While executive producer Yoshinori Kitase looks to handhelds and download services as platforms for experimentation

Square Enix’s longstanding producer Yoshinori Kitase has challenged suggestions that developing a game as expensive as Final Fantasy XIII can stifle creativity.

Kitase, executive producer of Final Fantasy XIII, does concede that the cost of creating an RPG on a console is “almost unfeasibly high”, but he adds that the development customs of Final Fantasy games have always endorsed input from all angles.

“There is an unusual sort of pressure on Final Fantasy XIII”, he said in an interview with Edge. “I’d say that we need this game to have ten times the success and impact of these smaller titles. But I don’t think that means we’ve compromised in terms of the game design or creativity in any way. Indeed, the development of the game has very much followed in the tradition of the previous titles in the series, welcoming input from the full range of development staff.”


Yet when speaking of “adventurous, leftfield ideas”, Kitase cited handheld releases and various download services as the platform for experimentation.

Kitase himself has been involved with the majority of mainline Final Fantasy games, though he also has a reputation for his work on titles such as Chrono Trigger and Kingdom Hearts.

He has recently expressed his desire to shorten the distance between FFXIII’s release in the East and West, telling Videogamer that the team has already begun English voice-acting and text localisation.

The game is now in its fifth year of development.

http://www.developmag.com/news/31792...ith-creativity ...

A lawsuit from Erich Specht, the owner of US firm Android Data Corp, could lead to Google having to re-brand its growing mobile phone OS Android.
Forbes reports that Specht is seeking $94m in damages fro trademark infringement – a claim that Google is strongly denying. Also in the dock are all companies involved in the Open handset Alliance – Toshiba, Motorola, Qualcom, Samsung, Sprint Nextel, China Mobile, Texas Instruments, T-Mobile and Vodafone.
Google’s application for the Android trademark was filed in October 2007 just days before it publicly revealed its mobile OS, but the application was subsequently rejected. Google appealed on the grounds that Android Data Corp had been dissolved, and the process is still ongoing.

The court’s final decision will hinge on whether Specht’s company is being harmed by Google’s branding. In the mean time, the threat of all of Google’s Android products being removed from the marketplace remains a possibility.

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/285...-Android-brand ...

Engadget is carrying a rumor from "someone who purports to be in the know" about Microsoft's really big E3 reveal. It's an all-body motion-sensor controller which picks up large movements (kicking, swinging etc.) as well as smaller hand movements like pinching. If such a thing were to work (Engadget's tipster has "no idea" how it works), it could mark the end of controllers in certain games. (Certainly annoying custom controllers in trivia games, for example.)


Obviously, Sony and Microsoft are still hopping mad about being wrong-footed by Nintendo with the Wii Remote, and have been looking for a way to 'disrupt' the competition via game-control ever since.


For non-hardcore games, this would seem to be a way forward, breaking through the much-daunted complex-controller barrier that keeps certain demographics wary of Xbox 360; while they are perfectly happy to jape around in front of a Wii. I think this sounds pretty damn cool.

http://www.gamebizblog.com/gamebizbl...-e3-trick.html ...

Activision's movie tie-in X-Men Origins: Wolverine has failed to take the top spot in the UK charts, debuting just behind Wii Fit, which holds the number one position for the fifth week.

The superhero title sold 51 per cent of copies on Microsoft's Xbox 360, 39 per cent on PlayStation 3, and the rest on PSP, PS2, DS, Wii and PC, according to data from GfK Chart-Track.

Electronic Art's FIFA 09 saw sales leap 28 per cent this week as it climbed to number three in the charts, while Nintendo's Wii Play and Mario Kart Wii also enjoyed a boost with sales up 47 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively.

The only other new entry in the charts this week is SingStar: Pop Edition for PS3, which enters at number 32.

The top ten follows:

01 Wii Fit
02: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
03 FIFA 09
04 Wii Play
05 Resident Evil 5
06 Mario Kart Wii
07 The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
08 The Godfather II
09 Professor Layton and the Curious Village
10 Call of Duty: World at War

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...on-uk-top-spot ...

