With a number of names skipping out on this summer's E3, not to mention heavyweights Activision and Vivendi Games disavowing themselves of the ESA altogether, Gamecock sent word that its Grand Poobah Mike Wilson plans to step in to "right the ship" by announcing his candidacy for president of the Entertainment Software Association. The news, which was sent our way by Gamecock this weekend, included notice that the former GodGames co-founder plans to run on a platform of "bringing the fun back to the gaming industry."

While details remain light, the exec expects to announce more of his plans in the weeks leading up E3 (an event we all donned black to help Gamecock bury last year). The re-imagined conference will take place the week of July 15, during which both Wilson and Gamecock proper will run a campaign headquarters at L.A.'s Hotel Figueroa.

According to Gamecock, the location will be open to anyone and everyone in the public to drop in and play games -- no invitation necessary. We're on the fence as to if we're supposed to take this announcement seriously, or if this is just another grab for attention by the indie publisher, though either way Gamecock's track record promises that the end result will be strange.

[Via press release]

Last week laid the groundwork for what promises to be at the very least a confusing E3, with a number of familiar faces jumping ship in favor of the uncertain waters below. However, the news of who would and would not be attending the show this July got a bit hazy with regards to talk of developer id Software, with conflicting reports painting the Doom masterminds as both planning to attend and turning their backs on the annual event.

Rather than seek the wisdom of the office Magic 8-Ball, we turned to id co-owner and CEO Todd Hollenshead, who conceded uncertainty with regards to the company's E3 plans. Admitted the exec in an email: "Actually, we haven't determined in what capacity we'll be attending E3 (if any), so everyone is wrong." Interestingly, his response echoed that of our own prognosticating orb, which replied simply "Reply hazy, try again."

We weren't that surprised when Nintendo denied any knowledge of the existence of a new DS model hinted at by Famitsu publisher Hirokazu Hamamura last week. We were a little more surprised when Hamamura himself denied ever making the prediction.

IGN is reporting on a statement released by Enterbrain (Famitsu's parent company) explaining that reports of the original prediction were inaccurate and that Hamamura actually "believes it unlikely that Nintendo would release a new form factor or a successor model" for the DS. So was it simply a mistaken quote/translation, or did the powers-that-be at Nintendo put the screws to Enterbrain in order to tone back the speculation? We may never know the truth, but that won't stop us from wildly speculating ourselves ...

All you jerks out there who are used to lording your shiny new DS Lites over Phat-owning early-adopters might have to get used to playing second fiddle soon. In the latest issue of Japanese gaming rag Famitsu, publisher Hirokazu Hamamura speculates that a new version of Nintendo's best-selling handheld may be revealed at this summer's E3 trade show.

As detailed in a Bloomberg Japan report (sketchy machine translation), Hamamura's comments seem based on nothing more than industry chatter and pure conjecture on his part -- Nintendo predictably offered up a no comment. The timing does seem about right, though -- going back to the Game Boy days, Nintendo has released a new portable hardware revision roughly every two years since 1996's Game Boy Pocket (1998: Game Boy Color; 2001: Game Boy Advance; 2003: GBASP; 2004: Nintendo DS; 2005: Game Boy Micro; 2006: DS Lite). What would you like to see on a potential DS upgrade? Let us know in the comments.

[Via DSFanboy; picture source]

Unless you have some sort of parentally-enforced bedtime, or live in an Amish community that shuns the use of televisions, there's really no excuse to miss the piping-hot weekly episodes of Gametrailers TV on Spike. If you skipped last Friday's show, you missed some of the most exciting news to grace Nintendo fanboys' ears in quite some time -- the promise of an E3 unveiling of a Wii holiday blockbuster, delivered by the mountainous Reggie Fils-Aime.

"We are going to have great new content maximizing all our key franchises," Fils-Aime promised. "It's going to be a good second half." As host Geoff Keighley conjectured, a Donkey Kong Wii title is certainly a logical assumption, but our fingers are eternally crossed for Animal Crossing Wii. What first-party franchises do you hope The Reg was hinting at?

[Via Kotaku]

The ESA has found a familiar home for the 2008 E3 Media & Business Summit: the Los Angeles Convention Center. The reunion of super structure and trade show follows an ill-considered retreat to Santa Monica, which played host to a mind-bending E3 this year – how can one thing be scaled way down, yet spread so far apart? But the reestablishment of a centralized location for the event doesn't mean a resurrection of old ways. E3 2008 will retain the 'intimate' structure of this year's gathering (in other words, the ban on GameStop regional managers and booth babes is still in effect). The emphasis will be on "press events and small meetings with media, development, and other key sectors," confirmed the ESA in a statement today. So, the new formula: (confusion/distance) + (disorganization*cell phone bill) - shuttle buses = E3 2008.

E3 is scheduled for July 15-17, 2008, and, like last year, attendance will be by invitation only.

