#clips
NBA Jam is known for its zany catchphrases and Tim Kitzrow is best known as the zany announcer delivering them. Asylum got Kitzrow on the phone to deliver seven new lines they wrote. The result is 100 percent fan service. More »
#dealtaku
No snappy puns this time, just a classic, straight up parody of an action movie directed by my good pal Lon Lopez, co-starring my other good pal John - he's the cop getting the crap kicked out of him. More »
#originals
Nearly 50 years after the Bay of Pigs, Cuba's state-run press still seethes with indignation at any U.S. incursion, real or perceived. In a first, the Communist holdout is outraged at a video game. More »
If you've played Fallout 3 or Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, you're actually familiar with Gamebryo, even if you don't know it. It's a studio owned by Emergent Game Technologies, crafting middleware tech for tons of companies like Bethesda and Square Enix, whose biggest claim to fame is its Gamebryo Lightspeed engine, used in "over 350 games so far." And today the studio, along with the rest of Emergent's properties, including its IP (whole or in part), were put up for sale.
The sales of asset notice comes from Gerbsman Partners via a post on the Blog of Intellectual Capital and details the current state of Emergent, a company which managed to lose revenue in the ballpark of $30 million since being founded in 2005 on through 2009. This year, the company actually showed a bit of profit, albeit a relatively small amount, nothing that could get Emergent back into the black.
What's unclear as of right now is the future of Emergent: it hasn't filed for bankruptcy, but one could assume that selling all of your stuff means you're getting out of the business for good. We've contacted Emergent for some additional info and will update accordingly.
Never mind the puzzle creation element of EA's Create, as the latest trailer illustrates that players can put just as much creativity into the puzzle backdrops, creating everything from happy homes to frozen wastelands. And to think, we used to be satisfied with paper and a couple of crayons.
Reader Luke sent these our way. They come from the TRON arcade in Disneyland. As you can see, there are a handful of old-school Nintendo arcade games, as well as a demo of Tron Evolution: Battle Grids. Looks like a pretty fun place to be!
You know, now that we think about it, it probably wasn't terribly fair to include Brawl in the Family's "Bullet Bill" in last week's Webcomic Wrapup. At a looming 28 panels, it certainly had the height advantage over it's competitors -- then again, those panels were awfully tiny (and textless), so we guess it all balances out in the end. Regardless, congratulations, Brawl!
Second and third place went to Penny Arcade's "Power Word" and Hello With Cheese's "11/01/2010," respectively. If you've got a favorite strip you'd like to see in the next Wrapup, drop a link in the comments, or send in a tip!
#hollywood
An announcement is due in December, the publisher told Gamasutra. THQ is looking to time the film's release to the next game's launch, but that's not a hard commitment this far out. More »
Based on a recent teardown conducted by UBM TechInsights, it looks like the most expensive part of Microsoft's Kinect is the box it comes in. According to UBM TechInsights, the Kinect contains about $56 worth of hardware. Around $17 of that cost is attributed to the PrimeSense motion detection system, including the microphones, cameras and processor.
Of course, the $56 figure doesn't include manufacturing costs (not to mention some undoubtedly massive marketing costs). It's also worth noting that UBM's assessment is just an estimate and only Microsoft knows the real cost. Still, assuming the figure is even close to accurate, it would seem Microsoft makes an impressive chunk of change from the $150 price.
#science
It's Friday, so I picked something lighthearted and fun for the daily Kotaku science post. Did you know male wasp spiders snap their genitalia off inside the female during sex? Don't worry, they have two sets. More »
Shouldn't this kind of thing be on io9 instead? What's going on, Gawker Media?
Take a picture of Mario, and stick him in the backgrounds of other photographs. You’re automatically a part of the new creepy Mario meme that is starting to take claim of the internet.
#callofduty
The Call of Duty games are intricately-scripted affairs, ones that rush you along a pre-determined path at a pre-determined pace in order to maintain the illusion of excitement. Step off that ride, and everything falls apart. More »
#clips
I'm not sure at what point my test drive of the Call of Duty: Black Ops remote control truck became an attempt to blow things up, but it was easily within the first ten seconds. More »
Would-be hoodlums looking to jack some fools need not feel encumbered by their personal computer platform any longer: Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City and San Andreas are now available on the Mac.
#clips
If there's anything history has taught us, it's that even the world's most monstrous tyrannies are no match for a few menacing deadpan proclamations and a good-hearted band of outcasts. More »
#howisthisnews
Who could use a better alien invasion right about now? And how about a little off-topic conversation to start the weekend right? That's why we have these posts, folks. More »
If you're curious about thatgamecompany's enigmatic mountain-approaching PSN adventure, Journey -- and if you're curious about what you're going to do while you're in the LA area on November 19 -- the developer has something planned to satisfy both kinds of curiosity.
That night, thatgamecompany is hosting a semi-public playtest of Journey. If you're between 18 and 35, familiar with PSN, and able to make the journey to Santa Monica, then contact thatgamecompany (contact details after the break) and you might be among the lucky players invited!
#ubisoft
Publisher Ubisoft is protecting Assassin's Creed Brotherhood buyers from dangerous staples by whittling down the game's manual to a single sheet, scored and folded for your convenience. Maybe they're thinking "green"? More »
#angrybirds
The developer of Angry Birds has said, at a London conference, that the game will be coming to all three consoles soon, reports PocketGamer. More »
As I sat in the dentist's waiting room this afternoon, awaiting for the inevitable moment when my name was called and I would find myself once again in the chair, I made an awkwardly audible nerdy squeal. Yuuuup, Star Wars cookie cutters at Williams Sonoma! Now, if only the cutters had paint-by-numbers indentations and pre-made frosting.
#screengrab
Thirty years later, bit-by-bit, the Pac-Man continuity is still unfolding. Seen on Aled Lewis's Flickr; the t-shirt design is currently up for voting at Threadless. More »
Losing $234 million over the course of 12 months is pretty unimaginable to most individuals. For Disney, it's not such a big deal, especially when that loss is recorded by just one of its six company divisions -- the other five all profited over the last fiscal year (ending October 2, 2010), including its Media Networks, which pulled in more than $5 billion in operating income (profit excluding interest payments and income taxes). Unfortunately for gamers, that one bad division was Interactive Media. Uh-oh.
"On one side we've got a collection of games businesses," Disney CEO Bob Iger explained of the Interactive Media division to investors during a call this week, "and the other side we have a collection of largely dot-com businesses." For both the fourth quarter and entire fiscal year, Interactive's revenues actually increased marginally over the previous year's earnings and "operating results" were "improved" (meaning: the division lost less money -- perhaps unimaginably -- in fiscal 2010 than in the previous fiscal year). Still, when you end up $234 million in the hole, something's gotta change. A new Toy Story game (the division's big breadwinner for the year) can't be released every year, after all.
Reflecting on a "pretty big shift" in the games industry, in which "everything from mobile apps to social networking games" has become a player, Iger said of Interactive, "It's our goal not only to be profitable, but obviously to get there by shifting our investment and reducing our investment, too." You know what that means: "We probably will end up investing less on the console side than we have because of the shift we're seeing in consumption [...] Consumers are obviously spending time playing games -- from casual games online to mobile apps to social networking to console -- and we felt all along that we need to be where the consumer are [...] we want to be there." No doubt.
Quick -- everybody go buy Split/Second before it's too late! Like, for real this time.
#consoletaisen
It's a banner week for the PlayStation Portable in Japan as the PSP enjoys chart topping sales and its smaller, digital download only cousin, the PSPgo, manages to not be in last place for a second week. More »
