Hellgate: London Is Not Dead….Yet

Flagship may have lost the IP, but their overhyped MMO is still very much alive. Namco Bandai games have made an “official” annoucement by the means of a forum post:

Hello Hellgaters,

I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we’d love to make one — but right now, many things are in flux and we don’t have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we’ll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.

In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.

I’d like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.

__________________
Zack “Ozuri” Karlsson
Sr. Director, Business Development
NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Inc.

Hellgate: London - the game itself, continues to live along. For how long, that’s anybody’s guess. But with salty responses like these, it looks as if Hellgate: London already has one foot in the grave.

Ubisoft Announces Shaun White Snowboarding

Another title annoucement from Ubisoft’s Ubidays 08 press event; Shaun White Snowboarding will be using Ubisoft’s DUNIA Engine (being used in Far Cry 2 and Assassin’s Creed) and land on PC, PS3, Xbox360 and Wii.

Press Release:

Today Ubisoft announces the development of Shaun White Snowboarding, a title destined to break all former action sports video game notions and redefine the action sports genre. The game will appear on the Xbox 360  video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, Windows-based PC, and the Wii home video game system from Nintendo, and is scheduled for release in Holiday 2008.

Powered by the award-winning Assassin’s Creed engine for Xbox 360 and the PLAYSTATION 3 system, Shaun White Snowboarding truly captures the action sports lifestyle. Shaun White Snowboarding is being developed from the ground up for the Wii system, taking full advantage of the Wii Balance Board™ accessory and featuring its own unique storyline and adventure with Shaun White. Read more

Battlefield: Heroes BETA Announcement

As reported earlier, a BETA for Battlefield: Heroes is on it’s way. The official Battlefield: Heroes website has posted an announcement regarding the BETA:

As you may have noticed, you killed our website. We are not angry. We’re very pleased you want to be in the Beta.

The beta for Heroes will be divided into several stages, the first of which is all about testing out this new way of getting games to you all; by downloading and installing them from a website. We’ll also be trying out some other dull stuff to do with servers, so we are expecting the systems to be down as much as they are up.

To help us track down all the technical issues, we have asked a third party to find us some specialist Beta testers. We are doing all this because we want to be sure that when we launch Heroes, everything will work smoothly.

So hang in there! We will announce here when it’s time to sign up for the public stage of the Beta.

Goodman
Community Manager

Strauss Zelnick Talks BioShock & Civilzation IV MMO Potential

Chairman of Take-Two Strauzz Zelnick, speaking at Smid Cap Conference, explained a few things. Among those things were the explanation on why they rejected EA’s buyout offer, but there also was an annoucement of BioShock and Civilzation IV as titles with MMO potential. On slide 24 of the presentation, both BioShock and Civilzation IV are mentioned as “untapped” potential MMO opportunities.

BioShock is even mentioned as a potential movie.

by MTV Multiplayer

NASDAQ Threatens Atari, Delisting Possible

Atari has been threatened by NASDAQ. This however, isn’t the first time, as Atari has been warned several times due to failure to meet market compliance and file annual reports on time. According to the official annoucement from Atari:

The most recent deadline for complying with NASDAQ requirements - having the company’s value reach or exceed USD 15 million for ten consecutive days - was March 20, 2008. The value of Atari Inc.’s publicly held shares did not reach that level within the allotted time.

Atari is hoping to stay a bit longer, especially with the Infogrames buy-out offer at hand.

by GamesIndustry.biz