, and Wii on November 18.

The E3 Nintendo direct is scheduled for June 11 at 7AM Pacific (10AM Eastern, 3PM UK). The new installment will "provide updates about future Wii U games," according to Nintendo. Nintendo Europe has also announced a direct for the same time. In keeping with tradition, it'll likely be the same general information with region-specific details.