Megaton News

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1up has begun their exclusive Street Fighter IV blowout with this gameplay screenshot, and this little bit of info:

Though the screenshot doesn’t answer this question outright, we can confirm that the game’s graphics are polygonal but the gameplay is strictly 2D. There will be new moves, locations, and gameplay features, while the standard six button control scheme remains. Ryu and Ken return along with Chun-Li and Dhalsim, but beyond that the character roster is a mystery. And then there’s the issue of what platform(s) the game will end up on, which at this point Capcom is keeping close to its chest (if you search 1UP’s database, you’ll find listings for arcade, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, but those are just guesses based on the graphical quality).

Christian Svensson Capcom’s Sr. Director of Strategic Planning & Research spoke about Capcom’s alleged murder of Zack & Wiki. Denying that they intentionally undershipped and failed to advertise the well reviewed/gem of a game.

“Our guys in Japan had a HUGE marketing push for this title. It’s only just come on the market there too so I’m not so sure how you’re passing judgements so quickly.

As for us, let me make a few things clear:

We can’t force a retail buyer to take it (though we got it on the shelf in pretty much every major retailer).
We can’t make a retail buyer expedite freight so it’s on shelf the day after shipment everywhere like Gamestop typically does (which is why Wal-mart and Best Buy only started getting it on shelf on Thursday/Friday).

So for those of you who only shop at Gamestop, either pre-order or look elsewhere to find copies. There were very few pre-orders at Gamestop on Z&W (especially relative to what we’re seeing on the first couple of days sales). If you want to see more units on the shelf day one in that particular retailer, then pre-order. Gamestop bases their day one number as some multiple of its preorders. Period.

A number of retailers we pushed to take more units than they did but they have their own thoughts about the game and the market and make their shelf allocations accordingly. Our day one number was a decent number by any measure, owing a lot to the reviews and PR work that we’ve done. We are not out of stock anywhere except for possible spot out of stocks at Gamestop (probably rectified already as they took their backup order after the first day of sales).

As I’ve said repeatedly, if you’re having a hard time finding it, Wal-mart has the most units and you’re most likely going to find plenty in stock there.”

Apparently Capcom is now an indie developer, and has trouble getting their games in to stores.

Cold. Blooded. Murder.

Advent Children-esque Resident Evil movie coming in 2008 with a completely new story set in Darfur:

CAPCOM Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan — representative director and president: Haruhiro Tsujimoto; hereinafter “CAPCOM”) and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Japan — representative director and president: Ken Munekata; hereinafter “SPEJ”) have announced coproduction of “BIOHAZARD: Degeneration,” the first full-length CG animation feature based upon the BIOHAZARD series of games and movies.

　BIOHAZARD, began as a hit international video game franchise created by CAPCOM, then made its debut on the silver screen as the live-action film RESIDENT EVIL (the international film title for BIOHAZARD), distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Entertainment. RESIDENT EVIL is the first trilogy of live-action movies to have come from a video game franchise. CAPCOM and Sony Picture’s Japanese subsidiary SPEJ have teamed up to give birth to a CG-animated BIOHAZARD with groundbreaking visual effects and a brand-new story line.

　Since its initial release in 1996, the BIOHAZARD series of games has established the “survival horror” genre and has shipped over a 33 million units worldwide, continuing to captivate its fans as a powerful property. CAPCOM will continue to release new games within the franchise, such as “BIOHAZARD: Umbrella Chronicles” and “BIOHAZARD 5″

　The films “RESIDENT EVIL” and “RESIDENT EVIL 2: APOCALYPSE” have each grossed more than US$ 100 million at the Box Office internationally. “RESIDENT EVIL 3″ aka “BIOHAZARD 3″ (debuting throughout Japan on November 3) has been the biggest hit of the series in the US to date, adding to the high performance and public support for this franchise.

The full CG animation feature “BIOHAZARD: Degeneration” is currently in production, with plans for a terrifying release in 2008.

For those waiting for capcom-unity.com to drop a Megaton well the site is getting killed right now. However Games Radar is reporting on Capcom’s gamers day in London with some pretty huge news:

“Street Fighter 4
Development has just begun and the release of the game is more than a year away. No platforms are yet confirmed – a highly stylised animated concept trailer of Ryu and Ken fighting was shown, but no game footage.

Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice
A new character and new series starring a rookie lawyer. Phoenix Wright makes an appearance but is not the lead character. Made specifically for DS.

Lost Planet (PS3)
Avaialable early next year and will include all bonus characters from the PC version and extra downloadable content from the 360 version making it the complete package. Made possible with Blu-ray. 16 player online over the PSN.

Dark Void
A new sci-fi action-adventure IP. Trailer showed third-person and air-vehicle gameplay with a character wearing a steam punk jetpack, skydiving and landing in the cockpit of a gyroscopic aircraft, and then jumping and climbing through airbase fortesses.

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD (Xbox Live Arcade)
The game will feature a spectator mode and is scheduled for a 2008 while the team try and get zero lag for the online mode. Also features stat tracking and widescreen. Original music from Street Fighter 2 will be used, plus remixed versions of all those tunes.

Wii Love Golf
From the Everybody’s Golf team comes a cutesy golf sim, that looks slightly more technical than the PlayStation versions. Players can fade or draw the ball by twisting the Wii-mote when taking a swing.”

Check out the site and first trailer here.

Capcom once again cashing in on the most undead game in the Resident Evil series with Biohazard 4 (Resident Evil 4) Mobile Edition! Click the thumbnail for the full size image, Ashley does not look pleased.

Don’t be fooled people the Wii Edition is the version to get.

Thanks to cvxfreak for the image.

From Capcom’s official message boards: 

As I’ve posted in another thread, I think people are setting themselves up for soul crushing disappointment.

The biggest announcement “at TGS” that I’m aware of was made last week in advance of the event with Capcom’s collaboration with Camelot on We Love Golf. If there’s something more than that’s got someone excited … I’m not sure what it would be (and yes, I know everything being discussed at the show).

Most of our biggest announcements are being held for a Capcom event we’ll be holding in a few weeks in London. It’s there that some heads might explode.
__________________
Christian Svensson
Capcom Entertainment Inc. – Sr. Director of Strategic Planning & Research

I’m glad they cleared this up. I don’t know why anyone would expect Capcom to announce anything at the Tokyo Game Show anyway, it makes much more sense for them to use an obscure London event. We wouldn’t want their games to recieve too much hype.

Australian site Gameplayer is reporting:

As many of you know, next week sees the famous Tokyo Game Show take the industry’s centre stage and we can expect another big round of game announcements. Predominantly tiered towards Japanese developers… With this in mind we are excited to confirm that legendary industry stalwart Capcom are planning to use the event to make “three huge announcements.”

This information fell into our laps at Activate Asia 2007, which was held in Cairns earlier this week and, amongst many things, included some hands-on time with Devil May Cry 4 (pictured, but more on that later). While we are not at liberty to divulge what these announcements will be at this time, we’re busting at the seams with excitement and wishing we could let the information flood out. But we’re sworn to secrecy, so all we will say is that Capcom have some of the biggest franchises in gaming history tucked away in their stable, and not a few smaller ones that deserve more attention.

So Capcom fans have plenty to anticipate as next Wednesday, the 19th of September, approaches and they should keep their eyes fixated on our news section for that moment when we are given the green light.