Harmonix made a major announcement today on Facebook of all places. The next iteration of the Rock Band series, Rock Band 3, will be launching this coming holiday season. Here’s the full post:

Harmonix is developing Rock Band 3 for worldwide release this holiday season! The game, which will be published by MTV Games and distributed by Electronic Arts, will innovate and revolutionize the music genre once again, just as Harmonix did with the original Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and The Beatles: Rock Band. Stay tuned for more details!

Innovate and revolutionize you say? Could that possibly mean that this Rock Band will finally be the one that actually teaches you how to rock?

Source: Facebook

A post in the official forums today confirmed that we’ll be seeing the Ezreal patch this week along with a very special treat: ghost skins! The images for Ghost Fiddlesticks and Ghost Gangplank have been in the client for awhile now. Just think, you won’t have to see four posts a week theorizing about revive, Mordekaiser’s ult and the method to unlocking these beauties. It’s actually simple -give Riot your money and they will give you the skins.

There’s still no word on pricing, but the official post did mention that both ghost skins would be available at 20 percent off regular price through the weekend. This patch will also have a Highland Tryndamere skin, adding some Scottish flavor to everyone’s favorite barbarian.

As for Ezreal, everyone, myself included, is waiting to hear his cost in IP. He’s getting the typical new hero + skin bundle for a small discount at 1375 RP. Obviously that points to a 975 RP price, which could mean either 3150 or 6300 for the IP cost. I’m hoping for 3150 since I won’t be buying it with RP. I’ve got more ghostly things to spend my money on.

As if the news of Steam coming to Macs weren’t enough, fanboys can rejoice today for more great news from Valve. As the latest issue of Game Informer confirms, Portal 2 is coming and it’s coming to Macs.

The PAL Game Network has scans of the cover story from Game Informer, which shows the basic info about the game – developer, release window, platforms, etc. There isn’t much more information, other than the fact that the game will be incredible. If you haven’t played the original Portal just go buy the Orange Box. It’s easily one of the most enjoyable games I’ve ever played, no lie (the cake on the other hand…). And it all started as a trial.

Luckily for us, Portal 2 will be a full-length game, set to release this fall.

Deus Ex was a huge part of my upbringing in video games. Needless to say, I was thrilled when Eidos announced Deus Ex 2. Even though the game was a bit of a letdown, I have high hopes for Deus Ex 3. The game could be incredible if Eidos just returns to the roots of the original. Honestly, I would take Deus Ex with updated graphics.

Eidos leaked two screenshots this week that have me more than a little concerned. The first shot is just a lighter. The second, that same lighter…wait for it…lighting a cigarette! How cool is that? You’re right, it’s not. Not at all. This is about the worst screenshot leak I’ve seen. Does the lighting look good? Of course it does, but there are hundreds of ways to show off cool lighting. Remember the first trailer for Black? That thing rocked, at a time when graphics on the Xbox were just starting to get decent.

The one saving grace is that the Eidos Community Guy that posted the screens said, “I can’t say a darn thing about this other than people who like to go into details will shortly have some new material to dissect.” Let’s hope it’s something good.

Portal caught an update on Steam earlier this week, giving the game an extended ending and teasing some details from the previously announced sequel. Well, it wasn’t officially announced but it was definitely confirmed.

Hidden in the update were all sorts of little clues, the type that keep forum rats busy slaving over cryptic messages to find ASCII art. A lot of the “clues” were actually little jokes from the series, but some of the messages led to ASCII images and several messages from the founder of Aperture, Cave Johnson.

The Steam forums are burning the midnight oil to figure out the meaning behind the messages. I’ll give you a hint, guys – Valve will tell us more soon. Until then you’re going to be looking at a bunch of ambiguous clues pretending you can make sense of them.

Fanboys rejoice! It looks like Steam is finally joining the cult. Six media outlets were given teasers today, all of which came from Valve with some kind of Mac theme. There’s the heavy pictured at right in all his iPod glory. There was also an image of Gordon Freeman with a Mac logo on his chest and a little homage to my favorite Valve game, Portal.

