After that, he didn’t mention PCs again, only saying that “benchmarks on just the video and audio performance are 8-10 times superior to the current gen,” saying that “the compute capabilities of these platforms and the data transfer speeds we can now bank on, essentially removes any notion of rationing of systems resources for our game engines.”

The Xbox One comes with an 8-core processor along with 8GB of RAM. We’re not told about specifics, but a good guess would that both the PS4 and the Xbox One are running AMD’s Jaguar chip. Compared to gaming PCs, most gamers have a quad-core processor in their gaming rigs, with a few 8-core chips floating around.

However, Microsoft nor Sony have revealed what graphics their respective consoles are running, but if they’ve seen the just-announced NVIDIA GTX 780 Titan graphics chip, I’m pretty sure they’d run away whimpering. Imagine two of those cards in SLI — the gaming prowess would be practically infinite.

However, it’s possible that Teneja doesn’t actually mean these new consoles are faster, but rather just have newer technology in them, meaning that the processor inside the Xbox One and PS4 are so new, that it isn’t available for PCs yet. Then again, from the way that Teneja worded his blog post, it seems to mean that PCs don’t stand a chance against the next-gen consoles, which is quite saddening to hear.

VIA: Polygon

EA’s newly-rebranded Ghost Games studio will be in charge of development, with help from Criterion Games, who was behind Need for Speed: Most Wanted and Need for Speed: World. Rivals will include the same experience that past Need for Speed titles have had, but EA says that the new game will go back to its roots, with the cops vs. racers modes, allowing gamers to play as cops too. You’ll be able to move up in the ranks, as well as unlock new cars and customization options.

Online multiplayer in the new game is getting a feature called AllDrive, which allows friends to drop in and out of your open world to race with or against you, as well as the ability to play as cops and chance down racers. Speedpoints will be rewarded to players for chasing down racers or eluding the police, which can be used for performance upgrades.

Rivals will also include Criterion’s social tracking system Autolog, which provides leaderboards and lets gamers challenge other friends. The system will be similar to what’s coming in GRID 2, which will be released later next week. All of these features will be available for both current- and next-generation consoles.

The Need for Speed series is approaching 20 years in the making, and while it has drastically changed over the years — going from a simple racing game to street-tuned all-out racing with multiple modes, it seems Need for Speed is finally going back to its roots of the early days of the series, which we’re pretty excited to see what EA has in store come November.

VIA: VG247

EA Labels president Frank Gibeau said in a company blog post that their E3 press conference will include “a first look at [their] plans for the Star Wars partnership with Disney.” EA previously revealed that DICE and Visceral Games will produce new Star Wars titles in the future, as they join BioWare, who is continuing to develop games for the franchise.

As for what to expect in upcoming Star Wars games, Gibeau previously mentioned that the new games will be “entirely original with all new stories and gameplay,” with some elements being borrowed from past films. That’s all the details that we know of so far, but we should hear a healthy amount at E3 during the company’s presser on June 10.

EA will also be showing off some other next-generation titles, such as Battlefield 4, a new Need for Speed, as well as FIFA 14, NBA Live 14, Madden NFL 25, and EA Sports UFC, which we heard about yesterday during the Xbox One unveiling event. Those sports games in particular will be running on EA’s new Ignite engine on the Xbox One. However, PC versions of these games will not be built on the new engine.

With EA’s recently-poor track record, as well as their “worst company in America” award for the second straight year, we’re wondering how these Star Wars games will turn out. Not every game based on the movie franchise has turned out great, but it’ll be interesting to see what the DRM situation will end up being. It’s possible that EA can turn things around by the time they release a new Star Wars title, but we’ll ultimately have to wait and see.

VIA: Polygon

SOURCE: Electronic Arts

All four will launch in the next 12 months, so some of them won’t necessarily be available at launch, but Madden should be one that we’ll se at least close to the console’s launch. EA says that all four gales “will be revolutionary,” and will “fundamentally change the way you play,” thanks to changes in both the graphics and gameplay dynamics.

One of the biggest changes is improvements to the spectators, which athletes have said are one of the biggest aspects during a game, so EA naturally wanted to put a lot of focus on making the spectators and audience a realistic part of the game. A new engine called EA Sports Ignite, will allow EA to add a lot of new features to these games.

EA says that the new engine will allow for 10 times more animation detail four times more calculations per second. EA really only gave us further details about FIFA 14, which will be an Xbox exclusive, and we’ll be hearing more about the game at some point “later this year.”

The ongoing national debate over gun violence and gun control has made a lot of companies rethink the relationships they have with gun makers, including video game developers and publishers. Electronic Arts is one publisher who will be distancing themselves from relationships with gun makers, but will still continue to use real gun names in future games.

EA president of labels Frank Gibeau says that video game developers share the same rights of free speech as authors do, noting that novel writers don’t pay gun makers to use real gun names in their books. Video games are the same way, saying that Electronic Arts is “telling a story” through a point of view.

Video games have been at the forefront of the gun control debate for a while now, and it seems that video game publishers are finally buckling under the pressure and severing ties with gun manufacturers. However, none of that looks to change the ways that violent video games are made, and we’re guessing that war games like Call of Duty and Battlefield will continue on as normal.

