None
The Week in Review news piece summarizes and highlights the most important gaming related news and rumors over the past week. This weekly article will keep you plugged in and in-tune. The E3 flood of gaming content has already begun. We had a big week of announcements, nothing massive, but lots of good tidbits to chew on. BioWare, EA, and FUNimation got things started by announcing a partnership to make an anime of Dragon Age: Origins. Production of the Dragon Age anime began in May, but the home video release won’t make its way into consumers’ hands until sometime in 2011. Rare came out and sported a countdown teaser on their main website. Many in the industry feel that a game title is forthcoming, but we’re thinking a revamped Avatar system is more likely. On July 11 th , the Nintendo DSi XL is set to receive another color: Midnight Blue. The new color is coming to retailers in North America, reiterating Nintendo’s intent to support the larger formatted handheld device. The 3DS is expected to be revealed at E3 2010, so we’ll have to see if new colors are enough to keep sales up for the older line of portables. Perhaps the biggest announcement, at least for rabid SEGA fans, is that select Dreamcast titles are going to make their way to the HD consoles’ respective digital delivery platforms. The games will maintain classic gameplay, but their visuals will be augmented and remastered in HD. The first two games to hit the services will be Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi. Both games are due to release this fall, with other titles likely to release thereafter. It was also announced this week that Quickhit Football, a free-to-play, browser-based football game has become the official online game of the NFL. While this may not seem like such a big deal on the surface, it is actually a pretty important piece of news. That’s because EA has maintained exclusivity of the NFL license across the board for several years now, eliminating essentially all other football gaming competitors. Is this a sign that the NFL is looking to spread the rights around, or is this the anecdote that proves the rule? As far as rumors are concerned, it was speculated this week that Microsoft just might go ahead and make a 3D gaming-related announcement at E3 2010. No strong evidence has been given, but it is a yarn being spun ahead of the industry convention. Likewise, it was also rumored that a new portable Animal Crossing title is in the works for the 3DS. Apparently, or so the rumor goes, Animal Crossing for the 3DS is being used as demo software in order to entice other developers into creating titles for the upcoming handheld. It is expected to be revealed at E3 as a 3DS launch title. Other than, the news this week was mostly centered on tons of game announcements. Here’s a lengthy, yet not exhaustive, list of software that was officially revealed:
Thanks so much everyone and we will see you next week when we wrap up E3 2010! |