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2K Sports and Konami are teaming up once again to hit MLB Power Pros 2008 out of the park. This game depicting super-deformed caricatures of Baseball greats is a favorite in Japan, and will be making its second appearance in the US.

Players will be able to choose from ten different game modes including Practice, Exhibition, League and Home Run Challenge. They can also choose to play the part of a team’s General Manager in Season mode.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Konami again, and with the Baseball™ season now in full swing, we’re proud to offer our fans a refreshingly smart and exciting baseball game that is easily accessible for all ages,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Baseball enthusiasts will appreciate the variety of newly added features, intuitive game modes and improved overall feel, and we look forward to hitting one out of the park this season with MLB Power Pros 2008.”

Gamers can catch MLB Power Pros 2008 for the Wii and the PS2 this July. The game will be available for the DS this fall.

via Business Wire

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Well, July is approaching fast, and E3 with it. We received the list of E3 exhibitors, and thought we’d share them with you. As usual, you can expect us to have a team from Gaming Today on site to bring you coverage right from the Convention Center.

This year’s list includes (among others) Atari, Eidos, EA, Konami, LucasArts, Square Enix, and of course the big three of the console world: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Contrary to popular rumor, Bethesda will make an appearance with Fallout 3, as confirmed by their blog post. Apparently they were left off the initial listing for an unknown reason.

You can see a full list of the companies currently expected to attend after the break.

Read the full article

Apparently, last night at the Take-Two shareholder’s meeting EA’s offer was rejected EA’s as too low. Chairman had this to say regarding the offer:

“The board believes that Take-Two is worth more than $26 per share. That said, we are 100% committed to creating more value for stockholders, and will consider all options, including staying independent. We’re in the position of generated shareholder value in a sector at the fastest-growing segment of the entertainment industry. EA’s offer came at a highly opportunistic time, as it comes right before the launch of the next installment in the most successful franchise in this entire industry. We’ve received several advance reviews, and with one exception, they are all perfect scores. My mom couldn’t write a bad review about this game.”

As if GTA IV was not enough to give them pause, apparently they feel that they can compete with EA Sports:

“We don’t think the EA offer properly compensates you, the shareholders, for the synergies EA would enjoy. Analysts valued said synergies at over $210 million per year, with EA enjoying massive savings from not having to compete with Take-Two’s sports line. When we take on EA in sports head-to-head, we beat them every time.”

Shareholders also voted to keep let current board members keep their jobs until 2009, which means that Strauss Zelnick and the rest will be around for another year at least - which makes Zelnick a very happy chap indeed:

“Today’s vote demonstrates stockholders’ confidence in management and the Board of Directors of Take-Two. The Board and management remain committed to acting in the best interests of stockholders. We are confident in the significant growth potential of Take-Two and in the unique value of our business given our strong position in this dynamic industry.”

He is probably also happy that ZelnickMedia, Take-Two’s manager, would receive 1.5 million shares of restricted stock. This made EA communications boss Jeff Brown make a quip about the approval and compared it to :

“Asking your last employer to give you a million dollar raise and forcing your new employer to pay it.”

Strauss Zelnick also only opened the floor up to two questions. First, Zelnick refused to answer the question as to whether Take-Two had entered into any “confidentiality agreements with other potential buyers” as it previously stated last month. Secondly, he also refused to comment on the announcement that the Federal Trade Commission was investigating whether an EA takeover would violate antitrust laws - which is absolutely true considering that the combining of 2K Sports with EA would mean that EA Sports would have a monopoly on all FIFA, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA (basketball and football), NFL, NHL, MLB, and PGA games. Even Michael Patcher has said as much.

Now comes word through a press release that EA has extended the offer, but for a little less than $26 per share, now it is at $25.74 per share. Via the press release:

The new price, which still values Take-Two at $2 billion, takes into account additional shares to be issued following stockholder approval of an incentive stock plan at its annual meeting on Thursday. The lower price makes good on Electronic Arts’ warning that its per-share bid would fall by 26 cents if the incentive plan was passed.

“Their price is capped. They will not do a deal that is not accretive to fiscal 2010,” said Kaufman Bros analyst Todd Mitchell, adding that EA could raise its bid by a dollar or two at most.

“If it doesn’t get done it doesn’t get done. They cannot overbid for this. EA has very strong revenue story but a weak earnings story,” Mitchell said.

Stay tuned for more of “As the Stomach Churns”.

