This trailer from GamesCom 2009 shows off the return of the Lombax in Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time.

As we pointed out in yesterday’s story on the October NPDs, perhaps the biggest title to not make the list was Guitar Hero World Tour. It did come out in the last week of the month, but Guitar Hero III released a day later and still managed to claim four spots on the top ten charts despite going up against the likes of Halo 3, The Orange Box, Ratchet & Clank Future, and the impossible-to-kill Wii Play.

We contacted Activision to find out what their reaction was to the news and see how they’d spin it. An Activision representative told us, “Guitar Hero was the #1 game across all platforms on a dollar basis and the #2 title on a unit basis.” The dollar figure isn’t surprising, given that the biggest seller of the bunch was likely the full band kits which retail for $190 on Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3. And given the number of consoles the game was released on — the three aforementioned plus the PlayStation 2 (although the rep pointed out that the PS2 bundle has yet to release) — that would explain to a certain extent both why no single console made the top ten and how the game could be the #2 overall seller without any individual SKU making the top ten.

In addition to the PS2 bundle not releasing until November, the Activision rep claimed, “The biggest difference between this year’s launch and last [year's] is that our initial launch quantities were limited due to early supply constraints,” before reassuring us, “However, we will be steadily replenishing the supply throughout the quarter.”

Guitar Hero 3 was a mainstay in the charts following release, with at least two SKUs camping there for five consecutive months, from October 2007 – February 2008. The November NPDs should prove to be very interesting as both Rock Band 2 and World Tour seek to make the list after both failing in October. There are any number of reasons that could account for this — were gamers unaware they would be able to use their older instruments with World Tour and Rock Band 2, putting them off from purchasing it? Have people finally gotten tired of paying a premium price for music games, particularly in this economic climate? Or was the competition simply too much to overcome? Hopefully we’ll get some indication next month.

Insomniac Games has now announced a release date for the upcoming Ratchet and Clank Future; Quest for Booty. The game is slated to hit the Playstation Network on August 21st at a price of $14.99. Why the budget price? Mostly because the game will take about 3-4 hours to complete. Aside from that though, the game will play exactly like the previous Tools of Destruction and will continue the story exactly where that game left off: with Ratchet trying to find his lost pal, Clank. I actually had a chance to check out the game at this past E3, and I can definitely say this one will be worth the fifteen bucks to Ratchet and Clank fans. I just hope they’ve also got a longer title in the works right now.

Via Playstation Blog

The concept of a mini, episodic-esque game based on a major franchise is really a brilliant idea. Quest for Booty is basically a mini Ratchet & Clank game that will cost only $15, but still packs the punch of a full Ratchet & Clank game — albeit a shorter one.

Insomniac’s Brian Allgeier explains the concept for Quest for Booty in the video above, which should provide you with a solid grasp of what they’re doing with the game. FileFront is also home to a few screenshots for the game, which looks like it’ll be recycling a lot of assets from Ratchet & Clank Future. That’s not a knock on the game by any means, but it seems worth mentioning.

I can understand the worry some people might have that a developer might in the future leave out content from a game so that they can release an episodic version like this after the game’s release. Even with that fear in mind, I’m really loving the idea for this, and I really hope we see more in the future across all platforms.

Thus far, Sony’s has been the best press conference of E3 2008, hands down. Their turkey melts were delicious, as were the mini-quiches and those fruit drinks they were passing out. The wait staff was prompt and efficient, particularly around the open bar. All I had to do was say “beer,” and there’d be one in my hand within seconds. Oh yeah, and they talked about games or something like that, I think… Read the full article

Remember awhile back when the ESRB said there weren’t going to be any more game leaks coming out of their website? Well, it looks like someone didn’t get the memo. A recent listing has surfaced for an upcoming Ratchet and Clank game called “Quest for Booty.” Based on this alone, I’m guessing the game will be released around the holiday season and will somehow involve the robot pirates from the last game. You can probably chalk this one up as something else we’ll be hearing much more about come E3 time.

Via ESRB

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?

There was some concern aired when Ratchet & Clank Future managed to sell just 74,500 this past October  in a PlayStation 3 market that wasn’t overflowing with high quality games. But it turns out that the game has managed to surpass the one million mark worldwide, which Insomniac’s Ted Price says is on par with the PlayStation 2 games. That’s the first bit of good news surrounding Insomniac.

MTV Multiplayer spoke with Price last month at DICE and asked him about the apparent flip-flopping of Ratchet and Resistance games every year, where the games are given a two year development cycle as compared with the yearly Ratchet releases we saw on PS2. But rather than confirm that this is what Insomniac has in store, he said that they intend to develop new IP – definitely something good to hear from a high quality developer like Insomniac. But don’t worry, Resistance 2 should still be here this year.

On the PS2 you guys were basically doing a “Ratchet” every year. Now, the indication is that “Resistance” is trading off with “Ratchet” every year. Is that a pattern people should be expecting from you guys?

Well, we’ll continue to produce new IP, there’s no question about that. So that means that pattern won’t necessarily continue as you stated. You do see “Resistance 2? coming out this year. One thing that has been nice for us is that instead of the one-year cycles that we had on PlayStation one, we now have two-year cycles, which gives us a chance to do really thorough pre-production and gives the team the chance to take a bit of a break — and gives consumers a break, too. We were experiencing consumer fatigue with “Ratchet” on the PlayStation 2.

Multiplayer is only teasing us with part of the full interview, which we should see more of in the upcoming days. Expect to see some Resistance 2 talk in the next day or so.

News out of the ongoing Destination PlayStation – a Sony event for the company to meet with retailers and third party teams – brings word that the long awaited DualShock 3 will finally be available in North America this April. According to PlayStation.Blog, the controller’s rumble feature will be compatible with more than 100 games, including Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank Future, and Metal Gear Solid 4.

They didn’t peg a specific date, or if they did they’re simply not sharing it with us. This puts me in a bit of a conundrum since I don’t know if I should hold off on playing through my remaining PS3 “to play” list so that I can experience it with rumble. What am I to do?

The one thing I do know for sure, though, is that with a $54.99 price tag I’ll be telling a GameStop employee, “One please.”

I read pretty much every comment on this site and chime in myself when I have the time. This week’s greatest comment came from one of our regular readers ‘Norbit’. The comment was concerning the following article and I felt it was one of the best comeback comments I have seen in a while:
Insomniac’s Recruitment Music Video Drops Hints About Resistance 2?

• carg0 says:
  February 21st, 2008 at 1:09 am Insomniac Games: mediocrity defined.
• Norbit says:
  February 21st, 2008 at 5:52 am carg0 said: “Insomniac Games: mediocrity defined”Mediocrity – ‘the state or quality of being mediocre’Mediocre – ‘of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate’

  OK, lets take a look at their back catalogue;

  Resistance Fall Of Man (PS3)
  IGN rating – 9.1

  Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
  IGN rating – 9.4

  Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2)
  IGN rating – 8.8

  Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
  IGN rating – 9.6

  Ratchet and Clank: Locked and Loaded (PS2)
  IGN rating – 9.4

  Ratchet & Clank (PS2)
  IGN rating – 9.2

  Disruptor (PS1)
  IGN rating – 8.0

  Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
  IGN rating – 9.0

  Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage (PS1)
  IGN rating – 8.8

  Spyro: Year of the Dragon (PS1)
  IGN rating – 9.1

  That means the average rating for an Insomniac Games title is 9.04.

  ‘Mediocre’? I think ‘consistently excellent’ is a more subtitle description.