Tuesday, January 24, 2006

A little note concerning ´No End Soon´

On his blog, Mr. Inc claims to be a developer of a Revolution title and he´s quite generous with information. Here´s what they have recently disclosed:
>>Details

* Working title: No End Soon
* Estimate Release Date: TBA
* Graphics are still to be decided
* Nintendo WiFi Connection enabled (...)
* Nintendo DS WiFi Link
* We would like to use the Virtual Console (...) for unlockable content (...)
* Free to explore gigantic world
* Able to chose female/male character
* Innovative combat mode. You can fight with your character by simply doing weird fighting moves with the controller to knock down your opponent. Expect it to be very easy, even your grandmother will be able to do this as you basicly use no buttons for the combat mode. (...)
* Atleast 64 players online
* Headset support
* You will be able to create your own server
* Friend list
* Match making service
* Online ranking system throught our website.

We’re currently still working with the pre-final Development Kits (final Development Kits are expected to come in mid-February now) we’ve received more than a month ago. (...) No End Soon currently is currently in pre-alpha stage, with pretty much running already. (...)

I’d like to end this post with a schedule I’ve created of when you should expect what. (...)

February 10 – 17: Exclusive interview with revogaming.net with exclusive details about No End Soon. (...)

March 21: Nintendo conference, second Revolutionary aspect will be fully revealed, including list of games which can be downloaded from day one.
In contrast to this wealth of information (along with the promise of more info coming exclusively to a non-commercial website), here are extracts from a standard non-disclosure agreement (NDA), the kind of contract that would exist between Nintendo as a manufacturer and a publisher like Ubi Soft, as well as between the publisher and the studio. The sample NDA is courtesy of attorney Tom Buscaglia who has been working in this industry for years (formatting is mine).
The Receiving Party will not disclose any Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party to third parties or to employees of the Receiving Party except those employees who are required to have information in order to carry out the discussion of the contemplated business. All employees of the Receiving Party to whom Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party have or will have prior to disclosure, sign a Non-Disclosure and Non-Use Agreement in content substantially similar to this Agreement, and the Receiving Party will promptly notify the Disclosing Party in writing of the names of each such employee upon the written request of the Disclosing Party at any time.

Each of the Parties agrees that it will take all reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of and avoid disclosure or use of Confidential Information of the other party in order to prevent it from falling into public domain or the possession of persons other than those persons authorized hereunder to have any such information, which measures shall include the highest degree of care that each of the parties uses to protect its own Confidential Information of a similar nature. The Receiving Party agrees to notify the Disclosing Party in writing of any misuse or misappropriation of Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party which may come to the Receiving Party's attention. (...)

The parties agree that the obligations of the Receiving Party provided herein are necessary and reasonable in order to protect the Disclosing Party and its business, and expressly agree that monetary damages would be inadequate to compensate the Disclosing Party for any breach by the Receding Party of it covenants and agreements set forth herein. Accordingly, the parties agree and acknowledge that any such violation or threatened violation will cause irreparable injury to the Disclosing Party and that, in addition to any other remedies that may be available in law, equity or otherwise, the Disclosing Party shall be entitled to obtain injunctive relief against the threatened breach of the Agreement or the continuation of any such breach by the Receiving Party, without the necessity of proving actual damages.
I think this contrast speaks for itself. Their claim that Nintendo allowed them to leak information, including a shot of the controller taken with a mobile phone camera, makes me fall off my chair laughing. Here´s what happens to publishers who violate contracts.

I am not even going to bother examining every single one of the outrageous spelling mistakes in detail or the laughable phrases ("Graphics are still to be decided") which undoubtedly show them up as non-professionals. I am just going to say that noone with any kind of experience in this industry could be in any doubt that these guys are totally fake. I will not discuss this blog in any more detail. This post should suffice.

Sources: Mr. Inc´s blog, Game Dev Kit, Gamasutra

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

yo falafelkid

kinda hate to support u on this but mr. inc also said that n5_dev is real, which he isnt, some days ago he admitted being fake for a very stupid reason.. oh well :)

a little offtopic: will u visit this years GC ?
if everything goes right then ill also come to GC with a press pass :D
wanna meet there ? :)

Anonymous said...

Well I guess in times where Nintendo does not reveal much information the people need a substitution. It is a bit like religion - religion is needed when people have to worry about problems not when everything is okay. So I guess I can't blame anyone to want attention even with a obvious fake (at least it is for me) - I don't have a problem with that since I quite well know what I should believe and what not.

