World of Warcraft Hits 11.5 Million Subscribers

Posted by Deadly Cyclone at 12:24 PM 0 comments

It's official, you may begin making you Skynet references now, Blizzard has just confirmed that World of Warcraft has hit 11.5 million subscribers following the launch of the latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

"Within its first 24 hours of availability, Wrath of the Lich King sold more than 2.8 million copies, making it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. In addition to winning a number of editor's choice awards from major gaming publications, the expansion has now gone on to sell more than 4 million copies in its first month, setting a new record for monthly PC-game sales. Both sales records were previously held by World of Warcraft's first expansion, The Burning Crusade®.*

"We're pleased to welcome the new and returning players who have helped World of Warcraft reach these new milestones, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and support that the game's global community has continued to show," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. "We look forward to providing all of them with an excellent entertainment experience for a long time to come."

2.8 Million copies in 24 hours, that is just crazy. Maybe WoW will take over the world...

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Starcraft 2 Splits Into Three Games

Posted by Deadly Cyclone at 7:38 PM 0 comments

For those who don't know, the annual Blizzcon is in full swing as we speak. Today Blizzard came out with another big Starcraft-related announcement, Starcraft 2 will be split into three campaigns from three different points of view.

Gamespy has the breakdown of each game:
"The first game available will contain the Terran campaign, Wings of Liberty, along with a mini-campaign featuring the Protoss hero Zeratul. The second product will focus on Kerrigan and the Zerg and be called Heart of the Swarm. The final product is about the Protoss and is titled Legacy of the Void. Pardo was quick to reassure the crowd that this applied to single-player only and that the multiplayer portion would ship complete with all three races playable."

It was mentioned that the two games following the initial release of SC2 should be viewed as expansions, no word on the cost differences.

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Activision-Blizzard to Close Sierra Studios?

Posted by Deadly Cyclone at 1:42 PM 0 comments

With the announcement of Activision seemingly canning a few of their big upcoming games being developed by smaller studios (including Terminal Reality's Ghostbusters game) rumblings have begun that Acti-Blizz is out to close some of their more under-performing studios. A story over at gamesindustry.biz sites analyst Signal Hillas suggesting that "Activision Blizzard will likely close under performing development studios in order to save money."

So which studios could be on the chopping block? Well Sierra looks to be the number one candidate. The article also goes on to say "The publisher has said that Swordfish Studios and Massive Entertainment may be sold, while Radical Entertainment and High Moon Studios will be "realigned" as the company restructures in the wake of its USD 18.9 billion merger."

The company is expected to keep high selling IPs such as Spyro and Crash bandicoot, as well as the upcoming game Prototype. More on this developing story as it becomes available. Stay tuned to GPU!

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Blizzard Announces Diablo 3

Posted by Deadly Cyclone at 12:10 PM 0 comments

Big news this morning out of the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational event, Diablo 3 has been officially announced. A plethora of information, videos, and images have been released on the upcoming game which will ship simultaneously on the PC and Mac. The announcement trailer can be seen below and the very first gameplay footage can be seen below and an artwork video after the jump. The Diablo 3 FAQ page has all of the new information on the game, but has been working off and on since the announcement. To see the videos and more screenshots check out IGN's liveblog page of the event. Check after the jump for some new facts from the FAQ, the artwork video and new screenshots.





* There will be five classes, with the barbarian and doctor classes being the first to be revealed.
* The game will return to Sanctuary, 20 years after the events of Diablo 2
* Diablo III builds on the random environments of the previous Diablo games by introducing a host of new ways to create random scripted events throughout the game.
* Players will be able to create male and female characters for all five classes.
* Diablo III will be playable over Battle.net, and Battle.net will offer some exciting new features to enhance players' Diablo III experience.

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