Square Enix is reportedly taking legal action against a lone French retailer for allegedly selling pirated Square merchandise. la société SAKURA, the retail store, operates in Paris and online, specializing in Anime/Manga/Japanese gaming merch.

This week is like multiplatform game week. Pretty much everything that drops this week for both the handhelds and the home consoles are multiplatform: Wanted: Weapons of Fate, The Wheelman, Legends of WrestleMania... Looks like the only console to get some exclusives this week is the DS. But enough chitchat. Let's get right on to the release schedules!

It doesn't even have to be a real dog. Apparently, killing a dog in a video game is disgusting enough. This is according to the Animal Rights Club of the Academy of Notre Dame, who is protesting the canine killing spree in Call of Duty: World at War (PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, DS), saying that killing animals should not be a form of entertainment. Wow, the game nitpicking doesn't stop.

If you're wondering just what's going down in the upcoming Paris Games Developer Conference this June 23 and 24, then we've got a news update regarding the ever-so-important keynote: LittleBigPlanet creators Mark Healey and Alex Evans will be delivering it. They'll be talking about quite a lot of things (besides their own game). Check out all the details in the full article and see what this means to you.

If you think you've gotten an eyeful from last year's Ubidays event sponsored by French video game company Ubisoft, then make sure to set your calendars this May 28 and 29 when the Ubidays event makes a comeback. Ubidays 2008 will be held in the heart of Paris' world-famous Louvre museum and will feature some of the biggest titles that the company has to offer gamers in the coming year. For more details, check out the full article!

The Rabbids are coming and they are as cute and maniacal as ever. The second installment to the party franchise, Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, will be released this coming November 16 on Nintendo platforms Wii and DS. The development is being handled by Ubisoft's Paris studio.

Now, here are three new gameplay videos for Rabbids 2 that should make fans more excited about the game. For those who are yet to understand the joy of playing with bunnies, this is your chance to get more familiar with Rayman Raving Rabbids 2.

Ubisoft had said before that it is not interested in bringing the franchise to other platforms so Nintendo fans, these are all yours. Enjoy!



See the other videos after the jump!

It's always a nice surprise when a classification board indirectly lets the cat out of the bag when it comes to upcoming games, and it's no exception here as the Classification Board of the Australian Government recently rated World Class Baseball as an impending title for the Virtual Console.

For the uninitiated, World Class Baseball is a game about America's favorite pastime (read: baseball, duh) and it lets you take on the other countries' teams in the world stage.

Featuring a brutal single-player mode, the Pennant Mode, players must face off against rather funnily-named teams (Tokyo Ninjas, Paris Fries, Bangkok Buddhas, etc.), until you come toe-to-toe with the game's All-Star team, the Turbo Tigers.

Certainly a very good opportunity to get back into the ball game, don't you think? And with a versus exhibition game mode fully available, you can go head-to-head with a friend and see who gets to eat the other's chalk dust.

As always, we'll be here to update you on the developments regarding the Wii's channel of non-stop retro loving, so keep it locked right here!

 

Adding to a starry lineup of game publishers and developers planning to arrive at the big Leipzig bash, Atari and Ubisoft will be tagging along with a good share of games to present at Games Convention (GC) 2007 exhibition. 360-Gamer reports that Paris-based Ubisoft will feature a line of promising games, while Atari will sport a few contenders of its own.

Ubisoft's list includes heavy-hitters Far Cry 2, Haze, and Assassin's Creed, while Atari queues Alone in the Dark 5, The Witcher, Eternal Sonata, and Ace Combat 6 for guests visiting the stand. Also, Atari Germany will have Race 07, a well-known WWTC race PC simulator that may be compared to other racers in various platforms. The lists for both companies are as follows:

Atari

• Alone In The Dark (Eden Studios) - PC, PS3, 360, Wii, PSP, DS, PS2
• The Witcher (CD Projekt) - PC, also on mobile
• Eternal Sonata (tri-Crescendo) - 360
• Ace Combat 6 (Project Aces) - 360
• Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (unknown) - Wii, PS2
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 (CyberConnect2) - PS2
• Asterix at the Olympic Games (Atari) - PC, Wii, PS2, DS
• My Horse & Me (W!Games) - PC, Wii
• Race 07 (Atari Germany) - PC

Ubisoft

• Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal) - PC
• EndWar (Ubisoft Shanghai) - PS3, 360
• Haze (Free Radical Design) - PC, PS3, 360
• Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (Ubisoft Paris) - Wii, DS
• The Settlers Rise of an Empire (Blue Byte Studios) - PC
• Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway (Gearbox Software) - PC, PS3, 360
• Splinter Cell Conviction (Ubisoft Montreal) - PC, 360
• Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft Montreal) - PC, PS3, 360

On the strength of next-generation titles such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 and Rainbow Six Vegas for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and complemented with the success of Red Steel and Rayman Raving Rabbids for the Nintendo Wii, Paris-based publisher Ubisoft announced that their sales figures shot up 24.4 percent ending the last fiscal year. This translates into a rise of earnings totaling US$ 917.1 million with a gross profit of US$ 123.6 million.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot says "the sharp improvement in our operating profitability in fiscal 2006-07 reflects the diversity and strong performance of our games portfolio. Ubisoft has laid the foundation for starting 2007-2008 in excellent conditions and is well-positioned to continue to gain market share and further increase its profitability in a high-growth sector."

In addition to the titles mentioned earlier, Ubisoft also makes money with updates and downloadable contents in the Xbox 360's Xbox Live online gaming platform. The cost of creating add-ons is much cheaper than creating stand-alone games, enabling the company to capitalize on the established base of the stand-alone title by selling players downloadable content.

In addition, Ubisoft is expected to set the bar even higher with the release of anticipated shooter Haze for the Sony PlayStation 3 later this year. Ports to the PC platform are also selling relatively well. We'll fill you in on more about Ubisoft when news is forthcoming.

There are some indications that the sequel to Red Steel may very well have an online functionality because the Red Steel site has an ad posted that's calling for applicants for an online programmer position. The responsibility is listed as "to develop the online part of a game engine for a Wii project ... "

The development of this project will take place in Paris, France, where other Ubisoft titles such as GRAW and the original Red Steel were made.

The chances are pretty fat that the hypothesis of online functionality is spot on. If we go back to November of last year, it was also an ad for a vacant position that blew the cover off a Red Steel sequel.

Better get ready to optimize that internet connection for your Wii, kids. You don't want the lag to spoil your katana-swingin' and machine gun-firin' moves when you use them on live targets.