Keep up the good work Falafelkid und bleib sauber :P

Falafelkid said...

Hi Bankai and Lolpolice and thanks for your comments. @Bankai: I will be going to E3 and, most likely, to the Games Convention as well. I´d be happy to meet up. But I may have a tight schedule, since my girlfriend´s going too and I want to relax with her and hang out with her team. Where are you from? We may be able to meet up beforehand.

Anonymous said...

No End Soon? Its obvious they were just playing with the letters N.E.S. I figured it to be fake just by the title.

Falafelkid said...

@ Mr.Rebus: Your claim that Nintendo authorised you to publish that picture is just ludicrous. Also, you pretend to have made Nintendo´s schedule for releasing Revolution info public (by posting "March 21: Nintendo conference, second Revolutionary aspect will be fully revealed"). *lol* Who do you think you are kidding? Do you know what would happen in this case if you were a real developer? You don´t. That´s why I posted excerpts from an NDA to show you. If you are going to pretend, at least do it well.

Anonymous said...

hey everyone i havent seen that foto of the controller, can anyone post the link please, thanx a lot. i am not too interested in knowing who is fake or not , getting some kind of info is always a good read, falafelkid , what do you mean by headset enabled, are you refering to the infamous On device that has never been proved to exist?
Ps: your blog rocks , i come everyday, hope youll get us some good info at D.I.C.E.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonymous. And thanks for your comments. I won´t be going to DICE, nor to GDC. I am definitely going to E3, though. But I will try to cover all events as in-depth as possible.

That silly controller pic is here. But if that is a hand holding it they even got the proportions wrong. The controller isn´t that small. Believe me, Inc and Rebus make me laugh. Their claims are totally phony. They have no clue what this industry is about.

Falafelkid said...

"i applaud your creativity. Maybe you should channel it elsewhere though, got any ideas?"

Rebus, I have got creativity coming out of my ears, thank you very much. And it´s plenty to go ´round for all kind of channels - the television channel I work for is one of them.

Anyway, would you not care to answer to my criticism? You pretend to have made public Nintendo´s schedule for releasing new Rev info. Did they allow you to do that, too? And what´s with that hardly subtle hint from your sitemeter username, reading Ubi Soft backwards? Did Ubi Soft allow you to do that? You don´t even know who runs Ubi Soft do you? Tell me who runs it and where they have their first party studios, okay?

Anonymous said...

Hey Fal, I like your Blog and not because I'm german too. ;-)
Just one thing.
Pleeease do us a little favour and try and pull back your arrogant and personal way of responding to others.
You're just hurting your own competence.
Stay more tolerant and act neutral like reporters should.
I'm not saying you should stop questioning things.
Just a thought...

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonym and thank you for your comments. Please tell me where you thought I was being arrogant and I will either try to explain my words (which can and must be harsh sometimes) or apologize, if necessary.

Anonymous said...

Interesting I have read the same (at least I guess, once I have read it all) and did not saw all of that (at very least explicity, as I didnt analyzed it "line by line"), anyway we all know that all of those things would be possible even on a XB/DS/low spcs PCs/GC or are possible with the controler so why should we understund this as them giving details instead of stanting the obvius, anyone how dont belive that is possible to remade what is already been done should think a few times more.

One should be very suprised if those arent options possible in Rev, plus Nintendo decides what can be told or no (and Mr Inc said they let them made that), just because they havent told yet it dont mean that it need to be a secret (after all most of those detail dont make sense to be "revealed" alone).

Anyway MS also had NDA yet we had know many of their detail almost 4 months before E3 and we heard many things that got close till 1 year early E3, like we still knowing many detail about PS3 (from devs in foruns etc...)that Sony never mentions (althought they are very hard to most people understand).

I do not say that it is true, but you cant prove them a fake from that.

Anonymous said...

I'd ignore some of the anonymous comments Fal. They are just trying to wind you up (subtle or blatant). Noticed a lot of these comments recently... think you've busted a lot of people and you're just going through a backlash (and I bet most of it's from the people you busted too!)

Anyway, wicked blog mate. I've been hooked on this site for ages! Keep it up ;o)

Falafelkid said...

I like ´Sir Falafel´, thanks! ;) Might have to rename...

