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Square Enix Files Trademark for Deus Ex: Human Revolution

It looks like a proper Deux Ex sequel is on the way as Square Enix has filed trademarks for Deus Ex: Human Revolution in Europe and North America. Once one of the edgiest franchises in gaming, Eidos neglected the brand and let it fade into the background. Square Enix appears to have big plans for a Deus Ex revival. Hopefully it lives up to Warren Spector’s excellent vision.

While Deus Ex still means a lot to older gamers, there’s a new generation that has never heard of the series. Fallout 3 and Bioshock have shown that old brands can help sell to older players and great games will sell to everyone. Hopefully Deus Ex is treated similarly to those two games.

Are you guys and gals interested in a new Deus Ex game?

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Will Chrome Overtake Internet Explorer in Five Years?

It sounds like a ludicrous notion, but one of the most high-profile journalists in technology believes that Google’s Chrome web browser has a shot at overtaking Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in the next five years. PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff recently wrote:

Google Chrome’s market share numbers are skyrocketing, blowing past Safari and Opera to become the number three most-widely-used Web browser. That’s pretty impressive, and I don’t think it’s going to stop there. I fully expect it to overtake Firefox and challenge, if not beat, Microsoft Internet Explorer sometime in the next 5 years.

While I think there’s a great chance that Chrome will overtake (the alarmingly stagnating) Mozilla Firefox, I have a hard time believing that it can beat IE. Microsoft has a huge advantage in being the default web browser for the most popular operating system in the world. While Google has been making and will continue to make deals with PC vendors to make Chrome the default browser, but those are just drops in the bucket compared to IE. Of course things could change drastically as web browsing moves away from the PC and to mobile devices.

On my laptop, I use Chrome as my main browser and Firefox as my secondary. I rarely use IE. Just for the hell of it, here are the browser stats for RPad.tv visitors.

Firefox 41.83%
Safari 21.44%
Internet Explorer 20.52%
Chrome 11.93%
Opera 1.31%

What browser or browsers do you use every day?

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PSA: Xbox Live Deals of the Week (Three Games!)

Microsoft has three games on special for its Xbox Live Deal of the Week: Marvel vs. Capcom 2, TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-shelled, and Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao. The games are 800, 400, and 800 Microsoft Points, respectively. I was interested in Re-shelled when it was released, but never got around to picking it up. At 50 percent off, I’ll probably pick it up this week.

Any of these games interest you guys and dolls?

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Coffee Talk #81: Do Publishers Still Get Too Much Credit?

What other industries promote publishers over creators? Do you walk into a movie thinking, “Oh sweet! This is a Fox Searchlight film. They’re awesome!” Do you buy music thinking, “Oh man, I love Jive Records! This is going to be great stuff!” What I really want to know is…are you going to go my way? No wait, that’s not right. I meant, are publishers still getting too much credit these days?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the answer to the question, “Who dat?!?”, the hottie you want in a bath tub pitching the phone of your dreams, or how much bourbon Smartguy had last night, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

New Coffee: Stumptown Indonesia Gajah Aceh (Thanks for the great service Kate!)

One of my biggest pet peeves when I first got into this business (in the ’90s *gasp*) was that publishers got way more credit than developers. Things have certainly gotten better and more people are aware of the companies that actually make the games they play…but it’s still not where it should be. I don’t mean to piss on the hard work that publishers do, but it seems ridiculous to me that they get top billing and more credit than creators do.

For example, let’s say I search for Mass Effect 2 on Amazon and GameStop. The search results will show the game, what platforms it’s available for, and the publisher (Electronic Arts). The excellent developers at BioWare do not get credit that appears right away. A general customer that’s not familiar with developers will think, “I know these guys. They make Madden NFL Football and Tiger Woods PGA Tour.” It’s stupid and misleading and — most of all — disrespectful to BioWare.

Reading comments about Bethesda’s Rogue Warrior showed me that even enthusiast gamers don’t know the difference between publishers and developers. I’ve seen a lot of complaints on the game that were all, “I can’t believe Bethesda went from making Fallout 3 to this piece of crap!!!” The problem with statements like that is that Bethesda didn’t “make” the game. Rebellion did.

Linus Torvalds Loves His Google Nexus One

Linux creator and programming man-god Linus Torvalds loves his new Google Nexus One. He recently raved about the phone on his blog, saying:

I have to admit, the Nexus One is a winner. I wasn’t enthusiastic about buying a phone on the internet sight unseen, but the day it was reported that it finally had the pinch-to-zoom thing enabled, I decided to take the plunge. I’ve wanted to have a GPS unit for my car anyway, and I thought that google navigation might finally make a phone useful.

And it does. What a difference! I no longer feel like I’m dragging a phone with me “just in case” I would need to get in touch with somebody – now I’m having a useful (and admittedly pretty good-looking) gadget instead. The fact that you can use it as a phone too is kind of secondary.

