Everybody's favorite zombie stompin' sequel is enjoying a turn in the sun this week with lots of news about what's to come. First and foremost, the boycotters are getting a big neener neener neener as a Valve representative told Eurogamer that pre-orders for the sequel are currently double that of the original's pre-order figures from the same time last year. There's a little bit of spin control in there, big shocker there from a likely marketing type, seeing how the original didn't have a big coming out party until E3 2008 which didn't come out until almost the end of July. That along with general sequel excitedness gives you inflated sales figures. Tada!
Getting the L4D2 pre-order not only gets you the right to pelvic thrust in joy, but early purchasers also get early access to the game's demo if you order it over Steam or with retailers for either the 360 or PC. There's not been a date released as of yet, however with the November 17th release date approaching rapidly, one assumes this will be sooner rather than later.
There will be more Left 4 Dead 1 DLC by the end of the summer and of course the other news this week that L4D2 might work with L4D1. Valve's Doug Lombardi said that developers are looking to see if there's some way to allow cross-play between the two games. "That's something that we're trying to work out the details of right now," Lombardi said. "So nothing specific to say today, but we understand that it's a very valid thing to be working on and looking at."
All in all, it's a good week to like to kill zombies.
On July 2nd Gamestop updated their Wii bundles listed online to include three new bundled items. You can either get a rubber duck, water gun, or a pirate tattoo set bundled with your new Nintendo Wii. They are priced at $249.99 at Gamestop and only available online.
Xbox announced at E3 that there were going to be more details about their partnering with Last.Fm and here they are! Xbox Live Silver users can now access Last.fm, but only for limited time. How much limited time you may ask? Three hours a month. If you have a Gold account you will have unlimited access to Last.fm streaming. But, of course since you aren't paying Last.fm you will have to sit through ads and video advertising. If you want to stream Last.fm on your Xbox with no ads indefinitely, head over to Last.fm and sign up for the service, which is a whole $3 a month.
We at Split Infinity Radio don't condone piracy and other related naughtiness and shenanigans, but it seems Pirate Bay has been purchased and is looking to go all legal and respectable. Software company Global Gaming Factory X AB has reportedly bought the site for a cool US$7.8 million.
This acquisition looks to be the first step towards transforming the Stockholm-based peer-to-peer server which has made video games, movies and music available for "sharing" among users for many years.
Pirate Bay was in the news lately after a raid by Swedish police and a high profile court case which resulted in a guilty verdict for its founders.
Times are a changing though for the site as Hans Pandeya, CEO of Sweden's Global Gaming Factory has said "We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site." Which at least suggests it may become a paid service for I'm assuming will be paid for by the site's users.
Currently, and especially after the recent controversies and coverage surrounding the site, Pirate Bay is said to be in the top 100 most visited sites on the internet, and according to Pandeya it needs to change. "In order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary," he said, adding that "content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it." What's more, Pandeya adds, file sharers need "faster downloads and better quality."
Global Gaming Factory X AB will actually acquire The Pirate Bay this August but according to a statement from The Pirate Bay, "If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to."
Pirates going legitemate? And the say strange things happen at sea...
We all know that folks at SI are major Starcraft buffs, so we keep a close watch on all things Starcraft 2 related. So here's a roundup on the latest news from the land of Blizzard and our favorite RTS title's sequel, which better be out this year, or so help us Bob, we'll cry like little girls.
Apparently EA is tired of paying a bunch of executive level salaries, so they decided to merge BioWare and Mythic together, and in the process kicked Mythic's General Manager Mark Jacobs to the curb. The singular team will be lead by BioWare's General Manager Ray Muzyka and the new "RPG/MMO studio group" will have BioWare's Greg Zeschuk as the "group creative officer." Mythic's chief operating officer Rob Denton will become general manager and report to Muzyka.
At this point, effectively, Mythic is now being managed by BioWare. It should be very interesting to see what happens with Warhammer Online now that the brains behind BioWare are at the helm.
A formal announcement will apparently be made later today, so keep your eyes peeled.
In a bizarre, surprise move today Zenimax Media, who is the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, that you know for Fallout, bought out id Software, the famed company behind Doom and Quake. ZeniMax has said that id Software will keep their executives on board, with all of them signing long term contracts to continue their roles with the studio.
The purchase also does not affect any previously announced games and plans from id which are due to be released through other publishers, including the Activision-Blizzard backed Wolfenstein and the EA backed Rage, but does give ZeniMax that capability going forward. ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman said, "Our role will be to provide publisher support through Bethesda Softworks and give id Software the resources it needs to grow and expand."
John Carmack, id Software's Technical Director, said that this lets them "grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am."
This I suppose puts another nail in the coffin of the independent PC developer, and puts another point on the board for the big corporate gaming machine. It's kinda sad to see gaming go this way, but everybody's got to eat I suppose.
[21:46] RedJeans: You forgot the part about the underpants and the ???? [19:17] e_volved: 1. tune in 2. hear mashups 3. tune out [06:12] biowulf: I think I had my radio playing for like 48 straight now, best damn radio eva! [00:42] dewy65: melody pwns all. MFTW!! [20:39] Deatheatscurry: Just threaten Blizz: "Beta me, OR ILL EAT YOUR PUPPIES" [01:06] Lagfest: ok if i dont get a sc2 beta invite ima punt some babies [22:16] dewy65: COOKIES!! [07:22] Venibbeth: is there something wrong with the IRC server? [07:15] Decration: Metalllllllllll!! !!! [22:08] elduke202: OMG Billy Mays is dead what are we to do?
