Sick and tired of that boring old white Wii? Jealous that both Japan and Europe have already had their mits on an awesome looking black Wii for months? If you possess such ridiculous insecurities you'll be happy to learn that Nintendo will be offering the Black Wii state side May 9, with a few little bonuses over the plain old white color.

First off, the black model will come with two games. The standard Wii Sports title as well as the sequel, Wii Sports Resort. Guess what also comes with it? A Wii motion plus add on to go with the motion enhanced Wii Sports Resort. All this comes at the standard retail of $200, but one could argue that the Wii is technically $150 since Nintendo is throwing in another $50 game.

Bungie has recently announced on their community blog that they have entered into a 10-year publishing agreement with Activision. From what is mentioned in the announcement, it appears this new partnership is meant to allow Bungie a world-wide recognized publisher with which to release original intellectual property on mulitple platforms:

The groundbreaking alliance will provide Bungie its first such partnership since splitting off from Microsoft in 2007, significantly broadening its global reach by providing the resources and support to develop, distribute and release games worldwide on multiple platforms and devices.

The details of the agreement stipulate that Activision retains the right to publish Bungie games based on new, original IP's which can translate to "no halo on PS3" depending on how you look at it. Bungie also retains all rights to their own content and will remain an independent company from Activision, meaning the possibility of another Infinity Ward/Activision fiasco would be highly unlikely.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of plans Bungie has with this new agreement. With E3 little more than a month away we expect more details to come to light. Stay tuned for more information as it develops.

Don't worry, this isn't more Activision Vs. Infinity Ward news. Treyarch's next addition to the Call of Duty series, which is rumored to take place in the Vietnam era, is going to be oficially announced late tomorrow night on Spike network's Gametrailers TV.

If you want to see the reveal yourself tune in at around 12:30 AM... or you can get some sleep and get the details here the next morning.

Hoo boy, things are getting very serious with the media debacle that is Infinity Ward and Activision. A group of around thiry-eight Infinity Ward employees have filed a lawsuit against Activision claiming the publisher has not paid the full amount of bonuses and royalities owed to the developer since the release of Modern Warfare 2; going so far as to say that Activision is intentionally holding the developer's payment hostage in order to keep employees working at IW to develop (and subsequently reap the rewards of) Modern Warfare 3.

According to G4TV, the employees taking part in the suit include "a significant portion of the members of the creative team" for Modern Warfare 2.  Information filed within the suit mentions that Activision has paid Infinity Ward around $28 million for the game, but is charged for witholding an additional $54 million for 2009's profits, not including amounts yet to be payed for the games success in 2010. In addition to the money owed, the IW employees are seeking anywhere from $75 million to $500 million in punitive damages. The suit also mentions Activision's breach of contract by failing to pay terminated or departing employees their due within seventy-two hours of their end of employment.

(more...)

As predicted, more senior staff have parted ways with the Modern Warfare 2 developer since the sacking of Infinity Ward founders Vince Zampella and Jason West. Designers Keith Bell and Charlie Wiederhold in addition to level designer Preston Glenn departed from the studio not long after the departure of five other senior staff members. 

In addition to these three, five more left yesterday including lead character artist Joel Emslie, artist Brad Allen, weapons artist Ryan Lastimosa, lead programmer Robert Field, and Kristin Cotterell, who is actually a human resources and recruitment specialist. Don't they seek out new talent for up and coming developers by the way? Wonder where this is going...

With these departures and the ones from the previous weekend the total number of employees to leave Infinity Ward is around 26, according to Kotaku. No matter how Activision may try to spin it, seeing this many employees seemingly follow their former bosses out the door presents itself as a huge debaser to the publisher's claim that Zampella and West were schemers and scammers out only for themselves. Based on the snowball like effect of these departures its a pretty strong certainty that only more will leave.

According to Square Enix, western developed games tend to be a bit, erm, violent. Since the publisher is often behind the localization of western developed titles over seas, SE apparently felt the need to develop an all new label under which they would publish the more "extreme" games brought to the publisher's homeland. Thusly, the Square Enix Extreme Edges publishing label has been created to do just that

The label will be used to publish games that get a CERO rating of D or Z, the Japanese equivalent of the ESRB's M and AO rating. The thought process behind this new label is to further help consumers distinct between the more extreme and mildly rated games. The best thing I can compare this to would be  Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. One is intended for a more mature audience and provides distinction to show it.

Since SE owns Eidos there's sure to be a number of new games to be published under the new label. It's good to see new avenues open up for more games to reach out farther into different locales of the industry.

[via siliconera]

Well, Infinity Ward is definitely bleeding talent. Five more employees have parted ways with the Modern Warfare developer bringing the total tally of deserters to something around 17 since the studio's former headman got the sack. The latest handful to jump ship include Senior designers Mohammad Alavi, Chad Grenier, and Brent Mcleod as well as programmer Chris Lambert and designer Jason McCord. Just as with many of the other departed no new comments have been given as to why they've left the company, though it may have something to do with Zampella and West's recent "respawn" in the industry.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these aren't the last people we'll see leave Infinity Ward. In fact, with Respawn Entertainment due to get started sometime  in May, it's wholly possible that Infinity Ward will have few (if any) of their original talent within the next couple months.

[via Kotaku]

In a herculean effort to squeeze every last drop of blood out of the Call of Duty stone, Activision's Dan Amrich revealed in a Facebook thread that the publisher is planning on releasing three more Call of Duty games before the earth has a chance to finish two consecutive revolutions around the sun.

As for COD, they've confirmed three games in the next two years. Seeing as how there is a pattern of one new COD game every year, this is one new COD game from one new developer, and in a different genre from the core games we've seen. I don't think that's comparable to what happened last year with Guitar Hero, but maybe you see it differently.

So there's Treyarch's COD coming out this year which is rumored to take place in Vietnam, Infinity Ward's COD game which is assumed to be Modern Warfare 3, and finally, this third COD game which is said to be an action/adventure title meant to broaden the series audience. That's a lot of Duty. We better start digging a hole next to Guitar Hero so we can get ready to drive this series into the ground.

[via VG247]

Little over a month after former Infinity Ward and Modern Warfare 2 chief men Vince Zampella and Jason West were given the pink slip from Activision, the two are now setting up shop with the aforementioned publisher's biggest rival,  Electronic Arts. The two formed a new company, Respawn Entertainment, and will produce video games under the Electronic Art's label but still enjoy a level of independence from the publisher. Kotaku broke the story earlier this morning:

"Respawn Entertainment marks a fresh start for Jason and me," Zampella said in a statement. "For the past decade we led a great development team and poured our hearts into creating an epic game franchise. We're very proud of what we built – and proud that so many millions of fans enjoyed those games. Today we hope to do it all over again — open a new studio, hire a great team, and create brand new games with a new partner, EA"

Zampella and West previously worked for EA before leaving the publisher for Activision and forming Infinity Ward. During their previous employ with EA the two were part of 2015, inc. where they helped develop Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. Now that the two are returning to EA one could say they've come full circle, though admittedly, they have a much better deal going for them now than previously:

"We're excited," West said. "Now that the team is in control of the games and brands, we can ensure that the fans are treated as well as they deserve."

Don't expect any new game announcements from the new studio for a while. The two report that they have a few ideas for their next big game but no new announcements have been made.

[via Kotaku]

Ready for OnLive? After their GDC Keynote, OnLive has been officially announced to release on June 17, 2010, and that the first 25,000 registered users will get their first 3 months of OnLive, normally $14.99 per month, free.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up!

via OnLive Blog