Yesterday's EA earnings call was packed with tidbits about upcoming games but, as reported by VG247, there was time for some minor mudslinging as well. During the call, EA CEO John Riccitiello was asked about industry health and tie ratios, and said "I think a... factor in 2009 was sort of a lack of aggressive pricing on first-party if you will, a little bit too late with their price-cuts."

He later added that console use was actually up, even in the face of social gaming platforms like Facebook. So, think what you will about Riccy's stance on price cut timing, the one thing that's certain is that we're not to blame.

What did I do to deserve this, my lord!? That is both the question on NIS America's mind and the new title of its series, once known as Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! The publisher announced that it's changing the name of the Acquire-developed action-strategy game in response to "a conflict of interest with an existing IP." We're guessing the trademark issue in question is with a certain comic book franchise owned by Warner Bros. -- Plastic Man, obviously.

This week has not been kind to NIS. Just yesterday, the Japanese parent company reported a 95 percent drop in profits, and now the American branch has to change the name of one of its franchises midstream. May 4 is the new release date for what is now called What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord!? 2.

[Update: May is indeed a new release date for the game: it was originally slated for March.]

Update: Microsoft has issued a correction on this schedule. The Misadventures of P. B. Winterbottom will be priced at 800 ($10), not 1200 ($15).

Major Nelson has a dropped a partial February schedule for Xbox Live Marketplace content, including a particularly nice Deal of the Week. Specifically, next week's deal, beginning February 15, will be Battlefield 1943 for only 800 ($10). If you've yet to pick up the game, $10 is definitely a good price. Also starting next week, both Resident Evil 5 and Beautiful Katamari will hit the Games on Demand service.

The post also notes that this week marks the end of the second season of 1 vs 100. Tonight's episode (9:00pm ET/6:00 pm PT) will feature Magda Apanowicz from SyFy's series Caprica. For the season finale this Friday (10:00pm ET/7:00 pm PT), the game will feature 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor and Bungie's Marty O'Donnell.

See the full XBLM schedule after the break.

Continued →

As we heard from Famitsu leaks, Arc System Works' arcade Blazblue followup is coming home to consoles. Blazblue: Continuum Shift will feature the three new characters added to the arcade release -- Tsubaki Yayoi, Hazama, and λ-11, as well as one new console-exclusive character, the cyborg μ-12.

According to Siliconera, the new home release will also include a beginner mode, and the strategic Legion Mode introduced in BlazBlue Portable. So you'll be able to randomly mash buttons as usual, but you'll win territory by doing so. No time frame or consoles are known at the moment, but the original BlazBlue was released on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Among the handful of Ubiscoops about 2010's releases coming out of today's investor call, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot brought up the tactical Tom Clancy franchise Ghost Recon. Beyond the already revealed platforms for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Guillemot detailed the franchise's further ubiquity, saying the next Ghost Recon game will "be on all platforms: 360, PS3, Wii, PSP, [and] DS." He noted that the Wii version of Ghost Recon will "be done by a different team" with a "different approach ... created for that Wii population." Presumably, the game will involve standing on the balance board to approximate a sniper's breathing -- and it'll also be made up entirely of mini-games. Whoa, whoa -- calm down there killer. We're just joshin' ya!

He also confirmed something we've been mentioning for months now: "There will be more competition in the first eight months than in the last four." Get your calculators and spreadsheets out, folks -- early 2010 is gonna be a bruiser like we've never seen before (on our bank accounts, that is).

The SOCOM series traditionally focuses on tactical decision-making rather than big action; large set piece battles become few and far between when players utilize the correct tactics to mechanically disable the opposition. In SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, the careful execution of enemy forces still exists, but in the end, most missions boil down to the same tactic found in other shooters: survival.

In Fireteam Bravo 3, the SEALs have infiltrated an action movie and there's no turning back.

Continued →

There's no doubt about it -- Q-Games head Dylan Cuthbert is very much interested in making more content for the latest in the PixelJunk series of games, PixelJunk Shooter. When he spoke recently to G4TV, Cuthbert said, "for PixelJunk Shooter we still have a ton of ideas on the drawing board and the engine has lots of potential we want to use before moving onto our next idea." He also teased the possibility of a full-on sequel, front-loading his last statement with, "normally sequels are just a re-hashing of the ideas in the original."

Given the PixelJunk's all-over-the-place history with DLC and re-releases and Encore versions, we poked Cuthbert for clarification. When we asked which of the aforementioned options we might see for PixelJunk Shooter, Cuthbert told us: "It hasn't been decided yet, as it depends on how much content we end up making. Whatever we end up making, though, it will be even better than the first installment with loads of new stuff. (Obviously I know what some of that stuff is, but I can't say -- all I can say is that fans will be extremely pleased.)" So, there you have it, folks! We're gonna see ... umm ... something else from Shooter.

Speaking in an investor call, following the release of Ubisoft's fiscal third-quarter financial results, company CEO Yves Guillemot made it abundantly clear as to why another Assassin's Creed will unsheathe its stabby things before April 2011. According to Guillemot, Assassin's Creed 2, which launched in November 2009 on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, has shipped 8 million copies. The original Assassin's Creed had sold just as many by June 2009 -- roughly 18 months after its debut.

Although details regarding the new Assassin's Creed -- set to star Ezio and some online friends -- remain slim, Guillemot wasn't mum on milieu: "This time, [Ezio] will strike directly against the templar's order in Rome." Can this Rome be built in a year, just in time for Holiday 2010?

