It is unlikely that 2011 will see the release of an Assassin's Creed game, the series' associate producer has told Eurogamer.

Ubisoft Montreal's Jean-Francois Boivin said the popular stealth-em-up needs a "breather" following the release of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood later this year.

"Honestly, I think for the benefit of everybody – and business can come back and override everything I say because at the end of the day it's about selling games – I believe that this license needs a breather. You can't plough a field every year. Once every three years – or once every something – you have to let it breathe. You have to let the minerals back in. I think it's the same thing with any license, really.

"We can see a lot of the music games that are releasing year after year – the interest is a lot less than it used to be. The excitement is a lot less than it used to be. You want to keep people excited. You gotta make people miss it a bit. It's like, 'Oh man! I'm so happy it's back!' But if you keep force-feeding to people then people are like, 'Yeah, enough of your Assassin's Creed'.

"I don't think there's going to be an Assassin's Creed in 2011. I think we're going to let it breathe a bit and really focus on bringing something new and exciting for the next time around. This [Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood] is the end of Ezio's story. This is it."

Brotherhood, due out in the UK on 19th November for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, will include multiplayer for the first time in the successful series, and is set in Rome. Ubisoft insists the game is more than "Assassin's Creed 2.5".

"I really don't know," Boivin replied when pushed on the duration of Assassin's breather. "Bottom line, it's not for me to say. We have some business people that will eventually put a date and say, 'This needs to come out'. We have our creative people, who are also pushing on their end, saying, 'We need this much time to do something new and refreshing, just scope wise'. So I don't know how much time we'll need.

"If we skip a year, I think we're good. But yeah, I think we could do something really true to the license if we skip a year and release it in 2012 or 2013. We need to keep it fresh though; we need to keep it relatively close by, because we have to keep the interest there. I don't think we do a service to this license if we pull a Duke Nukem on people, you know what I'm saying? It's hard to answer."

Despite Boivin's call for the series to take a breather, he told Eurogamer that the development team has already decided where the next game will be set and in what time period.

"We know exactly where we're going," he said. "It would lack vision and blunt intelligence to wing it episode after episode. We have to have some vision with the story. We very much do; we know all that stuff.

"I'll nibble on your hook. I can't directly answer your question. Of course you understand that. But what I can say is you have to remain true to what the license is. It's the story of Desmond Miles, and it's the story of a machine called an Animus that reads genetic memories from your ancestors. It has to stay in there. If it doesn't, then there's this whole justification that needs to happen.

"We need to keep doing that for the duration of this license. We need to keep treating players with respect and treating players with the smarts they have. That's why they will keep coming back, if we continue to keep doing that. That's the way I'm going to answer your question."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/no...-creed-in-2011 ...

Capcom has offered "many apologies" to the MotoGP 09/10 owners whose games have been broken by an automatic title update.

"Many apologies for this bug in the 2010 season DLC," the publisher told Eurogamer. "We are aware of the problem and are working to deliver a solution to solve the issue as soon as possible."

The problem meant anyone completing a 2009 season and then wanting to pick a 2010 motorbike and competition couldn't. The game would produce a "Content Not Available" box with the text: "Downloaded content is no longer available. Returning to the main menu."

Worse, owners of the game found that when they returned to the 2009 career their bike had disappeared.

Those who have fallen foul of the bug suggest saving your game settings to a memory card and not completing the 2009 season first.

Others are convinced that the DLC can be downloaded safely, and that time trials and online races can be played without incident using normal bikes. Just don't go customising them.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ma...ogp-bug-capcom ...

DJ Hero 2 developer FreeStyle Games has told Eurogamer TV that it is much happier with the pricing for its second turntable music game.

The original DJ Hero was sold for £100 in the UK, and FreeStyle studio manager Kevin McSherry indicated he wasn't impressed by the premium price tag.

"Well, FreeStyle Games have been quite vocal in our feedback on that," he told EGTV in an interview you can watch below.

"And there's some fantastic news on pricing actually - the whole game this time around is about two turntables and a microphone, and Activision have worked with us to produce a fantastic party pack.

"It basically has the two turntables, the microphone and the game for $149. That's miles away from where we were last year."

Last time around the game was critically acclaimed, scoring 8/10 on Eurogamer but that didn't translate into sales immediately. The game has since been discounted and Activision recently claimed sales were at 1.2 million "and counting".

