New York, NY – March 26, 2009 — MTV Games, a part of Viacom’s MTV Networks, (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B), Harmonix, the leading developer of music-based games, and distribution partner Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced that the Rock Band® franchise has officially surpassed $1 billion dollars in North American retail sales in 15 months, according to The NPD Group. In addition, over 40 million paid individual songs have been sold via download through the Rock Band® platform furthering its position as the music video game leader in paid song sales and downloadable content with over 600 songs available to date in the Rock Band catalogue.
Originally launched on November 20, 2007, Rock Band is the multi-million unit selling, genre-defining music game platform that allowed music fans and gamers to interact with and discover music like never before by choosing guitar, drums, vocals, or bass to start a band and rock the world. Developed by Harmonix, the world’s premier music video game development company, and published by MTV Games, the Rock Band platform has had a positive impact on the overall promotion and sales of music, benefiting artists included in the game both directly through royalties associated with game sales and indirectly by causing the sale of more songs and albums.
More good news coming out GDC concerning the DSi. At Nintendo GDC panel on the DSi’s design, Project Leader Masato Kuwahara revealed that Nintendo is planning on …
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– Opera Browser – WarioWare Snapped! – Art Style: Aquia – Bird and Beans – No price details yet
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Assault Burning Force Cosmo Gang the Puzzle Cosmo Gang the Video Cyber Sled Dragon Buster Dragon Saber Dragon Spirit Finest Hour Galaga 88 Hopping Mappy Knuckleheads Mabael Land Mappy Numan …
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Best New Debut: LittleBigPlanet Beating out Braid, Sins of a Solar Empire, World of Goo and Soul Bubbles
Best Audio: Dead Space Beating out L4D, MGS4, Gears of War 2
Keynote Details Nintendo DSi News on Eve of Launch
SAN FRANCISCO, March 25, 2009 – Nintendo President Satoru Iwata today revealed surprises for consumers and an expanded palette of video game development opportunities for the industry during his keynote address at the Game Developers Conference. Iwata announced a new storage solution for Nintendo’s Wii™ home console and showed video highlights of a new Nintendo DS™ game from The Legend of Zelda™ franchise.
Video game developers now have expanded opportunities given that worldwide shipments for the Wii system surpassed 50 million units and worldwide shipments for the Nintendo DS franchise are at more than 100 million units. Iwata said, “It is in the power of game developers to invent things that gamers have never seen – or even imagined – before.”
Nintendo also noted several key initiatives that are on the way for consumers, some of which are available at the Nintendo GDC booth.
Nintendo DSi
• The new portable Nintendo DSi system goes on sale in the United States on April 5. For the first six months after launch, consumers who buy the system and connect to the Nintendo DSi Shop will automatically receive 1,000 Nintendo DSi Points, which can be redeemed for downloadable Nintendo DSiWare™ games and applications through the Nintendo DSi Shop. In order to receive the free Nintendo DSi Points, consumers must access the Nintendo DSi Shop by Oct. 5, 2009, and the Nintendo DSi Points can be redeemed at any time after that (wireless broadband access required).
Jeff Mills
Director of Production
Red Fly StudioStars Align (again)
At GDC in March 2007, Red Fly Studio had only been in business for about three months. Studio founders Dan Borth and Kris Taylor knew that we had to start immediately preparing for the future beyond our first title (Mushroom Men). We set out for the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco where we met with the top brass of half a dozen of the biggest game publishers in the industry.
The one publisher who seemed surprisingly uninterested in our demo was Vivendi Universal Games. They sat impatiently through our presentation, and as soon as the standard demo spiel was done, they drew us away from the screen and quickly got to the point. They had a job, and they wanted Red Fly Studio specifically to do it.
Before I left Terminal Reality to help Dan and Kris start Red Fly Studio, I had been part of production on Ghostbusters, the project TRI had been developing in utter secrecy for the previous year. Because of my foreknowledge of the project, the publisher could cut right to the chase: The publisher wanted TRI to focus their entire attention on the Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Ghostbusters without concerning themselves with producing a separate Wii version as well. We were already licensing Terminal Reality’s Infernal Engine to produce Mushroom Men, and our close ties to TRI (Dan and Kris worked there along with me back in 1999) made us ideally suited to produce Ghostbusters for Wii. And it was Ghostbusters, after all: a dream job. Right?
