Piracy hasn't prohibited the series from being a success.
CD Projekt RED sent out a press release announcing that The Witcher franchise has sold over 1.5 million units in 2011. 1.1 million copies of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings were sold, while 400,000 copies of the original game make up the remainder.
The company had strong sales in Japan to make up for poor international numbers.
Namco Bandai has announced that its quarterly profits have increased by 48%. This is due to a 17% increase in Japan and despite a 27% decrease in the US and a 5% decrease in Europe. The period in question is from the beginning of October to the end of December 2011.
A prototype cartridge of this unreleased port has become available. Below you'll find nearly 20 minutes of unreleased in-game footage.
On the stage of history SoulCalibur V takes two steps forward then one step back.
SoulCalibur has long held a special place in the hearts of fighting game fans. The combination of weapon based combat combined with exaggerated, yet memorable characters was a welcome change of pace from the Tekkens and Virtua Fighters of the day. While never accused of being the deepest of fighting games, its trademark accessibility assured that both the core and casual fighting fans could enjoy their time in the ring.
Three separate DLC packs will be released following launch.
Namco Bandai has announced three downloadable content packs for the upcoming SoulCalibur V. Each pack will cost $1.99 or 160 MSP and comes loaded with "exclusive new customization items and music that players can then unlock in-game." The details for each pack are as follows:
Seems like the soul still burns with this latest installment in the Soul series.
It’s been four years since the last SoulCalibur was released and a lot has changed. The fighting genre has seen a revival and the market is a lot more crowded than before. So when the sixth installment was announced in May 2011, fans of the series knew that business as usual would no longer be enough. The new SoulCalibur V would have to make substantial changes in order to differentiate itself from the other big titles in the fighting genre as well as evolve from its previous iterations in the series.
Unleash the power!
The internet has been abuzz for quite some time now with rumors and speculation concerning the next generation of consoles. Most rumblings are completely unfounded – the results of a wishful fan's desire that their future console of choice fulfill some bizarre requirements. Yet as we creep into 2012 these rumblings have only gotten louder, ultimately resulting in the first concrete piece of news concerning the next generation and Microsoft’s eventual successor to the 360.
And I thought the other games in the series were short!
After the abduction of the Statue of Liberty and Big Ben, as well as the subsequent arrests of two V.I.L.E. criminals, you'd think the V.I.L.E. crew would lay low for a while. Instead, they've gotten more ambitious than ever, stealing the St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow as well as the pyramids straight out of Egypt. With the most linear quest yet, The Case of the Crumbling Cathedral is the shortest of the three episodes currently available on the Wii Shop Channel. While it's home to the best puzzles yet, it's over so quickly that it's hard to pay it any respect at all.
This time Big Ben is missing.
The Big Ben Burglary is the second case in the ongoing episodic production of Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math. As such, it features the same Professor Layton inspired gameplay from the The Lady Liberty Larceny, with the exception that the puzzles are more rooted in mathematics than general puzzle solving. This makes for a quest that's a bit duller than the first, in addition to being even briefer.
Do it Rockapella!
Funny enough, I never realized that Carmen Sandiego began as a computer game series, only later hitting TV screens with Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. As such, Carmen Sandiego Adventures in Math: The Lady Liberty Larceny is more a return to form than a modern adaptation of a childhood classic. Thankfully, the developers have applied some modern game design to the over 20 year old franchise, taking cues from the Professor Layton series. While on the short side, this adventure in math will provide some reasonably challenging math-based puzzles for the proper age group as well as a cursory glance at some world geography.
