Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Announcement Trailer

Posted by John Ball Categories: Action, Activision, First Person Shooters, PC, PlayStation 3, Trailers, Wii, Xbox 360,

Was it going to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 or Call of Duty: Ascension? Some weren’t sure what game was next. Rumors have been floating around for the past few weeks about the game, and now those rumors can be laid to rest. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has been announced, and, man, does it look awesome.

Set in the year 2029, we find ourselves looking at an aged man tied to a chair, talking about the technology of the time. Warfare has turned its back on using soldiers, and has embraced newer, unmanned robotic technology. Everything from war planes, to walking tanks, to helicopter jets. Somehow, the enemy takes control of the drones and begins attacking the United States (and probably various other worldwide targets.) The result is a man vs. machine extravaganza. Check out the full trailer below.

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Gallery: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Announcement Trailer

Peter Moore Has Big Plans For EA Sports

Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: Corporate News, Electronic Arts, Sports,

Peter Moore, long known as the public face of Microsoft‘s Xbox division, stepped into his new digs as EA Sports president last week and started off saying he wants EA Sports’ brand to compete in a broader arena than just the video games market, facing off against general sports brands like Nike and ESPN.

Despite selling millions of copies of its flagship titles each year, EA Sports has struggled to expand effectively and EA seems to be banking on Moore to help them widen their reach. “That could mean broadcast sports, sports camps, the ability to license consumer products around the EA Sports brand,” he told the New York Times. Moore is also looking to leverage EA’s technology to create social networking and news sites, all centered around sports and of course the EA Sports name. “I think we have an opportunity to aggregate information and bring it to life with video technologies,” he said.

“If we look at this connected world we’re entering, sports is a sort of social and cultural glue that reaches across the globe,” Moore continues. “There is an opportunity for EA Sports to evolve beyond a games brand to become a true global sports and entertainment brand, and I think we can compete there.”

Read More | New York Times via Level Up

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Kaz Hirai Hits the Interview Circuit

Posted by Paul Hamilton Categories: PlayStation 3, Sony,

Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai has been speaking out about the PlayStation 3 including the reported development troubles some studios have had and Sony‘s commitment to the Japanese market.

Regarding the difficulty in development Hirai said he’s seen this before when the PS2 drew similar criticisms early in its lifecycle and that it doesn’t concern him. He said to The Official PlayStation Magazine that, in fact, he welcomes the news:

If they came back and told me, ‘PS3? We can do this in a heartbeat,’ that would be worrying because what it is telling me is that we’re not pushing the envelope from a technology standpoint.

In another interview with a Japanese website he said that developers working on cross-platform games ought to take advantage of the PS3’s extra capability to give PlayStation owners extra value. For example, “[W]ith the PS3, you’ve got the Sixaxis controller, or you could utilize the extra capacity provided by Blu-ray to add more levels, put on interviews with the developers or have your videos able to play in 1080p.” He said he understood why developers were choosing to work cross-platform considering the cost of making modern games.

Later in the same interview he tried to reassure Japanese gamers that they weren’t being overlooked:

Just because the foreign market is bigger than the domestic one, we don’t intend to take strategy of just making what would have been considered previously as ‘Western games’ and saying ‘We’ve got no choice but to do this’ to our Japanese users. If we did that, there’d be no point in having the Japan Studio.

Read More | Develop via Game | Life

Gallery: Kaz Hirai Hits the Interview Circuit