Games Industry Wire

Joystiq is reporting that the craze game known as Guitar Hero will be debuting on the Wii platform most likely in early 2008. The announcement however, left open the possibility that the super popular game way move to the portable Nintendo DS. This move would be logical for both Activision, the company behind Guitar Hero, and Nintendo. Not only would it axpand Guitar Hero to another platform which most often means extra profits but it may influece some avid fans of the console based games to give the DS a try.
Here is an except from the statement:
“…In fiscal 2008, we …read more

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The Nintendo Wii will be releasing variants of the console in red and black in the immediate future although no specifics such as dates or quantities were released. This follows most of nintendo recent consoles (think N64 to present) which were offered with varying colors in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience.
I am sure this is just the start of the color releases for the Wii and I would expect to see some others (perhaps a blue) announced soon as well.
(via CrunchGear) 

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In perhaps the oddest combination of a game and a trademark Girls Gone Wild, the TV porn DVD franchise, has lent its moniker to a new pool based game for the PlayStation Portable handheld gaming platform from Sony. According to reports from GameSpot the game will feature multiple variants of pool including 8 ball, 9 ball, and snooker.
So where does GGW fit into all of this? Players of the game will square off against beautiful babes and upon winning video clips and galleries will be unlocked. The game is set to be released in April but the deal appears to …read more

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Dan Aykroyd, one of the actors from the original series of Shosbusters movies has publicly said that he will be lending his voice to a new Ghostbusters game. According to the Edmonton Sun he will not be doing the voice and motion capture until next year which means a late 2008 release for the game is possible but 2009 is probably more likely.
Gamespot, who also reported the news, had expressed doubts over who would be producing the game after videos of a pretty radical game based on the series surface on YouTube. The Edmonton report also revealed that Universal purchased …read more

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Infogrames, the company which owns Atari, is reporting that their sales have fallen 24 percent in the first three quarters of their fiscal year, according to GameSpot. The news is not entirely a surprise. The company is in the midst of a restructuring plan in which some of Atari’s internal studios are being jetisoned and sold.
The U.S. marked accounted for 33% of the sales through their Atari name while Infogrames in Europe accounted for 58%. The U.S. sales dropped 9 percent while European sales are up by 10 percent over last years 48 percent.
The news is surprising given the release of the …read more

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Google, an industry leader in everything advertising, has been expanding its offering in recent months including the long awaited debut of Google’s Audio Ads program. Now it appears Google will be venturing into game advertising.
In-game advertising involves advertising being directly inserted into web-connection games.  This is the next logical step for Google and for the web-based  gaming industry since this is largely a smaller based company operation right now. To get a head start in the new media Google is looking at acquiring AdScape Media which is an already established company in the industry.
This series of moves follows Microsoft’s purchase …read more

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Microsoft is planning on making a game featuring our favorite tv commercial character, the king, the burger king that is. The game will supposedly be a blow-em-up shooter, and a cross between “Halo” and “Destroy all Humans.”
“The games will be created by Microsoft for its popular Xbox systems and will be distributed through its restaurants during a five-week December promotion. They are designed to sell for $3.99 with the purchase of a value meal, a steal for gamers used to paying upward of $60 for a single title.”
I must admit, this is a pretty nifty idea. I don’t mind paying …read more

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It’s a do-over ladies and gents.
Microsoft has officially announced that they’re going to relaunch the Xbox 360 in Japan. The relaunch will take place in late June and may come with different a pricing plan and a different marketing campaign.
Japan was the only country that the Xbox 360 did not sell out at launch. Hmmm… maybe that explains where all the Xbox 360s were at launch in the states.
Is this a surprise? I think not. Microsoft has never had a foothold in the Japanese market, and I think they’ll just be loosing money by doing a relaunch. But, since Bill …read more

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Majesco has rejected an offer from Trinad to purchase 2 million shares. Majesco believes that Trinad is seeking to gain control of the company, and Majesco insists that they have enough capital to continue to operate without that large investment.
In an open letter, Majesco claimed Trinad was “effectively seeking to acquire control of the company without paying any consideration, let alone a control premium, to our shareholders.”
Since Majesco is not in the best financial position but still rejected the offer, that was probably a very hard decision to make.
(Source)

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PCs have always been ahead of consoles in gaming, but with the Xbox 360, Microsoft was on the cutting edge of graphics and hardware. Now, however, Dell has regained the top position with the XPS Renegade. This looks like an amazing pieice of machinery. Here are some of the specs:
* Custom Paint Job from Mike Lavallee
* Signed by Mike Lavallee and Michael Dell
* Quad NVIDIA SLi Technology (Total 2GB of Video Memory) 4 Video Cards!!
* NVIDIA nForce 4 SLi Technology
* Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition Dual Core 955 w/ HT overclocked to 4.26 GHz
* Dual Western Digital “Raptor” 160gig Raid …read more

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