[via Reuters]

Since the game’s launch in March, SimCity has sold over 1.6 million copies so far, even despite the fiasco that erupted during launch. EA says that half of these sales were from digital downloads, meaning that 800,000 copies of the game were sold through EA’s Origin gaming service alone, which is quite impressive.

As for other games that EA highlights, FIFA 13 has sold over 14.5 million copies in EA’s fiscal year 2013 so far, and EA says that Battlefield 3 Premium has over 3.5 million subscribers to date. As for the company’s latest iOS game, Real Racing 3 has seen more than 30 million downloads, and has been averaging over 2.5 million daily active users since its launch.

Despite all the hate that EA has been getting lately, including its “Worst Company in America” award for the second straight year, EA claims that they were the number one publisher in “Western retail markets” during the past quarter, as well as the number one publisher in the world when it comes to iOS games. Sales speak for themselves, we suppose.

However, when speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Wright says that he “feels bad for the team,” but predicted that there would most likely be some backlash based around DRM issues and complaints. Wright says that the launch fiasco was “basically inexcusable,” and paying $60 for game that you can’t play it will obviously cause a lot of outrage, and Wright certainly understands that.

Then again, Wright says that the new game is “good,” and he enjoys “playing it a lot,” but the launch was pretty much a disaster for Electronic Arts. Even if the game publisher finally fixed all the issues with the game, the memory is still there of the time that you couldn’t access the game that you paid big money for.

In a slightly-related note, Electronic Arts will be sending out an update for SimCity sometime this week that will address a handful of issues. The update tweaks traffic routing, phantom air pollution, stuck school buses, and stuck university students crossing roads. Other updates include a slew of new items, as well as some audio fixes.

[via GamesIndustry.biz]

Electronic Arts says that DICE and Visceral Games will produce new Star Wars titles in the future, as they join BioWare, who is continuing to develop games for the franchise. As for what to expect in upcoming games from EA, the company’s Labels President, Frank Gibeau, says that the new games will be “entirely original with all new stories and gameplay,” with some elements being borrowed from past films.

However, the agreement between EA and Disney doesn’t give the game publisher all the rights to the Star Wars game franchise, as Disney will still retain the rights for “mobile, social, tablet and online game.” Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but we’re guessing it was for quite a large sum of money, especially for something so popular like Star Wars.

However, this gets us thinking as to how these upcoming Star Wars games will be published. Electronic Arts doesn’t have a very good track record, and they were recently voted the “worst company in America” for the second straight year, which has us worried about the Star Wars franchise. It’s possible that EA could turn things around by the time they release a new Star Wars game, but we’ll ultimately have to wait and see.

It seems that the official title of the game is “Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time,” playing off of the fact that many gamers have been waiting for a sequel for what seems like forever, although it seems odd that they’re subtitling the game after the impatience of gamers, rather than address what the game is about, but it’s possible that it could just be a working title.

The trailer above is essentially just a supercut of various fans and internet celebrities asking when a Plants vs. Zombies sequel will release, including Francis and Microsoft’s Major Nelson (Xbox Live chief Larry Hyrb). Then at the end of the trailer, we get a look at the logo art, as well as the release date for the upcoming game.

PopCap has not released any footage from the game, or have they announced what platforms the game will release on. Initially, the first Plants vs. Zombies title was only available for mobile devices, but the game studio quickly released versions for consoles and PC. We would expect the same thing to happen for the sequel.

Electronic Arts announced the game on their official blog, saying that more details on the game “will be revealed later today.” EA says that “The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around the world,” and the publisher boasts that over 150 million copies of various Sims titles have been sold globally.

The last time that Maxis and EA released a Sims title was back in 2009 with The Sims 3, and 1.4 million copies of the game were sold globally within the first week of release. By next year, it’ll certainly be a long time coming for Sims fans, with The Sims 3 turning three years old this coming June.

As for what to expect in the new game, we may hear more about that later today, as EA has said, but we could see even more features than what we saw in The Sims 3, as well as the possibility of better graphics and new gameplay elements to make The Sims 4 more immersive. We’re also guessing that build your own character and house will become an even deeper process than before.

In the update on the company’s website, Electronic Arts notes that “in recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile. This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations.” Again, no specifics, but we should hear come May 7 when the company announces fiscal year earnings.

According to Kotaku, it’s said that Electronic Arts has let go of as much as 10% of its workforce. The video game publisher didn’t comment on the headcount, but we’re guessing that 10% is about 1,000 employees, give or take a hundred or so. That’s certainly a lot of people, and that’s less people working on great games like The Sims and the Madden NFL series.

Electronic Arts has had a rough few months, however. The SimCity launch went exactly the opposite of what the company was expecting, and along with the SimCity fiasco mixed in with the DRM controversy, the publisher landed itself the “Worst Company in America” award for the second year in a row. Luckily, CEO John Riccitiello got out of there when he could.

Electronic Arts has announced that the update will hit on Monday starting at 1 pm PT and will bring the game to version 2.0. It contains “a number of top-requested bug fixes and improvements,” but the publisher was kind enough to provide a massive list of everything that will be provided in the update.