"If nintendo claims a "partial breach of disclosure", then we may be forced to remove information for the little good it would do- do please remember that we are after all generating a lot of interest and indeed; hype. (this is money in their pockets as far as they see it)"

Look, even if I bought that Nintendo would allow you to disclose sensitive information regarding a game in development, they would NEVER EVER allow you to reveal information pertaining to THEIR hardware releases. Even if it is ´subject to change´. am sorry, Rebus. You have totally lost it with that one. And what about that Ubi Soft thing?

Anonymous said...

actually im from austria. there is a nice offer where i can go by bus to leipzig and rest in a 4 stars hotel for 150 euros for 3 days.
last year we were stationed in the Hotel Ramada, neat hotel :D

so, as with meeting beforehand, i dont know on which 3 days we will be there :D

so i guess itll be kinda impossible ^^

man, e3, that would be cool...

but.. dont know, i guess i have to wait another 2 years or something like that when our page will be recognized etc. :D

Anonymous said...

A least 64 players online ?

is this achievable throught wifi for an FPS game ?

look at call of duty X360 (only 8 players despite the original planning for 64 players )
PC version got 32 players.

Since Wifi introduce more latence than ethernet, I think is clearly overstated.

Falafelkid said...

Sir Rebus, Esquire. Also, apparently there is no such thing as ´pre-alpha stage´. How do you answer to that? It really looks like you´re busted, mate.

Hi Anonymous: Cheers for that. I guess you´re British, right? I used to live in Eastbourne and Manchester. Where are you at?

Falafelkid said...

Menheer Rebus: Ik sprek maar een betje Nederlands. U bent van België, bent je niet?

Falafelkid said...

Hi A-R. Thank you for the comment. That seems legit info, especially reading through the external links. But consider this scenario: Nintendo gives a development studio the go-ahead to release some basic info on their current project. And they actually post more than that, namely info regarding Nintendo´s next console and its information release schedule... whatever that judgement would be based on, I have two words for that: professional suicide. Or: profound stupidity. I´m sticking by the latter.

Falafelkid said...

10 years in Warrington! Nice one, our kid! It´s all starting to come back to me now ;)

Anonymous said...

Yeah I'm British me mate, I used to live near Manchester (in Warrington). Lived up there for about 10 years. I live down south now in Bristol.

Think what you're doing on here is class though. Been a mad year with all the rumours and speculation so it's good to have someone who puts it all into perspective (and debunks the fools!)

Falafelkid said...

Hi Braxor123. Just a little note: It wouldn´t prove them real if terms like pre-alpha stage do exist. It could only prove them fake if they don´t exist. Anyone can look stuff like that up on the net. But no developer would get terminology wrong.

Anonymous said...

I gotta ask tho Fal just out of interest. How was it that you got into doing the reporting for RTL? Were you studying journalism when you were in the UK?

Just it's a pretty phat job to do and I know RTL to be a big channel on your side of the pond.

Falafelkid said...

Rebus, come on. You sound like Seriousgamer007 now. Listen to yourself. It´s always the same with you fakers. Once you find a sore spot you start to talk gibberish. Don´t evade the issue, mate. You would be dishing out highly sensitive information on the Nintendo Revolution, if you really were who you claim to be. Even if that was meant to be speculative. Either Nintendo gave you the go-ahead, then you´d post no more than your brief. Or they didn´t, in which case you´d be breaching your NDA twice. Under no circumstances would you reveal ANYTHING about Nintendo´s hardware. Try and comment on that.

I also have been monitoring the current IP addresses on my sitemeter and if your claims are true, then you´re working in Europe. That would leave Brussels, Belgium, or perhaps Lyon, France, as your home. Stop pretending, Monsieur / Menheer.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonym. Well, I started doing a three-week vocational experience there in late ´99 and got lucky when they suddenly needed editors. They were especially in need of someone who was an experienced gamer and was willing to build up contacts within the industry and establish games as an important for our news program. I then did my internship and I´m still there. By the way, I´m with RTL II (which is only partly owned by RTL).

Falafelkid said...

Hi Trip1ex.

"Seems a waste of time to try and prove they are fake."

That´s exactly my point. I´m not going to spend any more time with this. They proved themselves fake already.

Anonymous said...

IP 212.68 is from me (ISP : Brutele )

hj

Falafelkid said...

Hi anonymous. Cheers. Errrr... Merci! That would only leave Lyon. But I don´t think Lyon was on long enough to post all that.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Rebus. Seriously, "informed guess" my arse. But very well, then. Let us for the moment assume that Nintendo Co. Ltd. would actually consider having a European studio conduct an experiment where they publish some sensitive information for everyone to see in order to gather people´s opinions and incorporate them into the game.

