Blizzard working on new, unannounced title

Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard dropped a bomb when they announced StarCraft II. It looks like Blizzard is doing it again. During a discussion with Gamasutra, Blizzard’s senior vice president of product development, Frank Pearce said that a team of 40 people is working in “team 3”.

The diplomatically chosen revelation was found in the following context, straight from Pearce:

“Our global headcount is 2,700, and most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft! In terms of development staff it’s probably around 350. World of Warcraft is about 135 people, 40 for Starcraft II, 40 for team 3, our cinematics team is about 85 guys. Then there’s sound and Q/A and that sort of thing.”

Pearcesaid further that Team 3 is working on “something really awesome” (they always say that) and that he couldn’t give any hints. Gamasutra has confirmed that this is not the vaporware Starcraft Ghost, though.

Blizzcon starts 3rd August, which is not far away, as your friendly calendar will tell you. Is it possible that this new game, under construction by “Team 3” will be announced there? Most likely. What is this new game? Nobody knows for sure, though most fingers point towards Diablo 3. We’ll just have to wait for Blizzcon.

[Via Gamasutra]

Forget the PSP, I want a PMP!

The PMP

Yes. First off, I’m talking about PMP, not a PIMP. But pimp jokes are going to be rather common now, with this sweet little device in action. It may not look like much, but this PSP-killer is packed with more stuff than your grandma’s attic.

The manufacturer of this beauty, the Portable Media Player is “3rd party”, but I and Engadget are pretty sure it was made in China. I mean, we just need a Chinglish instruction manual to prove it. But regardless of electronic ethnicity, the PMP is able to:

  • Emulate NES, SNES, Sega MD and SMC.
  • Play AVI, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, MP3, WMA, and FLAC files (with an “Equlizer”, OMG.)
  • View JPG, GIF, BMP images.
  • Capture videos with a 1.3 megapixel MPEG-4 video camera.
  • Record sound (MP3).
  • Read E-Books.
  • Support 4-goddamned-gigabytes via SD card.
  • Smash Sony’s teeth and swallow it whole.

Yeah, that above list contains more things than your godforsaken computer can. The PSP costs $200 and can’t emulate the SNES. The sweet, sweet PMP can, at a mere $109.68 (or 850.00 in Hong Kong currency). I freaking want this.

[Engadget via Gizmodo. Buy it here.]

Championship Gaming Series

Video game tournaments have never been treated with much of any respect in the US. The Championship Gaming Series aims to change that by having high octane adrenaline gaming all a TV channel away – If you have DIRECTV!

From what I’ve seen they actually are trying out new things such as giving coaches to teams. These coaches actually yell at players as they are playing the game. This does add some nice action every now and then.

Check out some clips for yourself in our media player below. You can see the full shows on channel 101, every Monday and Wednesday at 10 pm EST/7 pm PST throughout the month of July.

Prince loves his fans, Music industry not having it

princeboycrush.JPG

Prince, the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as… Prince, has once again angered the entire music industry, this time by distributing his brand spankin’ new album FREE with the purchase of a British tabloid magazine known as the Mail. The album, Planet Earth, will be packaged with Sunday’s edition of the Mail, priced at $2.80.

Prince has drawn harsh criticism across the entire music industry for his latest stunt. As we already know, the music industry is in the toilet facing rapidly declining CD sales. Not content to just rip fistfuls of cash from the hearts of fans, the biz has decided universally that they can’t afford a single artist to give away their work. This is being considered a “major blow” to the industry overrun with overpriced works from gimmicky boy- and girl-bands of all colors, genres, and levels of sucktitude.

Sony BMG UK, Princes’s local label, has cancelled their own sales release of the CD in Britain, saying it would be “ridiculous” to pursue it’s own sales launch there, but adding that they are still “delighted” to be working with Prince.

“The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, Paul Quirk, “”It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career.” He added that the deal was “yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.”

A covermount is a CD or DVD attached to the front of a magazine or other publication as a sort of pack-in bonus. The practice is common in Britain in an effort to combat declining publication sales, but they are usually compilation albums or samplers. Prince’s Planet Earth contains new music, as well as some classics, like the song Purple Rain. The Mail on Sunday declined to say how much it paid to secure the deal or how many copies of “Planet Earth” it planned to sell. Its average circulation is 2.3 million copies.

A publicist for Prince’s record label said he wasn’t doing interviews

International sales launch for “Planet Earth” is July 16, and the U.S. launch is July 24. Prince also plans to give away “Planet Earth” with each ticket sold for his 21-date London concert later this summer.

But the controversy doesn’t end with Prince!

Read more for the story on retail turncoats and my thoughts on this fiasco.

Continue reading “Prince loves his fans, Music industry not having it”

60GB PS3’s to vanish by end of July!

PS3 as we know it, is going.

This news comes like a slap in the face for those who cheered when Sony announced a price cut for the Playstation 3. David Reeves, president of SCEE has announced PS3’s will no longer be available after stocks are sold out. Apparently, the price cut was to sell these remaining stocks out of 60GB PS3’s! Way to go, Sony.

Sony will be releasing an 80GB version of the PS3 on August 1st with a copy of MotorStorm bundled. This new version will be priced at $599, which was what the 60GB version was priced at, prior to the price cut. So the equation works out like this:

Sony makes a $599 console and cuts its price to $499. Then it makes a new version of the PS3, priced at $599 and sells out the original PS3, which should be priced at $499. So essentially, the price cut was nothing more than a practical joke from Sony. Anybody who fell for this joke and wants the PS3, my advice is, grab one while stocks last.

[Via gamesindustry.biz]