Ubisoft officially announced the successor to the original FarCry on PC, Far Cry 2, just a little earlier today after a surprising appearance of the game's teaser web site was whispered in the PC gaming community's hot topics of the day. Earlier at the E3 Media & Business Summit, leakage of various assets from Ubisoft Montreal clued Far Cry 2 into the studio's projects, which probably spun the Far Cry 2 rumor mill faster among avid PC gamers.

John Parkes, EMEA marketing director of Ubisoft, reciprocated the fanbase's excitement, stating, "Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era of gorgeous graphics and of advanced artificial intelligence. We are confident that Far Cry 2 will have the same impact again on the FPS genre landscape."

To be developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the publisher's largest development studio and responsible for Assassin's Creed (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3), Far Cry 2 is being hailed as another highly anticipated game on the PC platform. But other than a tentative Spring 2008 release date, any other details on the game was scarce.

According to moderator kimi_ of the Ubisoft forums, questions not already covered by the announcement cannot be answered at present. Word has spread quickly, however, that the game may take place in Africa when images of what appears to be a baobab tree, sparse, dry grass, and a searing sunset lead speculators to believe that the new story may not take place in tropical Madagascar - the island the predecessor's story was set in.

And while Electronic Arts has Crytek under its protective wing, the question of whether Ubisoft will use the original CryEngine - technology that the publisher may continue using after Crytek sold all rights to Far Cry - or license the use of CryEngine 2 has yet to be addressed. But if an early tech demo of the game is any indication, it appears Ubisoft already has an answer to that. More on Far Cry 2 as we get them.

According to an industry analysis report published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the video game industry will continue to be considered as an above-average growth segment of the global entertainment industries. Additionally, they have claimed that this year's investments made by the game industry is "set to exceed" the current spending for the music industry.

 
The global spending has jumped 14.3% to US$ 31.6 billion back in 2006, and PwC expects that the amount should climb another 18.5% to US$ 37.5 billion in 2007. The report also projects that the game industry will officially overtake the music industry by 2008 in the US, as data from key growth factors in the industry have been gaining performance this year.

Such factors include that of online and wireless games, next generation consoles and the advent of in-game advertising. Although much of the analysis took the US into question, PwC cut back on US-only expectations and spread its views over the global scape.

Click on Full Article to learn more of the gaming industry's performance as a whole and the best performing region for 2007.

Ubisoft revealed a lot of interesting news at the Ubidays event held in Paris. The news about a "Beowulf" video game and movie tie-in stood out along with EndWar and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway.

"Beowulf" is a fantasy film directed by Robert Zemekis to be released in November this year. EMEA executive director Alain Corre announced that they are developing a video game based on the film though platforms and other details weren't specified. Corre hinted that the Beowulf video game will "re-invent the hack-and-slash genre". Yves Guillemot, CEO at Ubisoft added that the team behind Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is working on the new title.

Tom Clancy's EndWar was shown during the show and its features were showcased. One interesting bit is that players will be able to either control their units using voice commands or the traditional way of control pads. Another upcoming title, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway was presented by a colonel (for real) who said that the theme of the video game is this: "to be a good commander, you must love your soldiers. But to win in combat you must risk the thing you love".

Free Radical's Haze was also showcased in the game show and introduced by Dave Doak. According to Doak, the title will be sporting a co-op option (for up to four players) and will be available for both the story and online gameplay modes. He added that Haze will be "a bit more mature without being gory".

The event then focused on the casual games division featuring titles like: My Word Coach, My Life Coach, and Jam Sessions. They were discussed briefly plus a short trailer was shown. Another video game featured was the Xbox 360 exclusive Naruto: Rise of a Ninja. Producer Jade Raymond (Assassin's Creed) gave the news about the demo: "We're keeping things pretty secret for a little bit longer because we're going to come out big this summer with the first hands-on demo - that's going to be this July."

A video montage of Ubisoft's upcoming video games were shown and there's this one other thing. The Rayman Raving Rabbids' sequel was confirmed to be due this year.

Ubisoft definitely has something for everybody. We'll bring you more news on Ubisoft's ongoing event as they happen. Stay tuned.

The Games Convention Developers Conference (GCDC) is said to be the largest developers conference in Europe to date. Intel has decided to be the main sponsor for this event yet again. It's well documented that the company has actively supported this conference from as early as 2004.

The segment manager of consumer software and solutions for Intel EMEA Arne Peters spoke on this, saying "Europe has a tremendous pool of talented game developers." He added that "Europe deserves its own platform to share experiences, thoughts and views and information. GCDC is an important international conference and its success grows each year."

The company will be showcasing their new multi-threading techniques and development tools in various presentations in the conference. Peters mentioned that this conference will help facilitate a good working relationship with game developers. GCDC project director Frank Sliwka felt the same way saying that Intel and the GCDC has a long history of working together, and that the continuous support of Intel gives the international development community a strong partnership.