That was quick! If rumors are to be believed, less than a year after the opening of 10tacle Vienna the studio has already been scuttled.

For now the 10tacle Vienna site is still up, with a link directing to the 10tacle mothership and an ominous “coming soon” message. It appears we’re sadly scratching one more games studio out of the Vienna industry, good luck to all of those affected by this.

If anyone can confirm / dispel these rumors, has more info on the closure, or as to what 10t Vienna was working on, feel free to leave a comment below.

Update 1: The as-yet unconfirmed closure of 10t Vienna could have a lot to do with 10tacle’s financial problems, recently outlined in their restructuring press release from last week, where they announced a 25% reduction in marketing and non-product development staff. Read it after the jump along with a screencap of 10tacle’s 3 month share chart.

Read more of “10tacle Vienna shut(ting) down? How is the rest of 10tacle holding up? (Update 2)“

Editor’s Note: Please excuse our lack of posts lately. Playthrough and it’s sister blogs are in a transitional phase, with many changes behind the scenes taking place, which will all become apparent in the near future. Thanks again for your return visits and patience, we hope to get back to our regularly scheduled program shortly.

According to rumors from IGN, the upcoming sequel to Katamari Damacy, Beautiful Katamari, has run into trouble over at Namco Bandai. Sources are stating that the Sony PS3 version of the upcoming title has been axed, thanks to development issues and stalling sales of the extremely-overpriced PS3 console. Resources have supposedly been re-shifted to the Wii version of Beautiful Katamari.

Source: IGN

Rumors are swirling that 10tacle, one of Europe’s fastest growing developers, is still looking to expand through Europe, building more development studios to work on their internal and licensed projects. With studios already existing in Hannover (Germany), Bratislava (Slovakia), Charleroi (Belgium), Singapore and London and 10tacle being a German-based company, the search began for clues to where in Europe 10tacle would expand. Well, a handful of Google searches later brought about the answer. Vienna, Austria, once home to Rockstar Vienna, at one point one of the largest development studios in Europe and shutdown last year by parent company Take 2.

During this handy dandy Google search, we came upon http://www.10t-vienna.com/, what appears to be the landing page for the forthcoming 10tacle Vienna. Some questions remain. Like what exactly would 10tacle Vienna be doing? If development, what projects and what platforms are they looking to target? Vienna has an abundance of console and handheld development talent thanks to the Rockstar fallout, however, what talent would back 10tacle Vienna? Vienna’s (best and) most experienced developers have already been snatched up, with the creation of Team Vienna and Games That Matter, two new studios both formed by former high-level management from Rockstar Vienna, and the small successes of smaller local independent developers such as Xendex, Sproing, Greentube and last but not least, JoWooD, who all have been recruiting lately. There is little to no studio management-level experience left in Vienna, which means 10tacle would (hopefully) bring in external studio management and begin recruiting locally in Vienna by targeting the staff of other studios, which could be a risk for 10tacle’s local image if developers begin shifting companies.

Whatever the case, if it’s true, great for Vienna, Austria, a wonderful city with a tight little game development community who could really use new blood in the scene.

Update 1: Have now heard that the studio will focus primarily on production of 10tacle projects developed elsewhere. Snore. Also, it’s teamvienna.at not teamvienna.org.

Hmm?: 10tacle Vienna | 10tacle

As a kid, there was nothing more exciting than having a new issue of Nintendo Power dropped into my mailbox. NP was the end all, be all of NES gaming, featuring articles, ads and photos of the hottest new games coming out for one of the hottest video game systems of all time. If rumors along the mill are to be believed, the once king of gaming magazines is set to shut it’s doors, at least on a print version, soon. No official word is available yet on the demise, but I certainly hope they go the portal route with Nintendo Power, creating a Nintendo-centered social networking news and blogging site that extended with Wii browsing support, including the long rumored e-versions of NP back issues.

Sweet baby Jesus I hope this is true. As the Star Wars license wallowed away under the steaming pile that was the prequels and the horrible mess that Star Wars Galaxies became, Knight of the Old Republic was a bright shining star of the Force. Even the sequel, “Sith Lords”, though rushed and extremely buggy, was of higher quality than Galaxies. I remember thinking, self, this needs to be an MMO. Well, it seems that dream will come true. Rumors are flying around the gaming press about a recent news report from CVG stating that BioWare has recently begun forming an online team to work on a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic MMO. Though no true details have emerged, just the fact that it appears BioWare is behind the development can only mean it will be perfection.

Read more: Knight of the Old Republic MMO in the works?

Seems we were so excited to actually have a reason to use our PSP again that we might have jumped the gun on our previous post saying Gish PSP was on it’s way. Ignoring the DVDboxoffice and Amazon listings, some rumors (read: forum posts) are stating that the deal for the PSP version of Gish fell through at the last minute, after sales had already sent out the announcements to a few retailers.

Boo. With no official announcement (yet) we can only just wait and see, but, here’s to hoping we can get Gish on a handheld console soon (preferably the DS).

Read more: Gish coming for the PSP, or not? (Thanks Simon!)

According to French-language news channel Canoe, Eidos / SCi Entertainment have chosen Montreal as the location for a new Canadian development studio. The rumor, learned through job postings, is saying that Eidos will announce a decision on the studio formation next week, followed by a round of hirings which will no doubt displease Ubisoft, EA and A2M who are also located in Montreal. Eidos spokespeople have gone on record as being unable to confirm or deny the rumor.

Horrible Babelfish French to English translation after the jump..

Read more of “Rumor: Eidos opening development studio in Montreal“

With HD-DVD currently under fire from modders who have recently began “backing up” their HD-DVD movies, rumors are starting to pour in that an early exploit has been discovered for the PS3. HDTV Blogger reveals that multiple independent sources are reporting that an exploit has been found via the PS3 which reveals title and volume keys for Blu-ray disks via the PS3. The procedure requires some minor modding of the boot process and Linux. We’ll post more information as it becomes available, *if* this rumor (did I mention it’s just a rumor so far?) develops.

Read more: Rumored Blu-ray exploit via PS3 discovered

Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about, some great looking box art for the upcoming Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Nintendo Gamecube and Wii. Though I think the Gamecube version looks so much better, I’ll be getting the Wii version I’m afraid. Oh, who am I kidding, I’ll be getting both, I knew I couldn’t sneak that one past you all.

See the boxart after the jump..

Read more of “Images of the box art for Zelda Wii and Gamecube“

We were sold on Wii Virtual Console when we read about the first batch of rumoured titles, but now we’re starting to get all antsy over here! A recent search on the ESRB ratings page shows that there are a handfull more mega-classic titles coming for the Virtual Console, this time from the publisher of every fanboy’s dreams, Sega! By visiting the ESRB search page and performing a search by platform (choose Wii, duh), you’ll see at the bottom of the list, 6 classic Sega titles, which one can only assume is coming for the VC.

Read the short list for the lazy after the jump..

Read more of “More Nintendo Wii Virtual Console titles revealed“