State prepares to sell Amalur franchise, lawyer says “there is interest” in the assets; case against Schilling and other executives scheduled to begin Wednesday.

The state of Rhode Island, which obtained 38 Studios’ assets last summer after the studio went bankrupt, now plans to sell off the Amalur franchise. A lawyer for the Ocean State told The Providence Journal today that unnamed parties have come forward and expressed interest in the assets.

“Who knows what the value ultimately will be,” said Richard J. Land of Chace Ruttenberg & Freedman. “But there is interest in the assets.”

38 Studios’ intellectual property includes drawings, designs, and other work related to its Amalur franchise. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said in August that the Amalur IP is worth around $20 million.

No interested parties were named and Rhode Island’s legal representation was not immediately available to comment.

In addition, The Providence Journal reports that the case against 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling and other company executives will begin on Wednesday. Rhode Island sued Schilling, a former Boston Red Sox pitcher, in November over the controversial 2010 $75 million loan that brought 38 Studios to the state.

When 38 Studios went belly up, Rhode Island was left with an estimated $130 million debt. Selling the company’s IP is an effort to recover some of that deficit.

The suit contains numerous claims, and opens by alleging that the defendants did not speak with the Rhode Island Economic Development Committee board when doubts about 38 Studios’ sustained financial viability became known.

“Defendants knew or should have known, but failed to inform the EDC Board, that 38 Studios was destined to fail according to 38 Studios’ own financial projections,” reads a line from the complaint.

In total, the complaint includes 17 counts of alleged wrongdoing. These include counts of fraud, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligence, legal malpractice, negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions, and breach of fiduciary duty.

Schilling has asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming it is “100 percent baseless.”

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read more here: Game Spot News

Analyst Michael Pachter says price drop won’t be enough to spur sales, predicts Nintendo’s home console sold 55,000 in March.

A price cut will not help accelerate Wii U sales, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. In a note to investors today ahead of the NPD Group’s March sales report Thursday (via Games Industry International), the industry diviner forecasted Wii U sales at 55,000 units during the month, a 16 percent decline over February’s reported haul of 64,000 units.

This downturn will continue, Pachter said, even if Nintendo decides to cut the Wii U price.

“The only key hardware device to underperform our expectations was the Wii U numbers and its fortunes appear unlikely to improve for several months, even if Nintendo decides to drop price, as there are an insufficient number of core titles that are generating interest in the console,” Pachter said.

The Wii U starts at $300 for an 8GB version, jumping to $350 for the 32GB Deluxe model that includes a copy of Nintendo Land.

Like Pachter, GameStop chief financial officer Rob Lloyd said in February that the platform needs a blockbuster to spark sales.

Significant first-party titles for the Wii U are on the way, including a brand-new Wii U Legend of Zelda game and a Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker high-definition remake. Other Nintendo-produced Wii U titles revealed recently include new Yoshi, Mario, and Mario Kart offerings.

Pachter said core gamers are “far more likely” to turn their attention to the PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox, which is believed to be unveiled next month and on sale alongside the PS4 this holiday. Moreover, the long-term appeal of the Wii U will be “severely limited” by the perception that the PS4 and next Xbox will be more capable devices, he argued.

On top of this, if Sony and Microsoft decide to sell their next-generation platforms on a price-competitive level with the Wii U, this could spell even further trouble for Nintendo, Pachter said.

“Should the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft be price competitive, we think that Wii U sales may continue to stagnate,” he said, noting that Microsoft may offer a subsidized Xbox 720 that could be introduced at a lower price than any other console in history.

Overall, Pachter said he expects March industry sales for the United States to be up 1 percent thanks to the release of a handful of high-profile games like Gears of War: Judgment, Tomb Raider, and BioShock Infinite.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Read more here: Game Spot News

Electronic Arts was ready to spend more than $1 billion in order to purchase Valve, according to a report on the New York Times. Despite talks, the chance of a deal ever happening remains slim at best.

