Worry Not: Ratchet & Clank Aren't Going Anywhere.

It’s never more than a few months before the Insomniac Games rumours jump to the forefront of the industry. The independently owned company have long maintained a strong partnership with Sony, but once again industry bumblings and anonymity are hinting that Insomniac will go multiplatform.

Sony own both the Ratchet & Clank and Resistance franchises, so if you’re expecting those on XBOX 360, well, think again. In all likelihood, if Insomniac do release something on XBOX 360 it’s likely to be a smaller XBLA title. It’s also extremely unlikely that any future Insomniac game will not hit the Playstation 3 in the future – given the long history between the company and Sony.

Good news you should assume from this: Insomniac are making games.

Perhaps You Might Get Final Fantasy VII After All.

Square Enix has started work on a next-gen engine, and they’ve used an image of Cloud Strife to announce it. Take from that what you will. Check out Square Enix’s recruit page to see the promotion.

The company recruitment form reads:

“At Square Enix, in anticipation of the appearance of next generation platforms, we’ve started development on a new generation game engine for competing beyond the level of the strong developers throughout the world, and are presently seeking a lot of talent.”

Obviously, the image of Cloud Strife points to a much demanded remake of the popular Final Fantasy VII. How would you Playstation fans feel about an FFVII remake hitting the XBOX 360 though? It would just be wrong, right?

Playstation Move Doesn't Have Much Of An Affect On The PS3's Performance.

Perhaps opening the door for “optional” Playstation Move controls in a range of different content, and certainly suggesting that Playstation Move games can look as good as their DualShock counterparts, Sony has announced that Move takes just 1-2mb of the PS3’s memory to run.

The tiny amount of processing was announced as part of Sony’s tech presentation of the hardware during GDC. Sony also announced that the hardware takes “less than a frame” to translate motion controls into the gaming experience. In short: you can make really, really good looking Playstation Move games with motion controls as responsive as a standard controller.

[Cheers Joystiq]

Sony's PhyreEngine Now Supports PSP Development Aswell As PS3.

Sony’s today an announced an update concerning their free to use middleware application the PhyreEngine. The application, which was first announced in 2008, was originally designed to help smaller developers bring their games to the PS3, and has since found success with Critter Crunch, flower and Shatter. Today’s update brings compatibility to the Playstation Portable aswell as PS3.

“We’re very happy to see the continued popularity of PhyreEngine with the global game developer community,” SCEI senior VP of technology Teiji Yutaka said. “PhyreEngine for PSP was developed in response to requests from the game developer community, and we hope that the release of the PSP version demonstrates our commitment and support for game developers on all our platforms.”

Developers such as Sidhe have already praised the PS3 side of the engine. Here’s hoping this update brings more quality titles to Sony’s handheld. It’ll get demonstrated at this week’s GDC event.

Sounds To Us Like The Call Of Duty Franchise Is Over.

Remember Call Of Duty? Yeah it was a big deal for a little while. It’ll continue to be a big deal for a while longer. But it kinda sounds like the franchise is done.

In a whole pile of drama starting yesterday, Activision has fired the Infinity Ward bosses Vince Zampella and Jason West. Activision’s also filed a document citing a human resources investigation “into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward”. Gamasutra argue that the “insubordination” clause might be Activision’s way of getting out of a contract with Infinity Ward that states only they can make games in the Modern Warfare franchise. Big stuff right there. But we haven’t finished yet.

Indeed Activision announced last night that new upstarts Sledgehammer games (formerly of EA’s Visceral team) will work on an “action-adventure” Call Of Duty game in 2011, alongside another Call Of Duty game by an unknown developer.

Basically, Activision are milking Call Of Duty for everything it’s worth and the two guys that were responsible for kick-starting the franchise, well, they’re no longer at Infinity Ward.

Media Molecule Are Now Part Of Sony's First-Party Development Suite.

Media Molecule and SCE has today announced that they’re getting hitched. That is — Sony has acquired Media Molecule making them an official first-part studio under the SCE Worldwide Studios banner. Obviously, if you didn’t know, Media Molecule made the brilliantly innovative LittleBigPlanet.

“Since they burst onto the gaming scene, Media Molecule have proved to be a truly exciting and innovative studio, who have proved their world-class credentials with the creation of the incredible LittleBigPlanet,” said Shuhei Yoshida, President, SCE Worldwide Studios. “SCE WWS is all about creating ambitious, innovative and ground breaking games, traits that Media Molecule clearly have.  To bring them into our family proves our dedication to creating fantastic new experiences that we believe will cement our position as industry leaders.”

“Since Media Molecule’s inception, we’ve had a uniquely close relationship with Sony. Over the years they have consistently shown their dedication to Creative Gaming and Media Molecule, not only through their support of the company, but their willingness to take risks and embrace our often unusual approach and ideas.” said Alex Evans, co-founder of Media Molecule. “What we’ve achieved already with LittleBigPlanet has proved this to us and we’re excited by this new chapter of innovation and creative gaming, for all involved.”

If you didn’t realise, this is properly amazing news for the breadth of Sony’s first-party line-up. In just Europe alone Sony already has several development houses, including Killzone’s Guerrilla Games and Singstar’s Studio London. Media Molecule are a fine addition to a SCEE banner that could only be complete with the addition of Quantic Dream.

Here’s hoping Yoshida’s on the phone to David Cage as we type.

SCE... Now Known As, Erm, SNE.

Update @ 11:18GMT: In light of further press releases and what-not we’re actually really bloody confused. But what we understand is that Sony Computer Entertainment will become SNE, then the Playstation business will be separated back out into a new company called, erm, Sony Computer Entertainment. Fucking ridiculous, right? That’s what appears to be the case, though — meaning Playstation is still all about SCE, SCEE, SCEJ, and SCEA.

Sony Computer Entertainment Presents. It’s a phrase that’s fond to all of us, right from the very earliest of our Playstation memories. But, indeed, it seems the phrase is to die a dirty death. That’s right folks, we’re not sure if it’s an early April fools joke or not, but SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) will now be known as, erm, SNE.

Nobody actually knows what SNE stands for (though it’s assumed it’s Sony Networked Entertainment), but it’s all to do with Sony’s united-device vision which was announced last year. For those not quite in the know, Sony want to reward brand loyalty by introducing a united service between all of their products. So for example, if you have a Bravia connected to the ‘net, then you should be able to access the Playstation Video Store from your Bravia, and use money in your PSN wallet to stream a film, without ever needing to switch on your PS3 or PSP.

Playstation’s Kaz Hirai will be fronting the new division. We still hate the name.