Quote:Two weeks ago Nihilistic, previous developers for StarCraft: Ghost, were dropped by Blizzard due to "timing issues" and Blizzard promised that they would evaluate other developers.
Blizzard have now announced that Swingin' Ape Studios have been given the rights and are currently working on the game. As well as this they have the rights to collaboratively develop titles for all consoles for all of Blizzards licenses, including Warcraft and Diablo.
Blizzard's co-founder and president Mike Morhaime spoke highly about the developers. "The team at Swingin' Ape Studios is a very talented group of developers with a proven ability to deliver extraordinary games. We're confident that this partnership will result in titles that achieve the level of quality that players have come to expect from Blizzard products."
I'm not quite sure what to think about this news, but I guess it'll be alright as long as they don't make it some dumbed-down action game.
Thankfully. The man who killed four Canadians in Afghanistan two years ago, let off with pretty much a slap on the wrist.
Quote:U.S. pilot guilty of dereliction of duty in bombing of Canadians in Afghanistan
<TABLE width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2> </TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2></TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>Canadian Press</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
July 6, 2004
<!--begin story text--><TABLE style="FLOAT: right" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=3 width=250 align=right border=0 valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD class=storycredit>U.S. Air Force pilot, Maj. Harry Schmidt, walks out of the Article 32 hearing process, January 2003, at Barksdale Air Force Base. (AP/Tony Gutierrez)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>NEW ORLEANS -- A U.S. fighter pilot who mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, killing four, was found guilty Tuesday of dereliction of duty, was reprimanded and will lose more than $5,000 US in pay, the air force said.
Maj. Harry Schmidt, 38, had blamed the bombing on ''the fog of war,'' saying he mistook the Canadians' gunfire for an attack from Taliban fighters.
The pilot said his superiors never told him that the Canadians would be conducting live-fire exercises near Kandahar airport that night.
In the reprimand, Lt.-Gen. Bruce Carlson, who handed down the verdict, wrote that Schmidt ''acted shamefully on April 17, 2002, over Tarnak Farms, Afghanistan, exhibiting arrogance and a lack of flight discipline.''
The four soldiers were the first Canadians killed in combat since the Korean War. Killed were Sgt. Marc Leger, Pte. Richard Green, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer and Pte. Nathan Smith. Eight other Canadians were wounded, including Cpl. Brian Decaire.
Decaire's mother, Maureen, said she understands that mistakes happen and that Schmidt didn't intend to cause harm but said the decision still leaves her unsatisfied.
''I would like to see him accept responsibility, which I don't think has happened,'' she said from Winnipeg.
''That's the only other thing I would like.''
Schmidt, who turns 39 on July 16, was originally charged with manslaughter and aggravated assault, but the charges were reduced last year to dereliction of duty.
The Illinois National Guardsman was found guilty after a closed hearing held last week. Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, presided over the hearing at Barksdale Air Force Base in northwestern Louisiana.
The air force announced June 25 that it decided not to put Schmidt on trial to face dereliction-of-duty charges for the bombing. The pilot could have faced up to six months in prison if convicted in a trial.
Instead, the charges were shifted out of the air force's criminal court system to a lesser level, a ''non-judicial'' forum, overseen by the general. The sentencing options did not include a prison term.
In addition to the reprimand, the air force said Schmidt will lose one-half of a month's pay for two months - $5,672.
Schmidt had transferred to the National Guard in 2000 after a decorated career as a U.S. navy pilot and an instructor at the navy's top gun'' fighter pilot school. He remains employed by the Illinois Air National Guard, but has agreed that he will never fly air force jets again.
Charles Gittins, Schmidt's civilian defence lawyer, has said an air force-issued amphetamine given to pilots to help them stay awake on long missions might have impaired the pilot's judgment.
The air force says the amphetamine, Dexedrine, is given to pilots only in small doses, with a mild stimulative effect.
In videotape of the mission taken from Schmidt's F-16, the pilot can be heard telling airborne air controllers that he and his mission commander, Maj. William Umbach, were under attack from the ground as the two flew at more than 3,000 metres. He then requested permission to open fire with his 20-millimetre cannon.
''Hold fire,'' an air controller responded.
Four seconds later, Schmidt said: ''It looks like a piece of artillery firing at us. I'm rolling in, in self-defence.''
Schmidt released the bomb 39 seconds after the ''hold fire'' order.
The bomb landed about a metre from a Canadian machine-gun crew, killing four Canadians instantly.
Fellow F-16 pilots testified at a January 2003 hearing that a ''hold fire'' order means a pilot should not attack. However, they also testified that a fighter pilot can disregard such an order if he believes he is under attack.
