Tag: Industry - Page 14
News Pokémon Rumble Developer Ambrella Has Been Acquired And Dissolved By Creatures Inc.
What's next for the series?
Ambrella, the Japanese studio behind a number of spin-off Pokémon titles, has been fully acquired by Creatures Inc., it's been confirmed. Pokémon fans will know Ambrella for its work on the Pokémon Rumble series, GameCube's Pokémon Channel, and N64's Hey You, Pikachu! among other titles in the franchise, but 2019's...
News Get Ready For More Remasters From Activision Blizzard In 2021
What might be making a comeback?
Video game powerhouse Activision Blizzard has been banking big bucks for some time now thanks to a number of remasters. We've seen the return of IP like Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater from Activision's side, while Blizzard has chipped in with titles such as Warcraft III: Reforged - that one obviously...
News Nintendo Is "Rigorously Responding" To Demand For Multiple Switch Consoles Per Household
Investors believe the Switch could overtake the Wii's lifetimes sales
We've gotten a few pieces of information about Nintendo's recent financial results this week. Having published 2020's nine month figures on Monday, the Q&A session between Nintendo President Shuntaro Furakawa and numerous investors has also been released. It's brought up...
News Nintendo Will Discuss Upcoming Switch Games "At The Appropriate Time"
But we can expect "a variety of software titles"
No one can deny Nintendo's had a hugely successful 2020. With operating profits up by 98%, Animal Crossing: New Horizons reaching 31 million sales and an
News Ori Director Apologises For Previous Criticism Of Fable, No Man's Sky And Cyberpunk Developers
"I realize I wasn't thoughtful in the way I presented my thoughts"
Thomas Mahler's been making the news this week. The Game Director for Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps offered some strong criticisms of "snake oil salesmen" on Wednesday via
News ZeniMax Founder Robert A. Altman Has Died
RIP Robert A. Altman, 1947-2021
Bethesda announced on Twitter today the passing of their founder and CEO, Robert A. Altman. "He was a true visionary, friend, and believer in the spirit of people and the power of what they could accomplish together," they said in the tweet, with an attached statement that said they are "proud to carry on the values...
$100 million is being split across 40 studios
It's a big day for indie game fans, as games fund company Kowloon Nights dedicates $100 million (£73.2m) towards 23 upcoming and unannounced titles. The studios that will receive a portion of that one hundred million dollars include Thunder Lotus (Spiritfarer), Night School Studios (Oxenfree,...
News Square Enix Reports Increased Annual Sales, Despite Individual Game Losses
33% increase in net sales reported
2020 held mixed fortunes for Square Enix. Whilst Switch users received some enjoyable experiences with Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory and Trials of Mana, they had a rocky time with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition. On rival platforms,
News Ori Director Criticises "Snake Oil Salesmen" Behind No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk, And Fable
"From the perspective of a developer, all of this just sucks"
Thomas Mahler, the Game Director of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, took to gaming forum ResetEra earlier today to get something off his chest. He's tired of "snake oil salesmen" (as he calls them) getting hyped up by the games press and consumers, and then...
News Swedish Company Embracer Buys Borderlands Dev Gearbox For $1.35 Billion
Embracer also owns THQ Nordic and Koch Media
Embracer is on track to becoming the Tencent of Scandinavia, having already added THQ Nordic and Koch Media to its portfolio of games studios, and now expanding even further with the acquisition of Gearbox Studios. Gearbox, the makers/publishers of Borderlands, Battleborn, Bulletstorm,
News Cloud Gaming Service Google Stadia Shuts Down Internal Development Studios
Will instead focus on supporting partners
While cloud gaming appears to be slowly becoming a thing, today it's experienced a minor setback. Google's cloud-based service Stadia has officially closed its internal studios and will no longer be developing in-house games moving forward. In fact, it never even got a game out the door. Kotaku was the...
News Ring Fit Adventure Might Be The Best-Selling New JRPG Of This Generation
Yes, it's a JRPG. Search your feelings, you know it to be true
Kids who grew up in the '90s fondly remember Final Fantasy and Pokémon as their first JRPGs. Kids who grew up in the 2000s might have nostalgic feelings over Dragon Quest, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, or Persona. Apparently, children born in the last few years will one day recall
News GameStop Founder Comments On The Reddit Frenzy, Says It's An "Honor" To Be Chosen
Reddit users reportedly reply "stonks!! 🚀🚀🚀 💎🙌"
So, it turns out that the son of one of the founders of GameStop has been on r/wallstreetbets this whole time, watching the saga unfold. If you need a primer on what exactly we're talking about here, go read our coverage - we'll wait. Ben Kusin, the Redditor in question, is one of the...
