Dam Bursts at Intellisponse, Gaming Rumors Flood Internet

Mon, Jun 16, 2008

Intellisponse, you’re doin’ a heck of a job. The rumors swirling about the gaming community are too many to count today, after an intrepid NeoGAF member found a gaping security hole at market research firm Intellisponse. The firm’s clients seem to have included Microsoft, Activision, and Disney, and now a feast of unconfirmed information has turned up everywhere, from possible game announcements to Microsoft’s answer to Miis. Phones are likely to be ringing off the hook, and eager journalists are going to have plenty of questions to ask at next month’s E3.

Honestly, a leak this massive has got to be one of two things: Either this is an intentional move by Microsoft to get the buzz going early, or Intellisponse gon’ get sued and/or fired. Trust me, I’ve been on the “oops” side of the fence when proprietary info gets out at the wrong time, and it doesn’t end well. For those of you not dodging blame, however, let’s have a look at the juicy rumors!

Avatars
Among the bigger leaks is the revelation of Microsoft’s “Avatars,” which are suggested as “digital personas available this holiday for all Xbox LIVE connected members and this spring for all new console owners. ‘Avatars’ will be used in place of the gamer picture you have today and give you a much more lifelike, animated, and fully customizable persona for you to reflect who you are online.” A frequent question that’s been appearing in response, naturally, is what will happen to existing gamer pictures, for which folks paid good money. It’s a reasonable question — will the new Avatars be compulsory? As cute as Mii integration can be in certain games, I didn’t see anything wrong with gamerpics. They’re a quick and easy way to identify folks in a game, and varied enough to handle plenty of different personalities. Plus, while I haven’t personally spent any money on gamerpics, I know I’m peeved any time I lose access to something I’ve purchased fair and square.

Other rumored tibdits from the NeoGAF post include the following:

Guitar Hero 4 will have a guitar with a touch-sensitive neck, allowing you to perform neck slides. It will also have Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Korn, System of a Down, Ozzy Osbourne, Interpol, and Muse. It’s about damn time we got some more Hendrix, I say.
Someone is making a karaoke game called “Lips” which will allow you to play and score with your own music from CD or iPod. Impressive if true, awesome if the technology can be applied to Rock Band or GH4.
“Tony Hawk’s Huck Jam” will use a motion-sensing board controller. Will you still need to collect five macguffins du jour on each stage as an obligatory objective?
“Trioxide” will bring console games to the PC. I never had any luck getting Bleem! to work, myself.
Other possible new games on the way: Forza 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Transformers 2, Ultimate Band, and Spider-Man vs. Marvel Zombies.

Let the wild speculation commence!

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