Some of the more important updates address issues with tourists, delays in receiving invitations, and phantom audio problems. It will also provide color-corrects when in a colorblind mode in the HUD, and data maps will show the filtered color when a color filter is enabled, unless you’re in a colorblind mode.

Other than that, casinos will be more profitable, and there will be a slew of fixes to the game’s budget-based systems, including fire, garbage, and sewage. Public transit will also see a number of improvements, including a fix for that annoying infinite loop problem that some players have been experiencing.

EA blames the shutdown on a lacking number of users that have been reported playing the game, and the publisher notes that “the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off.” They also mention that based on the past history of social game shutdowns, EA’s own shutdown of some of its Facebook games “is not surprising.”

However, EA says that they will continue to deliver other popular Facebook games to its users, mostly games from PopCap that include Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Blitz, and Plants vs. Zombies Adventures. So while EA may have shut down a few of its Facebook games, they won’t be exiting that market anytime soon.

Of course, EA isn’t the only one having a difficult time keeping players on its social games. Zynga also shut down quite a few of their own Facebook titles, and the company announced that they would be distancing themselves from Facebook. This comes after Zynga shut down a few of their studios and laid off a handful of employees.

Electronic Arts released a statement on the matter, saying that they are “sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile.” However, this comes at cost, and will involve “reducing team sizes” in order to become a more “efficient organization.” The company says that “streamlining [their] operations will help ensure EA is bringing the best next-generation games to players around the world.”

The layoffs come after CEO John Riccitiello stepped down from the position last month, admitting that the financial troubles with the company is completely his fault. The company has seen less-than-steller financial results these past few months, so the layoffs may not just be about streamlining, but they’re also most likely a result from hard financial times.

Electronic Arts laid off employees at its Montreal and Los Angeles studios last month, including other smaller studios, so this isn’t the first layoff to hit EA in a while, and we’re guessing that the game publisher may lay off even more people, but only time will tell. Being named the “worst company in America” probably doesn’t help too much.

[via Polygon]

The launch of SimCity for Mac will come a bit later than EA hoped for. Originally, the game was set for a “spring 2013″ launch, but June 11 is technically during the summer. Either way, Mac users will finally be able to build the city of their dreams starting in just a couple of months. They shouldn’t have any problems either, since EA has finished upgrading their servers.

The game got off to a miserable start, with the midnight release not going as planned. Gamers who pre-ordered weren’t able to download their digital copy of the game, and even if gamers were able to download and install it, they were met with a bevy of server errors that deemed the game unplayable at first.

It became so bad that Amazon had to suspend sales of the game, and Electronic Arts told affiliates to “stop actively promoting” the game until the issues have been fixed. Of course, the game publisher tried to make things right with gamers, by offering them a free game for their troubles, but we’re not sure if that did the trick, since EA was recently voted the “worst company in America.”

Last year’s win from the game publisher was a surprise, but this year’s win was the exact opposite. It seems not only are gamers fed up with the ridiculous DRM restrictions that are put on EA games, but the SimCity fiasco certainly didn’t help the company win back customers. In fact, it only made things worse.

Electronic Arts beat out Bank of America in the final vote, taking nearly 78% of the votes during that final round. Electronic Arts also beat out companies like Ticketmaster, AT&T, Facebook, and Anheuser-Busch to become the most hated company in the US. We know that it’s a prize that EA doesn’t want, so hopefully they actually turn it around before next year’s poll goes live.

Consumerist notes that EA should stop treating its customers “like human piggy banks,” and that they shouldn’t “put out so many incomplete and/or broken games” with the intent of getting customers to “pay extra for what they should have received in the first place.” This marks the first time ever that a company has won a second “Golden Poo” award.

[via Consumerist]

Moore says that EA has made plenty of mistakes in the past, all of which are “100% legitimate.” However, he says that there are a few pieces of criticism that EA won’t let stand, including the claim that EA’s always-on internet connection feature is a DRM scheme, which Moore says “it’s not.” He also notes that free-to-play games are the preference with most gamers.

Moore also compares EA to popular sports teams, like the “Yankees, Lakers and Manchester United,” saying that “EA is one of those organizations that is defined by both a legacy of success, and a legion of critics.” In other words, with great power (and success), comes great responsibility, and EA certainly knows that.

Moore finishes up by saying that EA “is committed” to fixing their mistakes, and that the company “will do better.” With EA CEO John Riccitiello stepping down, will EA make some big changes to win the hearts over of gamers everywhere? It’s certainly possible, and Moore’s words seem promising that EA is dedicated to providing a better future for both them and the people who play their games.

The news was announced via Real Racing 3‘s Facebook page. Not a lot of details have been revealed about the new update, but two new cars will be joining the current fleet of vehicles: the Camaro ZL1 and the Cobalt SS — both of which are Chevrolet cars. Other than that, “100+ new events” that will be coming to the game, as well as the new “Hunter” mode, which we have yet to find out what that is.

