Call of Duty: Black Ops II by Activision

Forty executives at Sony will not be receiving bonuses this year in a bid to combat the company’s financial loss, The Raw Story has reported. Among those who are foregoing the bonus is chief executive Kazuo Hirai.

A Sony spokeswoman said that the move was ’due to severe business circumstances, including stagnant performance in the electronics sector’.

The payout is estimated at 1 billion yen ($10 million) by the Nikkei business daily.

In the previous year, seven Sony executives voluntarily gave up their bonuses. The organisation is also initiating a restructure, which includes thousands of job cuts.

Just last month, Sony doubled its predicted earnings for the financial year ending March 2013. The sale of the New York City-based headquarters and the City Osaki office in Tokyo netted the company $1.1 billion and $1.19 billion, respectively. Sony conducted the sales as part of a wider initiative aimed at strengthening its corporate structure and returning to a profit.

Sony will release its full earnings report on May 9.

Papo & Yo developer Minority Media Inc has unveiled the project that it is currently working on. Called Silent Enemy, the game will explore the topic of bullying.

Silent Enemy will explore the topic of bullying.

The game will feature an Aboriginal character who embarks on a quest to find springtime. Set in Northern Quebec, the protagonist will find himself bullied by crow-like creatures that hinder his quest.

According to the teaser, the development team has drawn upon its own experiences as victims of bullying in the creation of the game.

It is currently unknown which platforms Silent Enemy will be released on. Papo & Yo was released for the PlayStation 3 in August last year, and has since made its way on to Steam last month. The game was positively received in GameSpot’s review, praised for the handling of its serious subject matter and empowering moments.

The full version of the free-to-play MMORPG Ragnarok Online 2 is out now in North America.

Fans of the Ragnarok Online series can now enjoy the full game starting today.

Players can register an account and download the game client using either WarpPortal or Steam. The game's open beta first started on April 18; players who applied for the open beta early were given special in-game prizes.

For more information, check out GameSpot's coverage on the MMORPG.

GameStop Expo 2013 will take place in Las Vegas on August 28 and the PlayStation 4 will be on display at the event, the retailer announced today.

Those in attendance will get an "in-depth" look at the PS4 and its launch lineup. No further information about the console's presence at the show was divulged.

Attendees of the one-day event will get to go hands-on with upcoming games and meet with "top game developers," publishers, and unspecified special guests.

GameStop Expo 2013 will be held at the Sands Expo and Convention Center. Earlybird tickets are available now for $35 ($45 after August 11), while a limited number of VIP passes are on sale for $90 ($100 after August 11). VIP tickets include early admittance to the show floor, access to an exclusive lounge, gaming tournament, panel discussions, and a swag bag.

Fans must be 17 years of age or older, or accompanied by an adult, to attend. Registration is currently open via the GameStop Expo 2013 website.

Last year's inaugural GameStop Expo took place in San Antonio, Texas on August 29.

The next game from Civilization designer and industry veteran Sid Meier has been revealed. 2K and Firaxis Games today announced Sid Meier's Ace Patrol, a World War I-set air-combat game launching May 9 on iOS as a free download.

The game was conceived, designed, and programmed by Meier himself. In Ace Patrol, players pilot vintage aircraft and must defend their base camp and allies from invaders.

30 upgradeable historical World War I aircraft and more than 120 missions will be available in Ace Patrol. In addition to a turn-based single-player mode, the game will offer two-player either locally or through asynchronous multiplayer via Game Center.

Ace Patrol joins a growing list of mobile games from Firaxis, following Haunted Hollow (launching May 2 in the App Store) and XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which will launch this summer on iOS.

Microsoft shares have jumped to a five-year high, despite Windows 8 reportedly seeing disappointing sales since launch in October.

Shares of the company closed Tuesday at $33.10, their highest level since 2008. At press time, the company's shares are trading slightly down at $32.85.

As GameSpot sister site CNET explains, Microsoft was at one point the most valued stock in the world, but has been seen by investors as having limited growth opportunity of late.

CNET points out that the company's recent stock revival can be attributed to the viability of its enterprise software and cloud services business. Microsoft's third-quarter earnings report revealed a $6.06 billion profit for the three months ended March 31.

