Plenty of people expected the game to tank. From top people at 1up to every other news outlet, we heard a lot about how “Bioshock is going to be great, but sell terribly,” or, “it just isn’t known by the right people to do well.”

Apparently news people don’t know everything.

Announced today in a press conference, and covered by Kotaku, Take-Two announced that it has sold over 1.5 million copies of their new IP. They also emphasized that they have the highest rated game ever for the 360 to date. Good news for a company whose numbers have been lagging….to put it nicely.

But why should you, dearest reader, care about how sales of Bioshock affect Take-Two? Because, in this day and age high sales mean sequels. Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, in response to the sales numbers said, “Clearly, we have a new hit franchise on our hands.”

OMFG, BIOSHOCK II, CONFIRMED.

Chufmoney

Ken Levine’s Uber-Spoiler interview with Shacknews is up and running, for anyone who’s interested, which should be everyone with thumbs. Ken talks about (Spoiler), and (Spoiler), and the awesomeness that was (Spoiler). The cool thing about a game like Bioshock is that, if you know any of the story before hand, the whole thing is ruined. So, only read the interview if you’ve played through it one solid time. This could very well be the down swing of Bioshock posts, but I promise the game hasn’t lost any love with fans. Prepare yourself next month when you hear the phrase, over and over, “Halo 3 is great….but not as great as Bioshock.” Ouch. Burn.

[Via Shacknews]

Jayslacks.

Obviously, Unreal Engine 3 has been somewhat under fire since Silicon Knights filed their lawsuit alleging (more or less) that UE3 wasn’t what Epic had claimed it would be, and that it was significantly late to boot. Since then, Mark Rein, Vice President of Epic Games has been on a PR campaign of sorts, trying to shore up the image of UE3. The latest salvo in this campaign came a couple of days ago when Mark Rein took some time to pat his engine on the back while complementing Bioshock on its somewhat surprising success:

(more…)

Oh Bioshock. You’re like the mean girl that we call up every night. You scare us. You hurt us. You’re mean. On the hardest difficulty setting, you are nigh unto impossible! But you are addictive, like heroin or crack cocaine. So much so that Valve has banned you, you production sucking whore.

“We had to ban Bioshock from our offices,” Valve boss Gabe Newell told us. “Nobody gets to play it until Orange Box is done - that’s our reward to ourselves as a company; everyone gets a copy of Bioshock.”

Its nice that one studio can love another studio. This war will not end true friendships. Admiration creates quality. Now, go away. This Ultra-Bouncer is gonna be a bitch!

[Via Game-industry]

Jayslacks