Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.
The stories for this week:
- EA and Starbreeze Cancel Bourne Game
- Nintendo Announced 3DS, Shown Off at E3
- Microsoft to Sell 250GB Drive for $130
- Microsoft Unveiling Natal in Separate E3 Event Day Before Press Briefing
- DSi XL, WarioWare D.I.Y. and Again This Week
EA and Starbreeze Cancel Bourne Game
When the word of a game cancelation first came out, most believed it was the rumored Syndicate game that Starbreeze has been working on. Later in the day of the announcement, it was confirmed that it was actually the Jason Bourne game that Starbreeze has been working on. EA recently made a 10-year pact with the Ludlum Estate for games related to Jason Bourne. No word on what is going to happen to the property from here or if EA is going to engage one of its other developers to work on the property.
The good news is that the Syndicate game seems to still be in development and hopefully we'll know soon if what we all think is actually true.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Nintendo Announced 3DS, Shown Off at E3
Nintendo came out of left field this week announcing their new handheld product, the 3DS. It will supposedly use 3D, but you will not have to have glasses to use it. The system will be shown off at E3 this year, probably at Nintendo's press conference before the expo begins. The system will also be able to play DS and DSi games and will be released sometime this fiscal year, which ends in March 2011. Chances may be good this will be a holiday release and it will be interesting to see the system in action at E3.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Microsoft to Sell 250GB Drive for $130
Good news and semi-bad news with this. The good news is that Microsoft will be selling the 250GB drive separately; the semi-bad news is that it will cost $130. The reason I put semi in there is because it isn't quite as bad as it could have been. It's a little over 50 cents a gig versus the over $1 a gig that the 120GB sold at. No word on when it will be available, but I would guess soon.
Source: Colony of Gamers
Microsoft Unveiling Natal in Separate E3 Event Day Before Press Briefing
No big surprise here, the only surprise is that Microsoft is doing a separate press conference for the Natal outside of their usual pre-E3 press briefing. So, we'll get a double dose of Microsoft in just a couple days in June. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft leverages itself against both Nintendo and Sony in the motion control arena. Will also be interesting to see when Microsoft will be releasing it, what the price will be and what games will be coming with it and what games will use the technology. This is the most interesting of the motion control ideas in my opinion because it is one that doesn't use peripherals in your hands at all.
Source: Joystiq
DSi XL, WarioWare D.I.Y. and Again This Week
Not too exciting this week, but the DSi XL system comes out. Along with this WarioWare D.I.Y. comes out on Nintendo DS, meaning it is playable on DS, DSi and DSi XL. Along with this, Again comes out this week, the spiritual successor to the popular Hotel Dusk game on DS. The sad part is that developer Cing filed for bankruptcy a couple weeks ago. Sad times indeed.
Source: me