Microsoft's bottom line may soon see a further jolt from new gaming hardware. The company is holding a May 21 event titled "Xbox: The Next Generation Revealed," where it is widely believed to announce its long rumored Xbox 360 successor.

Microsoft is not the only gaming company to win the favor of Wall Street. Last month, specialty retailer GameStop saw its share value rise to a three-year high.

Microsoft announced today that its 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo briefing will take place the morning of Monday, June 10 at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, California.

Microsoft said last month that it will use its E3 2013 presentation to "showcase our full lineup of blockbuster games," among other things.

The presentation will take place just 19 days after Microsoft's May 21 event titled "Xbox: The Next Generation Revealed." The company is widely believed to announce its long rumored Xbox 360 successor during this presentation, taking place at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

With Nintendo not holding its typical E3 presentation this year, Sony is the only member of "The Big Three" that has not yet detailed its plans for the annual trade show.

The future of Call of Duty is coming into focus. Activision's Call of Duty: Ghosts will "raise the bar once again," ushering in the next generation of the franchise, according to the game's official announcement today.

After a week of teases and hints, Activision revealed the game today, slating the Infinity Ward-produced shooter to hit Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on November 5. No mention was made of a release for Wii U.

Versions of the game for unspecified next-generation consoles are also in the works, Activision said. It is not clear what differences there will be between the current- and next-generation iterations of Call of Duty: Ghosts.

According to other developers, making cross-generational games is ill-advised. The Witcher developer CD Projekt Red believes developing games for multiple console generations comes with compromises that can negatively affect gamers.

Call of Duty: Ghosts packs in an "all-new gameplay experience" built on a new story, setting, and cast of characters.

The game is powered by an unspecified next-generation engine that "redefines the series." Specific examples of how this will be achieved were not provided. According to Infinity Ward executive producer Mark Rubin, making the rumored Modern Warfare 4 would have been the easy decision, but the studio decided to instead try something new.

"Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we're not resting on our laurels," Rubin said in a statement. "We saw the console transition as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter for Call of Duty. So we're building a new sub-brand, a new engine, and a lot of new ideas and experiences for our players. We can't wait to share them with our community."

A live-action trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts is available below. More footage from the game will be shown during Microsoft's Xbox 720 event on May 21. This presentation will be broadcast on Xbox.com, Xbox Live, and Spike TV.

Microsoft and Activision have long been partners, with Call of Duty downloadable content for current-generation entries coming first to Xbox 360. It is not clear if this partnership will be extended for Microsoft's next console.

Activision may be heralding Call of Duty: Ghosts as the future of the series, but the company does not believe this game will outsell Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

"There is increased volatility this year due to the ongoing console transition, which makes predicting the future more challenging than during normal years in the cycle. For Call of Duty, consistent with our past practices, we are planning for the mainline release in Q4 to be down versus 2012," Activision Blizzard CFO Dennis Durkin said during a post-earnings conference call in February.

The first Grand Theft Auto and its sequel GTA 2 have been rated by the ESRB for the PlayStation 3, Vita, and PSP.

Grand Theft Auto was released for the PlayStation 1 in 1997, and featured 2D graphics and a top-down perspective. Its sequel was released in 1999. The latter game was rated as T, whereas the original received an more restrictive M rating.

The listings suggest an upcoming digital release for the titles via PlayStation Store. PlayStation 2 titles Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories are all currently on the PlayStation Store, alongside Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the PSP.

Rockstar has previously released GTA and its sequel for free on the PC.

The newest entry in the series, Grand Theft Auto V, will be released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on September 17. New trailers for the game were released yesterday.

Free-to-play DC Comics MOBA Infinite Crisis will enter a closed beta period for PC on May 8, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Turbine announced today. Those interested in taking part can sign up through the game's official website.

Along with the beta announcement, Turbine has released new art (at right) highlighting the multiverse variants of Wonder Woman.

Infinite Crisis was announced in late March and will be available exclusively on PC later this year. The game is set across the 52 universes of the DC multiverse and promises map-altering events across various DC locations.

Characters confirmed thus far include Nightmare Batman, Doomsday, Flash, Gaslight Batman, Gaslight Catwoman, Gaslight Joker, Green Lantern, Poison Ivy, Shazam (aka Captain Marvel), The Joker, Wonder Woman, and Zatanna.

