Tag Archives: Bandai

Bandai Namco scrubs Ms. Pac-Man from its own classic game

Enlarge / Who’s that Pac-lady in the pink hat, and what has she done with Ms. Pac-Man?

Obsessive Pac-fans of a certain age may remember Ms. Pac-Man’s cameo appearance in Pac-Land, the 1984 side-scrolling spin-off that first gave Pac-Man legs. This week’s re-release of the game on the Switch seems to have thrown the “miss” down the memory hole, though, an odd retcon that may be the result of the complicated legal history surrounding Ms. Pac-Man‘s creation.

Pac-Man book contributor Ryan Silberman and artist Nick Caballero were among the first to note the apparent change on Twitter this week. They highlighted Pac-Land Switch screenshots in which Ms. Pac-Man’s iconic bow and high, red boots have been replaced with a character sporting pink high heels and a matching hat. The sprite for the baby-sized Jr. Pac-Man has been similarly changed to remove the trademark red bow that was first seen in 1983’s Jr. Pac-Man.

Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man as they appeared in the original release of Pac-Land. The pair have been edited out of this week’s Switch re-release.

Leaving the sprites in their original form would have obviously been the simpler choice for Hamster, which publishes the Arcade Archives series on Switch. And the description for Pac-Land‘s Arcade Archives re-release notes that the “series has faithfully reproduced many classic Arcade masterpieces,” making such a minor change even more bizarre. What’s going on here?

Who owns Ms. Pac-Man?

Bandai Namco hasn’t responded to a request for comment from Ars Technica regarding the modification. But the move probably has something to do with the long and complicated legal history of Ms. Pac-Man itself.

While the original Pac-Man is a wholly owned Namco creation, the Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet started life as a “speed-up kit” called Crazy Otto that was created by a group of MIT students calling themselves General Computer Corporation (GCC). That modification kit was eventually spun into the 1982 release of Ms. Pac-Man, with Namco’s official blessing.

In a 1983 lawsuit, GCC acquired a perpetual right to receive a royalty any time Namco re-released a new version of Ms. Pac-Man or Jr. Pac-Man (which GCC also developed). That royalty, which was renegotiated in 2008, helps explain why those two games are so rarely included in Pac-compilations to this day.

Fast-forward to 2019, when AtGames announced it had acquired those royalty rights from GCC during its attempts to release a new Ms. Pac-Man retro cabinet. That in turn led to a lawsuit from Namco Bandai that was settled in 2020 for undisclosed terms.



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Bandai Namco Is Releasing A Physical Version Of Pac-Man Museum+ On Switch

14 classic games in one collection

If you love retro games, one collection you’ll want to gobble up this May is Pac-Man Museum+. It was originally announced last November and is a compilation of 14 titles from Pac-Man’s 40-year history.

While a digital version was already a given, it seems Bandai Namco is also planning a physical release. Listings on Amazon show off the game’s North American box art. Pre-orders are available now for the hard copy, which will go on sale on the same date as the digital (17th May 2022).

Here’s a look at the box art, along with the games included in the collection:

  • PAC-MAN
  • SUPER PAC-MAN
  • PAC & PAL
  • PAC-LAND
  • PAC-MANIA
  • PAC-ATTACK
  • PAC-IN-TIME
  • PAC-MAN ARRANGEMENT Arcade ver.
  • PAC-MAN ARRANGEMENT CS ver.
  • PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION
  • PAC Motos
  • PAC’N ROLL REMIX
  • PAC-MAN BATTLE ROYALE
  • PAC-MAN 256

Will you be adding this collection to your Nintendo Switch library on release? Tell us down in the comments.

[source nintendoeverything.com]



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Bandai Namco apologises for Elden Ring performance issues • Eurogamer.net

Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco has acknowledged various performance problems with the game, and particularly with its PC build.

As Eurogamer reported earlier this morning, Elden Ring currently sits with a “mixed” Steam user rating despite its widespread critical acclaim. Many negative reviews note the game’s current visual stutters on PC.

Yesterday, Digital Foundry listed this visual stutter among a number of issues it had uncovered during an early appraisal of the game with its current 1.02 patch applied. More on that below.

Now, Bandai Namco has said sorry for the issues players have faced when playing the highly-anticipated Elden Ring at launch.

“We are currently experiencing some issues that are preventing the game from playing properly under some conditions,” a Bandai Namco spokesperson wrote in a blog post.

“We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and ask for your patience.”

A list of items “to be revised” in future patches includes issues with mouse sensitivity, and a problem with Easy Anti-Chat “when the Steam account name is set to 2-byte characters”. Both will be resolved via a patch in the “near future”.

“Regarding the phenomenon of framerate and other performance-related issues during gameplay,” Bandai Namco continued, “we will be constantly working to improve the game so that it can be played comfortably on various PC environments and platforms.

