Archive for the ‘Spot Check’ Category

Bonus Round at DICE Episode 1 is Live3 Comments

This week The Bonus Round heads to DICE 2009 for a conversation with Mike Snider from USA Today, Alex Evans, co-creator of LittleBigPlanet, and ex-Newsweek journalist N’Gai Croal.  In this first part of our conversation we discuss the state of the console war, get into downloadable content, and even discuss how fans impact game designers via Twitter.  This is a great 4 part discussion with three smart guys in the business. Our discussion about DLC is especially interesting with some real fresh thinking put forward by our panelists.

[Bonus Round at DICE]

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  • PLEASE RESPOND AND SEND ME A STAR TO FAN LETTER, I LOVE GOD OF WAR AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR … More»
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GTTV Heads to DICE for Call of Duty and Resident Evil1 Comment

Make sure to check out this week’s GTTV from the DICE Convention in Las Vegas.  It airs this Friday on Spike.  We have an all-star group of guests and some big exclusives including:

– Todd Howard from Bethesda who chats with us about the success of Fallout 3.  Find out which mini-game was removed from Fallout 3 before release.  Todd also updates up on the next Fallout 3 DLC and shares some exciting news about it.

– The world exclusive first look at the downloadable content for CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR.  We’ll show you three of the maps in action for the first time anywhere. WORLD OF WAR is still topping the Xbox Live charts and fans are going to love the new maps.

– If you’re a fan of Burnout, you’ll definitely want to see the announcement trailer for SPLIT SECOND from Black Rock Studios, the creators of the E3-award winning Pure.  This is another example of GTTV breaking news about a game before it’s even officially announced to the public!

– We’ll debut the first trailer for the sequel to Steven Spielberg’s BOOM BOX on the Wii, entitled BOOM BLOX BASH PARTY.

– We’ve got a brand new trailer for the Wii exclusive first person shooter THE CONDUIT.

– Also, I catch up with id’s Todd Hollenshead about Rage, Doom 4 (or as he corrects me, the game only known as “DOOM”), and Quake Live.  Todd gives some very interesting hints, especially about Doom 4 and confirms when you WON’T be seeing Rage.

– And finally, RESIDENT EVIL 5 producer Takeuchi-san joins me to world premiere a couple boss battles from the game.  You only have a week left to wait.

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  • As always, all the games I care about are in GTTV: Resident Evil 5 and The Conduit. Looking forward to … More»
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Killzone 2: How Is It Selling?2 Comments

Killzone 2

Killzone 2

Ever since E3 2005, gamers have been patiently awaiting the release of PlayStation 3 exclusive Killzone 2.  Now it’s out and has received incredibly positive reviews from critics (amassing a 91 on Metacritic).  But how is it selling compared to say, Halo 3?  And more importantly, is it giving PS3 hardware sales a much needed boost?

I was curious, so I reach out to some retail managers around the country for a highly unscientific poll. The general consensus is that the game is doing well at retail, but isn’t necessarily moving PS3s — at least not yet.

Here’s what I heard:

Killzone 2 did very well. Probably not Halo 3 well, but one of the best selling PS3 games I have seen.”

Without checking I bet I sold less than 2 dozen. Only had a handful of pre-orders, Metal Gear 4 sold 50 copies on pre-order, 2 dozen day one, and 2 people bought PS3s just for the game.”

Killzone sold ALOT. Normal earnings for the past few days saw an increase of 3-5 thousand.”

10 pick ups @ midnight in AZ, needs a little more marketing push from Sony.”

We sold through 90 percent of our reserves in the first 48 hours.”

The real tale of the tape, of course, will come in March when we see the February NPD data.

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  • I'm sure KZ2 would have sold a lot more copies were it available for 360, but I doubt it would … More»
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