This was announced a few days ago, but apparently flew under a few radars.  According to a recent press release, Activision’s internal estimates place Modern Warfare 2’s retail sales numbers at over 1 billion dollars.  Normally this amount of money would be reserved for movie cliches and 10-12 of the richest people in the world, but now it can become synonymous with video games.  Whether you love or hate Modern Warfare 2, or love or hate Activition, you can’t deny the potential for positive impact about something gaming-wise becoming so widespread. 

According to our favorite quotable CEO Bobby Kotick, “There are only a handful of entertainment properties that have ever reached the $1 billion mark, which illustrates the power of the Call of Duty franchise and mass appeal of this game.”  Right!

The game raked in $550 million in its first week, and it’s only been out for a couple months.  I personally know several people who bought copies for multiple systems.  It’s a phenomenon and a juggernaut and who will rise up to stop its monstrous growth?  Who, I ask you?  Who!  I’m curious how well Blizzard can match these figures with their monthly fees for Warcraft and the five year consistency of that franchise.  Given that they’re part of the same company these days, I have a nagging fear that Activision will just take over the entire industry soon.  If anyone out there is starting up a resistance, let us here at Spawn Kill know about it.  We’re all about the revolution.  By the way, does anyone else think Activision should be paying the world military organizations some kind of royalty bonus?  Methinks we could keep quite a few troops in Modern Warfare 2 quality gear with just a fraction of these profits…

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Apparently Assassin’s Creed 2 is doing even better than anyone anticipated, and better than most games can ever hope.  Ubisoft released their fiscal report today and are claiming over 6 million units sold worldwide.  I can only assume these numbers are a direct result of my review.

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Sega has been doing a bit of research on mature titles for Nintendo’s Wii. Sega reported low numbers for House of the Dead: Overkill and the thoroughly-publicized MadWorld, both geared towards older gamers on the Nintendo console. What has apparently has caught their attention and concern, however, is the low sales figure for EA’s Dead Space Extraction.

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Bethesda’s preliminary injunction against Interplay (the developer behind the original Fallout titles) was recently shot down by a U.S. District Court. Bethesda was suing Interplay over their Fallout 3 Trilogy, which Bethesda claims infringes on the agreement they made when the purchased the rights to the Fallout series.

A Bethesda Software PR and Marketing Representative was quoted in an e-mail to Gamasutra (who printed the original story) as saying:

The court has declined to decide the issues at a preliminary hearing, and determined that the parties should maintain the current status quo pending a trial of the case in 2010

Bethesda is seeking to deny the right for Interplay to release any versions of the previous Fallout games as well as their right to finish the work-in-progress Fallout MMO.

Stay tuned to Spawn Kill for all future details on this situation.

[Source: Gamasutra]

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After a lengthy legal showdown, Bethesda’s (the developer and publisher for Fallout 3) motion for an injunction against Interplay (the publisher of the original Fallout titles) has been denied by a U.S. District Court. The court ruling allows Interplay to keep selling the Fallout Trilogy package, as well as continue work on the Fallout MMO. So far as why the court reached this decision, the details are unclear.

Bethesda had filed the suit against Interplay due to an Interplay release of the Fallout Trilogy, packing together Interplay’s Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. Bethesda had purchased the rights to Fallout from Interplay, and in writing Interplay had agreed to have Bethesda approve any marketing materials for their previous games (as well as the Fallout MMO they were contracted for, which is another legal issue) before release. Interplay did not seek approval from Bethesda for the Fallout Trilogy, and Bethesda claims that this package will confuse consumers into thinking it contains Fallout 3, and thus cause harm.

[Source: Duck and Cover forum]

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Today, in what seems more like the announcement of an award show line-up than a video game cast, Bioware and EA revealed the talent they have voicing the characters in Mass Effect 2. So who exactly do we have to look forward to hearing this time around?

Voicing the leader of Cerebus, the secretive paramilitary organization many will remember from the first game, and going by the moniker the Illusive Man, is none other than Martin Sheen, ex-leader of the free world on “The West Wing.” Joining him will be “Chuck” star Yvonne Strahovski as Cerebus operative Miranda Lawson, as well as her co-star and former “Firefly” crew member Adam Baldwin who will be voicing Kal ‘Reegar. Cylon Tricia Helfer will be playing EDI, the voice of the Normady, and Carrie-Anne Moss of Matrix fame will be playing Aria T’Loak, a crime lord who rules the planet Omega. Returning from the first Mass Effect will be Seth Green as Joker and Keith David as Admiral David Anderson, and rounding out the cast will be Shohreh Aghdashloo as Admiral Shala’Raan vas Tonbay, Michael Hogan as Captain Bailey, and our favorite Klingon Michael Dorn as Gatatog Uvenk.

