Now that the beginning-of-the-year game drought has passed, it's time to start getting excited for releases coming in the near future. This month we got a taste of what the next "Dead Rising" game will look like, along with a closer peek at the graphic novel-inspired "Madworld" for the Nintendo Wii.
Make sure you catch a last glance of "Killzone 2" before its release this Friday. The PlayStation 3 exclusive looks to live up to the hype of the original trailer, which blew audiences away back at E3 2005.
Also check out how "Ghostbusters: The Video Game" is shaping up, with actual in-game footage featuring the voices of the original four cast members. Finally, we invite you to see the first game in the Tom Clancy franchise to tackle combat flight simulation in "Tom Clancy's HAWX."
(Credit:
Saitek)
Home console flight simulator and air combat games just got a bit easier to control. Just in time for upcoming titles like Tom Clancy's HAWX, Saitek is introducing the Aviator, a flight stick fully tested to work Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. That said, Saitek claims the Aviator will also perform well with the Blazing Angels series of games released earlier on.
Available for both platforms, ...
Read the full post at CNET's CES 2009 blog.
Video game giant Ubisoft has agreed to purchase Tom Clancy's name for use in video games and other media products. Previously, Ubisoft had licensed the Clancy name.
(Credit: Ubisoft)Tom Clancy has sold his name.
French video game giant Ubisoft said Thursday that it has agreed to buy all "intellectual property rights to the Tom Clancy name, on a perpetual basis and free of all related future royalty payments, for use in video games and ancillary products including related books, movies and merchandising products."
So, strictly speaking, Clancy, the author of megahit books like Patriot Games, The Hunt for Red October, and The Sum of All Fears will get to continue to use his own moniker in his personal life. And even on his books.
But when it comes to video game properties based on his work, and even, apparently, most other media, well, Ubisoft is his daddy.
Of course, Ubisoft has already been publishing a series of Clancy-branded games, such as the Ghost Recon series and the Rainbow Six series, but those were done under royalty arrangements.
Ubisoft didn't release the financial terms of the deal, though it did say in a press release that it expects to have a net cash position of 130 million euros ($201 million) at the end of fiscal 2007-2008, versus 150 million euros ($232 million) prior to the deal.
In addition, Ubisoft said it will make additional payments to Clancy in fiscal 2008-2009 and 2009-2010.
"On the basis of past performance of Tom Clancy-branded video games, and excluding any potential contribution coming from sales of ancillary products," the company wrote, "the royalty savings generated by this acquisition are estimated to have an average positive impact on Ubisoft's operating income of a minimum of 5 million euros per year."
To me, this is just bizarre. Maybe I've missed previous such deals, but I don't recall ever hearing of someone like Tom Clancy out-and-out selling his name like this. I won't liken it to selling his soul to the devil, because I'm sure Ubisoft is a perfectly nice organization, but it's an unusual situation to be sure.
But, Clancy probably saw the opportunity to get a massive amount of money up front and some substantial additional payments for the next few years and figured that there wasn't much downside. As noted above, Ubisoft is a major-league organization and has done well with its Clancy properties, so it's not like this will water down the Clancy brand.
With that in mind, then, I suppose I'll have to consider selling the rights to my own name. I doubt I'll command millions of euros, but you never know. Let me know if you're interested, and we'll talk turkey.
Last week, we brought you new details on two games from the Ubisoft press event held in New York City--Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Far Cry 2. Today we wrap up our coverage with a look at Tom Clancy's EndWar, a new franchise from the publisher.
At first glance, we were quite skeptical of a real-time-strategy game on a console. However, after about two minutes of watching one of the developers play the game using only his voice, we were convinced that the team at Ubisoft Shanghai might be on to something here.
World War III on your console
(Credit: Ubisoft)Let us clarify the whole voice control situation---there was barely any manual controlling needing to be done besides aiming with a crosshair and adjusting the camera angle.... Read more
Ubisoft held the company's latest press event in New York this week, and we were lucky enough to get in some time with a few highly anticipated new games coming from the publisher this year. Yesterday, Will Greenwald told you about Far Cry 2, with its Crysis-like physics and effects. Today, we'll shed some light on Rainbow Six Vegas 2.
We're gonna need a new dealer
(Credit: Ubisoft)Just when we thought we had enough of Las Vegas (CES can do that to a man), Ubisoft throws us right back into the mix of things in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. While the first Vegas had us running through casinos and garage lots at night, Vegas 2 takes place more during the daylight hours as you'll be seeing back alleys and the grittier side of the town. Rather than giving us an "add-on" to the first title, the team at Ubisoft Montreal has built a game worthy of being labeled as an official sequel. So rest assured, this is certainly not Rainbow Six Vegas: Out of Cash.... Read more
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