Review of the Week

So after another eventful week, here's what's been happening:

SEGA News - Time to Huddle in a Cloud

This week, SEGA announced that they are now going to use a cloud service called Huddle to allow the USA and UK teams to share and work on the company's valuable project content like Sonic the Hedgehog. According to various sources, this was done so that all their future projects can be worked on around the world instead of just Japan with little input from their international companies. From my point of view, this is great because we can now play games that don't have a number of loading screens and is mostly boring throughout (yes Sonic I'm looking at you, literately).

James Bond News - Danny Boyle to not Direct the 24th Bond Film

Danny Boyle (who if I'm correct, was rumoured to be directing the next film) has stated this week, that he prefers to not direct the next Bond film as he prefers to direct smaller films on a strict budget than a big one on a big budget. Even though he was responsible for the creation of the London Olympic Opening Ceremony which had a short Bond film being played, he much prefers working under pressure. You know, the Olympic Opening is a big deal and no doubt, costed a lot of money to do, but at the end of the day, he does what he chooses to do and we can just predict further on the next Bond film.

Nintendo News - 3DS guilty of patent infringement

Back in 2011, a former Sony employee by the name Serjiro Tomita took Nintendo and it's US unit (Nintendo of America) to court and demanding Nintendo to pay $9.80 in compensation for every 3DS sold which was in trial at the end of February this year, the result having Tomita getting less than what he asked for (which was a whopping $290m) and only being awarded $30.2m in compensation by a jury in a NY district court. According to Tomita, he apparently did a demonstration of his prototype for 3D technology to various Nintendo executives back in 2003 which at the time, his patent for the invention was still pending. The defence argued that this was among the many meetings that were held by the executives of the company and that the finished 3DS did not use anything form the patent in question. Nintendo felt that the verdict would not impact of the 3DS's continued sales and in a statement, said that they have had along history of developing innovative products while respecting the intellectual property rights of others. As someone who actually has a 3DS, I personally don't think it matters on whether Nintendo were copying other companies. Just as long as people still enjoy the products they create whether it be hardware or software, they will do just fine (but I do hope that they don't make any limitations with the 3DS and Wii U like they did with their predecessors).

UbiSoft News - The Return of a former Creative Designer

Since the downfall of THQ, a number of it's employees have been looking for other work and while UbiSoft bought the rights for the upcoming South Park game "The Stick of Truth" as well as buying THQ Montreal, it was confirmed this week that a former employee of theirs who went over to THQ and was part of their Montreal team (if I'm correct), has returned to UbiSoft. The person in question is Patrice Desilets who was a creative designer for the Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia and is now currently working on 2 projects for UbiSoft which are the previously outed "1666" and a new game which currently is known as Underdog. Well its good to know that all of THQ's properties (with the exception of Darksiders and maybe De Blob) were bought by some of the best companies in the gaming universe. Now all we need, is to see the next game of some of THQ's former franchises appear. Might not be for a while, but you never know.

Disney News - Infinity Delayed

The long awaited Disney crossover game that is basically a Disney version of Skylanders, has been delayed. According to the company, Disney felt that the new release date is more favourable (August 18th for USA and 2 days later for Europe) and Disney Interactive's Co-President John Pleasants said that the delay is so that they can add some bells and whistles and make sure that the game really sings and pops (which by the way, is probably an expression, not what they are actually doing). The game was going to be released to tie in with the cinema release of Monsters University and that the delay will allow them to compete with the next Skylanders game. This could be interesting, but I don't think it will end well, but we'll wait and see.

I know there's probably more news that I could put in, but these were the ones that I wanted to bring up so if I've missed any, I do apologise. Now for this week's film (cinema) and video game (retail, app and downloadable) releases:

Film:
The Call (Russia, Lithuania and USA Release, Brazil Release in April, Worldwide Unknown)
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (Worldwide Release, except for Germany, Italy and Russia which will have a release in April)

Video Game:
Darkstalkers Resurrection (PS3 via PSN and Xbox 360 via XBLA) (Worldwide Release)
God of War: Ascension (PS3) (Worldwide Release)
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (PC, PS3 and Xbox 360) (North America and Europe Release)
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (PC and MAC) (Worldwide Release)
A World of Keflings (Xbox 360 via XBLA and PC) (Worldwide Release)
Slam Bolt Scrappers (PS3 via PSN and PC) (Worldwide Release)