Spilindustrien

Gamestop sent out an automated phone call to consumers this morning stating that The Last Guardian has been cancelled.

In direct response, Patrick Seybold, Sony's senior director of corporate communications, has said that this accusation is simply not true. We've been told numerously that the departure of Fumito Ueda from Team Ico would not hinder the development of The Last Guardian in any way, but Gamestop is now passing around this news even after Sony has declared the game set to be finished.

[Y]ou worked on Metroid: Other M with Yoshio Sakamoto from Nintendo. I'm only guessing, but I'd expect you could learn a ton of stuff from him, given his history.

YH: Within Team Ninja it's very much "This is fun / this is not", and there's a clear line. Do it. Boom. Sakamoto-san is much more fuzzy, and very delicate and very detailed, when trying to think about lots of different things. So we learned a lot from that style of thinking, and that way of thinking. So yeah, it was definitely a very valuable experience.

In the end, were you happy with how Other M turned out? Was it what you wanted it to be when you started?

YH: Other M was Sakamoto-san's idea and it's his creation, and we're just really happy to be a part of that, and that he asked us to be part of that creation. We talked a lot with him over the course of development, having very frank conversations about lots of different topics. But you can tell Samus Aran is his daughter; it's like that to him. So we're really looking forward to what else he might come up with in the future for the Metroid series.

Media Molecule spends £4.1 million on R&D to squelch dependence on LBP
Media Molecule stated in its annual report that its main business risks came “largely as a result of the company’s heavy reliance” on the LittleBigPlanet brand.

The firm also stated in its financial report it was “vital” for the firm to focus a “high proportion of its resources on R&D” in order to maintain its “leading position as a developer of innovative games”. The LittleBigPlanet creator plans to continue being at the forefront of technological advances and “bring new and often risky innovations” to market through high quality products.

At of the end of March 2011, the firm spent £4.1 million ($6.3 million) on R&D, and made £3.44 million in profit, It also made investments in “leading edge physics and dynamics, rapid world creation from laser data, innovative routes to market via web based interfaces, 3D stereo-optics for advanced simulation, and use of ‘hi-def’ data capture and processing techniques”.

The firm, which currently has around 50 staff members, has said previously it doesn’t plan on creating a third installment in the LBP franchise.

VG247