“No way!” came the unanimous response from Red Fly Studio.
If the release date for Ghostbusters had been after Mushroom Men’s release date, then maybe we could have done it. But the publisher required that we ship this new title at the same time as our current project. Pushing a single title to completion is challenging enough, but shipping two titles simultaneously is a monumental undertaking. The veterans at RFS had seen a dozen studios explode by growing too quickly, taking on jobs that they couldn’t handle. We knew better. We sadly but politely declined and bade them farewell, wishing that the timing had been better.
In terms of highlights coming out of this show, I’d say Nintendo’s Iwata keynote is the one that you’ll really want to watch (Jeremy will be live blogging it tomorrow …
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Things are slowly kicking off at this year Game Developers Conference. Tomorrow is when the big fun starts, with Mr. Iwata keynote at 12 pm ET. I …
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Today President Obama and some luck elementary school students made a quick phone call to the astronauts in the international space station. One question that was asked, …
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DISNEY INTERACTIVE STUDIOS ANNOUNCES TOY STORY MANIA!, INSPIRED BY THE DISNEY/PIXAR FEATURE FILM “TOY STORY,” EXCLUSIVELY FOR Wii™
Beloved “Toy Story” Characters and Theme Park Attraction Provide Backdrop for Family-Friendly Carnival-Style Video Game
BURBANK, Calif. – (March 24, 2009) – Disney Interactive Studios today announced Toy Story Mania!, inspired by the Disney/Pixar animated feature “Toy Story,” will be released exclusively for the Wii™ home video game console this fall. Toy Story Mania! showcases an array of entertaining games based on the new Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort attractions, while featuring the iconic characters and humor from the popular Disney/Pixar “Toy Story” franchise.
“The ‘Toy Story’ franchise is a fun, dynamic and heart-warming series containing characters and themes that connect with every age group,” said Craig Relyea, senior vice president of global marketing, Disney Interactive Studios. “Toy Story Mania! combines those popular elements with the unique antics of the new theme park attraction for the ultimate in family entertainment.”
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – March 24, 2009 – Activision and Feld Motor Sports, Inc. announced today the championship round of the Monster Jam: Urban Assault National Tournament, taking place at the Monster Jam® World Finals in Las Vegas’s Sam Boyd Stadium this Saturday, where one of nine finalists will be crowned as the new National Champion. Eight of the nine finalists qualified for an expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas to compete in the Monster Jam: Urban Assault National Tournament by winning their regional qualifiers at Monster Jam events during January and February. The finalists will challenge each other using the Monster Jam: Urban Assault game on Wii™.
The tournament consisted of 16 regional qualifying rounds that began back in January and took place at the top Monster Jam stadiums across the country. Players competed on Wii™ gaming platforms in front of thousands of screaming Monster Jam fans. The eight fastest winners have been awarded expense-paid trips to Las Vegas, where they will compete against each other for the national championship in the Monster Jam World Finals at Sam Boyd Stadium. The winner will become the second Monster Jam Video Game National Champion.
Summary
GDC
– Iwata keynote, only first five minute are allowed to be filmed
– Punch-Out!! Playable
– Thinks looks like a remake
– 10 Characters return
– 3 original characters
– Looks like it plays like the old game
– Calls GAF out for bashing the SNES version
NPD Talk
– House of the Dead Overkill, pretty low
– Laughs at VGchartzzzzzzz
– Looking for MadWorld sales and will post it. Talked with the VP from Sega; they are happy with their first results of the sales of MadWorld
ExciteBots
– Everything you like about Excite Truck, times 10
– Spinbar controls are good
– Randomness makes no sense, but awesome
– Tracks and pieces of levels look identical to first Excite Truck
– Short game, but you keep playing for the S ranks
– Online multiplayer and more stuff they can’t talk about
– Controls are more tight and more responsive
– Don’t know for sure if Excite is at GDC
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