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First titles from social game giant arriving on the Yahoo network this week.Social game company Zynga’s Mafia Wars and FarmVille will debut on Yahoo services this week.
A deal between Zynga and the Yahoo corporation to bring its games to Yahoo services – such as Messenger, My Yahoo and Games – was announced earlier this year.
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Game streaming service sends out first batch of invites to 11,000 users.David Perry, founder and CEO of cloud-based streaming network Gaikai, has announced that the service is now in its open beta stage.
Perry confirmed in a blog post that the first 1,000 invites were sent out on Sunday and were followed by a further 10,000 this week.
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Gameplay systems complete.
Kingdom Hearts 3D the planned 3DS Square Enix/Disney cross-over role-playing game from Tetsuya Nomura will connect to the yet-to-be revealed Kingdom Hearts III.
It’ll do so both in terms of gameplay systems and story, Nomura told Famitsu magazine (translated by Andriasang).
Apparently it’s possible the ending of Kingdom Hearts 3D will lead into the story of KHIII.
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Job losses as publisher aims to “streamline” music division.Activision has confirmed the closure of its US-based studio, Budcat Creations.
In a statement issued yesterday the company said: “We continue to streamline our music development resources to ensure that they are aligned against our slate and strategic goals. As a result, we are implementing a targeted reduction in jobs in our Quality Assurance team in California and closing our Budcat studio in Iowa.”
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Tank that.
Half a million people play massively multiplayer online game World of Tanks.
That’s 500,000 active players, Wargaming.net announced. There have been 700,000 registrations.
The game launched in Russia, home to 350,000 of those active players, three months ago. But that’s not surprising. Everyone knows Russians build the best tanks – at least they do in Command & Conquer.
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Tank that.
Half a million people play massively multiplayer online game World of Tanks.
That’s 500,000 active players, Wargaming.net announced. There have been 700,000 registrations.
The game launched in Russia, home to 350,000 of those active players, three months ago. But that’s not surprising. Everyone knows Russians build the best tanks – at least they do in Command & Conquer.
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Team making unannounced game affected?
Star Wars The Force Unleashed II developer LucasArts has confirmed a “minor adjustment in staffing”.
This round of layoffs first reported by 3Drealms’ George Broussard on Twitter – is the second to hit the troubled studio since September.
According to Broussard, who has been right about similar matters in the past, the Lucasarts layoffs “come from a team working on an unannounced game”.
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Dave Perry presses the big red button.
David Perry’s cloud-based gaming service Gaikai.com launched quietly on Sunday, and is now officially in open beta.
Perry sent out a blast of 1000 invites on Sunday, and another 10,000 after that. Players are hitting 15 of Gaikai.com’s 24 data centres, Perry wrote on his blog.
Perry will continue to send out invite blasts in waves of 10,000 until all reported issues are fixed.
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Shock horror.
Parasite Eve sequel The 3rd Birthday is no longer a PSP-exclusive game it’ll be released as a download from the PlayStation Network, too.
That’s according to an announcement from Square Enix, reported by Andriasang.
In Japan, the game will be released on 22nd December in shops and on PSN. A Western release is yet to be announced we’re chasing that up now. But it’s not impossible to access the Japanese PlayStation Store, is it?
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But they’re so cute.
The first downloadable add-on for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is set on the forest moon of Endor and sees players kill perhaps the cutest aliens ever conceived: the Ewoks.
It’s set during the time of classic film The Return of the Jedi, but presents a “what if?” scenario, according to IGN. It’s all part of the “infinite universe”, see.
The Endor Bonus Mission, as it’s called, adds new Achievements and Trophies. “One of the team’s favourite is the ‘Sith Kicker Achievement’ but I’ll let you figure that one out for yourselves,” executive producer Gio Corsi said.