News Sony's MLB The Show Is No Longer A PlayStation Exclusive, But Where's The Switch Version?
Update: Xbox edition confirmed, but no sign of a Nintendo edition
Update: It's official, Sony is publishing a game on the Xbox, with MLB The Show 21 coming to the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Xbox One in April. This isn't massively shocking as it was pr
News Nintendo's Raises Revenue Forecast For The Financial Year, Expects To Hit $5.34 Billion Profit
Operating profits have increased by 98%
We're hearing some impressive figures from Nintendo's latest financial report this morning. It's brought us news that Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold over 31 million copies and how the Switch has finally
News Animal Crossing Leads Switch Software Sales With 19.4 Million Copies Sold In The Last 9 Months
29 million-selling Switch games this financial year so far
Nintendo has released its financials for the third quarter of the current fiscal year and the latest results have revealed that twenty-nine Switch games have sold over a million copies in the last nine months. Of this list of million-sellers, twenty of them are published by the platform...
News Microsoft Was Simply Exploring "Every Angle" When It Approached Nintendo About A Buyout
"it wasn't like we had to make a long trip to go see them"
Earlier this month, Bloomberg ran a story about how Microsoft attempted to buy out Nintendo many years ago. EA, at the time, apparently told Microsoft it had "no clue" how to make a console, while Nintendo supposedly thought Microsoft's proposal was hilarious, according to Xbox's former...
News GameStop Price Tanks As Trading Apps Block Users From Buying More Shares
And you thought the Stalk Market was bad
It's all kicking off in the most exciting thing to happen to the stock market since the invention of money. As we reported yesterday, the price of GameStop shares skyrocketed over the last few days, as investors on Reddit disrupted the plans of many hedge fund managers by screwing up their plans to make a...
News What Exactly Is Going On With GameStop's Stock Prices?
People are making millions of dollars because of a Reddit meme
To cut a long story short, Reddit is trying to bankrupt hedge fund managers for the lols. Basically, a bunch of investors bet on GameStop stock crashing - which it probably would have done, considering how the chain has been suffering during the pandemic and, in the longer term, due to...
News Hades Takes Game Of The Year At 10th Annual New York Game Awards
Animal Crossing: New Horizons also wins Best Kids Game
Hades has been an undeniable success for Supergiant Games. Coming out of early access last September, we thought this roguelike action RPG was simply incredible – giving it 10/10 stars – and other critics agreed. Having taken Best Indie and Best Action at The Game Award
News Reggie's Joining A Twitch Industry Roundtable With His Former PlayStation And Xbox Rivals
Nintendo Of America's former president to chat with Jack Tretton and Robbie Bach
Reggie Fils-Aimé might not be Nintendo of America's president anymore, but he's kept himself pretty busy since stepping down in 2019. Popping up between Rogue Games, Brunswick Corporation,
"Klei retains full autonomy of creative and operations"
Following on from Vicarious Visions merging with Blizzard, it's now been announced Chinese video game giant Tencent - known for titles like League of Legends and Clash of Clans - will acquire a "majority stake" in Klei Entertainment. If you're not familiar with this Canadian-based developer,...
Random Gabe Newell Says Shigeru Miyamoto's Games Made Him A Better Developer
Of course they did
One industry leader that's never released a video game on a Nintendo platform is the American developer and publisher Valve. Despite this, the company's founder, Gabe Newell, is still a big fan of Mario's creator. In a recent interview with outlet 1 News, Newell was asked if he still regularly played games himself and took a...
News Tingle's Designer Takaya Imamura Has Parted Company With Nintendo
Also known for his work on Star Fox and F-Zero
Nintendo has created a lot of weird and wonderful characters over the years, but one of the standouts is Tingle. The recurring character, who first started out in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask on the Nintendo 64, was designed by Takaya Imamura. Today, this same veteran Nintendo staffer - who was...
News Next Level Games Is Seeking Talented Team Players For Future Nintendo Projects
"please connect with us"
At the start of this month, Nintendo announced it was buying the Canadian developer Next Level Games. Now that the studio is becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nintendo, it appears to be on somewhat of a hiring spree - as over the past week it's apparently relisted multiple jobs, originally posted last December. It's...