Sure, $679 million may sound like a lot of money (it sure does to us!), but when you're a company CEO reporting that number to investors and it's 2.7 percent lower than last year's equivalent time period ($697 million), it's not quite as impressive. And that's just what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot had to do earlier today when the company reported its fiscal Q3 (October 1 through December 31) sales for 2009. Given the publisher's French HQ, we're not privy to the period's revenue until later this year.

In discussing plans for the upcoming year, the company cited "at least seven franchise titles" being launched this year, calling out this morning's (finally) officially-announced Ghost Recon: Future Soldier among others, leaving one (presumably unannounced) title unmentioned. The publisher then indicates "at least two new brands (R.U.S.E. has already been announced)" will see the light of day in 2010 -- leaving one unannounced new brand. Getting murkier yet, it appears "at least 5 online games" will be heading to the information superhighway, though only three are mentioned (yep, you guessed it -- that means two have yet to be revealed). With GDC, PAX East, and E3 not too far off (already?!), there's still plenty of 2010 left for announcements.

Ubisoft's latest sales report details the company's proposed fourth quarter fiscal year releases -- the period beginning January 1, 2010 until March 31, 2010. It's pretty much everything we expected, with profits for Ubisoft relying on four key titles, three of which are on the PC platform: Assassin's Creed II: Director's Cut, Red Steel 2, The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom and Silent Hunter 5: Battle for the Atlantic.

However, other notable titles will also release during this window, including Racquet Sports and the upcoming Assassin's Creed 2: Multiplayer on iPhone -- oh, and a bunch of new Imagine games, obviously. Outside of detailing these games, Ubisoft also announced that its popular Anno series is coming to the iPhone. Exact details on the game haven't been revealed, but it's a safe bet that city planning and real-time strategy will somehow be involved. Head past the break for the full list of releases.

Source - Ubisoft Q3 sales report [PDF link]

Continued →

According to a recent Ubisoft press release, launched alongside its Q3 earnings report, either this year or the next will see the introduction of what may be the company's most profitable property to date -- Imagine Town, an online extension of the popular series of casual DS games. Little is known about the platform so far, though the presser stipulates that it will be "a virtual world" which will be seamlessly folded into "UbiWorld™, the portal dedicated to young girls." (In any other context, that would be an extremely creepy thing to say.)

We realize this news probably means very, very little to you, so allow us to frame it to you in a different way: Imagine Town is going to be the thing that lets Ubisoft afford to make Beyond Good & Evil 2. See, now you're interested.

A great deal of news came out of EA's Q3 earnings report yesterday; enough to make us overlook this item: The early 2011 listing for Dead Space 2 didn't reference a PC version of he title, as was previously announced. Blue's News reportedly contacted Electronic Arts about the absence of the listing, and was told by a representative that "as of right now a PC sku is not in the plan."

That doesn't mean a PC version of the game is never coming out -- after all, the game's release window is still a year away. We've contacted EA to see exactly what "the plan" entails. Perhaps an elaborate casino heist?

A group of pupils at Yale University recently received a grant from the (deep breath) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which will help fund development of a video game which teaches youngsters how to avoid contracting HIV. The game, Retro-Warriors, will be designed with a multicultural focus, so that it can be used to teach young people across the globe how to identify and eschew risky behaviors.

It's not the first time someone's proposed such a project -- however, considering the aforementioned grant was for $3.9 million, it might be the most well-funded educational game of all time. We're fully expecting top-of-the-line graphics, a score by Hans Zimmer and some measure of involvement from Nolan North. For more information on what the game will actually be like, check out this CNS News article.

[Via GamePolitics]

After a seven year absence, the Ferrari brand is returning to Need for Speed, albeit in an anti-climatic comeback for true Ferrari fans like ourselves. First, the facts: On February 16, those who own Need for Speed: Shift on 360 will be able to get 10 cars from the venerable manufacturer for 800 points ($10) -- we've got the full list for you after the break.

It's an okay list, but there are some glaring omissions. Where, for example, is the 2006 Ferrari X734 or the X744? Where's the 2008 Ferrari Sesquiderro? Where's the 1898 Ferrari X78 Horse or the 1962 Ferrari Old-Timey Ice Cream Truck? Should the fact that these are cars we made up in attempt at humorously masking our ignorance of all things automotive just eliminate them from consideration? Without so much as a second thought? PS3 owners, it may have seemed that you were being slighted, but you can count yourself lucky that you've been spared this travesty of justice.

Continued →

Final Fantasy XIII may not be out in North America and Europe yet, but the development team is in full "victory lap" mode in Japan. At least, that's how it seemed when noted industry figure Jem Alexander interviewed producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Motomu Toriyama for the European PlayStation Blog. Asked about the state of the Japanese game industry, the two (no individual attribution was given to the speakers) said that FFXIII was going to fix it.

"Some people have been saying that the Japanese game industry is dead, and all that... I dunno," the creative lead said. "I will say that Final Fantasy XIII is one really epic title for high definition consoles. With this game, we are going to resurrect the whole thing." And then they immediately moved from boastful to confusing: "As for Western games that have influenced us - FPSs mostly. The Call of Duty series, for example." Influenced their desire to sell a lot of copies, maybe?

The team also suggested elsewhere in the interview that God of War Collection-style remakes of previous Final Fantasy titles are unlikely. And, while they didn't outright deny DLC (which is looking more and more likely), they said that material or ideas originally left out won't be put back in as DLC.