Resident Evil 5 Rumored to Resides in Haiti

Kotoku is reporting that a very reliable source from within Capcom is confirming that Resident Evil 5 takes place in Haiti, the supposed birthplace of voodoo and zombies. That's what I said.

Why We Shouldn't Be Surprised Manhunt 2 Was Temporarily Suspended

On July 19th, Game Politics reports that Manhunt 2 receives an AO rating from the ESRB. A couple of days later, it's reported that the game has been "temporarily suspends" the game, implying that the game will not meet its street date of July 10th. Is this really that surprising? It is a mere three weeks out from its release date and the ESRB rating is released. It's all reminiscent of an election and the Fox News starts reporting on all the "good things" that happening in Iraq.

I'm going to go out on a limb and put on my Pachter-hat. Knowing that a game needs about a month for production, Rockstar and TakeTwo should have already submitted the game for approval. Do you want to take a guess at what is necessary for submission? That's right, an ESRB rating. Since my expertise is with Nintendo, Sony may be a bit different, but Nintendo won't pass a game that does not include the rating with the submission paperwork. Knowing this, I am led to believe that they already knew the rating, did a good job of keeping it off of the ESRB website, and then let loose the info to stir up some controversy, but most importantly, press.

Shocking, I know. It also wouldn't surprise me to learn that they have already been diligently working on an edited version to lower their rating to Mature. Furthermore, it wouldn't surprise me if the game still meets its ship date, or at the very least, still ships in July. TakeTwo has been in some financial trouble and strong sales from this title will really help the bottom line.

Additionally, Rockstar, and by default, TakeTwo, have constantly pushed the boundries of where our industry can go. I think Doug Lowenstein's chastising of the developers and publishers in his final speech as head of the ESA allowed them to grow a pair and start to defend their work.

I Want This Guy's Job

He's every ones favorite analyst: Michael Pachter. I wonder if the actual job description at Wedbush-Morgan asked for someone who was willing to sit a desk with a crystal ball and make academic predictions that even the most vociferous posters on the forums could make with their hands tied behind their back. I have done my best to try and ignore the stories about him, but they seem to be appearing a lot more often. Let's look at his track record over the last couple of months:

• Fixing Manhunt 2 will cost Take Two millions. Duh.
• Halo3 to cause GTAIV delay. Oh really?
• Red Octane a better buy than Harmonix. Yes, $100 million is less than $275 million.
• Buy GameStop stock before the holiday rush. Please take all of my money and invest for me.

It seems like the writers that are continuing to give him the spotlight see the same pattern I do, but continue to post his thoughts. I guess they get some kind of enjoyment out it. It's definite that he does:

I don't solicit all this press coverage. The press finds me. I think that the press finds me because I'm colorful, I'm not shy, I have an opinion and I frankly really don't care if someone agrees or disagrees with it. I'm willing to share.

He's enjoying his fifteen minutes but I think it's time to cut him off. Now he starts making some really off the wall predictions, I may start to listen. He has done it once, and I have to admit, I think it's his best prediction yet: Wii 2.