In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, creative director of id Software Tim Willits has as good as confirmed a sequel to forthcoming post-apocalypse-em-up Rage.

This is all well and good, but given the game hasn’t even shipped yet isn’t it a little premature to proclaim that a sequel is on the cards? Faith in your new IP is admirable, but it brings to mind the high profile failure of notorious FPS clusterfuck Daikatana by id co-founder John Romero.

We hope Rage turns out to be more than the apparent sum of its parts, but evidence glimpsed at Eurogamer doesn’t instil confidence, our very own Richie referring to it as two parts Borderlands and three parts Metro 2033 but less fun than the two of them.

It could just be a case of an engine looking for a game, just as was the case with Doom 3 with its delightful torch based gameplay… Ian

Reflecting the global economic downturn, GAME Group’s financial results to the end of June 2011 show a net increase in loss to £51m for the first half of the year.

Quoting the CEO statement on the same page:
“Very few major software titles launched in the period, with only LA Noire achieving sales in excess of £20m in the UK.”

If it shows anything, it’s how dependent the sector is on so-called AAA titles and the months leading up to Christmas. Although if this is the state of the elephant in the room of highstreet game retail, it must be even bleaker for the smaller groups like CEX, Grainger Games and the independent retailers out there (although to be fair GAME are fucking shit – Ed).

Though the last time this correspondent bought a game at launch in one of their stores at anything approaching full price must’ve been this time last year when Dead Rising 2 came out.  Ian

Sega have announced the release date for Space Channel 5: Part 2 and Sega Bass Fishing. They’ll hit PSN and XBLA  on October 4th & 5th respectively for £6.29/800MSP.

Both a little late, given they were both included in the Dreamcast Collection on 360 back in February. No doubt they won’t differ from the previous versions, but since the PSN port has Move support tacked on, don’t be too surprised if Kinect is added to the XBLA incarnation.

Somewhat pointless if you own a 360 as you can pick up the DC collection disc for less than a tenner now and since it also includes Sonic Adventure & Craaaazy Taxi it’s a better proposition. Although we live in a world where you can buy Driver San Fran for £57.99 on PSN, so dropping 3200 MSP on all four individually is probably better value than that super deal. Ian

Peoww News

Take-Two have announced that GTAIV has sold 22 million copies since it’s April 2008 release, bringing sales of the GTA series on the whole to 114 million since the original top down incarnation in 1997. If you ask us, the series peaked at Vice City and it’s been downhill since. GTA2 wasn’t a patch on the original either.

In other Rockstar shenanigans, they’ve also announced a forthcoming goatee edition of horse-em-up Red Dead Redemption including all the DLC (including some never seen before on tree sixty) and that bloody zombie nightmare tacked on too. It’ll be available on October 11th in the US, no doubt following here on the next  Friday. Ian

Peoww News

It seems Quantic Dream have convinced themselves that they missed out on €10m worth of Heavy Rain revenue due to the second-hand market.

In this interview with gamesindustry.biz, QD co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere, gripes that sales of 2m to date aren’t reflected by the 3m unique PS3 trophy unlocks.

His scribblings on the back of a Gauloises pack fail to grasp that people do tend to rent or borrow games too. Having a high-concept game of this sort be a PS3 exclusive can hardly have helped matters either. Either way, 2m sales for a brand new IP is hardly shabby is it?  Ian

Peoww News

Having been shown the door last year, Jason West and Vincent Zampella, co-founders of Infinity Ward have had a court date of May 7th 2012 set for their royalty claim against Activision.

The pair were acrimoniously dismissed amid allegations they were in illegal contact with EA, so along with the plaintiffs claim for $125m (£80m) in Modern Warfare 2 royalties, their former employers have counter-sued Zampella, West & EA for $400m (£250m) claiming that EA attempted to poach the pair.

While we hope the little guy wins, we don’t rate their chances against the throbbing multidimensional behemoth that rules from beyond the ultraworld. Ian

Peoww News

According to EA’s Chief Financial Officer, Eric Brown, EA have made $10-15m in revenues since the Online Pass scheme’s inception. He also stated that “The revenues we derive from that haven’t been dramatic. I’d say they’re in the $10-$15 million range since we initiated the program.”

 At $10 (£6) a time, that’s a heck of a chunk of revenue if you ask us. No wonder Ubisoft have attempted to implement a similar system, only to hastily retract it due to a printing cockup on the Driver San Fran manual.

The solution is clearly to buy new, but heavily discounted. That way you stick it to the retailers who aggressively push pre-owned stock over new games to unsuspecting punters. For example, our correspondent bought Mass Effect 2 brand new six months after release for just a fiver. Ian

Peoww News

Activision have given us yet more ammunition to dislike them. They’ve announced Dreamworks Super Star Kartz [sic]. Delightfully it’ll feature all your favourite animated Dreamworks characters.

Though if you’re anything like us, you’ll struggle to name one of them besides Shrek. In fact you’d probably have more luck naming the incidental characters in the Shrek series than you would the other Dreamworks IPs in the game.

For the record they include the titular Monsters vs Aliens, characters from How To Train Your Dragon and a myriad selection of Madagascar characters. At least the latter are charming, if forgettable. Even the zebra voiced by Chris Rock.

It’s due out on all major formats in time to be ignored by everyone with half a brain and subsequently given as presents to poor unsuspecting children (although you’ll be whoring them for the achievements – Ed). For once we feel sorry for them. Ian

Peoww News

id Software (via Bethesda’s blog) have unveiled the PC system specs for forthcoming apocalypse-em-up Rage.

Minimum spec is a Core2 Duo processor or equivalent with 2Gb memory & 25Gb of hard drive space. Yes. 25Gb. As is the case with most PC games, the more bang you can throw at the game the better, with recommended spec being a GeForce 9800 instead of the minimum 8800.

We  miss the days when you could get away with a Geforce and a Celeron 300A overclocked to 450MHz.

Rage is due to be released on PC, Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 4th.  Ian

Peoww News

GAME have unveiled their pricing for the forthcoming Modern Blahfare 3 special edition Xbox 360 320Gb model.  A penny shy of £270 gets you the customised console and two controllers (how long will they last when Timmy loses his temper?) plus the game and usual ephemera you’d expect when buying a 360.

An unconfirmed bonus extra are nanobots that come out at night injecting you with additional stupid and making you swear blind loyalty to Activision and GAME (you get reward points, so it doesn’t matter if you pay full price!).  Ian