That’s some pretty awesome geek cred for the Nexus One. The only problem is that it doesn’t really need geek cred. It needs mainstream marketing and, for whatever reason, Google seems content to (only) bombard the world with AdSense spots for the phone. While I still believe that the Nexus One was the first brush stroke of a much larger painting, getting mainstream attention never hurts. A lot of people became aware of the iPad simply because Stephen Colbert busted one out during the Grammy Awards.

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This Week’s Videogame Releases

Last week was pretty dry in terms of videogame releases, but this week more than makes up for it with Bioshock 2 and Dante’s Inferno. Hitting the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, both games deliver heavy action, but in very different ways. The Wii actually has a couple of interesting titles up its sleeve with Shiren The Wanderer and Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll. Neither are a high profile as the two games mentioned earlier, but the Shiren series has an ardent following and everyone loves balled monkeys.

As always, let your fellow RPadholics and me know if you’re picking up any of this week’s new releases.

Poll: What Was Your Favorite Super Bowl XLIV Tech Commercial?

[poll id=”24″]

First off, congrats to the New Orleans Saints on winning Super Bowl 44! Now that we’ve been bombarded by 52 Budwesier commercials (that still won’t make it a good beer), let’s discuss your favorite tech commercials that aired during the game. I’m disqualifying all the GoDaddy.com spots because I’m tired of Danica Patrick. Dante’s Inferno was the only videogame commercial I recall (I could have missed some). The choices in this poll are Google, Vizio, Intel, and Motorola. Let’s check out the videos and get to the poll!

Google’s ad was the most romantic and a lot of people were raving about in the Twitterverse. I thought it was cute…but that’s about it.

My personal pick is this Vizio ad, simply because Tay Zonday rules. “Chocolate Rain” forever!!!

Motorola promoted its upcoming Devour phone (a mid-level Android phone coming to Verizon) and MotoBlur with Megan Fox (with her circus-freak thumbs) in a bath tub.

I thought Intel’s commercial was lame, but it made drool for a MacBook with an i5 or i7 processor.

Sunday Housekeeping

– The Super Bowl poll is pretty close. If you haven’t made your pick, get on it!

– There was a lot of cool video content last week. If you haven’t checked out the PadCasts with Ring of Honor world champion Austin Aries and Tarver games president/co-founder Chris Cross, please do. They’re both excellent people (in very different ways). As always, giant props to N8R for putting these together.

– On the gameplay front, don’t forget the Anders character reveal for Dragon Age: Origins Awakening and this super-cute clip from 3D Dot Game Heroes.

– Remember, since I’m not on a real ad network yet, my Blip.tv video posts are more lucrative than straight text posts. Your support would be immensely appreciated.

– Speaking of which, here’s my periodic nag about using my Amazon.com links. My friend recently bought a $500+ leather bag through Amazon and forgot to use one of my links. Ouch. If you can remember and are purchasing anything through Amazon, I’d super appreciate it if you entered Amazon through one of my links.

– Traffic has been steady since my last housekeeping post, but it’s not really growing. If you like a particular story or video, please share it with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, N4G, Gamekicker, etc. I’m enjoying the site and loving the interaction, but things have to keep heading up. Since I don’t have a marketing budget, I really need y’all to spread the love.

– As far as traffic sources go, N4G has been down, Gamekicker has been up, and NeoGaf has been way up. It’s interesting to see what the various audiences like or don’t like. Some idiot on N4G rejected my piece on the Dante’s Inferno movie because the site doesn’t post reviews on Avatar or Spider-Man. That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Last time I checked, a major game publisher wasn’t directly involved with Avatar or Spider-Man.

– Enjoy the Super Bowl and let me know which commercials impressed you!

PlayStation 3 Closing the Gap with Xbox 360, Almost Profitable

Sony’s PlayStation 3 console has been performing well since the introduction of the PlayStation 3 Slim and (more importantly) a price cut to $299. ShackNews noted that the PS3 is at 33.71-million units worldwide, while the Xbox 360 is at 39-million. Considering that it came out later than Microsoft’s system and its initial price was a turn-off to many gamers, I was surprised to learn that the global installed bases are so close.

In related news, Endgadget has reported that Sony is currently losing about $18 per PlayStation 3 sold. In November I wrote about Sony Corp.’s CFO saying that the PS3 will be profitable some time in 2010. It will be interesting to see if and when the company reaches that goal.

As always, I’d love your thoughts on the console wars. Do you think Sony can catch up to Microsoft this year? Do you think the PS3 will reach profitability?

Kingdom Hearts’ Sora Originally Had a Tail and Used a Chainsaw

How different would Kingdom Hearts have been if Tetsuya Nomura’s original design for Sora was used — you know, the one with beast ears and a chainsaw. Translating an interview from Famitsu, Andriasang learned:

The character’s original design was more beast-like — somewhat like a mix of a lion and human. He had a tail and beast-like ears. Instead of his keyblade weapon, he used a chainsaw. These beast-like features were implemented in order to make the character match the Disney characters.

A mix of a lion and a human? You mean like Aslo the Li-man from Epic Movie?!? Seriously though, one of the reasons the original design was nixed was because of similarities to Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. This is just a guess, but I’m pretty sure Disney wasn’t too high on the idea of a child protagonist with a chainsaw.

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