News Star Wars Video Games Join Forces Under Lucasfilm Games
The beginning of a "new era"
Lucasfilm Games will now be the "official identity" of all Star Wars video game releases from Lucasfilm moving forward. Lucasfilm's legacy in the video game industry obviously stretches back decades. With Star Wars entering a "new and unprecedented phase of creativity", Lucasfilm Games will be developed in collaboration...
News Fire Emblem: Three Houses Voice Actor Brad Venable Has Passed Away
Voice acting community pays tribute
It's been revealed the voice actor Brad Venable has passed away at 43 years of age. No cause of death was announced. Venable was credited on movies, television shows, anime and video games, and was perhaps best known within the Nintendo community in recent times for voicing Nader and Kostas in Fire Emblem: Three...
News Mario Party's Developer NDcube Is Recruiting For A New Project
What's on the way?
It's a new year and that means brand new Switch games are likely already being planned out by Nintendo's first-party devs. With this in mind, NDcube - the developer of Super Mario Party and Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics - has shared a recruitment brochure for 2021, and it appears to be hiring for a new game. Here's a...
News Nintendo "Laughed Their Asses Off" At Microsoft's Buyout Offer
You say Halo, I say goodbye
We love a good oral history, and Bloomberg's latest is all about the Xbox. Wait, come back! It's still Nintendo Life, don't worry, we haven't changed teams. It turns out that Microsoft had big plans back when the Xbox was in development, and those plans involved trying to buy out a bunch of gaming companies. Long story...
Random Tekken Director Thinks His New Game Might Be Bandai Namco's Most Expensive Project Ever
And it may not even be a fighter
During a New Year live stream, Bandai Namco Tekken 7 director Katsuhiro Harada mentioned how he was quite possibly working on the Japanese company's "most costly development project" ever. Harada himself can't even believe the higher-ups within the company gave it the green light. Here's the translation, courtesy of...
Random Edge Magazine Is Teasing A "World Exclusive"
Update: It's Hollow Knight: Silksong and we've got new details
Update 2 [Sat 2nd Jan, 2021 04:45 GMT]: The anticipated issue of Edge spotlighting Hollow Knight: Silksong is now available. A post over on ResetEra has shared some of the highlights. Unfortunately, there's still no release date, so keep an eye out for that in the future. There are some...
News Koei Tecmo Shuts Down Official Websites After Being Hit By Cyber Attack
Details of around 65,000 accounts leaked
Koei Tecmo's official websites have been temporarily closed after the European branch was hit by a cyber attack. In a press release issued on 29th December, Koei Tecmo confirmed forum login details of about 65,000 accounts had been leaked. This includes account names, passwords (in an encrypted state) and...
News Take A Look At This Neat Visualisation Of Nintendo's Console Sales
We like statistics best when they're wiggly
Nintendo has had a lot of ups and downs as a company, from its 20th century beginnings in the console market to its 2017 release, the Nintendo Switch (which some of you may have heard of). It doesn't seem that long ago that we were writing sad news pieces on the Wii U, or reminiscing over the 3DS now that...
News Nordisk Games Acquires 40% Of Metroid: Samus Returns Developer MercurySteam
"we are entering a new era of consolidation and growth"
Denmark-based company Nordisk Games has announced it has acquired 40% of the Spanish-based developer MercurySteam. MercurySteam is best-known in recent years for its outstanding 2017 3DS release, Metroid: Samus Returns. It's also previously worked on series like Castlevania, including the 2013...
News Get Serious About Fun With A Nintendo Of America Internship
18 positions are up for grabs
Ever wanted to work at Nintendo? Nintendo of America is currently advertising a page of internships on its careers website. At the time of writing, there are a total of 18 job openings - with the majority located at Nintendo of America's headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Two other positions are located in Redwood...
Random Epic Games Apparently Still Needs Your Help To "Free Fortnite"
"Spread the word"
Back in August, Epic Games declared war with Apple (and Google), when the tech giants removed Fortnite from their stores for violating the terms of service. In case you forgot, Epic introduced a more direct way to pay in its battle royale game - essentially bypassing the payment system on these digital stores. Epic followed this...
Random RE4 Director Was Worried About PlayStation And Xbox's Future, So He Did A Deal With Nintendo
A scary thought
Capcom director, Shinji Mikami, this year celebrates his 30th anniversary in the video game industry. To mark this special occasion, he's done a lengthy interview with Variety discussing everything under the sun about his long-running career. During one section, he reflects on Resident Evil 4, which as you might recall, was...
