Monday News Lump 28/04

Mondays... BOO! so here's some news stories that don't get their own article. 

E.T. Found in Desert

No not a real alien. nor a prop from the film. They found the mythical cache of the "worst game ever made". Microsoft teamed up Fuel Entertainment to search for the fabled land fill and they did!.

Picture of the first copy dug out the ground. Many copies was still in their plastic wrappers

For those who don't know E.T. was developed in 6 weeks (in those days it took 6 months) as a quick cash in on the movie. What people got was so bad it effectively killed the fragile industry. Instead of trying to sell off the remaining copies, Atari decided to gather up all the remaining copies drive it into the New Mexico desert and bury them. If it wasn't for Nintendo saving the industry with the NES then this story would of been forgotten but till now it lived on as a myth and warning to developers (some devs have copies mounted to the wall as a painful reminder). 

Final Fantasy 15 being created as an "Action Game" 

Considering Square-Enix is in such a dangerous position Sony sold their shares in the company at a massive discount and it's widely believed the next flop could kill not only Final Fantasy but the company it self, It is pretty ballsy to make FF15 (previously Verses 13) an action game, A lot of long time fans have been increasingly turned off by the games and this news will not sit with most of them.

Naughty Dog Losses Another Key Member

Michael Knowland lead artist on Last of Us as left Naughty Dog and follows Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig who left Naughty Dog earlier this year, though has since joined Visceral Games to work on its unannounced Star Wars project. This was followed by the news Justin Richmond, who was working on Uncharted PS4 as game director, also left the studio, in his case to take up a position at League of Legends dev Riot. Art director Nate Wells announced his departure to join Unfinished Swan studio Giant Sparrow last week. Something is clearly going on at Naughty Dog.

Celebrate Monster Hunter's 10th anniversary with ROCK!

This rather fetching Rathalos Flame Sword guitar costs 2.3 million Yen in Japan, which converts to around $22,000 USD and about £13,000 for us in the UK. The above picture is clearly a mock up. Not sure how many Monster Hunter fans who play guitar and have £13K to spare will buy this, But damn it I want one