There are now 50 layers left on 22 Cans' enigmatic Curiosity - what's inside the cube. As of 16:22 BST/08:22 PDT today, a countdown timer will now appear in the game saying what the predicted end date for the quirky long-running experiment actually is--and how close one person is from unlocking what creator Peter Molyneux calls its "life changing" contents.

22 Cans studio head Peter Molyneux admitted that the mobile title had sparked its fair share of controversy but that, currently, he expects the center of the cube to be reached around May 21--the day that Microsoft will unveil its next-generation successor to the Xbox 360.

"I thought six months was about the length of time that Curiosity should go on before it closed, and this is almost exactly the six month anniversary of the end of Curiosity," said Molyneux in an interview with GameSpot. "Bizarrely, as part of that controversy, is that the end of the cube--the last layer of the cube--might well be, I mean probably if you look at our analysis of probability, the same day that the next Xbox is announced. Which would be a bizarre twist of fate."

Curiosity launched on iOS in November 2012, with an Android version following shortly after. In April an update for the game introduced in-app purchases that would allow users to add or remove cubelets to the game's layers.

Are the two dates linked by more than coincidence? "There's an interesting opportunity, possibly, for me to’ well, I can't say any more than that. There may be some words from me around that time. I'm not saying any more," said Molyneux, who worked at Microsoft between 2006 and 2012.

"I thought six months was about the length of time that Curiosity should go on before it closed." Reflecting on the six-month period that has seen the Curiosity app downloaded over five million times, Molyneux said that much of its success had been "completely unexpected."

"I never thought in a million years that it would be downloaded five million times," said Molyneux. "Political debates have raged on the surface of the cube, with people drawing the twin towers and other people drawing planes crashing into the twin towers, and other people writing 'God Save America'. All of that stuff is completely unexpected. This was supposed to be an experiment that maybe would interest a handful of thousands of people, not millions of people."

Molyneux added that one of the other things 22 Cans has learnt is about how much perceived anonymity can change the way people interact online. "Lots of people on Curiosity gave their Facebook details, but when they did they tended not to be so brave with what they drew and tapped. We had thousands of penises drawn on the cube, but not many of those penises came from people who left their Facebook details. There's a lot of learning to be done there."

"I've always tried to be very clear with Curiosity: it is an experiment." Speaking about Godus, the in-development god game from 22 Cans which raised £526,563 from Kickstarter in December 2012, Molyneux pondered how much connectivity with social networks it should have. "Seeing how many people were tempted to leave their details and how many people went anonymous is part of the experiment. A fascinating part. If you're making a game like Godus, which is all about self-expression and creativity in the land that you sculpt, you have to ask yourself if it's a good idea to require people to go on to Facebook."

"Quite clearly with Curiosity the answer would be no," Molyneux added, "although some apps require you, almost force you, to use your Facebook profile before you can dive in. There's some really interesting stuff about that."

"I've always tried to be very clear with Curiosity: it is an experiment. It is an experiment with tech, and getting servers right. We didn't do that terribly well at the start. But it's also an experiment in psychology, and the psychology of being anonymous, and the psychology of giving people these big, huge, insane objectives--like get to the center of the cube--and how that psychology plays into peoples' behavior."

What will separate Cyberpunk 2077 from other games is its "rock and roll" vibe similar to the films of Quentin Tarantino. That's according to lead developers at CD Projekt Red, who explained to IGN in a new interview that most cyberpunk games actually lack punk.

"There are lots of cyber games around, but there's not a lot of punk in those games," said game director Mateusz Kanik. "We want to put more punk into ours. We do not want to make a dark and hopeless world. We are not doing Blade Runner. It will be full of rock and roll."

"It's more like a Tarantino approach," creative director Sebastian Stepien added.

Tarantino's body of work includes his debut effort Reservoir Dogs, as well as Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds, and last year's Django Unchained. The director is known for telling violent, nonlinear stories through his films.

Cyberpunk 2077 puts players into a "dark future" in 2077 where advanced technologies have become "both the salvation and the curse of humanity." The game promises a nonlinear story designed for "mature" players and is set in the metropolis of Night City.

The game has been confirmed only for PC thus far and has no release date.