Valve co-owner Gabe Newell would rather see the company “disintegrate” than to ever be sold. “It’s way more likely we would head in that direction than say, ‘Let’s find some giant company that wants to cash us out and wait two or three years to have our employment agreements terminate,’” said Newell.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has estimated the value of Valve at more than $2.5 billion today. “Valve has been pursued over the years by Electronic Arts, which would very likely have valued Valve at well over $1 billion had the talks progressed that far, said two people with knowledge of the discussion.”

Peter Moore, the chief operating officer at EA said that Valve is “on the cutting edge of the future of this industry.”

Kingdoms of Amalur developer met cold investor reception for Project Copernicus MMO in drying market.

38 Studios, the now-bankrupt company behind Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and in-development massively multiplayer online game Project Copernicus, spent more than $133 million before it collapsed according to newly released documents. WPRI.com detailed the company’s various expenses, which were paid for largely by state loans from Rhode Island and the personal fortune of founder and former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

The Reckoning has come and gone.

38 Studios spent $118 million in the period between its founding in August 2006 and the end of 2011, before it began to take in any appreciable revenue from the release of Reckoning. When the role-playing game finally hit shelves it sold 1.3 million copies. For the company to make back its $28.7 million advance from Reckoning publisher Electronic Arts and begin to receive royalties, sales would have had to surpass 2 million.

“I don’t think 2 million was an unreasonable estimate–I thought it would do 2 million to 3 million,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. “They may have been counting on an extra $30 million to $40 million of revenue from the game.”

Less-than-anticipated revenue from Reckoning and drying investor interest left the company unable to cover massive expenses laid down for research and development on Project Copernicus–$104.5 million as of March. That figure did not surprise National Alliance Capital Markets analyst Michael Hickey, who said a typical high-end MMO game will take “north of $100 million” to bring to market. The studio’s six years of work and a development team of 400 (some of its hiring was encouraged by state loan job creation stipulations) raised the stakes for the project’s success.

But EA MMO game Star Wars: The Old Republic’s colder-than-expected subscriber retention over the winter put a serious damper on the developer’s efforts to attract investors to its own game. “I honestly think if 38 Studios had moved to get financing months earlier they would have been fine,” Pachter said. “Had they been out in the market in December I think they would have been fine.”

A Boston magazine feature on Schilling’s role in 38 Studios’ demise said the developer was courting Take-Two to publish a potential sequel to Reckoning in May, and in talks with Korean MMO game publisher Nexon. Nexon declined comment, and a Take-Two representative told Boston he wasn’t aware of any negotiations.

Saul Kaplan, who was executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation until 2008, said the new documents suggested at least another $60 million would have been needed to complete development on Copernicus. “I can’t imagine a scenario where anyone was going to put that capital in,” he said.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Quarterly operating losses down on 2011; sales and profitability of 3DS “improving” for Nintendo.

Nintendo has reported a smaller loss than expected between April and June this year. The firm posted a 10.3 billion yen ($132 million) operating loss in its earnings report, an improvement on the 37.7 billion yen ($482 million) quarterly loss reported a year earlier.

Sales of the 3DS have also risen, says Nintendo, with 1,860,000 units sold worldwide between April and June, more than doubling the 710,000 sold in the same period in 2011. The resurgent sales follow the chunky price cut in August last year.

3DS sales on the up in Q1.

Total worldwide sales of the 3DS now stand at 19 million, with the profit on each device sold having improved since launch. The 3DS has previously been sold at a loss, says Nintendo: “The profitability of the ‘Nintendo 3DS’ hardware is improving, but the hardware has been in negative margin.”

Wii sales, however, continue to taper off. Only 710,000 of the six-year-old Nintendo console were sold between April and June, down from 1,560,000 in the same period last year.

Nintendo continues to forecast its full-year operating profit will bounce back to 35 billion yen ($447 million) for the year ending March 31 2013. The firm will look to the late 2012 launch of its new console, the Wii U, to boost its sales between now and then.

