Weekly Rumor Round Up: July 10-16
By Ajané Celestin-Greer | July 16, 2011 | Features | No comments | Share
Welcome to the first edition of DeltaGamer’s weekly roundup of rumors.
Here you’ll find all the hottest rumors for the past week and related articles tied up in a nice, tidy bundle for your reading pleasure. Some we have personally published, some are not, and either way I have personally researched all rumors to do my best confirm their status.
This week’s roundup covers Battlefield 3, Devil May Cry, Electronic Arts and their movements to digital markets, Windows 8 & Xbox 360, and some info on next gen consoles like the PS4 and the successor to the Xbox 360.
So let’s dive into it.
8. Rumor: Devil May Cry HD Collection Soon?
Details: Everyone gets something for their birthday, even video games. Lately, the trend has been to release an anniversary collection, or a new game, or just a redone game (see: Resident Evil, Sonic Generations, or The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D) so now that Devil May Cry is turning 10 years old (feel old?), all eyes are on Capcom as we wait to see that special almost-a-given HD Devil May Cry anniversary collection.
Status: Unknown, but very likely true.
Last month a Spanish retailer (messed up?) and put up a listing for a Devil May Cry collection, which of course every gaming site soon knew about. Then Capcom said they would be revealing a mysterious title at Comic Con and to top of it off, Capcom announced an art contest for DMC that would be featured in a mysterious game. Hmm…
7. Rumor: Riot Games producing a new game?
Details: League of Legend’s developer Riot Games is going on a hiring frenzy, which leads some in the industry to believe they are beginning work on another game.
Status: Unknown, but very likely true.
Mass Effect’s Christina Norman has left BioWare for Riot Games, and that’s not the only big talent they have picked up lately. Riot is also hiring experienced Technical Project Managers currently, and developers don’t usually mass hire unless they’re about to make a game, but Riot hasn’t confirmed or denied this rumor yet. Take a look at their job openings page to see just how many positions they are hiring for: http://riotgames.com/careers/job-openings-0
6. Rumor: EA Buys Social Gaming Firm Ohai
Details: According to website Venture Beat who heard it from a source familiar with the subject matter Electronic Arts has purchased social gaming company Ohai. It is believed the company sold for a relatively low price and attracted bids from companies like Kabam, Tencent, Perfect World and Aeria Games. Ohai itself had solid talent and attempted a few games that failed in comparison to the monolith Zynga.
Status: Unknown, but likely true.
At this time, the deal hasn’t been publically announced so it is unknown what stage the acquisition is in or when it will be officially announced. But considering EA’s recent PopCap acquisition, this is likely just the beginnings of many future purchases as they make the large push to enter the digital online markets.
5. Rumor: No Frostbite 2.0 Engine for Battlefield 3 on Consoles
Details: Thanks to this PS3 pre-alpha footage, one game site started rumors that the Frostbite 2.0 engine was obviously not being used for Battlefield 3on all consoles, stating that destruction is only in areas where there’s objectives instead of dynamic destruction, and that when you shoot cover it doesn’t crumble or blow up.
Status: Fake.
This one article sparked a flurry of rumors which finally made it around to DICE, who then confirmed otherwise in this tweet, stating:
Bullshit confirmed. Frostbite 2.0 is the engine running the game on all platforms!!
4. Rumor: Zynga offered PopCap Games a $1 billion cash deal
Details: We all know that EA bought PopCap for $650 million cash, with $100 million in EA stock and up to another $550 million based on performance over the first two years, all adding up to $1.3 billion potential dollars. But what you didn’t know was that Zynga attempted to snipe PopCap from under EA’s nose first, for $1 billion in cash.
Status: All but officially confirmed.
According to a source talking to Forbes, Zynga would have financed at least part of the deal. Of note too, is the fact that account to this document Zynga had just a little less than $1 billion in cash on its balance sheet. Zynga declined to comment when Forbes contacted them, so I’d say it sounds like sound detective work on Forbes’ part.
3. Rumor: All three next-gen game consoles to use AMD GPUs inside
Details: Nintendo has already said that the processor they use will be from AMD, but rumors are circulating that all 3 console companies will be adopting AMD for their GPU.
Status: Unknown, but likely true.
Nvidia and Microsoft had it out long ago when they spent months in arbitration over the first Xbox’s GPU back in 2002 and 2002, so that likely doesn’t incline Microsoft to use them again, as we can see by the fact that the Xbox 360 uses an AMD chip. AMD chips are in general cheaper as well, though it is unknown if that would be something they’d do to keep production costs down or not.
2. Rumor: Battlefield 3 Not Coming to Steam
Details: On Battlefield 3′s list of digital retailers, Steam was not listed, as first noticed by website Joystiq. If you’ve been following the news, you’ll know that EA is pushing their own digital download service Origin, and has been preparing some of their upcoming games to only be released exclusively on Origin for a short time. It is now expected that BF3 will be one of these games.
Status: All but confirmed.
If you try to find the list of Battlefield 3′s digital retailers now, you’ll only get a 404 error as EA promptly pulled the page down after Joystiq’s post, and declined to comment to Eurogamer. But website Gamer Rant was smart enough to get a picture before it got pulled.
I also happened to stumble upon this conversation between a customer and an EA representative. In the conversation, the customer asks EA if BF3 will be available on Steam, to which the rep responds that “Well we do not have any such official update at this moment.” and “no” they don’t know when they will. In addition to this, GameStop claims that BF3 will not be available on Steam and that they will seek to put it on their new digital content market, Impulse.
1. Rumor: Windows 8 to play Xbox 360 games
Details: Two websites reported that Microsoft Windows 8 would be able to play Xbox 360 games on their PCs. The Xbox Live Dashboard would be accessible through the PC, and still cost a subscription fee.
Status: Unknown, but very likely true.
Though Microsoft declined to comment on the rumors, Italian website Windows8Italia found bits of code relating to the Xbox 360 from a leaked Windows 8 build, further solidifying this rumor. Let’s not also forget that Xbox Live is already on Windows 7 phones amongst other mergings of Xbox with Microsoft products and services.
Rumor Tidbits
Here is where I will throw out some rumors I’ve heard, but didn’t have enough information to really prove, or interesting tidbits that could lead to bigger things or just didn’t quite make it on the list.
- Microsoft registered “microsoft-sony.com” and “sony-microsoft.com”, causing suspcion and rumors. Microsoft responded shortly after, stating that it was just a defensive move to protect them from third parties that might purchase and misuse the domains.
- The ‘Xbox 360 games on Windows 8 rumor’ also sparked another rumor that Windows 8 will be able to run on the Xbox 720 (Xbox 360 successor nickname)
- There will soon be new way to watch videos on the Xbox 360 that supposedly rivals subscription streaming video services like Hulu and Netflix, under the Zune name.
- Rockstar Games is working on an open world game for Nintendo DS, which has melee combat. No news of 3DS port.
I will update rumors status if information comes in within the coming weeks. Please feel free to tip us off and add updates in the comments section.