This year Activision and FreeStyle hope for both critical and commercial success, and you can read about their progress in our DJ Hero 2 preview.

McSherry also said that there would be only "minor" changes to the turntable peripheral for the sequel.

"We always make minor iterative improvements as you go along with a piece of hardware like this, and that work is going on in the background," he told EGTV.

"But as far as gameplay is concerned it's exactly the same, so if you own DJ Hero 1 turntable it will work brilliantly on DJ Hero 2 and vice versa."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/fr...j-hero-2-price ...

Lord of Arcana looks and probably has features comparable to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series. Square Enix’s game isn’t exactly the same, though. Lord of Arcana has differences like how it switches between the field and monster fights. When a Slayer runs into a monster the game creates an arena with invisible walls to fight in.

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/08...style-slaying/ ...

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 producer Sasaki posted a blog reminiscing about old pre-order items for the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series.

While Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm didn’t come with a keepsake in Japan, Sasaki says they have a pre-order bonus planned. In North America, some stores gave out codes to access support characters early.

Oh, and a PlayStation 3 demo is slated for next week. Sasaki briefly mentions the demo at the end and says it will be distributed in Japan first. That gives everyone reading this a week to create a Japanese PlayStation Network account if they don’t already have one to get early access to the Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 demo.

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/08...psn-next-week/ ...

Bplus, the creators of Bit Boy for WiiWare, are adapting one of their Wii projects for Nintendo 3DS. Last year, the Austria based studio announced Vektor Tank and released a teaser video of it.

Today, the studio re-announced their tank game as Vektor Tank 3D+ for Nintendo 3DS. Vektor Tank 3D+ takes place in the future where was is fought in colorful cyber worlds. Bplus says the style of their game was inspired by early 3D classics such as Star Fox, Virtual Racing, and Vortex.

In addition to 3D graphics, Bplus changed the control system. Vektor Tank 3D+’s 3D+ control scheme recognizes a player’s movements by using the handheld’s motion sensors and cameras on the Nintendo 3DS.

Vektor Tank 3D+ is scheduled to come out in the second quarter of next year in Europe.

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/07/08...-nintendo-3ds/ ...

Microsoft has made a definitive statement on Kinect's ability to detect users when seated, implying that the system does work when not standing but that few applications are currently designed for more sedentary use.

"Kinect can be used while sitting when an experience is developed with sitting in mind," said an unnamed Microsoft representative to website Joystiq.

Various reports from E3 2010 had suggested that Kinect could not detect users when seated, including when using the simpler dashboard commands and using video applications.

However, Microsoft now insists that these are "experiences where we expect people to be sitting".

For the majority of applications though Microsoft expects it to be "natural for Kinect games to be designed to get you off the couch: dancing, running, dodging, bending and kicking."

A number of other technical limitations have been reported during Kinect's early previews, including an inability to detect users with certain skin colours and confusion over the total number of possible users supported at one time (now confirmed as two).

In terms of the lag issues reported at E3 2010, developer Rare recently stated that "lag is not an issue" - as they implied that the hardware shown last month was still only a prototype.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rk-when-seated ...

Sure, the iPhone 4 may have a pretty great camera as far as phones go, but there's always room for improvement -- right? Continuing the great tradition of iPhones awkwardly outfitted with camera lenses, one intrepid individual has now come up with a contraption that will let you "attach" a full-size SLR lens to your iPhone 4. While complete details are a bit light, Technabob notes that the camera mount at the bottom of the rig is a Manfrotto pocket tripod -- so you at least have a place to start for building your own.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/07/i...tage-slr-lens/ ...

It's a bit early to confirm anything just yet, but it's starting to look like Apple might be working on a new iPod touch. The latest of evidence backing up that shocking fact are two separate rumors that cover some familiarly territory, but with a bit more weight that before. The more convincing of those are some purportedly authentic iPod touch parts that have turned up on a number of Chinese websites, which clearly show a hole on the front of the device that's presumably for a front-facing camera. That's backed up by some fresh comments from an exec at UK retailer John Lewis, who said that a major iPod touch refresh is coming in September, and that it will match many of the iPhone 4's features, including a 5-megapixel camera with HD video recording, a gyroscope and, yes, FaceTime support.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/08/n...amera-septemb/ ...