Sony Gets Into Real Estate
Just over a billion dollars is a lot of money ask for a single building. But that’s exactly what Sony offloaded their U.S. headquarters to a group of investors led by the Chetrit Group for earlier today.
The planned $1.1 billion sale will see the electronics company netting a comfortable $685 million in operating-income for the current fiscal year. That will feed directly into Sony’s predicted profit of 20 billion-yen ($223 million) for the year. That number is significant for two reasons. The first being that it follows hot on the heels of the company’s record-breaking 457 billion-yen loss last year and the second that it will mark Sony’s first profitable year since 2008.
We won’t know immediately what John Chetrit — the head of the Chetrit Group — plans for building include as he has decline to be interview. If we had to take a guess, however, we would say they involve summoning Gozer.
[Source: Bloomberg]
Playstation All-Stars DLC dated
The first round of DLC for SuperBot Entertainment’s quietly fantastic PS3/Vita fighting game has a release date. Two new playable characters will be available for download on February 12.
Those two character are Kat (from the equally quiet and even more fantastic Gravity Rush) Emmett Graves from the unfortunately overlooked Starhawk. The two will come with all the amenities of their on-disc counterparts (ladder match stories, alternate costumes, etc.) and will be free for two weeks. There’s no word on how much the pair will eventually cost, so make sure to pick them up quickly.
SuperBot’s only other announced expansion, a Wipeout/Heavenly Sword mash-up stage is also scheduled for February, though there’s no official date as of yet.
[Source: Playstation Blog]
Monster Hunter Tri Unplugs
If you’re the sort of person that loves to hunt monsters (you judgmental goon) you may be upset to hear that you’ll have one fewer way to do so come April 30. Monster Hunter Tri‘s Wii servers will officially be shut down six weeks after the North American release of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the Wii U and 3DS.
Monster Hunter fans shouldn’t get too upset, though, since 3 Ultimate is just an HD remake of Tri, the third, numbered console game in the franchise (not to be confused with Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, the recent fourth installment of the series on handhelds). That means you’ll still be able to play the game online, assuming you buy said remake and either own a 3DS or have made the upgrade to a Wii U.
If you’re willing to wait, on the other hand, the tenth installment of the franchise, Monster Hunter 4, launches in Japan in March. And while there’s no official word on the game crossing the pond, it’s probably a safe bet.
While you’re pondering which new game/remake/port of a remake you should be getting for your handheld, take a moment to consider there are only three Patapon games (the third of which doesn’t currently work on Vita) and know that there is no justice in this world.
[Source: Capcom Unity]
Steven’s Game of the Week
Recently I haven’t been playing nearly as many games as usual while recovering from my December backlog clean-up. I have, however, put in a few dozen games of Uncharted: Fight for Fortune.
Fight for Fortune is a $5 downloadable card game set in the Uncharted universe and developed by Sony Bend, the folks behind Golden Abyss. As a recovering Magic: The Gathering/just about every other card game imaginable addict (I am definitely a child of the 90s) I can honestly report that FfF is a neat little game.
It’s certainly not as complex as Magic. You can only field five “creatures” at a time, resource management isn’t usually a huge concern and there are precious few options in terms of deck management. That being said, it’s much more fast-paced than any other card game I’ve played, which is perfect for a handheld game. It also ties into Golden Abyss, allowing you to power up your cards by unlocking trophies and collecting hidden objects in that game. It was enough of a neat gimmick to pull me back into Golden Abyss for a while and rediscover that I really like that game.
If there’s one major complaint I’d level at the game, it’s the lack of multiplayer trophies. That’s not something I would have predicted myself complaining about a few years ago. But, considering every extra is unlocked by playing and replaying the single-player campaign and the only multiplayer trophy is for winning a single match, I’m not entirely sure what the incentive for playing online is meant to be.
It’s tough to complain about lack of features in a $5 game when the cored play is so solid and the single-player run is fairly meaty. There are also more cards to be unlocked, matches to be fought and trophies to be earned in the game’s DLC.
All told, it’s accomplished more than just keeping my hands diverted while watching Lost Girl on Netflix — it’s actually been a lot of fun — and for that it’s worth checking out if you own a Vita.
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