That would be extremely unusual, to say the least. This would certainly be without precedent and is ridiculous enough if you consider the current working relations between Japanese companies and their European or American subsidiaries, let alone second and third party studios.

But let´s put that aside for the moment and pretend it´s true. It still would be without precedent and thus Nintendo Co. Ltd. would be watching over this very closely.

Now these guys suddenly post something relating not to their game - but to NCL hardware. They are giving the communitry a definite date when the next secret will be reavealed (at GDC). There are two (and only two) possible explanations here:

1) They were allowed to also reveal this info? No, since the above assumption is already stretching the imagination to the verge of impossibility. Never ever would NCL allow a European or American studio to reveal anything relating to their hardware. This explanation cannot be valid.

2) They were not allowed to reveal this info. In this case, all hell would break loose, since NCL would be watching over this experiment closely anyway.

In conclusion, this whole episode needs no further debate. Inc and Rebus have no clue about this industry. Ask anyone about how close NCL is with its subsidiaries and partners overseas, or any Japanese company for that matter. I rest my case.

Shoxware Games said...

hmmm... well, it cannot be because of the "outrageous spelling mistakes", i mean look at people like satoru iwata or michel ancel, well not...too...good english!

we'll see - only time can tell!

By the way... i guess the game is just called "no end soon" that it marks "NES"!

By the way 2: i think they'll claim that they're the developers of the undisclosured UBISOFT FPS...
Everything points out that way like
that movie showing the UBISOFT Logo, or "Name change" in their shedule!

Falafelkid said...

Hi Jack. Interesting. Give me details, please. What did he pick up upon as being reliable oir authentic and what studio is he from?

Falafelkid said...

Hi Anonymous. Homeland security? *lol* I may very well work for them. WooWoo!

Anonymous said...

I'm Scared of Falafelkid...he's just so damn good at "uncovering information"/spying...thank goodness he doesn't work for the the U.S. Homeland Security... :p

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't the fact that they're squabbling with Fal in his comments section be enough proof that they're fake? Surely if you were professionals conducting a serious 'experiment' in community consultation for game development you wouldn't lower yourself to screaming like teenages at another anonymous blog.

Infact, if they were serious about this experiment, and indeed have Nintendo's permission to engage with the community like this, why the hell are they using blogspot? Why aren't they using an officially sanctioned blog from their companies site?

P!

Airaku said...

I never paid much attention to No End Soon, I didnt feel it was worth my time. I figured it was fake how ever I did read your post, you sure busted him. I mean come on he said new dev kits in mid febuary? I think not. A nintendo rep him self said that the final dev kits come out after the revolution is fully revealed in the kodak theater at E3. They are keeping the real secret under covers from the developers, only two people outside of nintendo have them. I do not know who they are, my guesses would be retro studios and Hideo Kojima. I could be wrong because I do not know where the real dev kits are. No one dose. All I know as that the 3rd party developers gave out weaker dev kits to the 3rd partys, after E3 they will get the real devs kits to polish it up and get them ready for launch. Any ways thank you Falafelkid.

Falafelkid said...

Hi P! Good point, these guys just have too much time on their hands to be developers. And they seem to enjoy arguing back and forth. True.

Hi A-R. In my last long comment I meant 2) to include the scenario where they would be just speculating. Still, all hell would break loose. Being authorised to pass on true information while speculating on other things would get fact and fiction mixed up and Nintendo would sue their arses off for that, be it speculation or not.

Metaldave said...

falafelkid, GREAT JOB! The first question I asked mr.inc(notice only mr.rebus is replying) was how the heck does he have time to write all this crap about a game if he is suppose to be a game developer? He said he did it really quick after work. That was hard to believe and then recently they said they would have an interview with revogaming.net and that made me more lacking in faith that they were real. I just want to say thank you for doing what none of us did: Do some research on NDA's and expose this guy and his dog rebus before they wanted anyone to. Bravo, cheers and thanks!

Jason said...

Why do I find these comments hilariously funny?

I do not want to get into the middle of this argument but both sides provided solid facts and rebuttals but the thing is, no offense to Falafelkid, who I admire, your losing this battle.

If this information is informed guessing, it is no more different from saying that the Revolution will launch Tuesday November 7th.

*Above Information subject to change*

Will they become fake? Maybe and maybe not.

It did come true that Nintendo spoke on January 24 and nothing but DS and GameCube games as Mr. Inc stated. In fact, the NES blog said it well before the Times online stated it. He also stated that there would be no Revolution information at this event, which happened.