The video above shows off the Camaro and Cobalt in action, but not much else is revealed. In the video’s description, however, we’re teased with a new “statistics leaderboard” that will allow racers to “compare and compete with friends.” Again, we’re not sure what that will entail exactly, but it seems fairly promising.

As for iCloud functionality, we’re not sure how exactly it will be incorporated into the game, but it will most likely allows Real Racing 3 gamers to switch between their iOS devices and start back up where they left off. For instance, one might play the game on their iPad, and then switch to their iPhone later on, picking up where they left off. Obviously, this feature won’t come to Android, but iOS users will certainly enjoy it.

Check out our review of Real Racing 3 to learn more about the game.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, senior vice president of EA’s mobile and social All Play label, Nick Earl, says that a majority of mobile gamers prefer the free-to-play model, and those who dislike it are a “vocal minority.” Earl says that “the market has spoken very loudly that that’s the model they like,” and he also says that “ultimately the numbers would show that they and others all support the freemium model better.”

Earl mentioned Real Racing 3‘s in-app microtransactions, which requires racers to pay money if they want to speed up certain tasks, such as repairs and upgrades, or if gamers want a fast track to owning that Lamborghini, they can pay real money to own one. Of course, users can earn coins throughout the game to help speed along repairs and upgrades, but the real complaint was the implication of these features in the first place.

When referring to the types of gamers who prefer the all-you-can-eat model, Earl notes “that’s the kind of people they are. But at the end of the day, they’re going to pay to eat, if that’s their choice. And they’re happy doing it.” In other words, deal with it if you don’t like it. Read our review of Real Racing 3 to learn more about the game.

[via GamesIndustry.biz]

As expected, the game will be developed by DICE, the Swedish game studio owned by EA. The game is up for pre-order right now on EA’s Origin service, where you can either get the Deluxe Edition for $70, or the Standard Edition for $60. The Deluxe Edition comes with access to the beta, as well as a handful of bonus content.

Right off the bat, EA also released a whopping 17-minute gameplay trailer that shows off the prologue of the game, featuring a squad of soldiers on the run from Russian spec-op soldiers in Azerbaijan, Baku. It’s pretty intense to say the least, and it only gets us more excited for the game at this point.

No price for the PS4 version of the game was disclosed, but we should hear more about that soon. As for availability on Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox gaming console, we would be surprised if Battlefield 4 wasn’t arriving on the console, but chances are we’ll see DICE make an appearance at Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox reveal event to show off some new tricks.

Insomniac Games is well known for its other successful game series, Ratchet and Clank, and Resistance. While those games were PlayStation exclusives, Insomniac Games is changing things up by offering Fuse to both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 gamers alike. Insomniac Games promises gamers that Fuse will offer a similar action-packed, gun-toting, bullet storming experience as seen in its other games.

In Fuse, you will play as a member of the elite contact team, Overstrike 9. You can choose to play either Dalton Brooks, Isabelle “Izzy” Sinclair, Jacob Kimble, or Naya Deveraux. Each character has their own “Xenotech” weapons and unique skills that will help them stop the evil corporation that has gotten its hands on the volatile energy source known as Fuse. If you decide to play the game solo, you can shift between characters in-game in order to fully utilize each member’s capabilities.

If you pre-order Fuse now, you can get access to a bunch of exclusive in-game items. You will given special armor and weapon skins for each of your charaters, and a special “quickdraw” perk that increases the damage of all one-handed weapons. The game so far has seen a fairly negative response from the gaming community. Many are upset that the game is coming out so late, and a lot of gamers are still very upset at how EA handled the whole SimCity fiasco.

[via EA]

Riccitiello says he takes full responsibility for EA’s less-than-stellar financial results as of late, and says that the company “will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance [EA] issued in January.” He also notes that the company has “fallen short of the internal operating plan” that was implemented a year ago.

Riccitiello says that “EA’s shareholders and employees expect better,” and he is “accountable for the miss.” Larry Probst will assume the day-to-day role as “Executive Chairman” in order to make sure that there’s a “smooth transition.” Probst was actually EA’s CEO from 1991 to 2007, and has served as Chairman of the Board since 1994.

Riccitiello joined EA in October 1997 as president and COO at the time, but he left the company in 2004 to spearhead a couple of projects, including becoming a co-founder and managing director of Elevation Partners, as well as chairman and CEO of VG Holdings. However, Riccitiello returned to EA in 2007 to take on the CEO role. Riccitiello’s full resignation letter can be read below.

March 17, 2013
Mr. Larry Probst
Chairman Electronic Arts

Dear Larry,

I hereby offer my resignation as CEO of Electronic Arts effective with the end of our Fiscal Year 13 on March 30, 2013.

This is a tough decision, but it all comes down to accountability. The progress EA has made on transitioning to digital games and services is something I’m extremely proud of. However, it currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued in January, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. EA’s shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss.

I have been at the helm as EA’s CEO for six years and served as COO for nearly seven years starting in 1997. I know this company well, and I care deeply about its future success. I leave knowing EA is a great company, with an enormously talented group of leaders and the strongest slate of games in the industry. I could not be more proud of our company’s games, from Battlefield and FIFA, to The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Real Racing 3. We have built many great franchises that will serve the company well in FY14 and beyond. In particular, I am confident that the investments we have made in games for next-generation consoles will put EA in a strong leadership position for many years ahead.