Thanks for all of the updates: Videogaming247

After a truly impressive run atop the charts, Call of Duty 4 has finally been dethroned from the #1 software spot in the latest NPDs. While that was to be expected with the launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it wasn’t expected that the game would drop all the way to #9. That’s indicative of the surplus of games released in March; CoD4 only saw a drop of just under 60,000 units. Last month its 237,000 units would have been good enough for #4 on the charts.

Smash Bros. was of course the big name in March. 2.7 million copies were sold, which blows away the #2 game, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, which had a solid month with 752,300 units sold. That’s followed by Army of Two at 606,100, and then of course Wii Play, which was bound to sell quite a few copies after the Wii had such a monster month. It sold 409,800 copies.

One impressive figure is that the PSP – normally absent from this list each and every month – had two games on the list, at numbers five and six, no less. God of War: Chains of Olympus edged out Crisis Core for the top PSP spot, but it’s encouraging to see that good PSP games can sell.

March 2008 Software Sales

1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) - 2,700,000
2. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (360) - 752,300
3. Army of Two (360) - 606,100
4. Wii Play w/ Remote (Wii) - 409,800
5. God of War: Chains Of Olympus (PSP) - 340,500
6. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) - 301,600
7. Guitar Hero III (Wii) - 264,100
8. MLB 2K8 (360) - 237,100
9. Call of Duty 4 (360) - 237,000
10. Army of Two (PS3) - 224,900

The upcoming Wii version of Don King’s Prizefighter will apparently be compatible with the (also upcoming) Balance Board. Some of the training sessions in the game will incorporate the little white platform for you to virtually jump rope and essentially go through a whole workout routine. The developers have three top boxing trainers working on an actual routine for gamers to go through and that it will be more of a workout than Wii Sports. Thanks to the BMI (Body Mass Index) trackers from Nintendo, you can even chart your own progress. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like the Balance Board will be used for the actual boxing matches, which is too bad. That could really encourage more people to use it if they could physically dodge punches and such.

Via CVG

Don King is one of those people I always forget about until they magically appear to promote something or another. I don’t think I would’ve ever expected him to cross paths with video games though. 2K Games has unveiled a new trailer for the upcoming “Don King’s Prizefighter.” The video shows some gameplay footage along with Don King doing what he does best: hyping things up. We’ll have to wait until June though to see if this game can knock Fight Night out of the top boxing game spot.

2K Games has unveiled a batch of new screenshots for Mafia 2. This sequel will move ahead a few years into the 1950’s, but will still have players taking on the role a new recruit to the criminal underworld. From the looks of the new screens, the game is caming along pretty well. It looks like you’ll be doing the usual Mafia-type stuff, liek taking care of “business deals” and ducking the cops. I just hope the developers ditch any plans they might have for a mission like the agonizing car race in the first gamer. I still get a twitch just thinking about that one.

You can check out the rest of the screenshots here.

There’s a rumor making the rounds that BioShock 2 may be released for the PS3 and possibly the Wii.

2K Marin has put out job postings for developers with PlayStation 3 experience required.

BioShock 2 was confirmed in March, along with the announcement that the new 2K Marin studio would take on the challenge of creating a game to equal or best its predecessor with the guidance of Ken Levine. No platforms were confirmed in the announcement although it’s a fare bet that the Xbox 360 and PC can look forward to the game.

I’d like to think that PS3 and Wii users will have the chance to play BioShock 2. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anywhere specifically in the job postings that specifically said the the positions being filled were to dedicated to working on the game. At this time 2K Games hasn’t made itself available to confirm or deny the rumor.
BioShock 2 is slated for release sometime between August and October 2009.

via Eurogamer

2K Games was kind enough to oblige a wish of Major Nelson’s to share more audio from games with the readers, and provided him with several of the sounds from BioShock – namely, from the vending machines. The files are taken from the digital master files, so they’re much better quality than what you would get by holding your phone next to your computer or TV’s speakers.

I sunk enough time into BioShock that the lines from the vending machines are permanently imprinted on my brain. As such, I won’t be making use of these. But they wouldn’t make for a half-bad ringtone – when the orb sound effect from Crackdown was released, I started using that as a text message indicator on my phone. It somehow never gets old.

Recently, a bit of a spark was lit under the debate over the place of writers in the games industry. Adam Maxwell, a game designer, wrote a piece that was run on Gamasutra which proclaimed that writers don’t have a place in this business, and that they’re essentially an obstacle in the path to creating a good game. I vehemently defended writers, pointing to examples of cases where writers had a dramatically positive impact on a game – Portal, BioShock, and so on.