While it’s not odd to have a few celebrities in a game, a cast this massive is sure to make Mass Effect 2 live up to the hype of becoming the first blockbuster of 2010. I like having professionals voicing characters in games because more often than not they actually know how to act and it comes through in their vocal work. Available on January 26, 2010 in North America and a few days later on the 29th in Europe, Mass Effect 2 is shaping up to be one of the first must buy games of the new year.

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The talented composer Akira Yamaoka has left Konami after working on their various soundtracks for sixteen years. Yamaoka was best known for his work on the Silent Hill series, both the internally-developed titles and those handled outside of Konami’s studios. Yamaoka also released an album of some of his original recordings shortly after working on the Silent Hill movie.

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The original Nokia N-Gage was met with harsh criticism on both form and function. Even 2004’s revised model failed to bring any kind of significant attention to the platform. Though they did give it an earnest try, Nokia has decided to drop their ultimately unsuccessful mobile phone/portable gaming console hybrid after over six years of being lame and undesirable.

The announcement game in a Question and Answer-style post on the N-Gage blog about the new Ovi Store, a hub for various kinds of games for Nokia products. Deciding to just be blunt, this statement is found shortly after the introductory paragraph:

“We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform.”

N-Gage.com and the N-Gage arena are set to be open throughout the year of 2010, and the N-Gage Store will be available through September of 2010. After that, N-Gage users will find themselves left with a device that is even more useless than it was the very day they purchased it.

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The reception for Nintendo’s latest DS hardware iteration, the Nintendo DSi, has been somewhat mixed among fans. What generally  garnered praise about the hardware, however, was the increased size for the two screens. For all of its uses, the screen size on the original DS was somewhat limiting for both entertainment and control value, and the DSi aided this cause greatly.

It seems now that Nintendo is looking to increase the size even further, up to an astounding four inch (at least) diagonal size. For reference, the standard DSi has 3.25 inch screens, while the DS and DS Lite have three-inch screens.

The latest version of the DSi is expected to have all of the features of the original DSi, and to be sold in stores alongside the original DSi.

[Source: Report: Nintendo To Launch Larger-Screened DSi This Year]

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According to the official (that’s serious people) PlayStation Blog, Netflix and Sony have finally reached some type of compromise and sometime next month PlayStation 3 owners will be able to start streaming like mad.  And it’s free (aside from the monthly Netflix membership, which you should have already because it’s awesome).

Here’s some important quotes from some important people.

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In order to prepare the galaxy for the release of Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Insomniac Games is pulling all manners of strings in order to bring the goods to fans of Ratchet and Clank. Fans will be able to check out Insomniac Games Headquarters, scope a demo of Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time, and also to grab the sequel to Tools of Destruction for the new low price of $9.99.

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Compares the continuation of hard copy manufacture to suicide

In a recent IGN article, former Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business Division and EA Sports President Peter Moore has stated that he feels digital distribution is not only the way of the future when it comes to video games, but also that keeping a disc-based business model is a sure way to lose ground in the ever-evolving market.

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You’ve heard of Dante’s Inferno, right? The game with the crazy marketing from EA and message board posters calling it a “shameless God of War clone.” Well, now Visceral Games have announced that the writer from Monster’s Ball and Academy Award Nominee Will Rokos will be providing the storyline for the upcoming game.

Rokos has been enjoying himself while working on the project which gave him the opportunity to “re-imagine Dante as a flawed hero with a dark past, and his determination to save the love of his life from a terrible fate. It was a truly unique experience to re-create one man’s hell, one circle at a time.”

Dante’s Inferno is looking at a February 2010 release and I am really looking forward to see how much “creative license” the development team takes with this tragic comedy.

[Source: Joystiq]

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Electronic Arts today announced a deal with IDW publishing (30 Days of Night) to bring two of its IPs into the comic book world. Army of Two and the much anticipated Dragon Age will be the first two video games to appear under the new EA Comics imprint. The deal is different than other deals made by EA for previous video games turned into comics as EA will be handling all creative aspects of the comic and IDW in charge of printing and distribution in both retail stores and digitally.

“We’ve seen an increasing number of video game tie-ins with comics over the last few years. This marks another step in our strategy for extending EA’s wholly-owned game properties to new media. It is exhilarating to be working with the comic book creators directly,” said Mike Quigley, Group Vice President, Global Marketing, EA Games Label.

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It’s official: Eidos and Rocksteady’s latest Batman video game foray, Arkham Asylum, is a hit.  If the high review scores haven’t yet convinced the developer and publisher of the game’s success, perhaps the high sales numbers will.  That’s right, in only a couple of weeks, Batman: Arkham Asylum has managed to sell over 2 million copies.  Not bad at all, considering many games consider themselves a hit with a 500K sales mark (Bruce has already exceeded that in North America alone).

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