Today word got out that Korean games developer and publisher Hanbitsoft has acquired the rights to Flagship Studios’s new defunct MMO Hellgate: London in North America, Europe, and Japan. Apparently Hanbitsoft feels like there is some money to be made there because the company plans to re-release the game is those regions, as well as in China, Taiwan, and South East Asia later this year.

For those of you who don’t remember (or chose to forget) Hellgate: London was an MMO made by a team of Blizzard Entertainment veterans who parted ways with the gaming giant in hopes of founding their own studio, Flagship. When Hellgate launched the game was plagued with bugs and billing issues, causing many gamers to cancel their subscriptions. Read more… »

In an effort to expand Nintendo’s user base to MORE than every single man, woman, and child in the world, it was just announced by The New York Times that Netflix, everybody’s favorite Blockbuster replacement, is officially coming to Wii.

No longer content to be the only next-gen (*cough*) system without Netflix capability, Reggie and Co. are hopping on the bandwagon.  They’re even going the PS3 route and requiring you to have a special disc in the system to access the Netflix queue.  There’s just ONE little problem…

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Today developer Visceral Games announced that it has teamed up with book publishing giant Random House to release a “special edition” of the 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s ‘Inferno’ as a means of promoting the upcoming action game Dante’s Inferno.

The paper back book will feature cover art similar to the videogame’s box art, as well as an introduction by executive producer Jonathan Knight and a sixteen page art section that shows “the evolution of characters and environments from the classic poem to the video game.” Read more… »

This morning several videogame blogs reported a rumor that independent developer Rebellion Developments may close its Derby satellite office. Rebellion quickly squashed these rumors, saying that the Derby office is merely undergoing a restructuring.

The confusion started with Rebellion’s Derby office, which recently worked on the game Rogue Warrior, coming to the end of its lease. According to rebellion, the developer plans to expand its facilities at Oxford and Runcorn and may move some, if not all of the Derby office staff to these new expansions. Read more… »

Today 2K Boston, of BioShock fame, announced that it has changed its name back to Irrational Games. Some of you may remember two and a half years ago when publisher 2K sought to show solidarity in it’s development studios by rebranding Irrational Games as 2K Boston and 2K Australia.

Apparently 2K has decided that studio solidarity isn’t the most important thing, and that studio identity plays a major role when gamers are deciding which games to buy. According to 2K, the rebranded studio doesn’t just bring a new logo, but also a new focus on the studio’s style and fanbase. Read more… »

It’s been an interesting few months for the rights of gamers in Australia.

After years of fruitless deliberation and gerrymandering between state attorney generals, progress has been made. It was only a year ago that SA AG Michael Atkinson had originally promised a total scrubbing of any public discourse on an R18+ rating for games.

Eventually, he bowed to pressure from fellow colleagues and gamer lobbyists for a public submission inquiry to be released, but looked like it was never going to come.

But, as we all know, it did. But the campaign is far from over. Read on to see how you (Australians!) can help. Or, alternatively, you can read Gamer Limit AU’s submission to the inquiry here.

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I’ve got some bad news for Capcom fans. Today the company announced that several of its titles have been delayed to “avoid competing with the major titles that other companies plan to introduce” between January 1 and March 31, 2010.

Specifically Lost Plant 2, Super Street Fighter IV, and Monster Hunter Tri are the titles that have been delayed. Now they are scheduled for release sometime during Capcom’s next fiscal year, which spans April 1, 2010 through March 31, 2011. Read more… »

To go along with the recent release of LittleBigPlanet on the PSP, Sony decided to send out a mass email advertising its upcoming PSP LBP accessory pack.  Nothing too extravagant: a Sackboy case, a new strap, and some stickers.  The bottom of the image, however, says something odd:

“For series PSP-1000, PSP-2000, PSP-3000, PSP-4000, and PSPgo.”  The PSP-4000 hasn’t been announced (or even mentioned) by Sony yet.  The PSPgo came out less than three months ago, and now they’re already planning on bringing out another iteration?  Sigh…

See the ad for yourself after the jump.  Maybe it’s a typo.  Probably not.

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Because Microsoft points, filling your PlayStation Wallet, American dollars, and yen are just too complicated for online game payments, Square Enix has invented its own currency.  No, not gil.

It’s called Crysta, and it will be used exclusively by Square Enix for downloading games and soundtracks off of their websites and microtransactions in Square Enix games.  The program is Japan-only for now, but it will hit the States soon enough.

The simplest/dumbest part: one Crysta = one yen.  Instead of converting your money to something new, simply replace the yen symbol in the price tag of a Square Enix game with the Crysta symbol; it will probably look something like this.  Enjoy the future.

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Today the parent company Bethesda Softworks and id software, ZeniMax Media, announced that it has obtained the rights to publish id’s upcoming post-apocalyptic shooter/racer Rage.

Originally set to be published by Electronic Arts, Bethesda will now handle all publication duties. This bit of news may come as a surprise considering id and EA penned a deal that allowed EA to publish Rage even after ZeniMax Media bought the developer. Read more… »

Today developer BioWare launched a new Facebook game described as “the first in a series of compelling social experiences.” Developed by its new R&D group, dubbed BioWare Labs, the mini-game, called Gift of the Yeti, promises to donate money to charity and gives gamers a discount on Dragon Age.

The premise of the game is simple. Santa has been put out of commission thanks to some bad eggnog and it’s up to you, a friendly yeti, to save Christmas by lumbering around town delivering gifts. The real kicker is BioWare will donate one cent per play to the children’s gaming charity Child’s Play, up to $10,000. Read more… »

Today word got out that Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification has refused to rate the upcoming movie monster shooter Aliens vs. Predator, essentially banning the game.

Much like Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2, Aliens vs. Predator has been refused classification due to “various types of violence.” Specifically “the Predator collects ‘trophies’ by explicitly ripping off human heads, their spinal columns dangling from severed necks…heads can be twisted completely around…eyes can be stabbed through or gouged, leaving empty, bloodied eye sockets…extensive post-mortem damage, including decapitation and dismemberment, is also possible.” Read more… »