A new analysis of the value of a good writer by developer James Portnow dives into the subject of how he believes videogame writing should be done. He starts off bluntly enough, as he asserts: “I’ll be blunt.  Videogames are terrible at making statements.  You want to tell a person what they should think?  Go write a book or appear on daytime TV or compose an epic poem…don’t make a videogame.”

One of the subjects he discusses is the problem of binary choices in games. I’ve written before about how it’s this sort of thing that really detracts from the overall experience of a game like BioShock or Mass Effect, and there’s no doubt that Portnow agrees that binary choices need to go.

EPIC FAIL!  Binary choice is one of the worst things in gaming.  It keeps us from being an art and, more importantly, it takes away “fun” from any game it is in.  This one ridiculous cop-out has sabotaged more masterpieces than I can name.  What is it?  Glad you asked…

A binary choice is a choice between two extremes.  Do you want to be Mahatma Gandhi or the lovechild of Satan and Hitler?  Do you want to save the world or blow it up for all eternity?  Do you want to get laid or not (always a stupid question)?

HUMANS SIMPLY DON’T INTERACT THIS WAY!  In case you didn’t get the emphasis on that previous sentence, please take a moment to go into a quiet room and shout it as loud as you can.  Done?  Good, now maybe you’ve got it.

For the full read, head over to Next Gen.

Electronic Arts announced today that it will be amending its tender offer (which Take-Two rejected) to acquire all outstanding shares of Take-Two stock and will also extend the offer’s deadline from April 11 to April 18. An EA press release cites “the actions publicly disclosed by Take-Two on March 26, 2008, including its adoption of a poison pill and change to the date of its 2008 annual meeting of stockholders to April 17” as the reasoning behind today’s move.

The principal amendments to the offer include:

• EA has added a condition to its offer requiring either (1) that Take-Two’s Board of Directors redeem the preferred stock purchase rights issued as a result of Take-Two’s adoption on March 24, 2008 of the stockholder rights plan, or (2) that EA be satisfied that such rights have been invalidated or are otherwise inapplicable to its acquisition of Take-Two.
• EA has extended its tender offer for all of the common stock of Take-Two until 11:59 p.m., New York City time on Wednesday, April 18, 2008, unless further extended. The offer was previously set to expire at midnight, New York City time, on April 11, 2008.

“The actions of the Take-Two Board may increase the risk for their stockholders by delaying a potential transaction,” said Owen Mahoney, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at EA. “We continue to believe that our $26.00 per share offer price is full and fair, and that a transaction between Take-Two and EA is the most compelling combination financially, strategically and operationally for all parties.”

Take-Two held an investors conference this week which outlined the value of the company, with the underlying message of urging shareholders to not give in to EA’s offer.

And so the dance continues…

Game designer Adam Maxwell, who has worked on Auto Assault and Dirty Harry, recently reworked a blog post for Gamasutra which is entitled “The Case Against Writers In The Games Industry.” With an intriguing enough title, I read through his piece and walked away thinking that a writer must have stole Maxwell’s girlfriend at some point; I couldn’t possibly disagree with him anymore than I do.

His main points are that a writer takes time away from development of a game’s core mechanics, his or her contributions won’t make a game good, and a writer’s linear work is at odds with a designer’s non-linear work.

Maxwell also claims that a designer who also has the ability to write is much more valuable than a writer, which is true to an extent. I completely can understand why you would want a multi-talented individual on your staff; someone versatile is always an asset. (Just ask Ron why he hired me. I do wonderful papier-mâchés.) But, that argument doesn’t take into account two things. Read the full article

Aside from “Opening Day Weekend” sounding strange, your attention should be turned to the Opening Day festivities 2K Sports will be holding on Xbox Live from April 4 – April 6. In addition to the opportunity to win prizes (including shirts, hats, Microsoft Points, and more), you’ll be able to play against some of the game’s developers on the night of April 4.

From 7 – 9 PM EDT on April 4, keep your eyes peeled for the following gamertags:

MLB2K8Robert - Robert, Senior Producer
MLB2K8Jon - Jon, Associate Producer
MLB2K8Dan - Dan, Designer
MLB2K8Joe - Joe, Production Assistant

You can find out more details on Xbox.com. I wish MLB 08 was holding similar festivities, but I’ll settle for having the better baseball game.

Peter Molyneux, whom we all know as the big bossman of Lionhead Studios recently stated in a podcast that the XBLA game Keystone will not be the only game for Fable 2 players to accumulate Fable money outside of the game.

