Sony Defeats Valve in a Team Fortress 2 Match

Losing a game you spent 8 years developing? Yes, that’s fail at epic proportions. Valve invited SOE to play some TF2 and boy did they play. SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) defeated Valve in a Team Fortress 2 match-up where SOE won by 6-0. Unfourtunately, you’d have to endure the god-awful Jace Hall show to get some info.

Codemasters gets F1 license, First F1 title coming 2009

After Sony decided to ditch the F1 license for financial and popularity reasons, another publisher has decided to pick it up. According to GameSpot, Codemasters has bought the rights to F1 license.

The first game to come out of this agreement will be released on “home console, handheld and PC gaming formats” in 2009, and is expected to be based on next season’s roster. The game is being developed with the developer’s own EGO engine, the same one being used in GRID.

Gran Turismo 5 coming to PCs?

Sony’s latest racing simulator may drift off to PCs too. With an interview with Aussie newspaper Der Standard, Polyphony Digital’s Kazunori Yamauchi said that GT5 may get released on PC platform as well. You can read up the interview here.

The Agency Preview

CVG got to chat with Sony Entertainment Online’s Kevin O’Hara about their upcoming MMO The Agency. Here’s a snippet:

“We’ll also have PvP maps where you can choose either side of the battle regardless of your agency,” continues O’Hara. “But if you don’t like PvP, don’t worry, you won’t ever have to do it, but hopefully it should be easy enough that everybody tries it out to see it isn’t as punishing as many MMOs.”

Check out the full preview here. The Agency will be landing on PC and PlayStation3, the release date is classified for the moment.

The Agency Interview

Sony’s upcoming MMORPG, The Agency, has gathered a lot of buzz. Primarily because it’s cross platform (PS3/PC) but also because it looks and sounds damn promising. Eurogamer.net Interviewed Sony’s Matt Staroscik regarding their upcoming MMO. Here’s a snip:

Eurogamer: You’ve said the game is predominantly a shooter - does that mean the combat is mostly based on player skill, or do you earn RPG-style abilities to use?

Matt Staroscik: Your characters will absolutely develop RPG-style abilities as they gain experience. For example, an experienced character may tame the recoil on his weapon better than a rookie, which means more hot lead put on target.

 

Full interview after the jump. Read more

John Smedley: “It’s Ridiculous to say PC Gaming is in Decline”

With pretty much everyone throwing their opinions about PC gaming, why must Sony Online Entertainment’s John Smedley be left behind? Speaking with GameDaily, John Smedley shoots off at the recent “PC gaming is dying” discussions, as well as disagreeing with Tim Sweeney’s “PC is good for anything, not just games” comment. Here’s a snip:

“I keep reading all this doom and gloom. It’s the same guys that have been telling us for years that mainframes are doomed. If you just look at the actual facts on the ground, World of Warcraft – and I have to give props to our competition here – it sat on top of the PC charts for three years now. At some point, and everybody keeps talking about this, but they’re just not realizing that a lot of people’s dollars are going into these online games now and a lot of them you can buy truly digitally, which isn’t getting tracked. It’s as simple as that.”

Full interview after the jump. Read more

Phil Harrison Appointed as President of Infogrames and joins board of directors

Infogrames Entertainment announces today the appointment of Phil Harrison as President and Directeur Général Délégué of Infogrames Entertainment, reporting to David Gardner. Phil Harrison also joins the Board of Directors With the recent appointment of David Gardner as CEO, Phil and David will together form the basis of a transformational leadership team at Infogrames that will grow the Atari brand into a leading online game company.

Phil Harrison will oversee the Studios and content development for the group. Phil will be in charge of boosting the Group’s publishing activities, notably through reinforcing its franchise portfolio of products, developing its new packaged and online games, and strengthening its internal and external studio capability through attracting world-class design and development talent to the organisation.

Read more