As Apple continues to push its business into the videogaming market, industry watchers are speculating that there are big plans afoot at the iPhone manufacturer.

The Street notes that according to Guy Adami, professional investor and media analyst, "there is chatter that Apple is eyeing Electronic Arts as a takeover target."

Meanwhile, Forbes points to Apple's recent hiring of two key videogame executives as further evidence the company is preparing a bigger entry into handheld gaming following the successful launch and uptake of the iPhone device.

Richard Taversham joins the company from Microsoft, where he was senior director of insights and strategy for Xbox in Europe, in the same week that Bob Drebin, creator of the Nintendo GameCube's graphics processor at AMD, also arrived at the company.

IBMs chip designer Mark Papermaster has also recently joined the company as head of the iPod business.

The report suggests there are three avenues of evolution for the iPhone and iPod devices, including the integration and improvement of video and still images into games.

Last month, ngmoco's Neil Young told GamesIndustry.biz that such access would be ideal to evolve the gaming experience on the iPhone, and the company is already experimenting in anticipation.

"I'd like to get access to the raw video feed out of the camera because I think that could enable some really interesting types of games," he said.

"We've got some games that we're working on that are location based but they need some pieces of functionality to be available to us for them to be really worthwhile."

As well as an upgrade to a faster processor, Apple is also expected to experiment with new iterations of the device, with the same software that powers the iPhone and iPod touch utilised in a netbook or tablet computer.

"Apple has told us from the beginning to be sure to write our new software in a way that will accommodate different resolutions and screen sizes," offered Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, the company behind break-out hit Tap Tap Revenge and its sequel.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ming-ambitions ...

As Apple continues to push its business into the videogaming market, industry watchers are speculating that there are big plans afoot at the iPhone manufacturer.

The Street notes that according to Guy Adami, professional investor and media analyst, "there is chatter that Apple is eyeing Electronic Arts as a takeover target."

Meanwhile, Forbes points to Apple's recent hiring of two key videogame executives as further evidence the company is preparing a bigger entry into handheld gaming following the successful launch and uptake of the iPhone device.

Richard Taversham joins the company from Microsoft, where he was senior director of insights and strategy for Xbox in Europe, in the same week that Bob Drebin, creator of the Nintendo GameCube's graphics processor at AMD, also arrived at the company.

IBMs chip designer Mark Papermaster has also recently joined the company as head of the iPod business.

The report suggests there are three avenues of evolution for the iPhone and iPod devices, including the integration and improvement of video and still images into games.

Last month, ngmoco's Neil Young told GamesIndustry.biz that such access would be ideal to evolve the gaming experience on the iPhone, and the company is already experimenting in anticipation.

"I'd like to get access to the raw video feed out of the camera because I think that could enable some really interesting types of games," he said.

"We've got some games that we're working on that are location based but they need some pieces of functionality to be available to us for them to be really worthwhile."

As well as an upgrade to a faster processor, Apple is also expected to experiment with new iterations of the device, with the same software that powers the iPhone and iPod touch utilised in a netbook or tablet computer.

"Apple has told us from the beginning to be sure to write our new software in a way that will accommodate different resolutions and screen sizes," offered Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous, the company behind break-out hit Tap Tap Revenge and its sequel.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ming-ambitions ...

EA Sports president Peter Moore has told GamesIndustry.biz that he's excited about the forthcoming release of EA Sports Active - but that as an attempt to appeal more to a different demographic it's something that makes him "nervous and uncomfortable as heck".

The "fascinating experiment" is part of a strategy designed, in Moore's words, to make the EA Sports brand less "hardcore" and more accessible, and will add to work already done in that area, such as the All-Play mode in last year's Tiger Woods title - a move which he is confident has helped to increase the company's market share on the Nintendo platform.

"We've made progress, particularly with Tiger on the Wii," said Moore. "Our core franchises, FIFA and Madden, we made progress on last year. We're very excited about Wii Motion Plus, with Tennis and Tiger - because we think it makes the games that much better, because the timing couldn't be better coming out with Motion Plus, and because Nintendo's working with us to bundle Motion Plus with both of our games.