The predictions of certain industry analysts, however, are cool. “Nintendo’s E3 presentations left many Wii U questions unanswered a year after its official introduction, and only six months before its release,” said Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities. “We think that additional information on technical specifications, release dates, and pricing would have provided much needed clarity into the company’s long-term fortunes.”

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Wedbush Securities’ analyst skeptical of Nintendo’s new console, says company won’t get “lucky” again; claims Activision and others pressured firm into developing Pro Controller.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has offered some harsh words about Nintendo’s forthcoming Wii U console, saying during a Develop Conference presentation last week (via Edge) that the system plainly “isn’t going to work.”

Pachter probably isn’t investing in Nintendo stock.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “I think that essentially this is a solution in search of a problem. I mean, somebody had an idea–’let’s make the controller a tablet’–and there aren’t many games that are going to take advantage of that.”

Pachter also claimed that Activision and publishers of other major franchises pressured Nintendo into developing the Wii U Pro Controller, a more traditional gamepad.

“Activision never said anything to me,” he explained, “but I know that [for] big games like Call Of Duty they said, ‘No, we’re not putting it on there if you don’t give us a conventional controller’. So they gave in.”

Pachter had little faith in the original Wii at launch in 2006, calling the system “gimmicky.” That system exploded with regards to popularity upon launch, and is currently the top-selling current-generation console. Pachter admitted this was true, but claimed that Nintendo’s success will not be repeated.

“[The Wii] worked, they got lucky, [but] I don’t think they’re getting lucky with Wii U,” he said.
“I don’t think they suck. I just think that they really believe that, ‘If we’re still novel, everything we do will work’. This isn’t going to work. Hardcore gamers will buy them; hardcore Nintendo fanboys will buy it. They could put out a piece of cardboard and say that it’ll play Mario and they’ll buy it.”

The Wii U is due out worldwide this holiday season.

[ Watch Video ]

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Company CEO Satoru Iwata says firm “won’t make the same mistake” as 3DS with upcoming home console.

The Wii U will be on store shelves in about six months and one of the largest questions surrounding its launch remains unanswered: How much will the system cost? In an interview with Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, (translated by Andriasang), Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata did not reveal a firm price for the console, due worldwide this holiday season, but said it will be sold at a “reasonable” rate.

Whatever the Wii U ends up costing will be “reasonable,” Iwata says.

“We won’t make the same mistake that we did with the 3DS, which was considered relatively high by consumers,” he said.

The 3DS launched last March at $250, but after a sluggish start, Nintendo cut the portable’s price down to $170. Regarding the future of the handheld, Iwata said, “We’ve fixed the 3DS profitability issue, and pledge to turn profitable by the end of this fiscal year.”

Though Nintendo has kept the Wii U’s official price tag under wraps, reports about its cost have come to light. In April, sources reportedly involved with manufacturing and distributing Nintendo products said the Wii U would cost no less than $300 at launch.

Earlier this month, Wedbush Securities industry analyst Michael Pachter said the Wii U must sell for under $300 at launch, noting an optimal price for the system would be $250. The industry diviner expressed uncertainty regarding the system, saying it lacks a “killer app” to help drive initial hardware sales.

[ Watch Video ]

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter believes later launch “makes more sense” than 2013 debut, says console will function as cable TV box.

The next Xbox will be on store shelves during spring 2014, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. Speaking to UK magazine Xbox 360, Pachter said he does not believe the latest round of speculation, which puts the Xbox 360 successor out in late 2013.

Microsoft will launch a new Xbox in 2014, Pachter says.

“If I were a betting man (and I am), I would say a spring 2014 launch makes more sense, since hard core Xbots could get a console without having to compete with moms buying gifts at holiday, and it is likely that they won’t manufacture more than a few million units for launch,” he said.

This is not the first time Pachter has predicted a new Xbox to launch in 2014. In November, the industry diviner said he expected Microsoft’s new console to launch sometime during that year.

