Posted 10/06/09 at 10:31:43 PM by Nathan Grayson

Our spies may have failed to infiltrate Sega’s innermost info-santcum – or even make it through Sega’s PR minefield, for that matter – but it doesn’t matter anymore. The word’s out: Alpha Protocol’s delay is official.

Sega’s website now lists the game as launching in “Spring 2010.” Originally, it was supposed to be out around – oh – today.

As you can imagine, we’re pretty bummed. From what we saw, Alpha Protocol was set to sneak behind the holiday season’s jam-packed frontline and surprise everyone. Now though, the wait continues. Also, our small army of Bothan spies is in various states of exploded-ness. That’s kind of disappointing too, we guess.

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Posted 09/29/09 at 12:33:11 AM by Nathan Grayson

We were pretty thrilled by what we saw of Obsidian’s spy RPG Alpha Protocol at E3, so obviously, we’re not-so-thrilled to hear that the game might be facing a rather large delay. Originally scheduled to launch this month, Alpha Protocol’s now listed as infiltrating consoles and PCs in June 2010, according to both GameStop and Amazon.ca.

We contacted Obsidian in an effort to confirm the slippage, only to be pointed in Sega’s direction without a solid “yes” or “no.” Sega has yet to respond to our – or anyone else’s – queries as of this time.
 
Our guess? It’s been delayed. Not necessarily all the way into June, but Sega’s silence reeks of an upcoming announcement. And as much as we hate to see it happen, we actually think the delay will be good for Alpha Protocol. Sega’s under-the-radar promotion of the game is befitting of the game’s stealthy spy theme, but sadly, that’s not how you sell a videogame. Maybe by the time 2010 rolls around, Sega will have drummed up some more hype around the game.

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Posted 09/26/09 at 01:36:00 AM by Nathan Grayson

Assassins like Altair and Ezio love shrugging off The Law by slipping into bustling crowds, so it’s only fitting that the PC edition of Assassin’s Creed II has shoved its way into the most crowded spring gaming season in recorded history.

“Assassin’s Creed 2 PC has moved to the first quarter of 2010. A bit more time for the dev team to deliver the best quality game to you,” reads a tweet from Ubisoft.

The console versions, meanwhile, are still on track to release on November 17.

If it’s any consolation, though, Mac users can finally look forward to the long-awaited release of BioShock. Next month. See, PC faithful? Things could be a whole lot worse.

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Posted 08/21/09 at 01:22:36 PM by Paul Lilly

Don't worry about your swank new motherboard soon being outdated by new models boasting PCI-E 3.0 support, the new specification is running into some unexpected snags, Fudzilla reports.

The main issue boils down to backwards compatibility and getting the PCI-E 3.0 specification to play nice with current PCI-E standards. Before the third gen PCI-E can get a stamp of approval, PCI SIG needs to verify products in the lab, and this is taking longer than expected.

"In this particular case, with pushing the technology so hard, and with PCI gen 3 providing so much more capabilities but with the need to be still backwards-compatible, we had to do the diligence required to move the date," said Al Yanes, president of PCI SIG.

The PCI-E 3.0- specification was originally supposed to be released this year, but now it looks like the second quarter of 2010 at the earliest. This would push shipments of products based on the new spec to 2011.

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Posted 08/21/09 at 03:49:04 AM by Nathan Grayson

Another week, another game calls in sick for 2009. So, Battlefield 1943, what’s your excuse? After all, it feels like you’ve been out on consoles since, well, 1943. What’s the hold up? Said producer Gordon Van Dyke:

“We haven't released a Frostbite [DICE's game engine] built game on PC, so going into this project we lacked a starting foundation we had on Console. There are also many different and unique only challenges to the PC that has lead to us pushing the release even further to Q1 CY 2010 [early next year].”

“This was a hard pill to swallow, but it was absolutely needed to ensure the features and functionality that PC Players have come to expect from Battlefield on PC are not missing. Things like support for DirectX 9 and 10, higher player count (up to 32-player matches), wide peripheral support i.e. Joysticks for flying, VoIP, and ranked server provider hosting. So it was and still is the absolutely right decision, for quality sake, to not release until it is ready.”

Disappointing as it is, you can’t really argue with that. See you front-and-center in 2010, Battlefield 1943. Until then, at ease, soldiers.

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Posted 08/06/09 at 02:42:43 AM by Nathan Grayson

BioShock 2, Max Payne 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Singularity, and now StarCraft II? We’d say all that’s left for 2009 are tumbleweeds, but they’ll probably just delay those too. So, who’s responsible for what will surely go down as one of the darkest days in Korean history? That’d be Blizzard’s own Battle.net service.

"Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game," said Blizzard in a statement.

"The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service."

The game’s now scheduled to launch during the “first half” of 2010, which is basically where mom ‘n’ pop have decided to stash the rest of Christmas as well.

If there is a silver lining to all of this, though, it’s that Diablo III’s still chugging along on schedule. Even better, Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime noted that “it would be correct to conclude that you could expect two releases of Blizzard next year,” which we’re taking to mean StarCraft II and Diablo III. Guys, 2010 is going to be a fantastic year. Expensive, sure, but fantastic nonetheless.

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Posted 08/05/09 at 06:19:46 PM by Andy Salisbury

The new PCI protocol, which has promised to double the data transfer rates of many add-on cards, has been delayed until mid-next year.

According to the PCI Special Interest Group, the protocol (which was due in 2009) will be held back even though most of the work has been done. Apparently, many problems have arisen with backwards compatibility and electrical requirements. But, moreover, the group has “underestimated the sheer amount of work needed” to get it out the door.

PCI 3.0 will reportedly provide speeds of 32GB/second, along with decreasing the amount of power drawn. Motherboards featuring this standard are expected to show up sometime in summer 2011.

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Posted 05/26/09 at 08:03:28 AM by Paul Lilly

Originally scheduled to debut in July, DigiTimes says Intel has gone ahead and postponed the launch of its Core i5 platform until the first half of September, or so that's what "sources at motherboard makers" have been telling them.

Bummer, right? Maybe not. The news and rumor site went on to say that Core i5 processors will show up in the retail sector by late August, with P55-based motherboards surfacing in mid-August. So to sum it up, Core i5 has been delayed until September, but Core i7 will be available in August. Color us confused.

As it currently stands, Core i5 will launch in three speed grades: 2.93GHz, 2.8GHz,and 2.66GHz for $562, $284, and $196, respectively (thousand-unit trays).

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