A U.S.-Canadian military investigation found that Schmidt should have flown out of the area instead of releasing the bomb.
Umbach was also charged with assault and manslaughter. Those charges were dismissed last summer and he was allowed to retire from the Air National Guard, as he had requested.
Seriously dude, you've been posting in every friggen thread and even dredged up old ones numerous times a day! I know what you're up to, I'm onto it. Look at your post count! You're just trying to get to 10,000!!
Quote:Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has given an extensive talk on the state of the industry to the Japan Economic Foundation - including evidence from sales figures which he claims prove that online gaming is not yet an important factor.
Iwata presented sales figures for a PS2 online golf title which failed to match the sales of its offline predecessor (Sony's own Minna no Golf / Everybody's Golf titles, released in the west as Hot Shots Golf) as "proof that customers do not want online games."
According to highlights of his presentation which have been posted online, Iwata told the foundation that "most customers do not wish to pay the extra money for connection to the Internet, and for some customers, connection procedures to the Internet are still not easy."
Alone out of the three major platform holders in the current generation of hardware, Nintendo has been reluctant to commit to online gaming; the company launched a modem and broadband adapter for the console in order to support online titles from other companies, but has not developed any such titles of its own.
With both Sony and Microsoft's future console plans featuring online as a core component, it's still not clear how Nintendo will incorporate connectivity into its next-generation "Revolution" console - if at all.
However, the company has been much more positive about the potential of wireless connectivity for its handheld devices, launching a successful wireless adapter for the Game Boy Advance and integrating both Bluetooth and 802.11b Wireless LAN technologies into the forthcoming Nintendo DS handheld.
Elsewhere in his address to the foundation, Iwata also covered the perception of Nintendo as a company which targets its products largely at the kids market. "Game software should neither be exclusively be targeted at children nor adults," he said. "Instead, we will develop software which anyone can instantly understand."
However, he did acknowledge the growing trend within the industry for creating mature games, adding simply that "at the same time, production of software readily acceptable to adults is worth studying."
Speaking about Nintendo's relationships with third-party companies, Iwata hinted that more development deals with Western developers could be in the pipeline. "We intend to expand tie-ups not only with Japanese companies but also with foreign companies," he said. "We are now holding negotiations with major Western game developers and will be able to conclude a deal by the end of the year if things go smoothly."
He also touched briefly on the subject of Nintendo's ongoing relationship with Bandai - and this time strayed from his usual script on the subject by not directly denying the possibility of a takeover or merger, saying only that "a closer relationship would be beneficial for both sides and it will be nice if the two companies can work together in doing something interesting."
People might not want online golf, but that doesn't mean they don't want online Smash Brother or Mario Party!
Quote:Acclaim has released its financial report for its fiscal year ending on March 31st, and the numbers aren't good: In the past year, the company has lost $56.4 million. (Then again, they lost $84.4 million the year before, so it's not that bad...) These massive losses don't bode well for the credit line, and if Acclaim doesn't find a new source of money to help counterbalance these debts, they'll have to file for bankruptcy.
To add insult to injury, Acclaim has lost two if its biggest remaining franchises, mostly because of failure to pay royalty fees. The Major Leauge Baseball Player's Association has dropped All Star Baseball from its list of licenses, meaning Acclaim can't use the names or likenesses of MLB players in its game, effectively making ASB worthless. More embarassing, however, is that Acclaim no longer holds the rights to Turok. The first-person shooter that made a name for the publisher (in both a good and bad way) was taken away from them last month from Classic Media, creators of the franchise.
These latest two franchises lost can be added to the list of big-name games taken away from them. The first to go, of course, was the then-named WWF series of games to THQ, and recently Criterion's Burnout series to EA. With virtually no licensed or familiar game properties left in their lineup, Acclaim's future is very bleak, if they even have a future left.
Just to put into perspective how bad it is for Acclaim, their stock price on the NASDAQ is currently around $0.25 a share, which is well below the $1.00 minimum stock price the index requires its listees to hold.
It's always a bad thing when a company goes under.
![[Image: n070207A.jpg]](http://media.canada.com/cp/national/20040702/n070207A.jpg)
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=storycredit>U.S. Air Force pilot, Maj. Harry Schmidt, walks out of the Article 32 hearing process, January 2003, at Barksdale Air Force Base. (AP/Tony Gutierrez)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>NEW ORLEANS -- A U.S. fighter pilot who mistakenly bombed Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, killing four, was found guilty Tuesday of dereliction of duty, was reprimanded and will lose more than $5,000 US in pay, the air force said. 