As more consumers consider the Mac alternative to PCs, we’ll see a lot more of this. Gaming is extremely lucrative and publishers aren’t going to stand by and watch as a simple platform choice steals away potential customers. Steam for the Mac isn’t a world-shattering release, though. Will it be a nice choice for Mac users? Of course. But we’ll probably only see Valve titles in the immediate futures, and a lot of the smaller games that make Steam so great won’t make it over for several years, if ever.

This is a step in the right direction, though. Few things would please me as much as playing Portal 2 on my lappy during a flight.

I’ve heard in the past that Infinity Ward has a less than cordial relationship with Activision. The shit finally hit the fan this morning, though, when two of IW’s top guys took a hike after meeting with the publisher.

At some point yesterday, Vince Zampella and Jason West met with Activision, after which they didn’t return to IW offices. Instead, a bunch of “bouncer-types” came around, presumably to ensure that neither exec would come back to work. By noon today both Zampella and West had updated their LinkedIn profiles to include Infinity Ward as previous experience.

Kotaku also dug up an SEC filing from yesterday that showed Activision had launched an investigation at IW for “insubordination” and “breaches of contract” regarding “two senior employees.” Activision has since confirmed both departures and announced the formation of a special division dedicated to churning out one Call of Duty game every year. Looks like the company will continue to bank on that franchise as a major source of revenue for as long as it can.

Activision’s fiscal report for 2009 contained some seriously juicy news. First, there’s the scandal at Infinity Ward. Second, there’s this. The report included statistics regarding the company’s revenue sources, revealing that a large majority, like 68%, come from just three franchises: World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Guitar Hero. The report also noted that WoW accounts for a whopping 98% of Blizzard’s revenue.

The obvious concern is for one of those franchises to flop. One bad Call of Duty and suddenly Activision doesn’t look so stable. As the company puts things, “Due to this dependence on a limited number of franchises, the failure to achieve anticipated results by one or more products based on these franchises may significantly harm our business and financial results.” I would say so, fellas.

We already know that rhythm games are on the decline and WoW hasn’t grown in more than a year. No wonder Blizzard’s trying to push Starcraft 2 out the door by mid-year.

Source: Kotaku

According to an MCV report, Microsoft is going to take Natal marketing outside the male 18-34 demographic. The company supposedly held a VIP showcase for select media outlets, particularly women’s mags like Cosmopolitan and Glamour, to show off Natal and talk about options for exposure.

Microsoft is taking a page out of the Nintendo playbook if this thing is true. The Wii’s success came largely from marketing to non-gamers and convincing them that bowling, even with terrible graphics, is a lot of fun if it doesn’t play like a traditional game. It’s that same group of people Microsoft is after, people who may want something social to do with friends that doesn’t have the learning curve of a controller. The only real problem I see is that a lot of those people already own a Wii. How can you convince them they need a Natal, too?

MCV says Microsoft will be using celebrity endorsements to market Natal in “the parenting press, toy retailers and publications which primarily cater for non-gamers.” Good luck with that guys.

Source: MCV

Everyone loves a free game, especially a free game done right. Take League of Legends – the game has been around for less than a year and has already been downloaded more than a million times. It’s a great model, but one that hasn’t been as successful in the MMO world. Dungeons and Dragons Online is bucking that trend, continuing to grow both its free and subscription fee paying user base.

Turbine announced that the game has seen more than a million players in growth since the re-launch last September. Paid player subscriptions have also doubled, and the game’s store transactions are blazing along at three times the industry average, giving the franchise a 500% growth in revenue. Can you imagine what WoW’s numbers would look like if Blizzard could pull that off? Are there numbers with that many zeroes?

CEO Jim Crowley summed up the success quite well. “We’ve known all along how great this game is and by implementing an innovative new model that put the players in charge of how they pay and play DDO Unlimited, we’ve successfully expanded our reach and injected new energy into the game. Without a doubt, DDO Unlimited is a hit!”

Source: Kotaku