Big Fish Games announced a strategic partnership with People.com, the leading celebrity news site that manages to attract 10 million monthly users. Starting today, People.com’s main games page will feature select online and downloadable games in various categories. In addition, visitors will have access to Big Fish Games’ entire catalog of over 2,000 games through its own Web site. People.com will receive a share of the revenues on all game purchases its visitors make from Big Fish Games.
This partnership further illustrates the transition that is occurring with many print publications as they look to strategically partner with media companies to increase traffic to online content and engage their readers in new ways.
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Sessler’s Soapbox: delays are a good thing
In this week’s edition of Sessler’s Soapbox, G4’s Adam Sessler talks about why the recent wave of game delays are not necessarily a bad thing for gamers in the long run. I mean, it makes perfect sense to me that more development time means a better game; I’d rather have a balanced version of Splinter Cell Conviction than a buggy piece of crap at the end of this year. Some of these delays might be attributed to publishers being scared of their games not selling well against massive titles like Halo 3: ODST and COD: Modern Warfare 2 during a slow economy as well, according to Sessler’s thinking. You can watch the latest edition of Sessler’s Soapbox below or visit G4TV.com.
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Namco Bandai Partners to publish CITIES XL in select regions
Yesterday Namco Bandai Games announced its new European operations Namco Bandai Partners. Today that group reveals its first title. Today it announced plans to publish the next generation city builder title from Monte Cristo Games, CITIES XL, in UK, Nordic Countries, Iberica, Italy, Australia and New Zealand, with distribution in other European countries previously secured by Monte Cristo. CITIES XL is scheduled for release this coming October 2009.
For more information about CITIES XL can be found at www.citiesxl.com.
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Namco Bandai Partners forms
Namco Bandai Games Europe S.A.S. today announced the completion of its purchase of Atari’s global PAL distribution operation (Europe), with the entity renamed Namco Bandai Partners with immediate effect. The company will, as of this announcement, distribute titles worldwide, excluding Japan and North America, from Namco Bandai Games, Atari and other major international video game publishers.
Operating in 50 countries with 17 offices including UK, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Nordic, Benelux, Greece, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, NAMCO BANDAI Partners is now one of the world’s strongest and most comprehensive video game retail distribution networks in the world.
In the UK, the company will operate as NAMCO BANDAI Partners UK, working with its partners in publishing, media and retail to bring a wide range of original video games to market for all audiences.
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Namco Bandai Games locks down Dragon Ball rights
Namco Bandai Games America has secured exclusive North American rights to publish future “official” video games for the longstanding classic anime and manga series, Dragon Ball across all major consoles and hand held platforms. The agreement will run for five years beginning in January 2010 and supersedes the existing rights granted to publish titles on the Nintendo DS, Wii, PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360.
“We are very excited to have signed this long term agreement with Toei Animation Co., Ltd and FUNimation Entertainment, which grants NAMCO BANDAI Games North American multi-platform rights to the testosterone driven action packed world of Dragon Ball, said Makoto Iwai, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Namco Bandai Games America. “This move reunites Namco Bandai Games with the Dragon Ball series in North America which will considerably increase our ability to develop titles that perfectly capture every nuance of what makes the Dragon Ball world exciting to the consumer.”
Namco Bandai Games America has secured the right to publish three titles in 2009: Dragon Ball: Raging Blast for the Xbox 360 and PS3, Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo for Wii, and Dragon Ball Z: Attack of the Saiyans for Nintendo DS.
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Fillpoint Acquires Crave
Newport Beach, California-based video game distribution company Fillpoint, has acquired Crave Entertainment for an undisclosed amount of money. Crave Entertainment, which is also based in Newport Beach, develops and publishes a variety of casual and budget priced games for various platforms. The company was purchased alongside Indianapolis, Indiana-based SVG, a distributor of video game software, hardware and accessories. Both companies were purchased from Handleman Company.
Fillpoint acquired both companies to expand its brick and mortar distribution operations, increase its software catalog (with the help of Crave) and expand its foothold into the online digital distribution business.
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Ubisoft Takes the Wheel(man) from Midway
With all the trouble Midway has been facing lately, gamers have been wondering how everything would affect the upcoming titles that the publisher already had in development. Well, late yesterday we got the answer for at least one of those games. According to a statement released by Midway, Ubisoft will be riding shotgun when Vin Diesel gets the behind the wheel of Wheelman and rides off to retail on March 24th.
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Newport Beach, California-based video game distribution company Fillpoint, has acquired Crave Entertainment for an undisclosed amount of money. Crave Entertainment, which is also based in Newport Beach, develops and publishes a variety of casual and budget priced games for various platforms. The company was purchased alongside Indianapolis, Indiana-based SVG, a distributor of video game software, hardware and accessories. Both companies were purchased from Handleman Company.
With all the 