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Namco Hometek, Inc. has received an exclusive license for the Games Workshop Group's "Warhammer" franchise.
They plan to release a series of PC games, and possibly console and handheld games down the road.
http://www.games-workshop.com/ http://www.namco.com/
Sammy Studios has been purchased by its management team. As it is no longer owned by Sammy Corporation, they've renamed it High Moon Studios.
AGEIA Technologies of Silicon Valley is showing off a new hardware physics chip at GDC. Their press release indicates that the chip will be used in next generation video game consoles, but it's unclear what console(s) they're talking about.
Epic has announced support for PhysX in Unreal Engine 3, and an SDK is available from their website:
http://www.ageia.com/novodex_downloads.html
Farmer Entertainment is selling stylish replacement cases for the PlayStation 2:
http://www.farmerentertainment.com/
THQ will be releasing "dual pack" cartridges with two games on one cart for the Game Boy Advance. They're calling it innovative, but it sounds a lot like the old Xonox double-enders for the Atari 2600. Or Nintendo's Duck Hunt/Super Mario Brothers cartridge, for that matter.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made some maddeningly vague statements about their next generation console, codenamed "Revolution"... Apparently, they fear that it will be even more problematic for developers than previous Nintendo consoles:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=7213
[No real clues about what's supposed to be unique about the console are included.]
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is suing New Line Cinema over licensing revenue. The largest area of dispute is apparently the series of EA LotR games:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=7164
Epiphany Games is conducting a survey to determine whether it would be viable to develop a graphical mud for the XBox 2/XBox Next for the Australian market:
NVIDIA has released their NVIDIA Developer Toolkit:
The toolkit includes the following:
NVIDIA SDK 9.0 NVPerfHUD 3, a DirectX performance analysis tool that allows you to freeze a game in progress and collect pipeline information. NVShaderPerf, which provides shader performance metrics for DirectX and OpenGL apps. FXComposer 1.6, an IDE for shader development.
Matrix games has signed a deal to release an updated version of SSG's classic "Reach for the Stars" strategy game:
http://www.matrixgames.com/ http://www.ssg.com.au/
Take Two brought in over a half billion dollars in revenue in the November-to-January quarter. "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" sales have passed the 12 million unit mark.
Take Two seems to be on a roll, with GTA selling well, the new 2K label for sports titles, and a deal granting them publishing rights for the next game in the blockbuster Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion.
Nintendo has produced 650000 Nintendo DS systems and 2.5 million games for the March 11 European launch.
Hopefully, that'll be enough to avoid the shortages experienced here in the U.S. following the system's launch.
ESPN 360 and ESPN.com are searching for online sports games. They'll meet with developers at GDC, March 9-11. You can arrange an appointment by emailing them a project summary:
Sony has promised to get a million PSPs to retailers in time for the March 24 launch:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=7091
Microsoft has signed deals with two more semi-famous Japanese developers for XBox 2/XBox Next games:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=7109