News The Game Awards GOTY Is The Last Of Us Part 2
Animal Crossing wins best family game award
The Game Awards has just wrapped up for another year and the winner is the PlayStation exclusive The Last of Us Part 2. Although Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold more than 26 million units and been labelled a "phenomenon" since its release in March, it seems it still wasn't enough for it to take out...
News Former NoA President Reggie Returns To The Game Awards As A Presenter
Streaming live on December 10
Although Reggie Fils-Aimé has moved on from Nintendo, he's still got plenty of ties with the video game industry. With this in mind, he'll be returning once again to The Game Awards as a presenter. While there's no word on what he'll be presenting, we do know he'll be appearing alongside various other presenters such...
News Geoff Keighley Shares "Hype Trailer" For The Game Awards 2020
"this is our December"
Next week, marks the final presentation on the gaming calendar - The Game Awards hosted by the one and only Geoff Keighley. Ahead of the big event, the man himself has "personally edited" a special "hype trailer" to well...get everyone hyped about next week's live stream taking place on 10th December. Here it is in all its...
News Square Enix Launches Permanent Work-From-Home Program Next Month
"80% of employees to be home based"
2020 has been a year like no other - with pretty much the entire tech and video game industry required to work from home during the height of the pandemic. With this in mind, Square Enix - publishing upcoming releases like Balan Wonderworld and the recently revealed NEO: The World Ends With You - has announced it...
News Microsoft Won't Be Taking Bethesda's Games Away From Nintendo Platforms
But wants to offer "best" experience on its own platforms
There have been some concerns about the future of Bethesda games on certain other platforms since the third-party video game giant responsible for the likes of Doom and The Elder Scrolls series was acquired by Microsoft in September. Fortunately, there's no need to worry (at
News Police Find No Threat At Ubisoft Montreal After Hoax Emergency Call
Building safely evacuated
A reported hostage situation at Ubisoft Montreal appears to have been started by a hoax emergency call. Police say "no threat has been identified for now" and have evacuated the building. This all started local time early afternoon on Friday when news began circulating about police evacuating Montreal’s Mile-End...
News Sega Asks 650 Employees To 'Voluntarily Retire', Cuts Executive Salaries
Expects to record 10bn yen in extraordinary losses
Following this week's news that Sega Sammy is set to sell the majority of its shares in Sega Entertainment, the company has now announced that it is asking 650 employees to 'voluntarily retire' and will slash the salaries of top executives. The company, formed by a merger of both Sega and Sammy in...
News Capcom Caught Up In Cyber Attack, 1TB Of Sensitive Data Allegedly Stolen
Uh-oh!
The Japanese video game giant Capcom - best known for series like Street Fighter, Mega Man and Monster Hunter - is the latest victim of a cyber attack. The group claiming responsibility has reportedly stolen about 1TB of sensitive data. This is said to include visa records of employees, banking details of customers, and "proprietary business...
News Sega Sammy Set To Sell Majority Of Sega Entertainment
Game over, man
It's been a rough year for Sega Sammy, and as a result of some "extraordinary losses" due to the impacts of coronavirus, it will sell the majority of its shares in Sega Entertainment to Japanese amusement rental firm, Genda - a company with a "strong desire" to expand the arcade sector in Japan. Speaking to shareholders earlier...
News Professor Layton Dev Level-5 Has No Plans For Future Games Outside Of Japan, Says Report
North American operations 'virtually halted'
Level-5, the studio behind titles such as Professor Layton, Ni No Kuni, Yo-Kai Watch and Inazuma Eleven, has 'virtually halted its operations in North America' according to a new report.
Caught in the crossfire
Epic's Apple lawsuit could have "significant and serious ramifications" for platform holders like Nintendo, a judge has warned. After its battle royale juggernaut Fortnite was removed from the App Store in August for violating terms and conditions, Epic called out Apple for taking 30% of the cut from developers and declared...
News The Game Awards 2020 Takes Place This December Without A Live Audience
To be streamed from three cities
Annual gaming ceremony The Game Awards will return for 2020, it's been confirmed. The show is set to take place on 10th December as an all-digital event. This year's event will actually be streamed live from three different cities – Los Angeles, London and Tokyo – and will be shown across 45 global video...
News Rayman Creator Michel Ancel Announces Retirement From The Games Industry
After more than 30 years
Game development legend Michel Ancel, best known as the creator of the Rayman series, has announced his retirement from the industry today. Ancel shared the news on his personal Instagram account, telling fans that he's decided to stop working on games to focus on his second passion, wildlife. "My new project takes place in...