In offering my resignation, my goal is to allow the talented leaders at EA a clean start on FY14. I look forward to working with you in the coming weeks on an effective leadership transition. I’m extremely honored to have led this company and proud to have worked with all the great people at Electronic Arts.

Sincerely,
John Riccitiello

The list of games that you can choose from includes Battlefield 3, Bejeweled 3, Dead Space 3, Mass Effect 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Need For Speed Most Wanted, Plants vs. Zombies, and SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition. A free copy of SimCity 4 seems mighty enticing, especially considering all the madness that we’ve seen with the newest installment.

NOTE: See our [EA Games tag hub] for more!

North American players will have access to pick their free game by the afternoon on March 20, and European players will be granted access a day later. Asia and South America will have access on March 22. The games will be available through EA’s Origin digital distributing service. You must register your copy of SimCity before you’ll be eligible for a free game.

Overall, you won’t get to pick any game you want, but EA has picked out a few gems here. However, we’re sort of baffled as to why they’ve included a couple of PopCap games in the list, especially when you can choose Battlefield 3 or even Mass Effect 3, but I suppose that those gamers who are yearning to defend their house from zombies have a chance to do so at no cost.

Bradshaw explained that they envisioned a game where cities would constantly be up to date. Players would be able to help each other out with supplies and services, send gifts to each other, promote trading in the Global Marketplace, and more. Simply, they wanted players to always be connected to each other. Even if players wanted to play alone, Bradshaw stated that they’d eventually want to play with other players.

Now here’s the part where everyone gets pissed off. Bradshaw says, “So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision.” Essentially, SimCity could have operated with both an online multiplayer mode, as well as a single-player mode that many of the series’s fans asked for. Bradshaw justifies her case by saying that there are “thousands” of people who love SimCity’s always-connected feature, a statement that has been debunked by thousands and thousands of other fans.

Obviously Bradshaw’s statement drew in a huge list of angry SimCity gamers. Many came out to call Bradshaw and the SimCity developers liars. They commented on how the “always up-to-date” trading services sometimes take up to an hour to update, and how even online saving is unreliable, with many players losing multiple cities due to an error in the cloud-based servers. The SimCity launch was a massive failure due to the Always-On DRM, and EA has experienced continuous PR damage since then. This may be the last nail in the coffin for the SimCity series.

[via EA]

While Dead Space 3 has been seeing some good sales figures, the video game industry as a whole has been seeing negative results. The NPD Group stated that video game sales fell 25% in February down from last year. Video game hardware did even worse, falling 36% down from last year, and software fell around 27%. These figures make Dead Space 3′s, and the Dead Space franchise’s, future seem uncertain. EA’s President, Frank Gibeau, stated that Dead Space 3 had to sell at least 5 million copies in order for there to be a sequel.

This also brings up the tiff between EA and the website, VideoGamer. VideoGamer stated in the past that EA cancelled the Dead Space 4 sequel due to poor Dead Space 3 sales. It had gotten the news from their “trusted source”. EA’s Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore was quick to debunk the rumor, calling it a case of “Shoddy Journalism”. VideoGamer countered Moore’s response by saying that they trust their source and stand by their original statement.

Dead Space 3′s 600k sales figure for the month is a good number, especially in this economy, but it’s miles behind EA’s expectations. EA stated that Dead Space 2 sold over 2 million copies within only its first week of sales, so Dead Space 3′s sales figures may be disappointing to them. Gibeau may be reaching for the stars when he said that Dead Space 3 would have to sell at least 5 million copies. Dead Space 3′s sales may do well throughout March, however, since its Awakened DLC was released just a few days ago. The DLC, like the game itself, has been well-received by game reviewers all around, many saying that it was an amazing and must-have addition to the game.

[via GameSpot]

So what do we know about Battlefield 4 so far? We know that EA is planning on releasing a beta for Battlefield 4 sometime during Fall. We also know that if you’re one of the players who purchased Medal of Honor: Warfighter (and considering its poor sales figure, there aren’t that many of you), you will instantly have access to Battlefield 4′s beta.

There are also speculations that EA and DICE may announce Battlefield: Bad Company 3 at their Battlefield 4 event. Battlefield: Bad Company 3 was spotted on LinkedIn from a user who “provided video game prototype, design, and demo feedback” on the game back in 2009-2011. Battlefield: Bad Company has done remarkably well in sales in the past, with Bad Company 2 selling around 6 million copies. And EA isn’t blind. It knows that gamers have been anxiously awaiting the announcement of a Bad Company 2 sequel.

The timing sounds about right for EA to announce that next chapter in the Battlefield game line. It had just launched the final DLC in its Battlefield 3 line-up, Battlefield 3: End Game. The DLC became available for PlayStation 3 Battlefield 3 Premium subscribers on March 6th, and Xbox 360/PC premium subscribers on March 12th. The expansion comes with 4 new maps, 2 classic game modes, more vehicles, more assignments, and more achievements. The DLC, combined with the other 4 DLCs should be able to keep Battlefield 3 gamers entertained until Battlefield 4 is officially released.