“For the PC version, updating your graphics card drivers to the latest version may significantly improve performance.”

Lastly, Bandai Namco acknowledged an issue where PS5 game saves were affected if a console was unexpectedly switched off while playing or while in rest mode. This will also be addressed in a patch.

“Until the patch is released, please save your game manually by exiting the game regularly,” the publisher advised. “Game data will be saved correctly if you quit the game by opening the system menu using the Option button and selecting ‘Quit Game’.”

There’s no word yet on when these patches may arrive.

Writing yesterday, the Digital Foundry team noted that Elden Ring’s PC version had issues “that will affect all hardware configurations on all graphical settings presets”, including “severe and distracting frame-time stuttering issues”.

“As we have seen with other titles suffering from similar issues such as Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Halo Infinite, it could be sensible to wait for further patches before investing time into the PC version of Elden Ring,” Digital Foundry concluded.

Earlier this week, Eurogamer awarded Elden Ring a rare Essential accolade, after playing the game on PlayStation 5. “Grandiose, mysterious, but now a touch more welcoming, Elden Ring tweaks the FromSoft formula to open up its world,” Aoife wrote in Eurogamer’s Elden Ring review.

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Bandai Namco Races To Prevent Dark Souls Hacks In Elden Ring

Image: FromSoftware / Bandai Namco

All PC versions of the Dark Souls games will remain offline for the foreseeable future, according to a new tweet from series publisher Bandai Namco, in order to fix at least one major security vulnerability. Further, the developers are working to ensure that the same serious vulnerability does not persist in FromSoftware’s upcoming game Elden Ring, due out on February 25.

While that may sound like bad news, some players are actually pleased that FromSoftware and Bandai Namco are finally taking time to fix at least some of their games’ most dangerous exploits.

The publisher took all its Souls-series PC game servers offline on January 23 “to allow the team to investigate recent reports of an issue with online services.” This was an oblique way of referring to the numerous security vulnerabilities a number of technically gifted players had been trying to get the developers to acknowledge and fix, some for years. (Note: It appears that the lion’s share of the current exploits only affect PC players. Servers for all console versions of the games remain up.)

The most serious reported security vulnerabilities, referred to as remote code execution (RCE) exploits, could allow hackers to take full control of players’ PCs. The story finally broke out into the open about two weeks ago when a person with knowledge of the most recently discovered RCE exploit, frustrated over Bandai Namco’s reticence to fix the issue, demonstrated the exploit live on an unwitting Twitch streamer’s broadcast.

Read More: Dark Souls Servers Down Due To Exploit That Could Give Someone Control Of Your PC

In new reporting from Video Games Chronicle, one member of the Dark Souls community asserts that there are over 100 cheats and security vulnerabilities in Dark Souls III that affect PC players, and the source states that the presence of these serious problems in Elden Ring is “inevitable” due to the Souls series’ shared network infrastructure.

“While it’s not much, I have modded a few other games with an online component and nothing came close to how ‘broken’ Souls networking is,” the player who found the most recent RCE exploit told VGC.

Back in December of last year, that player, who wishes to remain anonymous, reached out to Bandai Namco to alert it of the severe risk posed by the new RCE exploit, going so far as to provide two PDFs demonstrating the RCE and suggesting how to fix it. According to VGC, a representative from the Bandai Namco support team acknowledged receipt of the emails, saying the information was “sent to the dedicated teams so they can investigate and take the necessary measures.”

But after over a month without further action, the player decided to take matters into their own hands with that livestream stunt, with an eye toward bringing public attention to the severe flaw and hopefully lighting a bonfire under Bandai Namco’s ass.

“It really seems like the online is ‘pasted’ over a single-player game and no thoughts are given about security,” the exploit-finder told VGC. “It’s staggering how many game structs are memory-mapped into network packets and sent to other players, then used by the receiving player’s game directly. There are almost no data sanity checks.”

That doesn’t bode well for PC Elden Ring being safe to play online, does it? So you can see why some players are relieved that FromSoftware and Bandai Namco are finally taking action on an unspecified number of the reported issues.

Kotaku reached out to the publisher for comment.

Elden Ring comes out on February 25 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.



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Rumor that Bandai Namco is making a new Killer Instinct in Japan is circulating, Maximilian offers details and speculation

Microsoft’s 2013 reboot of Killer Instinct wasn’t the most popular fighting game, but is constantly hailed as one of the genre’s most well-made entries in modern times.

From gameplay to netcode, the fact that KI so consistently receives passionate praise leads one to wonder if any developers might be willing to take another shot at it, and there are some rumors going around right now that that might be the case.

Content creator and FGC influencer Maximilian, a massive Killer Instinct fan who launched a “bring back KI” campaign back in 2019, takes a speculative look at these rumors in his latest video.

Such rumblings started back in October of last year when Xbox caster Shpeshal Nick stated that he’d been told a new KI is in active development on the XboxEra podcast. That’s, of course, been neither confirmed nor debunked, but more alleged details are starting to creep up.

