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Atari Gets a New Money Man

Atari found its new chief financial officer from TheLadders.com. Not that they went literally advertising on the service, which promises careers paying more than $100,000 annually. They got the guy who was its veep for finance. Philip Veneziano, say hello to a customer base even more finicky and prone to complaint than high-strung white collar…

OKCupid Dating Survey Gives Gamers An Edge Over Literature Nerds

You don’t need to be embarrassed about visiting dating sites unless you’re into literature instead of video games, insist on using netspeak and cannot spell the word defenestration. Okay, I made that last part up. But this survey conducted by dating site OKCupid — which analyzed over 500,000 first messages exchanged between users — shows…

3D Dot Game Heroes Trailer Is Seriously Pixelated

FromSoftware and Silicon Studio’s 3D Dot Game Heroes, revealed as a PlayStation 3 exclusive last month, an adorable action-RPG that voxelizes a very simple looking 2D game, making for a fantastic 3D presentation. Whether the game plays as good as it retro-looks remains to be seen. And FromSoftware’s plans for a release outside of Japan…

Activision: Sequels Offer “Road Map For Innovation”

Pity the video game sequel, perpetually scapegoated as an evil of the industry. To the rescue of its reputation this week came Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick. The exec recently explained what sequels are good for, besides profit. During his hour-long — and highly quotable — presentation on Monday to the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology…

And Then There Were Three

To: Ash From: Crecente Re: Headache, Headache, Headache McWhertor leaves first thing tomorrow for Japan. He’ll be spending a bit of downtime this week in Tokyo before the rest of us arrive on Sunday to prepare for next week’s Tokyo Game Show. It sounds like we may have the venue nearly nailed down for our…

Bungie’s Throwing A Halo ODST Launch Party (And You Can Go)

Bungie is throwing a party next week in Seattle to celebrate all things Halo, an event that just so happens to coincide with the release of Halo 3: ODST. Should you go? Well, Halo 3: ODST creative director Joseph Staten from Bungie and Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor from 343 Industries will be there,…

The Game Looms, The Beard Thickens

Assassin’s Creed II developer Patrice Desilets models beard before sharing some big ideas with Kotaku.

DJ Hero’s Daft Punk Trailer Robot Rocks You

.html The addition of French electronic duo Daft Punk to FreeStyleGames’ DJ Hero may represent the tipping point of my DJ Hero purchase. Especially considering the group’s extensive contributions to the soundtrack. Having played the game a handful of times, I’ve found some of the selections interesting, but lacking in actual Daft Punk. Eleven Daft…

Shadow Complex Cheaters Targeted For Bans, Gamerscore Wipes

Chair Entertainment may approve of players sequence-breaking Shadow Complex, but it does not condone cheaters who “compromise our game.” Microsoft’s Xbox Live team will be going after dishonest Shadow Complex players, banning them from leaderboards and deleting their Gamerscores. An official statement from Chair and the Xbox Live team sternly warns verified Shadow Complex cheaters…

Consider, BioWare, The Non-Epic RPG

Must we always save the world or preserve the existence of humanity in our video game role-playing games? Must the stakes always be so high? I recently asked one of the principals of RPG super-studio BioWare about this. Between discussing the impending launch of Dragon Age: Origins or teasing the features of Mass Effect 2,…

3 Million Enlist In Combat Arms

Nexon America is growing in leaps and bounds, and its greatly due to the success of Combat Arms, the free-to-play online multiplayer FPS, which recently surpassed the three million registered user mark. Nexon America’s revenue for August was up 32% over the previous year, and if the company’s celebratory press release is any indication, Combat…

Nintendo Updates Holiday Lineup, Reveals New Games

Nintendo of America has laid out its plans for the upcoming holiday shopping season—and a little bit beyond—dating a ton of Wii, Nintendo DS, WiiWare and DSiWare games, while also subtly announcing a few new ones. The list is long and likely full of third-party goods for both the Wii and DS platforms that won’t…

Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth Confirmed By Nintendo

Konami’s Wii-imagining of Game Boy Castlevania: The Adventure, as leaked by the ESRB this weekend, has just been confirmed by a newly updated release list from Nintendo. The better news is that it’s coming, like, this month. Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth has a (potentially subject to change) release date of Q3 on WiiWare. And that…

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks Arriving In December

Nintendo’s next Legend of Zelda adventure will be making a stop at retail just in time for the Christmas shopping season. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks has been dated by Nintendo of America for December 7th. Spirit Tracks was officially unveiled at this year’s Game Developers Conference, but it wasn’t until this year’s E3…

XNA Studio Adds Zune HD Dev Support

To coincide with the retail launch of the shiny new Zune HD, Microsoft has released extensions for XNA Game Studio 3.1 to aid indie developers in creating games for the mobile media player. It won’t be long now before the Zune HD is swamped with indie game titles, thanks to these new extensions freely available…

A Referendum On Bottomless Pits

A question yesterday about the comparative merits of being saved from a plummet into a bottomless pit by a beautiful woman or one’s own grappling hook is occasion enough to determine: How do we feel about bottomless pits in 2009? In my preview of Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack In Time yesterday I lamented…

Create Your Own Gawker Media Hybrid

Be like thousands of satisfied GizHackSpin users and create a custom Gawker Hybrid, made possible by Toyota Prius. Read your favorite titles in one place, with the content you want from each. What’s your hybrid creation? Try it here »

Virtua Fighter 5, FIFA Street 3 Join Xbox 360 Games On Demand

The Xbox 360 Games On Demand options expand by two, as Microsoft has added brawler Virtua Fighter 5 and footballer FIFA Street 3 to the downloadable games service, making it easier to be a game-buying sloth. Or, so they say. Looks like FIFA Street 3 is available to download according to the online Xbox Live…

Star Wars Galaxies Servers Closing

Sony Online Entertainment’s free character transfer service for Star Wars Galaxies was so successful, they’re closing a dozen severs next month. That’s right, free character transfers are so popular that everything must go by October 15th! Go from the twelve closing servers to the remaining thirteen, that is. From the SOE forum post on the…

Peter Moore: EA Sports Tennis To Use Natal, Sony Motion Control

Electronic Arts “indefinitely” delayed the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of its foray into pro tennis, citing the success of EA Sports Active as root cause of the high-def Grand Slam Tennis slip. Turns out there was another reason. According to comments made by EA Sports boss Peter Moore to VG247, it sounds like…