[via Gamespot]

It turns out that gamers have been spending a combined 14 million hours playing Real Racing 3 since it’s launch late last month. That’s a lot of game time, and more importantly, that’s a lot of batteries drained. According to EA, that’s 25 minutes per person per day on average, give or take a few minutes…or hours.

The game has hundreds of different events that you can compete in, and since launch, gamers have competed in a whopping 350 million races combined, with 25 million races being completed every day. That’s certainly a lot of races, as well as a lot of virtual fuel burned. Then again, we can’t say we’re too surprised anyway.

Currently, Real Racing 3 is the number one free app in the iTunes App Store in 90 countries. The game features “Time-Shifted Multiplayer,” in which gamers can go up against other gamers in the game, but they don’t necessarily have to compete against each other in real time. Instead, the game records your race and uses it for other races as a ghost of sorts.

Thanks, Seth

Hardware suffered the worst blow, decreasing 36-percent over last year, with a total of $244.2 million in sales. Software was next in line, falling 27-percent over last year to $369.9 million in sales; that represents sales for both gaming consoles and portable units. All in all, consumers are making about 50-percent of their overall game purchases via retail.

Overall, NPD Group says February video game sales came in at approximately $1.2 billion. While Sony and Nintendo tend to be tight-lipped over their console sales, Microsoft is more than happy to reveal its numbers. According to the company, it sold 302,000 Xbox 360 units, which represents a fairly significant drop over last year’s sales of 426,000.

Microsoft is responsible for a significant amount of gaming console sales, according to a statement from the company earlier today, representing about 41-percent of all latest-generation consoles being purchased. Meanwhile, Sony’s PlayStation 4 is slated for release this upcoming holiday season.

[via Bloomberg]

In a blog post, EA detailed some of the changes and upgrades they made throughout the week, including the completion of migrating all of their original servers to the new, faster and higher capacity servers. However, while the migration is complete, EA says that they’ll continue to provide “ongoing optimizations” for the servers.

EA also launched a server status page, so that gamers could see the status of server operations from around the world. EA says these are updated live. The page will list whether a server is available for play, or if its full. Servers that are experiencing high volume will be marked with yellow. However, most of the servers are currently green at the moment, which means they’re available.

Last but not least, EA released patch 1.5, which addresses “some trade intermittency issues.”EA says this should make regional interaction more responsive, and the publisher is going to continue to improve the speed between cities within a region. The patch should also decrease the chance of losing progress on your city via a rollback.

Bradshaw stated that SimCity is seeing major improvements. She said that they have improved their server response time by up to 40 times, doubled the amount of players in-game, and have reduced the amount of server down times. They are also rolling out new servers and replacing their old servers so that more people will be able to maintain a stable connection to the game. However, because they’re replacing the old servers, you may see some downtime in the near future.

Also mentioned by SimCity through its Official Twitter is the possibility of there being an offline mode in the future. While it won’t happen anytime soon, it may be implemented in the future. The tweet says, “We have no intention of offlining SimCity any time soon but we’ll look into that as part of our earning back your trust efforts.”

SimCity will begin updating its servers today during the evening. This is great news for those of you who have the SimCity game and weren’t able to refund it for your money back. Players will be updated through the EA forums as well as through the game launcher about pending updates. Also for those of you playing SimCity, you will also receive a free game from EA beginning on March 18th. We’re still not sure whether or not you’re allow to choose which game you get for free, or if it’s going to be a selected by EA themselves.

[via SimCity]

Lucy Bradshaw, the General Manager of the EA Maxis Label, released an update to players about the stability issues with the game. So what was the issue? There were a lot more people logging in and playing the game than they had expected. She stated, “A lot more people logged on than we expected. More people played and played in ways we never saw in beta.” In order to remedy this problem, EA is increasing their server capacities. So far they have increased their servers’ capacity by 120% in the past 48 hours.

In order to ease the outrage from the SimCity community, Bradshaw has informed all SimCity gamers (who have activated their game) that on March 18th, they will receive an e-mail that will allow them to redeem a free game from the EA store. She didn’t release any more details about the “free game”, but we’re hoping it’s not just some $5 piece of junk that no one would want in the first place.

EA will be working to improve SimCity’s stability all throughout the weekend. This game had similar (albeit worse) launch issues like Diablo 3, a game that also requires you to login to an online server to play. Diablo 3 was down for hours while Blizzard was working on its servers. Hopefully EA’s free game will be able to win back the hearts of all of the gamers it angered. Now it just has to work on those 1700 1-Star Amazon reviews.

[via EA Games]

EA plans to resume their marketing and promotional efforts at some point, though, mentioning in the email that they will notify affiliates when they can start promoting the game again. However, EA says they will still “payout commissions on all SimCity sales that are referred,” which is certainly good news for affiliates still.

SimCity launched earlier this week, and it didn’t quite go as planned. Of course, no one can really plan for how a launch will go, but we’re sure Electronic Arts wasn’t expecting this much backlash and issues. It turns out demand of the new game was higher than expected, resulting in server crashes and downloading failures for gamers.

