Thursday, June 30, 2011
by JC Fletcher 
on Jun 29th 2011 9:30AM
Just one day after announcing a new board member, Sony revealed a bit more corporate shuffling, this time at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Kazuo Hirai, formerly President and Group CEO (and chief apologizer), has been promoted to Chairman, effective September 1. SCEE president Andrew House will take over as Group CEO of SCEI, with SCEE Executive Vice President Jim Ryan taking over his old job at SCEE.
on Jun 29th 2011 9:30AMJust one day after announcing a new board member, Sony revealed a bit more corporate shuffling, this time at Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Kazuo Hirai, formerly President and Group CEO (and chief apologizer), has been promoted to Chairman, effective September 1. SCEE president Andrew House will take over as Group CEO of SCEI, with SCEE Executive Vice President Jim Ryan taking over his old job at SCEE. While this may seem like an inopportune time to reward executives with promotions, the shifts were prompted by the retirement of current Chairman Akira Sato effective August 31. Also retiring: Ken Kutaragi, who left his role as Honorary Chairman of SCEI yesterday, presumably finding the honorary demands of the position too honorarily strenuous. He will remain at Sony Corporation as "senior technology advisor."
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According to UK sales snoops Chart-Track, Call of Duty: Black Ops has sold more copies than any other game in the region. That's, like, in all of history. As of June 25, Black Ops managed to move 3,722,411 copies, besting the previous top place holder, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which set a record with 3,702,410 copies sold. 
While American fans are doing their best to fume productively about the localization prospects for Xenoblade Chronicles, Nintendo continues working on the European localization. And Nintendo is really hammering home the fact that it's a European localization. A video clip from a recently posted Iwata Asks interview reveals a surprising amount of Britishness in the voice acting. See the clip in question after the break, and find lots more in the interview itself. 
The latest developer diary for Driver: San Francisco discusses the role of protagonist John Tanner, absent from the series since Driver 3. In the video, he's described as an "historic, iconic" character. That may well be, but he's got nothing on the real San Francisco Tanners. 
Most North American players haven't even seen one mission of Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten yet, as it's set to come out in the States this September. But the game came out in Japan last February, and now Nippon Ichi has announced two different downloadable scenarios coming this August and October. The first is called "The Tyrant Valdorez," and will follow that character (along with his new playable moves) through a story with follower Fenrich. And the second is "Fuuka & Desco's Chapter Begins," focusing on the side story of those two characters. 
The ever-so-thrifty OnLive PlayPack has become even thriftier today, with the addition of Homefront's online multiplayer component. The $10-per-month bundle, which currently includes over 60 games for subscribers to dip into, will now let users access the THQ shooter's 32-player competitive offerings without forcing them to bother with that pesky single-player campaign. 
Major Nelson has revealed that 345 Games' refreshing follow-up to Deadliest Warrior will arrive on Xbox Live Arcade next week. Deadliest Warrior: Legends will be available July 6 for only 800 MS Points ($10). Also, a note for fans of the original: Those with a copy of the original Deadliest Warrior will receive special weapons within Legends. We were impressed with the game at E3, particularly its new Risk-like multiplayer mode. 
The contest is over, the winners have been chosen, and you can now pick up the winning maps from the "Summer Mapping Initiative" contest being held by Valve for Portal 2. A map called "Patent Pending" took the top prize by offering a wide mix of mechanics, another called "Infinifling" that's focused on "mid-air portaling techniques" ended up in second place. "Edifice," based in some of the destroyed Aperture chambers, picked up an honorable mention. All of the maps are free to download; just get the file, put it in your maps folder by following the instructions on the official blog and use the dev console to load it up and play. 
Mojang Studio's next update to Minecraft, 1.7, promises the addition of pistons (seriously!), thus allowing for the creation of mechanical objects. Rather than include it as planned in the 1.8 update alongside Adventure mode, creative lead Markus "Notch" Persson and partner Jens Bergentsen instead chose to drop it in with a handful of bug fixes in 1.7. No solid release date is given for 1.7 (or 1.8 for that matter), but the former will be released "soon" while the latter "might be a long wait." 
