“On Tuesday May 21^st, we’ll mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment. On that day, we’ll be holding a special press event on the Xbox campus and we invite you to join us via the live global stream that will be available on Xbox.com, Xbox LIVE and broadcast on Spike TV if you are in the US or Canada.

“On that day, we’ll share our vision for Xbox, and give you a real taste of the future. Then, 19-days later at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, we’ll continue the conversation and showcase our full lineup of blockbuster games.

“We are thrilled to pull back the curtain and reveal what we’ve been working on.”

The post is accompanied by a countdown clock to the reveal.

“We just discovered that there is an issue which requires that we push back our Xbox Live arcade game release date a little.  We’ve already submitted an update to Microsoft to fix the problem, and as soon as we know that the issue is fixed we’ll have a new release date.  I know our fans have been waiting a long time for the game, and hopefully they’ll have the patience to wait just a little while longer.  What’s mine will be yours very, very soon!”

It doesn’t seem that the PC version of the game will be affected by the issue and will be released on Steam later today as expected.

Source: Official Facebook Page

It notes that, according to the ESA, 47% of FIFA gamers are female and  that over 40% of soccer players in the US are female. It also says that it would benefit young girls by given them positive gender role models in the sport.

“By offering just men’s teams as playable options on FIFA we’re not only denying these girls a chance to relate to the characters they play on a videogame, but we’re also wasting a great opportunity to encourage those same girls to be who they are, develop their passion, motivation and promote a healthy image and relation between women and sports.”

As of writing, the petition is about halfway to reaching its goal of 12,489 signatures. You can read the petition on Change.org here.

Source: Gameranx

Eden Studios was founded in 1998, renamed as Eden Games in 2003. They were bought out by Infograme (now consolidated into Atari, SA) in 2002 for over $4.1 million.

The developer had been in trouble for almost two years and staff went on strike in 2011 after Atari let 80 employees go. Last year, Atari stated that they were looking to divest the studio.

Their most recent release was Test Drive Unlimited 2 in February 2011. It launched to a mixed reception and achieved a Metacritic average of 70/100. Technical issues were cited as the main cause of its poor performance.

RIP Eden Games. 1998-2013

Source: Eurogamer

NeoGAF user Hobby found via the official Japanese Nintendo website.

Nintendo hope to end the services on June 28th.

• “Weather Channel”
• “Digicam Print Channel”
• “News Channel”
• Channel “vote with everyone”
• “Everyone’s Nintendo Channel”

• “Mii Contest Channel”
• Data exchange with Wii Friends in the “WiiConnect24″
  Can not be exchanged in the Mii channel “portrait”, Wii message exchange in the “Message Board Wii”, the exchange of messages and data in some game titles.

They don’t specify why they’re terminating these services but the release is filled with thank-yous and apologies about having to end the service.

Last week, we reported that Harmonix took down the Rock Band and Dance Central websites due to an attack on the developer’s servers. Today, Harmonix announced that the websites are back online.

As a precautionary measure, Harmonix disabled passwords for every account and states that it is safe to reset your passwords for the sites. There is still no word as to who commenced the attack, though Harmonix assures users that, as of now, there have not been any signs of user information being published or misused.

So, if the reports are accurate, we’ll have to wait about 6 weeks to find out the real information on the next Xbox and if rumours of an “always-online” connection are true.

In maybe-related news, Microsoft sold their Mediaroom IPTV business to Ericsson today and Microsoft Vice President Yusuf Mehdi wrote in a blog:

“With the sale of Mediaroom, Microsoft is dedicating all TV resources to Xbox in a continued mission to make it the premium entertainment service that delivers all the games and entertainment consumers want – whether on a console, phone, PC or tablet.”

This would leave us to believe that they’re hedging all bets on Xbox TV and we can expect even more multimedia features in the future on Microsoft’s consoles.

Source: The Verge

The email reads:

We’re sending you this message because you have an account on RockBand.com, DanceCentral.com, and/or Creators.RockBand.com. We are investigating an apparent attack on our servers that we detected this week.

The security of your Harmonix user information is very important to us. We’ve taken the sites down while we investigate this incident and determine how our systems and the information we maintain may have been compromised. At this time, we have not found that any of our users’ information has been published or misused. None of our sites maintain any credit card information, social security numbers, or financial account numbers for any of our users.

As a precaution, we have disabled your Harmonix password. We’ll send you a notification when the sites are back up. When you log back in, we will require all users to reset their passwords. If you have been using your old Harmonix password on other sites, we recommend that you change those passwords too.

We’re sorry for this inconvenience. Stay tuned to Harmonix on Facebook and Twitter for further updates.

Orth got into a bit of an exchange with BioWare’s Manveer Heir over the viability of an “always online” games console. The tweets led to an explosion of rumours and speculation over the possibility that Microsoft’s next generation console could be restricted to being always connected to the internet. Orth’s position at the company was seen to add weight to the theories by many.

This evening, Microsoft issued the following official statement via Larry Hryb regarding the tweets:

“We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers.  We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product roadmap, and have no further comment on this matter.”

So while it’s not a denial that the console will require an always on connection, it’s certainly an indication that Microsoft is taking the contentious issue very serious.

The four new maps include Vertigo, Encore, Magma and Studio and the add-on also includes a “zombie adventure” called “Mob of the Dead”.

Regarding the maps: Vertigo takes place in a futuristic high-rise in India, Encore is set in the aftermath of a London music festival, Magma is a Japanese village beside an active and menacing volcano, and Studio is an updated version of Firing Range from the original Black Ops.

The zombie content is set in Alcatraz prison during prohibition years, features new guns, and voice work from Ray Liotta, Chazz Palminteri, Joey Pantoliano and Michael Madsen.

You can expect to pay 1200 Microsoft Points for the DLC or it will be free if you’ve already purchased the season pass. The content should be on PC and April in mid-May.

Source: The Examiner, Official Web Site

Sad news today for LucasArts’ game developers as Disney, who recently bought the company, have decided to close the 31-year-old studio. The studio was behind development of such classics as The Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle as well as recently beginning development on Star Wars 1313, which may be saved by outsourcing production.

Disney told Game Informer:

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games,”

It’s thought that around 150 staff will be affected by the closure.

It hasn’t been a good few months for OP Productions, developers of The War Z – First, the game was removed from Steam for false advertising and now MCV is reporting that the game and forum have been taken down after a database hack.

It appears that the infiltrators made off with email addresses and encrypted passwords. Payment information is handled by a third-party and not The War Z service so was not accessed by this attack.

“We are issuing this Security Alert to all Survivors as a precaution so you can take some precautionary measures on your own…

“The security of your data is important to us and we want our players to be assured that we take this situation very seriously. We have taken steps to improve security to minimize the chance of this happening in the future and will continue to invest in improving security going forward.” – Offical Statement

You can read the full official statement here.

At the 2013 Game Developers Conference, Epic showed off their Unreal Engine 4 using the “Infiltrator” tech demo, which you can view below. It looks really purdy but it’s not just another rendered video. At the GDC presentation, Epic claimed that it was running in real-time and, to prove it, they switched between filters and effects on-the-fly.

While the video may not mean much to most gamers, it’s worth bearing in mind that the engine could be what’s powering a lot of games for the next generation.

That’s the case on most next generation systems but, unfortunately for Wii U developers, Epic’s VP Mark Rein said that UE4 won’t run on Nintendo’s latest machine, that “if you want to make a Wii U game, we have Unreal Engine 3, and it’s powering some of the best games on the Wii U already”.

It was already announced by DICE that the Frostbite 3 engine, used to develop Battlefield 4, won’t run on Wii U either.

So, for gamers, it could potentially mean that a lot of our favourite games won’t see ports to Wii U.

Source: Joystiq

EA announced today that Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 14 and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 14:The Masters Historic Edition have shipped in North America and will be available worldwide starting on March 29. Both editions pay homage to golf’s rich history and legendary golfers through an all new game mode, Legends of the Majors featuring six different eras of golf and period specific equipment, night golf and for the first time in franchise history the chance to go for the Grand Slam by playing historical events in all four majors.

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14 has generated early accolades by enthusiast press. According to @Gamer Magazine, “EA clearly isn’t resting on its laurels, despite the knowledge that it’ll sit atop the leaderboards for another year.” The game is available on the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, including support for the Kinect™ for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation®Move.

“We wanted to celebrate the world of golf in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14 and give gamers and golf fans a chance to learn about the amazing legacy of the sport of golf through legendary players and iconic moments in majors history,” said Brent Nielsen, Executive Producer of Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14. “We are excited for gamers to start taking down legends and earn their seat at the table of golf’s greatest players.”

Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14 also features 20 on-disc championship courses, over 35 playable golfers representing both the PGA TOUR and LPGA, deep and innovative online connected experiences and a host of community-driven gameplay enhancements that closely mirror what a PGA TOUR golfer sees out on the course.

In addition to all the content available in Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 14: The Masters Historic Edition allows gamers to step back in time and experience the 1934 layout of famed Augusta National Golf Club, its famous Par 3 Course, Augusta National Golf Club’s Tournament Practice Facility, an authentic Green Jacket Ceremony, as well as four additional championship courses for a total of 25.

The Game is out in Ireland this Friday

Australian developer Straight Right have reportedly been co-working with Square Enix studio Eidos Montreal to bring the game the Wii U. Straight Right were also behind the Wii U version of Mass Effect 3, so you know it’s in good hands.

Eidos Montreal say that this is the “ultimate edition of the game” and will feature a number of improvements over the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions including better AI, combat and boss battles. The visuals have also been improved on and MiiVerse integration added. Developer commentary, Wii U Gamepad features and in-game guides have been included too.

As for a release date, the original Amazon listing has it down as May 7th for North America.

]]> http://www.techtv101.com/games-reviews_deus-ex-human-revolution-release-announced-for-wii-u/feed 0 http://www.techtv101.com/features_xbox-ent-awards-site-hit-by-security-breach http://www.techtv101.com/features_xbox-ent-awards-site-hit-by-security-breach#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:20:37 +0000 Mick Techtv101 http://www.techtv101.com/?p=22139

Image courtesy of MCVUK

Microsoft has this morning been hit by a security breach of its Xbox Entertainment Awards 2013 service.

The Website MCV was contacted by a reader with a link to a page that appeared to list all those who had voted and therefore been entered into the prize draw. The data included names, gamertags, emails and birthdays.

Those accessing the site were also free to edit or remove each listing.

For more details and info head on over to the source – MCVuk.com

Great news for the day that’s in it; Ireland’s Team, Epsilon, have won the first ever European Finals of the Call of Duty Championship held at the ESL Headquarters Studio in Cologne. The finals, part of ESports, were held after weeks of online qualifiers and featured 16 teams, 2 from each region in Europe.

Epsilon.IRL beat the UK’s Fariko.Dragons in the final round and took home the €10,000 prize money between them.

Epsilon will now go to the World Finals of the CoD Championship in Hollywood, California, on the 5th to the 7th of April and compete for the grand prize of $1 Million.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Players can now purchase an extra slots pack for 160 msp that adds slots for Create-a-Class, emblems, films and screenshots. Calling card packs that feature flags of the world are also available for 80 msp and are grouped by region.

Community Manager Dan Amrich said:

“At the end of the day, all of these items are completely optional, and were created for players who’ve asked for more customization options…”

Further to these, Activision have also added the Nuketown Zombies map for 400msp and the Nuketown 2025 map is free to all players of the game.