Amazon even ended up suspending digital orders of the game, while still allowing physical copies to be sold with an asterisk in hopes to temporarily cut down on the amount of gamers with access to the game and hopefully help out EA with the surge of those hankering to build their dream city. In the meantime, feel free to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign for Civitas, a cheaper DRM-free alternative to SimCity.

[via Polygon]

The developers are looking to create a DRM-free version of SimCity, with the ability to play the game completely while offline, something that SimCity doesn’t offer, and it’s the one feature that’s currently causing all of the problems. Plus, the game will only cost $15, at least if you back the project on Kickstarter right now.

Of course, the folks behind the project weren’t afraid to call out EA on their Kickstarter page, claiming that EA is “forcing the worst form of draconian DRM on its players.” Those are certainly some fightin’ words, but it seems the developers are confident that Civitas will be an excellent alternative to EA’s city-building offering.

Of course, the game will go into beta first for a few months, and you can join in on the beta fun by pledging $10 more on top of the $15 price of the game, which still isn’t a bad price at all, even if you didn’t get access to the beta. However, we’ll have to wait and see if the game can live up to its own expectations. So far, the project has raised almost $37,000 at the time of this writing, and they’re looking to raise $250,000 total, but there’s 24 days to go, so it can be easily achieved.

[via Kotaku]

Amazon is still selling the physical boxed version of SimCity, however, but they’re attaching a saying that servers have been experiencing issues and there’s currently no timeframe on when the issues will be fixed. Unsurprisingly, disgruntled SimCity gamers have taken to Amazon by giving 1-star ratings to the game, and there are well over 800 ratings currently attached.

That’s definitely not good news to prospective buyers, as they could see the 1-star rating and immediately turn away, but considering the fact that gamers can’t even buy the digital download version of the game makes up gamers’ minds for them. Currently, there’s no information as for when Amazon will begin selling the digital version again.

The game launched at midnight on Tuesday morning, but gamers were met with download failures and slow connections. Even EA’s Origin gaming service wasn’t able to distribute all the digital copies that were pre-ordered, and instead had to slowly roll them out. Some users were even reporting that after the game downloaded, they couldn’t even connect to the servers to play the game.

[via The Verge]

Essentially in Real Racing 3, you buy cars and compete in events until you beat the game. There’s also “Driver Level,” in which you are awarded a certain amount of experience points after every race that go towards being an expert driver. I don’t really pay a lot of attention to that, since my only goal is raise as much money as I can so I can buy a new car and race in more events. You rely on “R$” currency and coins to get you through the game. The coins are there so that you can basically buy your way out of having to wait on various things, which I’ll describe here soon.

You might have heard about “Time-Shifted Multiplayer” before. It’s a new feature in Real Racing 3 where you play against real people in every event. Granted, you’re not all playing each other at the same time (hence the “Time-Shifted” name), but the other racers are essentially AI-controlled players that have completed in the event in the past. It’s similar to racing a ghost, but the ghost is AI-controlled and will respond to your movements in the race. It’s a pretty neat feature, and it’s more enjoyable this way knowing that you’re not just racing against the computer.

There are numerous types of races to choose from, including cup races, top-speed challenges, drag races, sprints, and eliminations. There also tons of new tracks and cars, including real tracks like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Mount Panorama, as well as fake tracks that exist in real locations, such as Melbourne. As for controls, it’s nothing that we haven’t experienced before with Real Racing 2 — tilting your mobile device steers the car, and tapping on the screen is the brake. You can also change camera angles, which includes a cockpit view if you really want a realistic experience.

As for graphics, they’re not bad, but also not great. There’s absolutely zero anti-aliasing, which makes the game a pixelated nightmare, and scenery could be a bit better, especially in Mount Panorama, where you can get a good look out at the horizon. The mountains in the background look pretty horrible, and it makes you feel you traveled back in time to the late 90s. However, I can’t be too harsh on the graphics. For a mobile game on a smartphone, the game looks pretty incredible.

As for the freemium model in Real Racing 3, this is where things can get a bit controversial. Since the game is free, Firemonkey and EA rely on the in-app purchases of coins to make revenue. Whenever your car needs servicing or you upgrade parts, you have to wait a few minutes for them to complete, sometimes up to 10 minutes. Of course, you can speed the process up by spending a couple of coins, but once you’re all out, you have to buy more if you don’t want to wait for things to finish. Essentially, Firemonkey and EA are counting on your impatience in order to make money with this game, and my guess is that they’ll make a fortune.

You can buy more coins starting at $1.99 for 10 of them, and you can also buy more in-game currency for buying cars and upgrades starting at $1.99 for R$50,000. And considering that Real Racing 2 only cost $4.99, you can end up spending way more in Real Racing 3. However, if patience is your virtue, then you probably won’t have a problem with the game, but if you’re the type of person who wants upgrades now and wants your oil change and tire rotation right this second, prepare to spend a ton of money on the game.

