Industry Gossip News, Industry Gossip Features

Troubling tales regarding Warren Spector's studio

Various reports have been circulating around the internet in the past couple of hours saying that Warren Spector's Junction Point has been suffering some problems, with the development studio being closed down by Disney. A tweet originating from Roberts Space Industries sparked the chatter, but it...

25 employees given the dreaded pink slip

There was sad news this week in Hoffman Estates, IL as High Voltage Software joined the ranks of other several other development studios in reducing their headcount. 25 employees were laid off according to IGN. Here’s what the HVS representative had to say on the matter: I can confirm that High Voltage Software has reduced some of our staffing based on..

Developer interview hints that the series is far from over

When Retro Studios put the finishing touches to Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, it stated that it would be the final game in the series. The announcement of Metroid: Other M - which is being handled by Tecmo's Team Ninja - seemed to confirm this, despite the recent repackaging of all three Prime games in Metroid Prime Trilogy. However, in a..

That's fightin' talk where I come from!

In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America Peter Dille and SCEA Corporate Communications Manager Julie Han let fly with what is likely to become a near-legendary series of quotes: JH: The other point, I think, to what Peter said earlier, is...

Government website falls victim to satirical prank

The website of Australia's Classification Board has been hacked by an unknown individual in opposition to plans to "control and sheepify the nation". The site's regular introductory text was replaced with a satiricial message likening the Board's conduct to that of the Chinese government and threatening the Board's critics with death by..

With the popularity of digital downloads at an all-time high, it should come as no surprise that governments are beginning to look at ways to tax them.

The State of Wisconsin just recently signed a bill into law that allows for a 5% tax on all digital downloads spanning music, books, ring tones, and even video games. The state expects to rack up nearly 7 million dollars yearly from the tax once the..

Capcom occassionally makes a blog post about their upcoming VC games - They've done it again today for Mercs. The game was already rated by various rating boards ages ago (And released in Japan not so long ago), so it's nice to finally see it released on VC in the US and Europe.

What's interesting is that the blog post also says they have renamed the game. As you might be aware, Mercs is actually..

Highly respected Japanese developer Treasure has spoken about the Virtual Console service in a recent interview with 1up.com.

President Masato Maegawa said he was pleased with the commercial performance of titles like Gunstar Heroes and Sin & Punishment, but was sad to see that so few people had downloaded Dynamite Headdy – a game which holds...

At a press conference in Japan today, not only did Nintendo announce a barrage of new DS/Wii games and a new DS, they also announced something Wii fans have been wanting for a long time - A storage solution!

Sadly, it's not a hard drive like many people assumed. Instead, you'll be able to directly download games to SD cards. At the moment, the only...

Nintendo has just unveiled details of a new handheld console called the DSi.

But before you get too excited and spill your Sunny D all over the keyboard, it’s worth noting that it’s essentially a DS with slight modifications rather an all-new machine. Improvements include larger screens (3.25 inches, up from 3 inches), two cameras (both 0.3...

Way back in April we reported that Capcom’s Ben Judd stated that the NES version of Bionic Commando would not be coming to the Virtual Console.

Not content to leave it there, that old chestnut has been raised again as Bionic Commando Rearmed is due on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC soon. Here’s what he had to say on the subject in...

WAAAAY back in the mists of time we reported that Nintendo was looking to bring Rare’s N64 classic Goldeneye to the Virtual Console.

Soon afterwards it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen, and to make matters worse, it looked as if Rare’s new owners might bring the game to their 360 console via the Xbox Live Arcade service, albeit in...

Boy, Monday was a real bummer, wasn’t it? There we all were, waiting in feverish expectation for the impending triple-whammy of Mega Man, Ys Book 1 & 2 and Samurai Showdown II, as we had previously been promised by the respective publishers of these games. Then Nintendo pulled the rug from beneath us and released Sonic and Splatterhouse II instead.

Feeling a sense of duty to the legions of..

Following Monday’s US Virtual Console release debacle, Nintendo has responded to enquiries about how three different publishers were issuing statements claiming that their games would be coming out on the 4th, only for Nintendo to release two entirely different games instead.

Speaking to GoNintendo, the company had this to say: A number of...

Since the very beginning of VC Reviews we have rounded up the latest games which should be headed to the Virtual Console on our coming soon list so you have the inside scoop on what games are coming up.

One of the primary ways we do this is by checking game content ratings on the ESRB website. Basically if a game doesn’t get rated there then it won’t be coming out in North America. It has been..

A recent press release from Nintendo makes interesting reading. In addition to news that the company's fortunes continue to soar there was also an interesting bit of information from company president Satoru Iwata in regards to the hot topic of the Wii's limited flash memory:

Q6 I am personally enjoying WiiWare and Virtual Console but feel Wii’s...

Interestingly the Wii finally went on sale in South Korea for the first time yesterday on the 26th April. This wouldn’t normally be a news item for us but with the Wii launch comes a whole new Virtual Console region with different prices!

Let’s take a look at the launch games as listed on the Korean Nintendo site: Famicom / NES (400 Wii...

As you might know, videogame forum NeoGAF is quite popular among people in the industry - Various videogame developers and publishers post there. One individual, called Turrican, claims he works at Factor 5, and has given some information on Turrican's VC future in NeoGAF's Virtual Console thread.

First up, if you downloaded Super Turrican, you might've noticed the operations guide has a whole list..

An update is now available to allow Wii users to use the BBC's iPlayer on their Wii console via the Internet Channel. The BBC said a message would be sent to Wii owners to alert them to its availability. This appears to be for the United Kingdom only at present.

The BBC's iPlayer video service will soon be available via the Nintendo Wii. The video download and streaming service that lets people..