Pachter also spoke about what he believes Microsoft will introduce with its next Xbox. He said the company is likely to advance the non-gaming capabilities of the Xbox 360 with the new console, specifically in the cable TV sector.

“It’s pretty clear to me that Microsoft intends to allow the Xbox 720 to function as a cable TV box, allowing cable television service providers to broadcast over the Internet through the box, with SmartGlass as the remote controller, and with the Xbox 720 using Windows 8 to split the TV signal into multiple feeds, allowing consumers to divert different channel feeds to different displays within the home,” he said.

Microsoft has not officially confirmed it is at work on a new platform, but speculation about the console has nevertheless found its way out. Most recently, a 56-page document allegedly originating from Microsoft indicated the company was planning to launch an Xbox 720 in 2013 at $299. An updated version of Kinect was to be included, and augmented reality glasses support would be added sometime after launch. The document has since been removed at the behest of Microsoft’s legal team.

For more on speculation regarding Microsoft’s next home console, check out GameSpot’s rumor roundup feature.

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Online retailer’s German arm lists late December release date for Nintendo’s new console with $500 speculative price point.

Nintendo has confirmed the Wii U will release worldwide this holiday season, but when will the console actually go on sale? According to Amazon Germany, the new system will arrive on December 21, priced at €399, or about $500.

Might the Wii U be out on December 21?

The site makes clear that Nintendo has not yet announced a price point for the Wii U, and that the cost it lists is purely speculative. As of press time, Nintendo had not responded to GameSpot’s request for comment regarding the listing.

The original Wii launched in North America during November 2006 at $250 and arrived in Europe a month later for €250.

Earlier this month, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said the Wii U must retail for under $300 at launch. This matched an earlier report, which suggested Nintendo was likely to finalize the cost of the Wii U to be no less than $300.

The Wii U is Nintendo’s first high-definition console and has gargantuan shoes to fill if it wants to replicate the success of its predecessor. The original Wii launched in 2006 and is presently the top-seller in the current generation, topping the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Recently, Nintendo said it has had a more difficult time, relative to the Wii, relating the uniqueness of the Wii U to consumers. Nintendo of America vice president of sales and marketing Scott Moffitt claimed once gamers try out the Wii U’s tablet-like GamePad controller, they will understand what makes the Wii U different to the Wii.

[ Watch Video ]

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot

Wedbush’s Michael Pachter says optimal price for Nintendo’s new console is $250 or less, system lacks “killer app” to help drive system sales.

The Wii U must retail for under $300 at launch later this year, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told CVG. The industry watcher further explained that an optimal price for the system is $250 or less.

Only Nintendo knows just how much the Wii U will cost.

If the Wii U launches at $250, it will mirror the Wii, which went on sale during November 2006 in North America at that price point. Nintendo showed off the Wii U GamePad at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo last week and highlighted new games like Pikmin 3 and Lego City Undercover, but has yet to reveal a price for the system, which is due for a worldwide release this holiday season.

A report from April suggested the Wii U would cost more than $300 at launch. This estimate was based on a purported total cost of materials required to manufacture the Wii U console, as revealed by sources involved with manufacturing and distributing Nintendo products.

Pachter also spoke about the Wii U’s GamePad, saying the new controller is “sufficiently novel and different from traditional controllers,” but his praise for the system ended there. He said the Wii U lacks a “killer app” that will drive system sales in the way that the system-bundled Wii Sports did for the Wii.

The analyst also said he was confounded by some of the design choices for Wii U software. In particular, he leveled his criticisms at the newly announced Sing game from DJ Hero studio FreeStyle Games.

“At E3 I was not particularly impressed with many of the games, and in particular found Sing baffling,” he said. “I don’t understand why I need a tablet to read Karaoke words rather than reading the words on the TV screen instead.”

For more on Nintendo’s E3 2012 announcements, check out GameSpot’s coverage of the firm’s marquee media briefing.

[ Watch Video ]

Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot