The topic of presentation is a rather interesting subject — people make a snap decisions based on presentation. In an OXM podcast, Bethesda vice president Pete Hines said that people who say graphics don’t matter are usually lying.

“There’s a lot of people who say graphics don’t matter. To them I usually say ‘you’re lying’,” Hines said. “[People] will look at a screenshot and make a snap decision: ‘that looks awesome’, or ‘I’m not interested’. So if you can make something look amazing just at first glance, it’s so much easier to get them.”

Hines then added that graphics add “a sense of immersion”, and with its upcoming The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the developer’s “looking for the best sense of immersion you can get.”

Though its announcement was “breathtaking”, the best news came at the end of the weekend. Bethesda’s Nick Breckon confirmed that the fifth installment into the fabled role-playing series won’t be, as expected, using id’s Tech 5 engine. However, he did confirm that the sequel uses an “all-new” engine, one built internally at the studio — instead of the outdated engine used in the original.

In a shocking turn of events, Bethesda’s Todd Howard took to the stage at the awards, surrounded in a menagerie of monks, to unveil the long awaited Elder Scrolls sequel, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the direct sequel to Oblivion.

“For sometime now, we at Bethesda been have searching for the prefect venue to announce our latest project,” said Howard, when hyping the unexpected announcement. “This is that time.” Then, the camera shifted and video featuring stone dragons and dramatic narration was unveiled, rushing attention to the sequel.

Besides an outstanding reception, critics where united in one complaint; New Vegas has alot of bugs, including corrupt save files and a humorous introduction glitch. Bethesda has since announced that they’re developing patches addressing these bugs and glitches.

“We are currently working on releasing patches/updates as quickly as possible for Fallout: New Vegas, for all platforms. Announcements regarding the patches are forthcoming,” said Bethesda’s Pete Hines.

Arriving on September 15 is WET, a third-person shooter from Bethesda Softworks for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Even though few details about the game have been revealed, we know that in WET players take the role of Rubi Malone, a woman who is on a mission to hunt down the man that left her for dead.

“We are extremely excited to bring WET to gamers on September 18th,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “A2M has created an explosive gaming experience and the action is non-stop from start to finish.”

“We’ve worked really hard to make WET different from any other action game available”, said Patrick Fortier, Creative Director at A2M. “When players experience the game’s unique blend of gunplay, sword combat and acrobatics, they won’t want to put the controller down.”

Today, the attained parent company of Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax Media Inc. announced that it has completed the acquisition of id Software, creators of world-renowned games such as DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein, and the upcoming title, RAGE.

The acquisition by ZeniMax Media joins together two of the most respected videogame developers in the world, combining the FPS expertise of id with acclaimed RPG developer Bethesda Game Studios.

id Software will continue to operate under the direction of its founder, John Carmack. No changes will be made in the operations of id Software as development goes. However, all the principals at id have signed long-term employment contracts, assuring they will continue in their roles developing games.

“This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software. “In addition, we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans.”

“This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward,” said John Carmack, who will continue to serve in his current role as Technical Director. “We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

Yeah. Wait should I really be yeah-ing about this? The developer behind hit games such as Fallout, Bethesda Softworks has revealed their plans to announce a Wii project later this year.

In an interview with industry site GamesIndustry, Bethesda Europe’s Sean Brennan questioned whether there’s a market for 18-year-old-and-up Wii titles.

“Is there space in the Wii market for that? I think there is, but again, it’ all about finding out how big that is,” said Brennan. “Is it 5 percent? If it’s five per cent of the market and you can own that space it’s worth doing because you can achieve volume.”

With that being said, it was revealed by the developer/publisher that they are planning a really big Wii game to this year. According to Brennan, “We are going to make an announcement on a really big Wii game this year, we’ve got a couple of other things in the pipeline, and it’s a format we’re really looking at with the right approach.”

“We’re not going to establish a new range and call if ‘My Girly Game Range’ or whatever these other companies are doing, it’s so me-too and boring,” Brennan added.

The downloadable content for Fallout 3 recently came to its maximum with the release of Broken Steel, but Bethesda might not be done releasing new content packs for the game and future packs will rely on projected profits.

In an interview with OXM, Bethesda’s Pete Hines hinted at the prospect for more DLC on the way.

“Whether [Broken Steel is] the absolute last one remains to be seen,” he said. “Because it’s been hugely successful. Operation Anchorage vastly exceeded our expectation. It was like ‘holy shit, we did how many?’ and the Pitt was really successful, after a bit of a false start.”

In addition, he goes on to say that Broken Steel is the most anticipated of the packs among fans, and he expects it to be “hugely, hugely popular.”

[Bethesda Says More Fallout 3 DLC Could Come via 1UP]

Talk about a bold statement. Developer Bethesda Games, know for the Fallout titles, are feeling pretty good about their newest project with Splash Damage in Europe, enough to call it a both a “genre-breaker” and a “killer app.”

“We’re not announcing the name yet, but it’s a first-person shooter. That’s a product that we believe is a genre-breaker, it’s a real killer app,” European managing director Sean Brennan told GamesIndustry.biz.

“From a quality perspective we’re pitching that along the same lines as Fallout 3. We’ve kept it under lock and key, there are so many innovative features in there we don’t want to reveal them too soon. We’ve spent significant resources developing the title. And that’s a great example of our European work.”

It seems that not everything is fine in the Fallout circle. According to a recent 10-K financial filing, it seems that Interplay, who were supposed to have been developing a Fallout MMO, maybe getting their tales sued off of them by Bethesda.

It’s a looming lawsuit that hasn’t been officially revealed by anyone, yet. But, it’s not about the ‘rights’ to the game, it’s about the games progress. Lack there of.

Anyway, the deal worked like this, Bethesda was supposed to have commenced “full-scale” work on the title by April 4, 2009, which Bethesda says hasn’t happened. Along with that, Interplay were also supposed to have secured funding for the development of the game, which Bethesda also claim has not happened.

If Bethesda were to go running to this lawsuit, and win, Interplay would lose their rights to the MMO – along with their pride.

[Bethesda To Sue Interplay Over Fallout MMO? via Kotaku]

When Australia threatened to ban Fallout 3, because of  drug references in-game, Bethesda Softworks was quick to react and remove them. But, that is not going to be the case with Velvet Assassin.

When viewing the demo version of Velvet Assassin last week, Patrick from MTV’s Multiplayer Blog noticed that the main character uses morphine as an in-game power-up to slow down gameplay and perform deadly attacks.

“It’s a well known fact that morphine was widely used as a pain killer for wounded operatives and soldiers on all sides of the war. Not only does it fit the realism of the game, but it also plays an integral role in the actual gameplay experience. Use of morphine in the game is not meant to condone drug abuse, but to reflect the realistic nature of the game and true to life historical factors,”explained Aubrey Norris, SouthPeak product marketing manager.

“Additionally, the spirit of the game centers on players experiencing the life of a British operative behind enemy lines through Violette’s memories. In order to provide players with the most realistic and visceral experiences, Replay Studios has gone to great lengths to adhere to the facts history has provided. These reasons are why we decided to include and keep morphine in ‘Velvet Assassin.’”

It’s clear now that plenty of gamers still have plenty of time, even with the so many games coming out, to stop an appreciate a good game. The game that many of us are still to beat, Fallout 3, has ships approximately 4.7 million units worldwide, which reflects the games huge consumer demand. The game officially went worldwide last week and according to Bethesda Softworks the game has made $300 million in retail sales.

For example, in the United Kingdom where it was not released until Friday, October 31 the rapid sales of Fallout 3 have led the game to be ranked number one among all video games, as well as being the number one game on each of its three platforms.

The successful launch of Fallout 3 by Bethesda Softworks follows the success of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which remains one of the highest scoring games ever published and earned “Game of the Year” honors in 2006.

Fallout 3 is still yet to hit stores and news is already began circulating that Fallout 4 is already in the minds of the people over at Bethesda. Speaking interview with TotalVideoGames, Bethesda Games, Pete Hines, told them that they have further plans beyond this year’s hugely anticipated title. “The whole reason we went out and acquired the license and that we now own Fallout is that we clearly intended to make more than one,” claimed Hines.

“This is not something we’re going to do once and then go away and never do it again,” said Hines adding, “when that will be or how long that will be god only knows, but we acquired it specifically because we wanted to own it and develop it and work on it like we do with The Elder Scrolls.”

TheANGRYpixel has confirmed with local distributor e-Xpress Interactive a couple of days back that Soulcalibur IV will indeed not make it to Indian shores. Mainly because Ubisoft doesn’t believe in offering any sort of sales concession when it comes to Indian markets. When talking about the situation, e-Xpress has clarified that rather than haggle with Ubi and import the games for “an obscenely high price”, they elected to not import the game.

But, after Bethesda’s Pete Hines clarified that Bethesda / 2K would still continue to be the worldwide publisher for Fallout 3 on all platforms and would be in-charge of marketing and distributing them across North America, Europe and and Asia, many people may have already gotten a sign of of relief. But, there’s yet official word from them about the confirmation of a Indian release.

June 6, 2008 (Rockville, MD) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, and Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the Fallout® 3 Survival Edition for Xbox 360®video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and Games for Windows. The limited Survival Edition is now available for pre-order exclusively through www.Amazon.com/fallout3.

This ultimate Fallout 3 package includes a life-size replica of the Pip-Boy 3000, the wrist-mounted device worn by characters in-game. The Pip-Boy 3000 has been painstakingly recreated and modified for real world display as a digital clock. In addition to the Pip-Boy 3000, the Survival Edition will include all of the items included in the Fallout 3 Collector’s Edition:

The Fallout 3 game;

• Customized, metal Vault-Tec lunch box;
• 5” Vault Boy Bobblehead;
• ‘The Art of Fallout 3’ hardcover book; and
• ‘The Making of Fallout 3’ DVD

“We’re thrilled to be working with Amazon.com on this exclusive edition,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks . “The Survival Edition offers gamers the unique opportunity to own a piece of video game history along with a collection of limited edition items – it’s the definitive Fallout 3 package.”

“This is an exciting day for Amazon customers and Fallout fans,” said Greg Hart vice president of video games and software at Amazon. “We’re delighted to be the exclusive destination for Fallout 3 Survival Edition; this is a great example of the continually expanding selection we offer to gamers.”

Fallout 3 features one of the most realized game worlds ever created. Create any kind of character you want and explore the open wastes of post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. Every minute is a fight for survival as you encounter Super Mutants, Ghouls, Raiders, and other dangers of the Wasteland.

Currently under development at Bethesda Game Studios – creators of award winning The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion®, the 2006 Game of the Year – Fallout 3 is one of the most anticipated games of 2008 and is slated for release this Fall on Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION®3 system and Games for Windows.

Fallout® 3 has not yet been rated by the ESRB. For more information on Fallout 3, visit http://fallout.bethsoft.com.

All information contained in this news post comes directly from a press release sent out by Bethesda and Amazon.