In his video Max references a Windows Central article written by Jez Corden. Windows Central is a Microsoft-focused outlet and Corden is its Senior Editor, and after talking about the XboxEra comments from October, Corden offers the following to us:

“I have also heard the vaguest of unsubstantiated rumors that one of Bandai Namco’s fighting game development teams may be involved, although I haven’t been able to independently verify that yet myself. Previously speaking at an event, someone at Xbox told me that finding a studio or building a team with the specific expertise to make a fighting game was difficult

“Naturally, Bandai Namco is responsible for franchises like Soulcalibur and Tekken, and has even contributed to Smash Bros. Ultimate as well. It would make sense to get them involved if indeed Microsoft is exploring reviving the classic fighter.”

Max combs through the article while speculating on the potential of the leaks as well as how they’d actually manifest in the case that they were true. Check out what all he has to say in the full video below and then share your thoughts on the possibility of a new KI in the comments afterwards.

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Bandai Namco Is Pulling Fighting Game Jump Force Next Year

Image: Bandai Namco

Jump Force, the video game industry’s first true metaverse, is getting delisted just three years after release, publisher Bandai Namco announced in a blog post this week. What’s more, the game’s online services, including multiplayer matchmaking, will go dark a few months later.

First released in 2019, Jump Force is a crossover fighting game featuring a wide bench of characters who appear in popular Weekly Shonen Jump manga series. Shows like Bleach, Naruto, Black Clover, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Rurouni Kenshin. Via downloadable content, you could get extra characters from each canon, including some laughably powerful fighters (hi, Naruto’s Madara Uchiha). The gimmick is that you always fight with a team of three, and are able to swap your fighter on the fly, so there’s a sort of rock-paper-scissors mentality to every match—trying to select specific characters that trump your opponent’s picks, and vice versa.

If you’ve been meaning to get around to grabbing it for the last couple of years, you’ll have to pick it up before February 7, 2022, after which it will no longer be sold via digital storefronts. (Jump Force is available on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox, but the Nintendo eShop only offers the pricier deluxe editions.) But you’d only have access to the full game for a few months, as the online services will largely cease functioning on August 24, 2022. You’ll no longer be able to view leaderboards, or hop into the matchmaking lobby, nor will you be able to join online events. (The full list of ceased functions is here.) Though from that point you won’t be able to purchase any downloadable characters, you will be able to keep using any you’ve already picked up.

Oddly, despite the wide shutdown of online services, Bandai Namco’s official announcement says that “online battles” will still be available “after the end of online service.” It’s unclear what exactly that means, whether such battles are only available via direct-invite matchmaking with friends or what. Representatives for the publisher did not respond to a request for comment from Kotaku in time for publication.

Jump Force’s impending sunsetting is the latest example of how ephemeral game purchasing is in the era of digital storefronts. And in this case, it’s after only three years. That said, the lead time here is a bit longer than most.

In June, EA pulled games from the Syndicate and Ultima Underworld franchises with a few day’s notice. Ahead of tomorrow’s Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition, which offers a bundled package of the GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas with revamped visuals and other changes, Rockstar delisted the originals. Just this weekend, Konami gave mere hours of notice when announcing the delisting of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3. Konami says the move is temporary, but did not provide a time frame for when the games will return.

 

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Gamescom 2021 Participants Include Bandai Namco and Sega

There was a big announcement for Gamescom regarding its participants for the upcoming 2021 show. The organizations that run the event, Koelnmesse and the German Games Industry Association (GGIA), revealed 19 new partners with more to come. This year’s event will be purely digital, kicking off on August 25, 2021, and closing on August 27, 2021 (CEST).

Koelnmesse and GGIA usually hold Gamescom annually in Cologne, Germany. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the event will be digital and free like it was in 2020. Partners from previous years like Nintendo did not show up in 2020 and are absent from the current list.

Here is the full list of developer and publisher participants announced for Gamescom 2021.

  1. 505 Games
  2. Activision
  3. Aerosoft
  4. Assemble Entertainment
  5. Astragon Entertainment
  6. Bandai Namco Entertainment
  7. Bethesda Softworks
  8. Electronic Arts
  9. Gameevil COM2US Europe
  10. Headup
  11. Indie Arena Booth
  12. Koch Media
  13. Next Studios (Tencent Games)
  14. Sega Europe
  15. Team17
  16. Thunderful Games
  17. Ubisoft
  18. Wargaming
  19. Xbox

In addition to the announced companies, Gamescom is touting “80 curated top indie titles” to be showcased at virtual booths, which are now integrated into Gamescom. The organization will make further announcements at the end of July 2021 regarding its participants.

Gamescom 2021 and its participants will appear entirely online as the event runs from August 25, 2021 to August 27, 2021 (CEST).

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