The stories for this week:
- E3 Next Week
- Batman: Arkham Asylum Redated to August 25th
- Kojima's Next Project
- Midway Selling All Assets, But Developers Are Not Termed "Assets"
- Dearth of News This Week
E3 Next Week
The spectacle is back, possibly to its old ways. After playing around for 2 years having it in a Santa Monica hanger and at various LA hotels in 2007 and at the Convention Center last year (but much more contained and invite only), we’re back to possible E3 2006 levels. Man, those were the days. Best question before it even starts is whether the ESA members are going to want to continue on this way or not.
Although Co-Optimus won’t physically be there, Colony of Gamers will be both on the floor and covering the rest at home. Check out the information on our coverage here and Co-Optimus I am sure will be scouring for any co-op news that comes out.
Source: me
Batman: Arkham Asylum Redated to August 25th
In awesome news, the “late summer” date has now changed into August 25th in North America and August 28th in Europe. I know Scott Benton (Psykoboy2) will be playing this game at E3 and I await his impressions on it because I know he is excited about the game as well. GameTrailers also had a video on the PS3 exclusive playable Joker gameplay here
Source: Colony of Gamers via Joystiq
Kojima’s Next Project
Probably the biggest mindscrew out there at the moment is the Kojima NEXT Website that has had ongoing countdowns (that have lead into other countdowns) and evolving weather/images as we go along. We have seen images of Big Boss, Raiden and some mask with a freaky woman behind it. Right now the clock is set to end on Monday at 3pm ET, but Konami doesn’t have its presser until Wednesday at 3pm ET. So, maybe the countdown is to yet another countdown. A game or multiple games will be announced and Scott has a meeting with Konami on Tuesday, maybe if we don’t know by then he’ll know after the meeting.
Source: Kojima NEXT Website
Midway Selling All Assets, But Developers Are Not Termed "Assets"
The Warner $33 million deal is still on the table, but Midway is now looking for more people to bid on their assets. The problem is they don’t consider the development teams as part of said assets. Instead a company would have to go into separate arrangements to buy out developers and take on company debt (buying assets will not carry Midway debt I guess). So, stuff like MK could be sold off, but the development team may not go with it. Crazy!
Source: Joystiq
Dearth of News This Week
Sorry for the lack of news items this week. As usual, the week before E3 the PR departments seem to go into hibernation, probably to constitute themselves before getting bombarded at the LA Convention Center next week. There will be a bunch of news items I’ll have to pick from next week, that should be quite interesting. Even though we had our E3 predictions up, I saw that some of mine didn’t make it over, so I’ll put them here:
1. Alan Wake will finally be shown, hopefully get a release date
2. Splinter Cell: Conviction will be nothing like it was originally
3. Assassin's Creed 2 will get at least a month, if not day of release and will be playable on the floor (in a contained area of the game so as to not allow spoilers)
4. Uncharted 2 will get a release date and more details will be given out (remember, the beta starts while E3 is going on June 3rd)
5. Bungie will most likely show off something else outside of ODST...will they finally break away from Halo as they have promised?
6. No new systems will be announced outside of the rumored PSP revamp
7. Microsoft will show off some surprises since they really haven't announced anything lately
8. Nintendo will give into the hardcore in their presser after they were barbequed last year...or they'll still sit on their perch and present a stupid presser, you never know...but sales are down
9. This is the year of the racing game. FUEL, Split/Second, Blur, a new Burnout (maybe), Forza 3, GRID 2, NFS revamp, etc.
10. God of War III will be given Game of the Show by many outlets and will get a February 2010 release date.
Source: me