Keystone gives players the ability to gamble for cash and then transfer said funds over into Fable 2. The games Wizard’s Tower and Mage Dice will also be Fable 2 compatible and provide a way for gamers to accumulate more money for the game.

This, says Peter, is his way of trying to get games to “talk to each other”:

“It’s a really big thing of mine - why aren’t games talking to each other, and when you say to yourself, ‘Let’s get games talking to each other,’ then how can they talk? The idea is this: Carbonated Games, part of Microsoft, have made some great casual games, Arcade titles. They have got three titles, one call Keystone, one called Wizard’s Tower and one called Mage Dice. Why not make those what we call ‘Fable-compatible’? And that means that when you play those [semi-gambling] games, when you win, you win Fable gold, and you can transfer that Fable gold to Fable when you buy Fable. If you’ve alreayd got Fable, the money will transfer automatically. If you’ve yet to buy Fable then your balance will be transferred. That’s cool.”

Molyneux also went on to talk about Fable 2 gamer achievements and how they will not be as easy as one might think. Predominately, gamers played the original Fable as a good guy, this time though they may have to choose the dark side on some occasions:

“They’re going to have some rough rides with those Achievements. That’s another currency that I can use to make you care. How much are you willing to push yourself and willing to sacrifice for Achievements? Most people, the vast, vast majority of people, played [Fable 1] good,” he said. “The research that we did showed about 70 percent of people played it good, and of the remaining 30 percent about 20 percent of them started playing it evil and then switched somewhere down the line to good. So we’re only talking of about 10 percent of the people playing good. Now, what that’s meant to me, because I’m a sort of vicious, conniving individual, is that I didn’t do a good enough job in Fable 1 of testing what being good really was.

“In Fable 2, I think of being truly good, truly pure good - we have a couple of new scales in Fable 2, one being purity and corruption - pure good, being the purest and most noble of individuals, is all to do with sacrifice. How much are you willing to sacrifice to be good?”

Sounds like Fable 2 is going to be a lot less boring than some people felt last time around, and this time, there will be more to the game instead of just “let’s see how ugly I can make my character”.

To listen to the full podcast, click on the link below.

Thanks: Major Nelson

Never one to be swayed, Electronic Arts has taken another step towards acquiring Take-Two by making a tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock in the company. The offer is for $26 per share, amounting to a total of $2 billion, which is a 64% increase over where Take-Two’s stock was sitting the day prior to EA’s initial offer to buyout the company according to GamesIndustry.biz.

“This is a great opportunity for Take-Two shareholders,” said CEO John Riccitiello. “We believe Take-Two investors will see our tender offer as the best way to maximise the value of their investment in Take-Two.

“This tender offer provides a clear process to complete the proposed transaction. For EA shareholders, the combination would add additional intellectual properties to our already strong portfolio and welcome Take-Two’s talented creative teams to the great development organisation we’ve built at EA,” he added.

The offer is open until April 11, which still would give EA several weeks of wiggle room prior to the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. Even if this doesn’t manage to get EA into the position they want to be, don’t believe for a second that this is their last attempt at acquiring the company.

Meanwhile, I remain extraordinarily concerned about what will happen to franchises like NBA 2K if and when they acquire Take-Two. You already killed the best football series, EA – don’t do it to the best basketball one, too.

More baseball action is now available on the PlayStation Store, as a demo of MLB 2K8 has been released. With the demo of it and MLB 08, you should be able to make an informed decision about which baseball game is right for you. (I think I’ll be going with 08, myself.) The free Dropkick Murphys DLC pack I wrote about here is also available to download for any Guitar Hero III players who are interested.

If you’re feeling like a sucker, then there’s something for you, too: two new PAIN characters are available for $0.99 each. Somehow I doubt the privilege of being able to launch Nurse Ginger and Muffy the Cheerleader around the city in PAIN is really worth a buck.

Other things you’ll find when you log onto the PlayStation Store today: Rock Band DLC (read about it here), an expansion pack for Toy Home ($6.99) and various themes and videos.

The full list of content can be found after the break. Read the full article

An exhaustive report – combining factors like game sales, Metacritic averages and developer feedback through Gamasutra – has concluded creating the first-ever Top 50 Developers list from Game Developer magazine. Coming in at the top of the list is, but of course, Nintendo’s Kyoto studio, followed by Infinity Ward, Blizzard, EA Canada, and Valve.