IDG Entertainment is running into a little trouble crafting "a follow-up to the now-defunct E3 Expo." Firing Squad is reporting that Sony Computer Entertainment will not be attending the upcoming E For All Expo.

Along with the major console maker, publishers NCSoft, Sega and Capcom will also be missing the October show, according to FiringSquad. The show won't be a total bust, though: Nintendo and EA will be there, along with THQ, Konami, Namco, Intel and NVIDIA.

These losses are a pretty major blow as the new show tries to become a must-attend event. Any show that's going to replace E3 is going to have to quickly build up to a critical mass of publisher attention to draw in the press and consumer interest that makes an expo work.

In an interview with AMN during E3, Ninja Theory co-founder Tam Antoniades said that Heavenly Sword is being planned as a trilogy and that the story of part two has been written.

"When we set out to do Heavenly Sword ... we wanted it to be a three-game story," he said at around the 11-minute mark. "We've had the story for the sequel for awhile now. Hopefully if this game is successful, then there's no reason why there shouldn't be a sequel and we'd very much like to go into that."

Given the hype for the title and our impressions playing it, Heavenly Sword is very likely poised to be one of the standout PlayStation 3 titles this holiday season. Just don't be surprised if you defeat the final boss and receive a cliffhanger ending.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

After an odd E3 in Santa Monica, the show's apparently picking up stakes again. UK trade publication MCV says that E3 will be moving next year. No, it's not particularly earth-shattering news, considering that the ESA circulated a survey asking where they should move the thing to, but it's nice to see that the group recognizes that Santa Monica wasn't the perfect place for the event. We've contacted the ESA for further comment, we'll let you know if we hear something back.

Pending an upcoming review of the event, the date and format are subject to change too. With a dramatic scale back and a new man at the top of the organization, E3 in flux should probably be considered the rule rather than the exception for the time being.

Update: We heard back from the ESA, but they're not commenting at the moment. Also, thanks to Fernando Rocker for the jazzy new pic!

We'd be lying if we said Too Human's absence from the "everything this year" Microsoft press conference wasn't noticed. Especially considering Too Human is still theoretically supposed to come out this year. How many times must Denis Dyack and the team at Silicon Knights have lemon juice poured into their papercut wounds caused by the stammering flipbook presentation of Too Human at E3 2006? Well, until we play a version of Too Human that doesn't look like a Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster (and if Harryhausen had computers we couldn't even say that). With Halo 3 and Mass Effect already slated for this holiday season, we're already feeling like we'll be stuffed with sci-fi epics -- so will Too Human make it on the plate?

Dyack tells GameDaily, "We made the decision not to show Too Human at the press conference some time ago. The reason for this decision was that we have another event planned in the future for Too Human that we thought would be more appropriate ... Not attending the show and setting appointments with the press was due to Silicon Knights being extremely busy finalizing the game and we simply could not spare the time." Microsoft, who is publishing the game, apparently didn't want to comment on the story. Too Human did show off some in-game engine footage recently, but for a game that is supposedly still coming out this year -- and was already expected last year -- we've heard next to nothing about it.

Update: We got an email from Eurogamer letting us know that during an interview they did last week the soon-to-be dearly departed Peter Moore said Too Human would be shown in 2008. The wording of the quote doesn't help explain if Moore is saying Too Human will be out in 2008 or just shown at next year's E3 -- whenever and whatever that might be.

Information on new Entertainment Software Association president Mike Gallagher has been slim -- very slim. The new lead of the industry's lobbying group has been more behind-the-scenes compared to predecessor Doug Lowenstein. Gallagher hasn't taken the training wheels off yet with his new job and didn't even bother having the annual opening speech kicking off E3 like Lowenstein would have. This was always an opportunity to hear what was going on with the industry and the ESA, hear Lowenstein's thoughts and afterward he'd be open to questions. An interview with GameDaily, which relates an unabridged version of Gallagher compared to his NY Times piece, gives a little insight into why the shift -- whether intentional or not, Gallagher comes off as a hired gun more than a man invested in the industry -- it's all politics. But maybe that's the point.

Gallagher says his early experience so far is like "taking a drink of water from a fire hose." The interview sounds like he's still going through a learning curve and grasping the basics of the industry, depending on staff (one of whom is ready to leave) and asking former ESA pres. Doug Lowenstein for advice. He says he's been meeting with politicians on Capital Hill, "I'm drawing a much deeper picture of what the policymakers' view of our industry is and that's important because that's one of the key audiences that we need to impact at ESA ... understanding 'where are they right now?' and 'how do we move them to where they're meeting the goal of creating a positive policy environment for the growth of video games?'" Maybe it is best that Gallagher learns what he's doing before coming out. We're quite aware of the ESA doing many things behind the scenes in regards to recent issues and scandals, but it's still not clear if that's through Gallagher's leadership or the trained staff Lowenstein left behind.

