San Francisco
”Launch Parties From Coast to Coast
Tomorrow (Wed.) will see the Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword launch party at the Nintendo World Store in New York City from 2pm - 6pm. The game's producer and director Yosuke Hayashi will be on hand to sign autographs and met and greet the crowd. If you purchase the game there you will be granted one of those nifty Dragon Sword Ninja styli. There will also be demo stations set up around the store so you can try before you buy.
Also, as I reported last week, tonight is the launch party for Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII at the Sony Metreon Center in San Francisco. The event goes from 6pm - 9pm and space is limited to 200 people.
And if that's not enough for you, our own Crecente will be attending and telling you all about his adventures at the Tecmo event in New York. Launch events, ho!
industry news
Kuju Comes To America
One of Europe's leading independent game development companies is making the move to the U.S., as Kuju Entertainment announces the opening of Kuju America, they're first studio outside of the UK. The website for the new studio features a British flag emblazoned United States, coupled with the exclamation (warning?), "The Brits Are Coming!" The studio is located in beautiful San Francisco, convenient to a large pool of development talent as well as Kotaku weekend editor Flynn DeMarco.
Jonathan Newth, Corporate Development Officer of Kuju Entertainment, commented "The US, and San Francisco in particular, is a natural choice for our first non-UK studio. It's a hotbed of development talent, home to many leading publishers and some of the leading US games press.Ah, so they've heard of Flynn! Excellent! Kuju America is already hard at work on their first title, which I'm sure they'll tell Flynn all about when they're ready.
Kuju America [Official Website]
Video Game Inspired Mural: Now With Unicorns!
Back in the Saddle
Well, I am finally back after my two weekend hiatus.That makes three full weeks since I have roamed the hallowed halls of Kotaku Tower. Thankfully, Ash swept my room in my absence and fluffed the straw on my cot so I would be comfortable upon my return.
It was an amazing trip across the country and between the stops at Graceland, catching sight of a 72oz steak, a 4lb hamburger and the Liberace Museum, I even managed to see some video game related things . Arcades in truck stops, game stations in fast food joints and the Spike VGAs, not to mention the myriad video poker machines in Vegas. Sure, you could argue that those aren't video games, but Xbox LIVE has Texas Hold 'Em which is basically the same thing. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Reporting to you live from my favorite cafe in San Francisco, I will be bringing you some of the stories from the road mixed in with the regular enormous dearth of news there always is on the weekends and especially around the holidays. Hopefully there will be something in there that will interest you.
I never really thought I'd miss writing twenty four articles a weekend, but damn it's good to be back
celebrate
Final Fantasy Celebrates 20 Years
If you're a Final Fantasy fan and reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, your dreams of going to a party celebrating the 20th anniversary of the long running franchise have just come true. More »
electronic arts
EA Here I Come
I'm heading off to Electronic Arts' Summer Preview in a bit here in San Francisco. More »
microsoft
Virtual Earth Not Exactly Global
ETech (short for "Emerging Technology") was going on for the last couple of days in San Diego (my brother just came back and commented on how "expensive" everyone looked). Microsoft sent their man, Dr. John Curlander, to present the technologies that made Virtual Earth, an application used to show 3D models of real cities. More »Night Note: Still Haven't Found What We're Looking For
To: CrecenteFrom: Ash
Subject: Lost And Found More »
Gamer's Day 06 Here I Come
Sometime between taking off from Little Rock National Airport and landing at Denver International Airport I've managed to catch a vicious head cold, as in can barely hear vicious. Thank God for Dayquil. More »
michael jackson