The top 20 are as follows, along with some of their notable 2007 releases:

1. Nintendo Kyoto (Brain Age, Wii Play)
2. Infinity Ward (Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
3. Blizzard Entertainment (World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade)
4. Electronic Arts Canada (FIFA Soccer 08, NBA Street: Homecourt)
5. Valve (Portal, Team Fortress 2)
6. Konami Japan Studio (Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer, Dance Dance Revolution Universe)
7. Insomniac Games (Ratchet & Clank Future)
8. Capcom Osaka Studio (Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Monster Hunter Freedom)
9. Electronic Arts Tiburon (Madden NFL 08, NASCAR 08)
10. BioWare Edmonton (Mass Effect, Jade Empire: Special Edition)
11. Bungie Studios (Halo 3)
12. Ubisoft Montreal (Assassin’s Creed, Naruto: Rise Of A Ninja)
13. 2K Boston [& Australia] (BioShock)
14. Harmonix (Rock Band)
15. Bandai Namco Tokyo (Ace Combat 6: Fires Of Liberation, Beautiful Katamari)
16. Square Enix Tokyo (Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Front Mission DS)
17. Game Freak (Pokemon Diamond/Pearl)
18. Epic Games (Unreal Tournament 3, Gears Of War PC)
19. Hudson Soft (Mario Party 8, Mario Party DS)
20. Neversoft (Guitar Hero III, Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground)

The full list and all of the excruciating minutiae that went into the list can be found at the Game Developer Research website, located here. It’s interesting to see how the top 50 shaped itself; in the top 20 alone I was surprised by several things (Valve not being higher and Hudson Soft being so high, for example) – what do you make of the list?

Just because we haven’t heard much more in the way of offers since Electronic Arts’ original bid to buyout Take-Two doesn’t mean that there aren’t wheels spinning. Earlier this month, Take-Two formed a severance plan to put the minds of employees at ease. The severance package would insure that any employees or executives that were fired without reason following a takeover would continue to be paid – up to six months’ salary for non-execs, while the suits would get up to 1.5 times their salary and bonus for up to 18 months.

Top executives such as Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick would not be impacted by this, as they’re already covered by a separate plan, according to Reuters.

“The bid probably created fairly large internal disruption and without a severance plan, employees are worried about losing their jobs,” said Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey. “They want to keep people focused and give them some sort of support.”

So it would seem Take-Two is taking care of its employees, but that remains to be seen if stockholders are receiving positive treatment as well.

The sequel to last year’s best baseball game was released this week, and if you haven’t picked it up yet you’ll want to head over to the Xbox Live Marketplace and check out the demo before you do. 1UP’s review wasn’t all praises, as the radical new pitching system sounds like it might be a real turn-off for some gamers.

And while it’s rewarding when you paint the black for a called strike three, it’s just too easy to consistently make a mistake pitch — and there’s no shortage of punishment if you do. Teams will remorselessly tee off if you’ve got bad location, and we’re not talking about doubles. We’re talking homer after homer after homer. Base-clearing shots will leave you fearful of the power prospects of even a Punch and Judy eighth hitter — which just isn’t fun.

The demo weighs in at just under 1GB, and presumably we’ll see a release of the demo on the PlayStation Store tomorrow as a part of the weekly Store update.

2K Sports in collaboration with Pitchfork Media has release the list of hits on the Major League Baseball 2K8 soundtrack. The selections are classic tracks as well as some of the best of today’s popular music selected by Pitchfork. These specialty tracks tagged as “Pitchfork Picks” will include an additional bio information on the artist.

2K Sports will be making an appearance at the 3rd Annual Pitchfork/Windish Agency day party at the SXSW 2008 conference in Austin, Texas on Friday, March 14th. The show will include Jay Reatard and other breakout acts.

Here’s the list of tracks for MLB 2K8:

• Battles — Atlas**
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club — Need Some Air
• Blitzen Trapper — Wild Mountain Nation**
• Dinosaur Jr. — Almost Ready**
• Jay Reatard — My Shadow**
• Kasabian — Reason Is Treason
• LCD Soundsystem — Watch The Tapes**
• Modest Mouse — Dashboard
• Peter Bjorn & John — The Chills
• The Cars — Moving In Stereo
• The Cool Kids — 88**
• The Cure — Never Enough
• The Flaming Lips — The W.A.N.D. - no MF edit
• The Hold Steady — Stuck Between Stations**
• The Presidents Of The United States Of America — Cleveland Rocks
• The Revolution Fox Experiment — Hyper Charlie
• The Strokes — Someday

via Press Release