That last part is obvious cause Nintendo stated more information would come out at E3.

Nintendo is at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose March 20 - 24th. Nintendo even has a booth at this event. It is highly possible something will come out at GDC. At GDC, there is a possibility there will be information on the sound and video hardware as what happened with the GameCube before it was really shown at E3.

I do not know what is wrong with you Fala but you were never like this before.

You ask hard questions to people and now I am asking you one. Are you doing this to increase your traffic flow to your site?

I can understand the anger you may be going through with all these fake blogs appearing left and write.

You are also right about the strangeness of this NDA business. If they told something secret then Nintendo would be on them. The thing is that they have not said anything that would hurt Nintendo's Revolution plans.

If they came out and said the Revolution will feature an internal Mic and ability to play music CDs and showed pictures and documents with credible information and it was true Nintendo would be on their ass like white on rice.

Two possibilities here are they are full of crap and the information has nothing to do with Nintendo then Nintendo would just ignore this.

Alternatively, Nintendo approved it. If anything, Nintendo of Europe allowed them to and not NCL.
Now I am not in the gaming industry but I do follow it with an open mind and many other people should do so as well.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Heretic. I already commented on the ´just speculating´ theory: Being authorised to pass on true information while speculating on other things would get fact and fiction mixed up and Nintendo would sue their arses off for that, be it speculation or not.

About anger: Why would I be angry? I´m telling you, I am so relaxed. I believe to have named SG007 (I certainly made him quit his blog) and I made TE admit that he was behind ´Sunder´ and showed everyone it wasn´t a Revolution game. I was able to post lots of exclusive content recently and, most importantly, I was right about those things.

And, Heretic, you cannot honestly believe this guy is for real. I mean, you know this industry, don´t you? To me, it´s just plain obvious that he´s a faker (and a bad one at that) and I only posted the NDA excerpts to show everyone who has no inside experience what kind of contracts exist between a studio and its publisher.

Also, don´t you know how little cooperation there is between Japanese companies and their own subsidiaries? The stories I hear... And given the lack of trust within a company, you can imagine what working relationships are like between them and outside companies. Nintendo Co. Ltd. would never ever allow a European studio (especially one that isn´t signed to them, but a third party publisher) to make any details about their game public. Simple as that.

The Japanese are a close-knit bunch. Stringer becoming Sony boss is nothing short of a revolution (and shows how desperate the company has become).

Anonymous said...

"and I made TE admit that he was behind ´Sunder´ and showed everyone it wasn´t a Revolution game."

lifespark was going to tell everyone anyway you pompous douche, you just made it happen sooner

Anonymous said...

You should check out the discussion between Brax and Zauron falafelkid.

http://theboard.zogdog.com/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=11&showentry=378#comment700

Looking at the "facts" of that NDA of you ( which was something Zauron agreed with ) he came to conclusion Mr.Inc actually did not leak anything at all, and IF he was real he nicely followed his NDA.

Read the discussion for yourself..

Also I must say Heretic has a nice point by saying you only do this to gain more traffic. I mean common look at the comments! No other article of you has as much comments from different people as this one does!

Anonymous said...

hey falafelkid, i was just thinking , mr inc and rebus dont necesserally need to be european , if they work for ubisoft they could very well be american or canadian, i am from montreal and the ubisoft studio is a couple minutes away from my school ...
montreal rocks by the way , so does your blog !!!
le shti de la belle province.

Anonymous said...

Falafelkid, you're blog is like the "No Spin Zone" of Nintendo Revolution blogs. I love it :)

Anonymous said...

Cool Fal, well it seems you are onto a good thing there. Doubt there are many opportunities getting into something like that, especially when it goes on for a while (tv game review jobs are notoriously short lived over in the uk). The main game programme over here which sticks to mind was Games Master and that was years ago.

I think RTL was best known for its colourful late night viewing over here tho! ;o)

All the best,

Jon

Anonymous said...

Surely sticking his email addy on here is a surefire way to get spammed??

Especially after his recent revelations...

Jason said...

Fala I agree with you.

I have an open mind towards the game industry.

And again I will say this, truthful or not, the blog in question did not reveal anything to hurt Nintendo or to break an NDA. Of course my knowledge of NDAs is non-existant.

The blog maybe fake or it can be true just let it be for now.

In Addition, Fala could you address how they knew that Nintendo would speak on the 24th and about GC and DS games before any other outlet said anything?

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