Dungeon Hero's title is supposed to be a bit ironic. See, the thing in Dungeon Hero is that you're a a human, but you're not actually good, and the dungeon isn't bad. Through a fantastic opening sequence (found after the break) you'll get the premise of what's going on. A dungeon is just another home with various types of creatures trying to live their lives. Although the set-up sounds like developer Firefly is making Stronghold for the Dungeon Keeper fans, it's actually an action RPG title.

The game won't be released until Q1 of 2009 so there is still a long journey to go before we can accurately say anything about this game. The premise is that the dungeon is at war, it's not a place where gold is just laying around and enemies aren't just hanging around for the adventurer to show up. The idea is to twist the conventions of dungeon games like Diablo which have become the norm. Players will level up and choose different easily deployable combat moves, kind of like what Molyneux is talking about for the upcoming Fable 2. The developers have hired an artist to tell the story through Max Payne style cutscenes, but with animation added. If Dungeon Hero keeps its sense of irony, heaps on some solid gameplay, we'll definitely be looking forward to it, despite it sounding originally like another dungeon crawl game. The only thing Dungeon Hero has to worry about is becoming the thing it is struggling against becoming -- the path which the remake of The Bard's Tale stumbled into.

We like it when a developer is straight-up with us about their game. The developers from Auran, who are working on the MMO Fury, were quite honest in saying, "It's WoW battlegrounds meets Guild Wars, with a bit of Unreal and Battlefield tossed in." This got our attention and the straight-talk express continued through the hands-on.

Fury definitely has the Guild Wars look to it, but the gameplay is more Unreal with an intuitive WoW interface. The pace is like an FPS when in an arena battle, the only difference is that instead of just blasting the ever-living bajingus out of your opponent, you'll build up fury and unleash with special attacks, magic and you can always retreat and heal. Playing against three developers meant we didn't stand a chance and had absolutely no idea how to counter various moves -- but unlike an FPS against professionals, we could at least semi-grasp what was going on. Fury is definitely mental twitch play where if you used the right skills it's possible for a battle to last. If you had a basic grasp on what you're doing, it won't feel like a run-of-the-mill FPS where whoever has the most shields wins.

The game releases Oct 9 and the original beta was postponed to later this month. We'll have the release about the beta next week to let y'all know about the exact date. The game is graphically on par with today's expectations and PvP players will probably enjoy it because that's clearly the game's focus. From our short time with Fury, developer Auran has done a good job. There are so many other elements to Fury, (it is an MMO after all) like realms compete against each other for the benefit of the entire server and there are numerous game types to do battle. Fury probably won't defeat the big MMOs out there because that's not what it's designed to do. The game is looking to give a solid PvP experience in an MMO environment, with a dash FPS elements -- to that end it succeeds. For MMO players who mostly play PvP it would definitely be worth checking out the beta later this month.

One of the biggest complaints we heard from people while talking at the E3 summit was the new format. Though the smaller size was beneficial to playing the games and talking to developers, the hotel suites (and particularly Barker Hanger) were too spread out and we lost hours of productivity each day taking shuttles from one locale to the next.

Today we received an attendee survey asking for our thoughts on how E3 was handled this year. A few questions in particular caught our eye:

• Of the following options, in what city would you most like to see the next Summit held? (Options include Santa Monica, San Diego, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles)
• Do you prefer to see the Summit held in a multiple hotel setting like it was this year, or in a convention-center type/larger facility setting?
• Of the following options, in which month would you most like to see the next Summit take place? (Options include May through August)
• If you didn't visit Barker Hangar (or Fairmont Hotel), why not?
  

The previously-mentioned Barker Hanger and Fairmont Hotel were the farthest away from the cluster of close by hotels where events were taken place; it should also be noted that Fairmont was the only place with a press center and reliable WiFi. While this writer may be in the minority for wanting the conference to return to his hometown in Atlanta, Georgia, we're pretty sure most would agree that whatever option will reduce travel time would be optimal.

The funniest part of the GameDaily.biz interview with Peter Moore is that he knows the Xbox is biting the big one in Japan, but he points out that Sony "crumbling" in Japan against the Wii is just more delicious. Moore says he planned for an uphill battle in Japan -- actually it's more like a flat-faced vertical mountain battle, having only sold 122, 565 Xbox 360s this year -- but he believes Sony never expected to fail in Japan like they have.

Moore points out that Sony keeps talking about this 10-year plan without ever explaining what that means. He says, "I'm not sure what their 10-year plan is ... It's like they just said, 'We have a 10-year plan' [and that's it]." Moore isn't talking 10-year plans but he expects the Xbox to live longer than the original's four years. He says Sony can have all the plans they like, but the key is getting to the "mass market with price points [that matter]," which Moore says Microsoft is a lot closer to being able to do. Yes, that certainly sounds like allusion to an incoming price drop.