A senior tradesman for a massive UK retail company, who wanted to remain anonymous, has said that Halo: Reach will be hitting store shelves in September.
Apparently, a worldwide release on September 14th has been arranged. The source said:
"It gives Halo enough time to maximise sales before CoD arrives. Xbox 360 is pretty synonymous with Call Of Duty, so it makes commercial sense for Microsoft and Activision to agree both games won't come out too close to one another." Considering that Microsoft announced that Halo: Reach would be coming out in the Autumn, this new information could be true. We’re not sure if it actually will be out on September 14th, but you’d best keep that day free in your diary, just in case.
Don’t forget that the Halo: Reach Beta launched on May 3rd.
Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has just become the second biggest-selling game in UK history. According to UK ChartTrack figures, the title climbed one place in the UK chart this week to No.6. That increase sees the title climb up one place in the all-time All Formats total UK market unit sellers, jumping ahead of Rockstar's GTA: San Andreas to claim second place.
The game now sits behind Dr Kawashima's Brain Training on DS, the UK's biggest selling game of all time.
A Microsoft job ad has been leaked on the internet which suggests that Fable III could be coming out on the PC.
The ad, which was pulled down yesterday, was looking for a 'Network Programmer on the Fable 3 project'. The job description read:
"involves converting and maintaining the network code of the Xbox 360 version of this game to the PC, and enabling the Xbox 360 version and the PC version to play together.”
Sounds pretty solid to us that Fable III will be heading to a PC near you.
In other Fable III news, Lionhead Studios has announced that John Cleese will be lend his voice to a butler in the game. We hope he’s called Manuel.
And if all this Fable information wasn’t enough for you, we’ve also got some new screenshots to show you. Just direct you eyes down the page.
It’s been confirmed, by Eidos Montreal, that the highly anticipated Deus Ex 3 will not have a multiplayer mode. The games director, Jean-Francois Dugas explained exactly why the development team didn’t include any sort of multiplayer.
"Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a single-player game only. Being the first project out of the new Eidos Montreal studio, and staying true to the Deus Ex legacy, the development team wanted to focus purely on the single-player experience to ensure we delivered on that front," he said.
He added: "Our initial goal was to identify the core values of Deus Ex and bring them back for a new generation of gamers. The core values were established by Warren Spector and company, so by building on top of it, I think his heritage is quite present.”
"Of course, the first game was released several years ago; we needed to bring fresh ideas to the table but never without respecting the essence of what makes a Deus Ex game what it is. In the end, it's going to be a mix of old and new."
As much as we like multiplayer experiences in games, we can’t understand where he’s coming from. Shoe-horning a multiplayer mode in Deus Ex 3 would be like adding motor bikes in Mario Kart or being able to use a jetpack in Halo… Oh! Wait a second.
Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto has said that he'd happily see a remake of his hit NES classic Kid Icarus as long as a suitable Wii adaptation could be made. He said:
"I don't know personally about any project underway regarding Kid Icarus, but if so many of those people are interested in it and really want to see it on the Wii they should really speak up."
"If we can find some sort of way to bring it to the Wii, a way to make the game for the Wii that makes sense, we would happily do so. But just keep in mind it may not be me making the game." It would be great to see Pit make a return to the Action/Adventure scene. Fans really liked the angels appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Nintendo would be stupid to miss out on such an opportunity to bring Kid Icarus back.
 Gears of War 2 has ‘Horde’ and Halo 3: ODST has ‘Firefight’; now Splinter Cell: Conviction will be getting a similar game mode known as ‘Last Stand.’
Patrick Redding from Ubisoft Montreal explained a little bit more about the new mode.
"One of our modes, Last Stand, is a bit of a Horde mode, and it works in waves, twenty waves, so you can multiply that again. So there's potentially dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of gameplay for somebody who falls in love with one mode or the other."
We’re not sure if we’re surprised or not. Many games have similar games modes now-a-days, but they’re always entertaining, so we can’t really complaint too much.