Activision today confirmed Call of Duty: Ghosts, this year's entry in the first-person shooter series.

The confirmation comes by way of the official Call of Duty Twitter account, which teased this game represents the "next generation of Call of Duty."

As was rumored, it appears Infinity Ward is developing Call of Duty: Ghosts. The studio today tweeted an image (at right) of a splintered and broken Ghost face.

No further details on Call of Duty: Ghosts were revealed, though Activision is expected to unveil the title in full later today.

Today's announcement follows a series of retailer leaks.

Retailers Amazon and GameStop are currently accepting preorders for Call of Duty: Ghosts for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

The GameStop product page suggests Call of Duty: Ghosts will launch November 5, which tallies with a leaked promotional poster.

This is a breaking news story. More information will be added.

The decidedly mature Breaking Bad franchise and the for-kids Lego series have come together, albeit in a parody fashion.

Animator Brian Anderson has created a Lego: Breaking Bad parody that envisions a new Lego game based on AMC's hit TV show about a high school teacher who cooks and sells meth.

In the four-and-a-half-minute video (below), series protagonists Walter White and Jesse Pinkman are recreated in block form, with their escapades playing out with the humor associated with the Lego series of games.

"I have no affiliation with Traveller's Tales, Lego, or AMC. I'm just a huge fan of the stuff they make," Anderson explained. "But seriously, if they all got together and made this game, for real, I'd buy it and play the crap out of it."

Anderson explained that he chose not to actually show White and Pinkman cooking meth in their trailer over a fear of the video getting pulled down.

"I considered having little text pop-ups that would say 'Press A to add Methylamine, Press B to add Phenylacetone, etc.' but I was afraid that listing actual meth-making ingredients could get the video yanked," he said.

Lego: Marvel Super Heroes is the next entry in the series, due to launch this fall. It is the latest in Traveller's Tales' lucrative licensed series, following last year's Lego: Lord of the Rings.

The video below contains Breaking Bad spoilers.

Nintendo has reached out to original Wii owners to inform them that the Wii U is "not just an upgrade." The Mario maker has dispatched a message through the Wii system explaining why consumers should upgrade to the HD console.

"It's time to discover Wii U," the message reads (via Kotaku). "Wii U is an all-new home console from Nintendo. It's not just an upgrade--it's an entirely new system that will change the way you and your family experience games and entertainment."

Wii U sales have struggled, in part due to marketing efforts falling short, according to Nintendo. Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto said in March that communicating the novelty of the Wii U relative to the Wii has been a challenge.

"I think Wii U certainly has a little bit more of a challenge because it doesn't have that 'looking-fun' element to it," Miyamoto said at the time. "But I think that as people bring it into the living room and begin to play it, particularly when you experience with five people, you really do get a sense for how fun Wii U is."

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata last month laid out a plan to make the Wii U profitable. It includes releasing "key" first-party titles on a regular basis beginning in the second half of 2013, increase efforts to communicate the uniqueness of Wii U, and reduce manufacturing costs.

Worldwide Wii U sales currently stand at 3.45 million units. Nintendo hopes to sell 9 million systems by the end of March 2014.

Destruction must be at the heart of next-generation games, according to Havok's worldwide head of product management. Speaking with Games Industry International, Andrew Bowell said destructible environments will be a cornerstone of PlayStation 4 and next Xbox games.

"The way that ragdolls became the last generation thing and everything had to be ragdolls, we reckon next generation, everything's going to have to be destructible," Bowell said.

"It will be no longer acceptable to walk into a room where you can't punch a hole in the wall or break a table and see it splinter," he added.

Havok Physics is a physics engine that has been used in a number of high-profile games including the Halo series, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, L.A. Noire, and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deceptionl, among others.

The Xbox 360 edition of blockbuster Minecraft will be released physically in the UK on June 28, Microsoft has announced.

The boxed versions will be identical to the downloadable versions, with the exception of a 48-hour Xbox Live Gold code included in the case.

The UK release date follows the previous announcement that the retail Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition will launch in North America on June 4. It had previously been scheduled for an April 30 release.

Minecraft's ever-growing sales numbers currently sit at over six million for the Xbox 360 version and 10 million copies on the PC.

A Time magazine poll has also named Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson the second-most influential person in the world, behind Egypt president Mohamed Morsi.

Developer Mojang has said it will "consider" releasing Minecraft for Sony platforms once its exclusivity deal with Microsoft lapses.

The disappointing Aliens: Colonial Marines is now the subject of a class action lawsuit, with both Gearbox Software and Sega accused of misrepresenting the game to consumers with false advertising.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in a Californian court and spotted by Polygon, alleges that the final game "bore little resemblance" to the early footage of the game shown in demos and gameplay trailers.

"Each of the 'actual gameplay' demonstrations purported to show consumers exactly what they would be buying: a cutting edge video game with very specific features and qualities," reads the claim filed by law firm Edelson LLC on behalf of plaintiff Damion Perrine.

"Unfortunately for their fans, Defendants never told anyone--consumers, industry critics, reviewers, or reporters--that their 'actual gameplay' demonstration advertising campaign bore little resemblance to the retail product that would eventually be sold to a large community of unwitting purchasers."

Another complaint to the UK's Advertising Standards Agency has previously forced Sega to add disclaimers to the game's trailers stating that the footage shown in commercials was not indicative of the final product.

Other sources told GameSpot earlier this year that Gearbox neglected development on Aliens: Colonial Marines in favour of Borderlands 2, the company's own IP.

Gearbox President Randy Pitchford has acknowledged the criticisms. Responding earlier in the year on Twitter, he called the complaints "fair" and said the studio was "looking at that."

"Lots of info to parse, lots of stake holders to respect," he added.

The long-delayed Aliens: Colonial Marines finally launched this year to a largely negative reception. In the wake of its release annoyed ex-developers expressed their frustration with the way the title was handled, and reported that much of the game was outsourced to other studios.

The Wii U port of the game, once promised as the definitive version, was also cancelled.

Update: Nintendo has said it is aware of the claims of the modding group, but that it has no reports of its hardware being circumvented to play pirated games.

"Nintendo is aware that a hacking group claims to have compromised Wii U security," a Nintendo spokesperson said to GameSpot. "However, we have no reports of illegal Wii U games nor unauthorized applications playable on the system while in Wii U mode.

"Nintendo continuously monitors all threats to its products’ security and will use technology and will take the necessary legal steps to prevent the facilitation of piracy."

Original Story: A group of hackers claim they are now able to circumvent the Wii U's copy protection, and that it is now possible to play pirated Wii U software from USB media.

The team purports that it has "completely reversed the Wii U drive authentication, disk encryption, file system, and everything else needed for this next generation key."

The protection-circumventing device is dubbed an "optical drive emulator," and the hacker group claims it can play Wii U and Wii games from USB media, is compatible with all current Wii U models and regions, uses an "embedded Linux system," and does not require soldering.

It is currently unknown if Nintendo will be able to disable the device with a firmware update or in subsequent model revisions. Nintendo updated the original Wii hardware multiple times over its lifespan to deter similar hacks.

Previous exploits for the Wii involved modifying the machine's DVD drive, and the group claiming it has managed to break the Wii U's protection is also responsible for one of the most popular drive chips for the original Wii.

GameSpot has contacted Nintendo for comment.

Disney Interative executive producer John Vignocchi has spoken out to downplay the similarities between Disney Infinity and Activision's Skylanders series. Speaking with Polygon, Vignocchi admitted some similarities do exist, but claimed that overall, Infinity is a unique game.

"There are similarities, in that we have figures, but the similarities stop there," Vignocchi said. "Infinity is intended to be a platform for all things Disney. The playsets inside of Infinity are new and original stories. They are open-world games."

Another significant differentiating factor, according to Vignocchi, is Disney Infinity's Toy Box mode, which allows gamers to make whatever they want.

"And then of course the Toy Box mode is more Minecraft-meets-LittleBigPlanet," he said. "It's something totally different where we allow kids to use their imagination and take our brands to build whatever they want."

When Disney Infinity launches in August, it will have much work to do to catch up with Activision's Skylanders series, which has minted more than $1 billion worldwide to date from the sale of over 100 million toys.

Activision is not worried about Disney's arrival in the toys-to-life market. The Call of Duty company said in January that it is unfazed by Disney's move and is well positioned to continue to be the genre market leader.