The website in question is VideoGamer, who originally reported the rumor and said that they heard from sources familiar with the matter that Electronic Arts canceled Dead Space 4. However, later that day we received word that Electronic Arts did not, in fact, cancel anything, and the rumors were greatly exaggerated.

Moore took to the comments on GamesIndustry.biz to clarify some things about the rumor, saying that the story was a “standard, shoddy website journalism recipe, born out of a desperate need to increase click-thru rates to support advertising revenue.” Obviously, it seems Moore wasn’t too happy about the whole situation.

Moore continued by describing said recipe, which consists of fabricating “a story using an ‘unnamed source’, post it first thing in the morning, add the letters” EA” to the story (oh, and link it to micro-transactions – always a fan favourite) and then stand back and enjoy the vitriol which you turn into revenue. Rinse and repeat…” VideoGamer has said that they’ll be addressing the situation later today.

UPDATE: VideoGamer as released a statement on their Dead Space 4 rumor, and it seems they still stand behind the rumor and their “trusted source.” Overall, it seems there was some miscommunication with EA’s UK and US PR teams as far as reporting on the rumor, but VideoGamer says that they “ran the story in good faith, taking the necessary steps with both EA and [VideoGamer's] source to ensure that the story was as accurate, fair, and well-represented as possible.”

Obviously, we post about rumors here on SlashGear, but as with every rumor, no matter how obvious or true it may be, we always take it with a grain of salt until we hear official word from the company that’s involved, and so should you.

[via Kotaku]

However, the launch isn’t going as well as Electronic Arts and Maxis have hoped. Many users have been experiencing download failures, and not everyone was able to play the game when it was released at midnight. EA’s Origin said that because of heavy traffic, they’re having to slowly roll out the game to its users.

It turns out that due to the server load, it was expected that downloading the new game could take up to three hours, according to Origin. It’s also said that those who pre-ordered the game are having issues with the game unlocking for them, while those who go in and buy the game right now are able to unlock it right away.

According to Origin’s timeline, everyone who pre-ordered SimCity, should now have it unlocked for them. Overall, it seems like a nightmare of Electronic Arts, while it’s merely just a nuisance for gamers who want to play the game. Origin hasn’t updated their Twitter feed for eight hours now, so we’re guessing that most of the problems have been solved.

According to VideoGamer, a “source familiar with the unannounced project” says that Dead Space 4 had been in pre-production at Visceral Games, but once Electronic Arts brought in the sales figures for Dead Space 3, the fourth installment in the series ended up being canceled before it could really gain any traction in the development process.

It’s reported that EA executives visited the Visceral Montreal studio last month to inform the staff that the Dead Space 4 project would be canceled, and it’s also rumored that EA shut down that studio shortly afterward. EA has not commented on the situation, nor will it. However, they could make a public announcement at some point.

Sales figures for Dead Space 3 have yet to be announced, but the game’s first-week sales in the UK were down 26.6% compared to Dead Space 2. EA said that Dead Space 3 would need to sell around five million copies in order for the series to continue on, but it seems like Dead Space 3 didn’t meet that goal.

Update: As is the nature of rumors, some of them turn out to be incorrect. Such is the case with this one, with the Dead Space franchise’s PR Manager Jino Talens telling us that the rumors are “patently false.”

[via VideoGamer]

Since Real Racing 3 is free to play, there are obviously some limitations on what you can do. The game uses time-based freemium mechanics like we’ve seen in other free-to-play mobile games. For repairs, upgrades, and additional vehicle unlocks, you have to wait a certain amount of time unless you choose to speed things up by purchasing and using gold coins.

Obviously, this has raised a lot of controversy amongst Real Racing fanatics. In the past, Real Racing games have cost between $5-$7, which would obviously unlock all features and give you no limitations or restrictions. However, with this new freemium model, avid gamers could end up paying more than that if they want to get rid of those limitations.

Either way, Real Racing 3 comes with some nifty features, including a new multiplayer mode called Time-Shifted Multiplayer, where two players can race each other, but not necessarily at the same time. It’s a neat concept and one we haven’t quite seen before. And course, you can’t beat the scenery of the dozens of real tracks and locations.

UPlay will now offer a handful of games from Electronic Arts, Warner Bros., Bohemia Interactive, Telltale Games, Robot Entertainment, and more. This includes titles like Batman: Arkham City, Crysis 3, Orcs Must Die 2, The Walking Dead, and To the Moon. To celebrate the expanded library, Ubisoft is offering gamers a free game download if they purchase a game for $19.90 or more.

In return, EA is listing a handful of Ubisoft games on Origin, including Assassin’s Creed III and Far Cry 3. EA has been offering third-party games on Origin for a couple of years now, but that doesn’t lessen the excitement of even more games becoming available on the service, and this will no doubt instill a bit more confidence in gamers that game publishers don’t have to be complete DRM fanatics.

In total, Ubisoft’s UPlay will gain 25 games from 12 different publishers, and it’ll allow the smaller indie games to get more exposure through Ubisoft’s store, while also helping out Ubisoft itself grow its library of games. Of course, no other digital distribution service is quite up to par with Steam, so both EA and Ubisoft have a lot of catching up to do.

[via Ars Technica]