"From that element of it we're very bullish about our presence on the Wii. EA Sports Active could be one of the big hits of the Spring - more than a game, more than a franchise, it's a brand new platform fro Electronic Arts and EA Sports that doesn't cannibalise one consumer. It's talking to a very unique and different consumer - a woman - and bringing our brands to places that previously, two years ago, we wouldn't have dreamt of going to.

"It's a fascinating experiment, it makes us nervous and uncomfortable as heck, but we love it. It's just so different to what we do, and all of us are excited about it. It's been a tough 12-15 months getting this thing right, doing the engineering on the strap and getting that right, working with Nintendo - who have been a great partner - I'm as excited about that as I've been about any game in a long time."

Moore was careful to give credit to Nintendo for the support shown to EA Sports over the Wii Motion Plus launch, contrasting with criticism in some quarters in the past from companies who have found it too difficult to compete with the platform holder's huge marketing spend - something that the label president says they have every right to do.

"You know what? That's their prerogative," said. "They spend a lot of money developing the platform, a lot of money marketing it. We get to take advantage of it, but all I can tell you is that they've been very supportive of what we've done with [EA Sports] Active, very supportive in recognising that we have the best software to achieve their objective - which is to get a strong start for the Wii Motion Plus - and they have the business maturity to say 'We do have a game coming, but you know, your game looks really good and we're going to get behind it for you.'

"Shame on us if we don't take advantage of that, and they've been great partners so far."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-for-publisher ...

Atomic Games CEO Peter Tamte has defended the studio's military simulation Six Days in Fallujah, saying that the game is culturally relevant while questioning whether videogames can reach the same artistic merits as other mediums.

During a keynote address at the Triangle Game Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina on April 30, Tamte implied that Six Days in Fallujah - a realistic military simulation centered around an infamously bloody late 2004 US Military offensive against Iraqi insurgents - is a pioneering title that will raise the artistic level of videogames.

"Every form of media has grown by producing content about current events, content that's powerful because it's relevant," said Tamte, as reported by The News & Observer. "Movies, music and TV have helped people make sense of the complex issues of our times."

"Are we really just high-tech toymakers, or are we media companies capable of producing content that is as relevant as movies, music and television?" he continued.

Tamte also responded to media backlash against the possibly insensitive nature of the game, saying that "After they got back from Fallujah, these Marines asked us to tell their story. They asked us to tell their story through the most relevant medium of the day - a medium they use the most - and that is the videogame."

"Six Days in Fallujah is not about whether the US and its allies should have invaded Iraq," Tamte continued. "It's an opportunity for the world to experience the true stories of the people who fought in one of the world's largest urban battles of the past half-century."

Six Days in Fallujah was first unveiled at a press event held in early April by Konami, the game's then-publisher. Later that month, Konami pulled out of its publishing agreement after a significant amount of public backlash, most if it by families of soldiers who died during the conflict. Tamte's keynote was given mere days after Konami's cancellation announcement.

The fate of the game remains uncertain, with Tamte telling GamesIndustry.biz that "Development of the game had been progressing very well and on schedule. We would very much like the opportunity to complete the game."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ys-in-fallujah ...

The relationship between Apple and Google has always been pretty cozy -- Mac OS X and the iPhone tie into a variety of Google services, Google's developed rule-breaking iPhone apps, we've heard endless whispers of Apple meddling in the development of the G1, and on and on. In fact, the relationship between the two companies is so tight they actually share board members: Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson take meetings in both Cupertino and Mountain View. That's apparently raised some hackles at the Federal Trade Commission, which has reportedly informed both companies they're being investigated for violating a rarely-enforced section of the Clayton Antitrust Act prohibiting "interlocking directorates" when it reduces competition. That sounds like someone at the FTC just noticed that Apple makes the iPhone and Google's responsible for Android, but nothing's set in stone yet -- and we've got a feeling Android's open-source codebase could throw a monkey wrench into an already-complex legal analysis. We'll obviously be tracking this one closely, keep an eye out.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/05/04/a...antitrust-vio/ ...