It has been an interesting week for SimCity fans; the new game launched in the US exactly a week ago and in Europe on Friday. While  a lot of clued-in gamers would have expected a small amount of issues with the game, the shear scale of those issues has turned into a large scale PR disaster for EA which garnered frustration as well as becoming the butt of many internet jokes.

Players from day one reported that they couldn’t connect to the online servers required to play the game, while others had wait times of between 30 minutes to 3 hours before they could play. The contentious topic of DRM raised its ugly head and some claimed that the servers weren’t actually necessary for the game to work, saying that they could continue to play when they got disconnected from the servers and that the online part was simply to prevent piracy.

The developer Maxis, on the other-hand, have stated that an offline mode simply isn’t possible with the game as the servers are required to do a lot of calculations to run SimCity. This led onto the topic of game design with many questioning why an offline mode wasn’t built into a game that traditionally has always been a single-player experience.

When the problem of poor game design was brought up, Maxis took full responsibility and General Manager Lucy Bradshaw wrote:

“EA does not force design upon us. We own it, we are working 24/7 to fix it, and we are making progress.”

EA said that the issues arose from a surprisingly high number of sales and people trying to play the game. They also gave away a free Origin game to those affected.

Amazon suspended selling the game until the issues were addressed and Steam decided to cash in on the troubles by offering a sale on many of the SIMilar (see what I did?) games in their library, such as Tropico 4 and Cities XL. (Side note: Tropico 4 is very, very good.)

Maxis promised to improve connections by increasing the server capacity to 120%, which seems to have worked for the most part. Lucy Bradshaw sent out the following PR statement on Sunday to summarise how the game is currently performing:

“I’m happy to report that the core problem with getting in and having a great SimCity experience is almost behind us. Our players have been able to connect to their cities in the game for nearly 8 million hours of gameplay time and we’ve reduced game crashes by 92% from day one. A combination of optimizing our server architecture and response times, deploying these enhancements on both a series of new and the original servers and issuing a few critical client updates has achieved getting virtually everyone into the game and, once in, having a great time building cities and sharing regions.

“I had hoped to issue an “All-Clear” tonight, but there are still some elements coming together. Tonight and tomorrow we’ll be monitoring each server and gameplay metrics to ensure that the service remains strong and game is playing great. We need a few more days of data before we can assure you that the problem is completely solved and the game is running at 100 percent.

“The good news is that tens of thousands of new players are streaming into the game every day and the confidence our fans have shown is truly humbling. I can’t begin to explain the way a development team feels when something you’re proud of is threatened at launch. Our biggest fear was that people who love this franchise would be scared off by bad reviews about the connectivity issues.

“But you put your faith in us. You bought the game with the understanding that we’d quickly fix the server issues. For that support – that incredible commitment from our fans — we are deeply grateful. As the general manager of Maxis, I want you to know that we cherish your faith in us, and the love you’ve shown for this franchise.

“Thank you very much.”

So the latest we have a week after the game launched is that it’s mostly working, let’s hope the Mac version doesn’t suffer the same issues when it’s released in late spring.

“There is more work to do to make sure the retail base is in strong enough shape to take us into the next cycle. It can happen in more than one way. It could happen with a retailer re-entering the space or entering the space for the first time. Or it could be that the existing players extend their portfolio of stores to make sure there are enough game outlets on relevant High Streets. We certainly don’t want to see us become an online-only market.”

Asked about digital sales in the retail market, Gara replied:

“The digital opportunity at retail is in its infancy really. Retailers add huge value by creating communities of gamers, and being the place for people to come and hang-out with like-minded people. But also they can do things that we can’t do, like monetise those that don’t have or want to use credit cards, or want to monitor their use.”

When GAME and HMV left the Irish market recently, it left us with very few competitors in the retail space for gamers to choose between, so we can only hope that Sony’s expectations for the PS4 come true.

You can read the full interview with MCV UK here.