Witcher 3 coming next year, likely for next-generation systems

       

       The next installment in the Witcher series, and one of the first RPGs games of the next generation, has officially been announced. As revealed in the cover story of the March issue of Game Informer, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is scheduled to be released in 2014 on what developer CD Projekt RED describes as "all high-end platforms", in all likelihood meaning PC, the next Xbox, and possibly the PS4 (although the series has never appeared on a Sony system so far).
        The game will draw inspiration from Skyrim, including features like a more open game world, and an absolutely massive one at that: thirty times the size the one found in the Witcher 2, and an impressive 20% larger than the vast swath of land in Skyrim.The game will be the debut of CD Projekt RED's new REDengine 3 technology.
       Check out more details in the issue of Game Informer, and right here as they are revealed.

Deal Alert: Square Enix Sale at Steam.

            

            From now until 1/29/12, Steam is having a steep discount on its entire Square-Enix catalog, including a nice 66% discount on Hitman Absolution (making it $16.99, down from $49.99) and a superb discount on the sleeper hit Sleeping Dogs ($9.99, down from $39.99).

THQ Officially Disbands

         After months of financial struggles, THQ annouced in a letter today to its employees today that the company is officially being dissolved. The company's game franchises, and the studios that make them, are being singled off and sold to various bidders from across the gaming world, including Ubisoft and Take-two, among others. In the letter obtained by Kotaku, the future of the Darksiders Francise and it's developer, Virgil Games, was left unkown. The document, written by CEO Brian Farrell and president Jason Rubin, stated that "We will make every effort to find appropriate buyers, if possible."
         The document went to state that while most employees will likely be offered a new position under the  new management, some positions might be eliminated. All employees of a company not included in the sale will have their employment eliminated entirely.  An official announcement from the company is expected in the near future, once approval has been granted from the courts and company lawyers.

Here are the details of the proposed sale:

Relic Entertainment and Company of Heroes franchise
Winning bid: $26.6 million - Sega Corporation
Backup bidder: $26.3 million - Zenimax Media


THQ Montreal, including 1666 and Underdog
Winning bid: $2.5 million - Ubisoft
Backup bidder: None


Evolve aka Metamorphosis
Winning bid: $10.894 million - Take-Two Interactive
Backup bidder: $250,000 - Turtle Rock Studios, Inc.


Volition and Saints Row franchise
Winning bid: $22.3 million - Koch Media
Backup bidder: $5.4 million - Ubisoft

Homefront franchise
Winning bid: $544,218 - Crytek
Backup bidder: None


Metro franchise
Winning bid: $5,877,551 - Koch Media
Backup bidder: $5.175 million - Ubisoft


South Park: The Stick of Truth
Winning bid: $3,265,306 - Ubisoft
Backup bidder: None

        THQ was first founded as THQ Inc in Calabasas Cal., in 1990 as a toy manufacturer. It acquired Brøderbund's video game devision in the late summer of 1990, and released it's first game the next year. Also in 1991, the company was acquired by Trinity Acquistion Corp. By 1994, the company had exited the toy business to focus exclusively on the video game market. 
       After introducing a new logo in 2000, THQ went on to produce many reconigible franchises through out the decade, including Red Faction, MX v. ATV, Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Darksiders, and Destroy All Humans! However, by the end of decade signs of hard times began to emerge as the global economy went to recession and several of the company's key products failed to create commercial success among negative reception from consumers and critics.  In spring of 2011 company shares suffered a 26% drop after its game Homefront was timidly received, and several months later the company dropped its once-popular Red Faction series after negativity over the series latest entry. In the final weeks of 2012, the company announced it was entering chapter 11 bankruptcy.
 

Deals Alert: Sims 3 Steam Sale

          
                    From now until 4 p.m pacific time on Thursday Feb. 24, Steam is having a sale on Sims 3 content, with 75% the base game and 66% off all expansion packs and stuff packs. Keep in mind, Sims 3 games bought through steam are only compatible with other Sims 3 games bought through Steam, so for instance, a expansion bought through steam will not be usable with a copy of base game installed the from a disc or through Origin.

Deals Alert: Sims 3 Best Buy and Amazon Sale, Including Monte Vista

           From the 20th to the 26th of January, Best Buy is having a saucy (hey, its a fun adjective) 50% off sale on Sims 3 PC games online and in store. Not to be out done, Amazon is currently offering a discount on select expansion packs and most stuff packs. Notably, the recently released boxed version of the Monte Vista town is also included in the sale at both stores, meaning it can briefly be had for a lowly $9.99.
             At Best Buy, the base game/expansion packs and stuff packs (except for the just-released 70's.80's, and 90's stuff pack) are priced at $19.99 and $9.99, respectively.
            Meanwhile over at Amazon, downloads of older EPs are just $11.99, while disk versions of new EPS are also $19.99 except for Seasons due to an apparent inventory issue.
            So, for any Sims players who haven't experienced the blissfulness that is Seasons, are looking to pick up a stuff pack, or who want to explore the newest town, Best Buy just might live up to it's name (and Amazon is awesome as usual).

Possible Next-Gen Xbox Specs Leak

         

    A reported leak of hardware details for Microsoft's Durango project, aka the next-generation Xbox, have hit the web after being posted by vgleaks.com. As usual, the validity of  this supposed info is dubious at best, but if they should prove to be true it would signal some interesting directions for the next gen hardware. Here is the rumored details:

CPU:

• x64 Architecture
• 8 CPU cores running at 1.6 gigahertz (GHz)
• each CPU thread has its own 32 KB L1 instruction cache and 32 KB L1 data cache
• each module of four CPU cores has a 2 MB L2 cache resulting in a total of 4 MB of L2 cache
• each core has one fully independent hardware thread with no shared execution resources
• each hardware thread can issue two instructions per clock

GPU:

• custom D3D11.1 class 800-MHz graphics processor
• 12 shader cores providing a total of 768 threads
• each thread can perform one scalar multiplication and addition operation (MADD) per clock cycle
• at peak performance, the GPU can effectively issue 1.2 trillion floating-point operations per second
• High-fidelity Natural User Interface (NUI) sensor is always present

Storage and Memory:

• 8 gigabyte (GB) of RAM DDR3 (68 GB/s)
• 32 MB of fast embedded SRAM (ESRAM) (102 GB/s)
• from the GPU’s perspective the bandwidths of system memory and ESRAM are parallel providing combined peak bandwidth of 170 GB/sec.
• Hard drive is always present
• 50 GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive

Networking:

• Gigabit Ethernet
• Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct

Hardware Accelerators:

• Move engines
• Image, video, and audio codecs
• Kinect multichannel echo cancellation (MEC) hardware
• Cryptography engines for encryption and decryption, and hashing

Skyrim DLC coming to PS3, owners feel the love with sale

After nearly a year of development difficulties and technical hang-ups, all three entities of DLC for the Playstation 3 version of the Elder Scrolls V Skyrim will be released on PSN next month. Better yet, its been revealed over at the PlayStation Blog that the packs will receive a cool 50% discount during their first week on the network. Here's to PS3 owners finally basking in the warm glow of Tamriel-expanding goodness all while relishing in wallet-saving wholesomeness.