Sony have finally lifted the lid on the name to their new motion controller. Say ‘hello’ to the PlayStation Move (sounds much better than Arc).  Is that the same hand model for the Wii remote? Sony unveiled the highly anticipated motion controlling system last night the GDC. The company hopes to lure gamers who have outgrown their Nintendo Wii, which launched back in 2006. Surprisingly Peter Dille, the senior vice-president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment, credited Nintendo for bringing motion controlled games to the masses, but said that it’s time for Wii owners to move on (get it?).
 "The migration path from the Wii household to the PlayStation 3 household is a pretty natural path, partly because of the experience that you can get on the PlayStation Move, but also because of the content that we find on PlayStation 3," said Dille.
PlayStation Move works in conjunction with the PlayStation Eye camera where it can track players' body movements. The controller, in turn, has a light at the top of the controller, which is recognized by the camera.
Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Electronics Worldwide Studios said:
"Nothing has ever been this precise"
Erm… what about the Wii MotionPlus?
Move will be available in three different bundles: standalone for those who already have the PlayStation Eye; with the camera and a PS3; or with the camera and a game (which Sony notes will cost under $100).
So now we have the Wii remote, Project Natal and PlayStation Move, but which one will win the motion control war? Our money still sits on the Wii.
The tenth and final character in the Super Street Fighter IV roster has been revealed. As rumoured, his name is Hakan, what we didn’t expect, however, is that he looks a bit like Hellboy.
Hakan is described as a Turkish oil wrestler who uses "lubricant to assist in battle." Odd enough for you?
As you can tell from the screenshots (below) Hakan is very much of a grappler fighter like Zangief, Able or E. Honda, except he’s red and covered in oil. So all ten of the new characters have been revealed, but we don’t quite know what to think of Hakan. Sure, he looks pretty strong, but we can’t help but think if he’s the next Dan Hibiki.
Bizarre Creations, the developers behind Blur have come to Activision’s aid and have defended the company by saying that they don’t “churn shit out.”
The studio behind other great racing games such as Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing mentioned that Activision didn't hesitate to extend Blur's development schedule until it reached its "quality level". Co-lead designer, Gareth Wilson said:
"You hear a lot of horror stories about Activision being this publisher that just churns shit out, but they certainly weren't like that for us. They were great. Really, really good."
"[Last year] we were having to make compromises to hit the release date - we really wanted to expand on the mods, improve the visuals, get the splitscreen stuff looking really good, make the power-ups ace... and we just weren't there.
"We went to Activision and said: 'We don't think the game's up to our quality level.' It was totally shippable - it was OK - but we would've like to have had more time. They went, 'OK'... which was great."
It’s cool that Activision let the development team have more time to work on Blur, but we don’t agree that Activision doesn’t churn out shit every year, because they clearly do. Want some examples? Ok then - Guitar Hero, Tony Hawks, Spider-Man, Tomb Raider and various movie licensed games like Bee Movie, Over the Hedge and Transformers. There’s a lot more, but there’s only so much room on here.
The classic 90’s TV show GamesMaster could be making a return as Future Publishing said that they’re considering “reviving the brand on TV screens.”
The publisher says that it’s looking into different ways of extending the brand as it gears up to launch a new-look GamesMaster magazine, which hasn’t received its first major redesign in six years. Emma Parkinson, Associate Publisher of GamesMaster, said:
"We have ambitious plans for the future of this iconic gaming brand, kicking off with a major redesign of GamesMaster magazine in May. We intend to develop GamesMaster across multiple platforms, updating the look and feel, whilst protecting its 19-year legacy and the immense respect it receives from gamers and the industry itself."
Simon Maxwell, Group Publisher of Future's Console and Online portfolio, added:
"GamesMaster is a key gaming brand for Future and there are some fantastic opportunities to expand its reach and influence beyond the magazine. This year, we'll bring a comprehensively redesigned GamesMaster magazine to market, develop an online presence through our existing sites, and explore the appetite for bringing the show back to TV."
Many gaming shows have come and gone since Channel 4 cancelled GamesMaster back in 1998. We would love to see the best gaming show on television make a welcomed return… preferably with Dexter Fletcher, because we liked him more than Dominic Diamond (we‘re probably going to get a lot of angry e-mails now).
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