Digital Trends
After seeing Tony Hawk himself pull out the long-awaited board controller for RIDE at Microsoft’s Monday press conference, I couldn’t wait to hop aboard myself. And today I got a chance.
Though Activision reps will gladly explain how intuitive and natural it feels for a skateboarding game, not much really feels right about standing on a plastic plank in front of a TV. Even so, it does feel well built for what’s still a prototype. No worries about snapping this thing.
True to rumor, there was no shortage of star power at Microsoft’s wiz-bang press conference this year – a return to form for the conference that has been so played down in recent years. Microsoft managed to round up Tony Hawk, Steven Spielberg and no lesser celebrities than the surviving Beatles themselves for its Monday morning press conference.
After debuting the cinematic trailer for the Beatles Rock Band and announcing a handful of the songs to be included, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr both bounced out from back stage on queue. Neither seemed to know quite what to say. “The game is good, the graphics are very good, and we were great,” Ringo joked. They stuck around for only a minute, wise cracking and paling around, before disappearing backstage again.
What will the company that brought you the legendary Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and Call of Duty franchises have on tap for E3 this year? More from each, of course. And a few surprises as well.
In a press release earlier this week, Activision outline all the titles it will have on display at this year’s E3, including:
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2
DJ Hero
Guitar Hero 5
Blur
Tony Hawk: RIDE
Marvel(TM): Ultimate Alliance 2
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Wolfenstein
Singularity
PROTOTYPE
In recent months, game publisher Activision has been all about building its franchise juggernauts, announcing it would be killing off games series it didn’t think had to the potential to become long-running franchises in favor of long-running titles it can iterate (and sell) over and over again. At the same event where the company announced its Blizzard unit would start running ads from Microsoft subsidiary Massive, Activision also announced it plans additional sequels in its Guitar Hero,Call of Duty, and Tony Hawk franchises, even as it kills off formerly-touted titles like Ghostbusters and Chronicles of Riddick.
With the current election and the cratered economy making it real clear that we need to conserve gas, I picked up my first second generation Electric Bike from a company called (E +). I have two of the first generation high performance electric bikes from a company called Wavecrest who built them for the US Military and these puppies, while expensive, blew away everything else that was out there.
The Wavecrest TidalForce IO
If you’ve ever wished you could lean into the action a little bit more with your Tony Hawk titles—or just have dreams of hanging ten in a high-concept sci-fi surfing game—then a new announcement from Actiga should offer some excitment. The company has announced that its subsidiary QMotion has signed an agreement with Microsoft to produce next-generation wireless controllers for the Xbox 360. The controllers will be fully endorsed by Microsoft, and span a full range of controller options.
These last two weeks have been interesting. Before CES, Warner Brothers basically gave up on HD DVD and Toshiba (in what was an amazing lack of good judgment) clearly putting HD DVD on the ropes (and the newly lowered prices came too late to make a difference). This was followed by CES which really lacked anything that I would call a true break-out new product of the iPod or iPhone caliber. This week we had MacWorld, and while it is focused and everything that Steve Jobs announced effectively stood out, it was like the middle movie in a movie trilogy in that there really wasn’t a whole lot to get really excited about, unless you are an Apple fan and for them just having a MacWorld is likely excitement enough.
In what could easily be described as one of the most significant mergers to hit the video game industry, major developers Blizzard and Activision announced plans for a merger on Sunday. Blizzard’s French parent company, Vivendi, will swallow up Activision in a deal that will put some of the most popular modern games, including World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero, under one roof.
All pieces of the deal, including the values of both companies and cash contributed by each toward the deal, add up to $18.9 billion. Vivendi paid $27.50 per share for Activision, 24 percent more than it was trading for on Friday, to acquire a 52 percent stake in the company. Shares of the new company’s stock will trade on the Nasdaq for $27.50 per share.
PlayStation fans will be able to get their hands on a lot more games in the coming months, promises Sony. The Foster City, Calif.-based company said today it will launch more than 100 titles for its PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation2 products. The beefed-up second-quarter of 2007 line-up will comprise industry leading franchises as well as new intellectual properties from both in-house and third parties, according to Sony Computer Entertainment America.
“We are excited by the content being developed by our partners, but are also looking forward to launching PlayStation-branded exclusive games created by our own worldwide studios this quarter and throughout the rest of 2007," said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing at SCEA in a statement.
Nintendo is launching is Wii gaming console on November 19…but everyone knows a new gaming system is only as appealing as the games people can play on it. To that end, Nintendo has announced the titles which will be available for the Wii within the console’s “launch window,” loosely defined as the system’s first five weeks of availability, although many titles will be available simultaneously with the Wii’s launch.
“Developers worldwide have enhanced Wii’s launch library of new games with countless new ways to play,” says George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior VP of marketing and corporate communications, in a statement. “Whether you pick a completely new property or a classic franchise, the Wii experience draws you in.”
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