Kotaku

Someone Is Sinking $200 Million In To Pac-Man, Castlevania Movies

Variety reports that Crystal Sky Pictures has signed a deal that will secure them $200 million USD in financing, money that's going to be used to fund films like Castlevania, a sequel to John Woo's Hard Boiled and among others... *sigh* Pac-Man. While we've known that Paul W. S. Anderson and Sylvain White's Castlevania was back on track, it's been a couple years since we've heard any chatter on the big screen adaptation of Pac-Man. Can it possibly match the fan-made version?

Crystal Sky is currently involved in producing the Tekken movie, a film that we just had our first peek at. We can only imagine that the Pac-Man flick won't be targeting the over-12 demographic, but desperately hope for something live action and thoroughly awful.

Crystal Sky signs $200 million deal [Variety]

Capcom: Console Expansion, Gas Prices Hurting Arcade Biz

While Capcom's annual results saw gains on the fiscal year, the company's efforts to improve its struggling arcade business have been unsuccessful, with less than 3 percent sales growth and a 63 percent profit slump in that division, the company said.

Capcom credits problems in the arcade division to widespread home console expansion, as well as stiffer competition in the arcade industry. Worldwide fuel price struggles, Capcom said, meant fewer visitors to shopping mall arcades, while the popularity of card-dispenser kids' games has begun to decline, further harming arcade operations.

Capcom also said it lost money when its "Donkey Kong Banana Kingdom" machine suffered malfunctions, adding that the major area of income for the arcade business is the sale of peripheral products like trading cards.

Nintendo Bringing Mistwalker's ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat Stateside

We may not, officially, know about any of Nintendo's post Wii Fit releases for 2008—the company is keeping quiet, presumably until E3—but the ESRB has rated ASH: Archaic Sealed Heat for release on the Nintendo DS, all but assuring a North American localization this year. Nintendo of America hasn't announced that the Mistwalker developed role-playing game will come stateside, but that E10+ rating is a very good indication that it will.

The Hironobu Sakaguchi produced RPG was released in Japan in October of 2007, doing well with critics, but underperforming in the sales department. In its debut week, only 50,000 copies were sold to Japanese consumers, with ASH falling off the charts soon after. Here's hoping that Sakaguchi and crew have more luck in the West.

ESRB Game Ratings

Shareholders Stick With Take-Two

Electronic Arts may have recently extended the deadline for its bid to acquire Take-Two, but the company's shareholders don't seem ready to go quietly. EA's offer price remains at $25.74 per share, while as of today, Take-Two has seen share value just over the $27 mark.

A peek at recent SEC filings reveals another item of interest: When EA made its most recent deadline extension, its third, it stated that 6,210,261 shares of Take-Two stock had been tendered to EA as of May 16th. That's only a small percentage of what EA would need to acquire a majority - but its even less than they used to have.

At the time of the second extension, as of April 17th 6,432,787 shares had been tendered - which seems to suggest that 222,526 shares have gone back to Take-Two. Granted, those 222,526 shares are statistically tiny in the grand scheme of things, but even a small loss of stake seems an inauspicious sign for a company making a hostile bid.

On the other side of the coin:

Resident Evil Wii Titles, DMC4 Boost Capcom In FY08

Capcom's console game business was the primary driver behind the company's 11.5 percent net sales gain on the fiscal year, the company announced today, crediting overseas performance of Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, Umbrella Chronicles and Devil May Cry 4 in particular.

Shipments of RE4 and Umbrella Chronicles for Wii "greatly exceeded" expectations, with shipments surpassing one million units, Capcom said, while DMC4 brought "record" sales for the company with over 2 million units. Additionally, PSP's Monster Hunter Freedom 2nd G" is off to a "strong start," Capcom said, with nearly one million units sold.

Unleash Your Inner Akrid In Lost Planet Colonies

Nintendo: Wii Gamers Are Hardcore Gamers

The average Wii gamer is a hardcore gamer, Nintendo of America's Cammie Dunaway told the Electronic Gaming Summit today.

Seventy-nine percent of Wii gamers are male, most older than 18 with an income of $50,000 or more and more than half game for five or more hours a week, Dunaway said.

While the people who buy Wii tend to be pretty typical for gaming, the other household members who play Wii aren't, she said.

About 45 percent of the other household members who play Wii are female, with 38 percent 25 or older. Sixty-five of these gamers play at least two hours a week, while only 32 percent play five or more a week.

"The real break-through, the real magic of the Wii console is that it brought new consumers into the game," she said. "We in the industry have a choice to make, do we want to appeal to the few or to the masses? Do we want to sell to more people or sell more and more and more to less people? Do we want to be inclusive or do we want to be expansive? At Nintendo we definitely believe in the power of the expanded audience.

"We hope everyone will join us in showing everyone just how much fun video games can be."

Undeserving Ellen Fans Get Wii Fit

I said it before, and I will say it again...I need to start attending more daytime talk show tapings. In case you have trouble getting your hands on a copy of Wii Fit today, feel free to direct your blame to Ellen Degeneres, who today gave out not only the sought after fitness device but a Wii to play it on to everyone in her stupid, stupid studio audience. Not only that, but they also received an Indiana Jones DVD 3-pack and the entire run of Sex In The City. Now I'm really jealous.

You can hit up here website to see the giant piles of Nintendo products in action. I'd like to thank Kotakuite dArk_stAr for sending in the tip, all the while wondering what the hell he is doing watching Ellen.

The Ellen Degeneres Show [Official Website]

Guitar Hero World Tour Video Debut

Hearing about it is one thing, seeing it in action is another. Here is the debut trailer for Activision's strike back against Rock Band, Guitar Hero World Tour. It features drums, guitars, bass, and microphones, but these drums go to eleven. The trailer promises the largest set list ever, the ability to record and share your own single of the song you are performing, and a battle of the bands mode, but none of those are as exciting as the simple fact that the team behind Guitar Hero III is doing it. Anyone who has played guitar in both Rock Band and Guitar Hero knows that GH owns the guitar. Apply that same science to the drums and I just might be regretting I hopped on the Rock Band...bandwagon so soon, taking up all the space I have in my apartment for fake musical instruments.

Nintendo: Wii Has Highest Software Sales for First 18 Months

More games were purchased in the first 18 months of the Wii's life than any other console's first year and a half, Nintendo said today.

About 50 million games were sold for the Wii in its first 18 months, compared to about 42 million games in the first 18 months of the Playstation 2's life. The Xbox 360 came in at 30 million or so, the Xbox at roughly 28 million and finally the Playstation 3 at about 20 million.

Speaking to a gathering at the Electronic Gaming Summit, Cammie Dunaway, executive video president of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America, Dunaway used the numbers to launch into a talk about Nintendo's strategy for expanding the market.

Dunaway also showed a chart plotting out the first 18 months of each console's life. According to the chart, about 9.5 million Wii were sold in the first 18 months, 8.5 million PS2, 5.4 million Xbox 360, 5.2 million Xbox and 4.2 Playstation 3.

"While we appreciate the impact the Playstation 2 had on sales and the industry, perhaps we are even more impactful," Dunaway said, adding that there wasn't a single month in the Wii's first year and a half when Nintendo could meet demand.

Update: I just clarified with Nintendo: Those software sales numbers only include boxed games sold at retail and not virtual console or Wii Sports.

EA Plans to Reup NFL License When it Expires

Electronic Arts plans to reup their licensing deal with the National Football League in 2013 when their current deal expires, EA Sports president Peter Moore told attendee's of Ziif Davis' annual Electronic Gaming Summit.

Moore was quick to point out that it wasn't Electronic Arts that asked for the exclusive deal, but rather the NFL which was seeking a single licensee. He said that EA feels that licensing remains an important part of adding realism to their sports titles and that he can't imagine a time when they wouldn't seek them.