Disney Interactive Studios recently voiced its stance regarding video games, but what about the other movie studios out there? Are they just as enthusiastic about licensing out their movie rights? Or do they actually publish video games themselves?

More on the status quo in the full article, right after the jump.

It seems that these are the days for equal opportunity. Both guys and gals are into electronic gaming, and the people at Disney Interactive Studios know this. That's why the company has seen it fit to go all out with Disney-themed titles for various platforms and various audiences.

For more of the rationale behind the animation giant's marketing move, check out the full article after the jump.

 

Some hot titles are hitting the shelves this week, what with much anticipated titles like Heroes of Mana and Luminous Arc finally arriving. EA's explosive Madden NFL '08, which should sell like hotcakes, will also be available on all platforms.

DS owners are getting much love - noteworthy titles include Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon that promises to take the favorite farming game deeper into RPG territory. High School Musical: Makin' the Cut also expands the library by adding a sing-and-dance game for all ages.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics. Yet another shot at making a video game based on phenomenal tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons, D&D: Tactics faithfully implements D&D 3.5 rules as players follow the story of a young child. Taking either good or evil alignment ultimately decides the ending. Co-op allows players to work together, while deathmatch mode pits them against each other.

• PSP - August 14, 2007
• US$ 39.99
• ESRB T (Teen)
• Atari

Heroes of Mana. Square Enix takes the latest installment in the Mana series to an entirely new direction, turning action adventure into real-time strategy that you'd want on your DS.

• Nintendo DS - August 14, 2007
• US$ 39.99
• ESRB E (Everyone)
• Square Enix

Madden NFL '08. One of EA's biggest annual sports titles returns to all platforms. New in this installment are Weapons, providing players with different specialized abilities at their disposal. Graphics department also received a revamp, and other gameplay tweaks make this year's NFL a worthy addition.

• PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, GC, Wii, PC, PSP, DS - August 14, 2007
• US$ 59.95  (PS3, Xbox 360), US$ 39.99 (Xbox, PC), US$ 39.95 (GC, PSP), US$ 49.99 (Wii), US$ 29.95 (DS)
• ESRB E (Everyone)
• Electronic Arts

Check out the rest of the titles coming out On Shelves This Week behind the Full Article link below!

Let's face it - cute, cuddly monsters with freakish powers beats angst, bespectacled wizard trainees any day. Taking the lead in UK's most recent Chart Track all-format poll ending July 28 is Nintendo's Pokemon Diamond for the DS, with Activision's Transformers: The Game taking second place.     

For the PlayStation 3, Resistance: Fall of Man appears to be holding to the number 10 post, while Forza MotorSport 2 for the Xbox 360 tailgates along at 11th.

• Pokemon Diamond (Nintendo)
• Transformers: The Game (Activision)
• Pokemon Pearl (Nintendo)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Electronic Arts)
• Shrek the Third (Activision)
• The Darkness (Take-Two)
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 (Electronic Arts)
• New Super Mario Brothers (Nintendo)
• Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End (Disney Interactive Studios)
• Resistance: Fall of Man (Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Forza Motorsport 2 (Microsoft)
• Rugby 08 (Electronic Arts)
• Mario Striker Charged Football (Nintendo)
• MotorStorm (Sony Computer Entertainment)
• Spider-Man 3 (Activision)
• Tomb raider: Anniversary (Eidos)
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo)
• Tom Clancy's rainbow Six: Vegas (Ubisoft)
• Transformers: The Game - Autobot (Activision)
• Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (Nintendo)    

The Europe Chart Track for the week ending July 14 for all formats is now out, with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix coming in at first place once again for its third week in the charts. We guess being published for all consoles - even the Game Boy Advance - really does help.

Some titles found themselves kicked out from the Top 20 since week ending July 7, such as Call of Juarez, Tenchu Z, and Football Manager 2007.

Forza Motorsport 2 is still holding its 6th spot from last week, and The Darkness has fallen from grace from its comfortable spot as a third placer to number five in the charts. Newcomers to the charts, Mario Strikers Charged Football and Mario Party 8, are coming strong with Mario Party 8 landing in as a strong third placer. Mario Charged Strikers, on the other hand, managed to nab 12th place.

Check out the chart in the Full Article!

 

The Chronicles of Narnia was a series of really good books, but for added entertainment value, they made an excellent movie out of it. What happens when you take an excellent book/movie and turn it into a video game? Well, the stuff of adventures for one thing. More importantly, it's exactly what's happening to Prince Caspian and the Pevensie family as they embark upon a new adventure within the lands of Narnia in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian from Traveller's Tales and Disney Interactive Studios.

As the story for the video game version goes, Prince Caspian finds himself face-to-face with the Pevensie children, nearly 1300 years after their original adventures in Narnia. Together, Caspian and the Pevensies have to work together to fight the forces of the evil tyrant Miraz, who has prevented Prince Caspian from rightfully ruling over the lands of Narnia.

For this inaugural post, we've compiled five screenshots of the game, as well as two different videos from GameTrailers. The first one is a trailer showing off some of the game's assets. The second one is a quick developer walkthrough, where we get to preview the many features that'll be making an appearance in the game.

    

The preview videos for Prince Caspian after the jump!

At the E3 Media and Business Summit 2007, Disney Interactive Studios announced their list of upcoming video games and discussed a number of its plans for the future.

Disney's investments naturally include product development and talent. The studio has grown to staff 700 people in 11 countries and it has plans to put in US$ 130 million in product development for this year. Since gamers won't really be interested in the numbers, we'll go ahead and give you the list of upcoming games discussed during E3, including the announcement of a couple of sequels, a new online community, and Turok's release date.

First off, Disney Interactive Studios announced an online community for the DS called DGamer. DGamer will enable gamers to chat with other gamers, create their own avatars, and trade in-game items. Gamers will be able to connect to DGamer via the DS' Wi-Fi connection, so basically players can connect to the community anywhere. Players can also connect to the community via DGamer's channel at Disney.com. The said app is currently being developed by Fall Line Studios and will be the bundled in free with all Disney titles starting May next year.

The rest of the Disney titles come after the jump!

 

Taking a gander over at UK's game sales tracker, we've spotted Disney Interactive's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End taking top spot of the all-platforms chart for the week ending June 2. It has moved from the second spot to first, thanks to taking the top spots across the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PSP charts, while Wii, DS and PS2 gamers found other games more interesting.

Biggest newcomer is Eidos' Tomb Raider: Anniversary which solidly took top spot from nowhere, thanks to a solid fan support from gamers on Sony's PS2 and the Lara fan club on the PC. Activision's Spider-Man 3, formerly on top of the list for a good four weeks, is now dethroned and seated firmly at third spot.

Next Level's Mario Strikers Charged Football still takes a strong solid support from millions of Wii gamers, while taking the fourth spot on the charts. Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 6 still solidly beats EA's FIFA 07, with the former spotted midway up the charts at number five and the latter blocking any other title from unseating it at the number 10 spot.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Disney Interactive Studios)     
2. Tomb Raider: Anniversary (Eidos)
3. Spider-Man 3 (Activision)
4. Mario Strikers Charged Football (Nintendo)
5. Pro Evolution Soccer 6 (Konami)
6. Wii Play (Nintendo)
7. Cooking Mama (505 Games)
8. Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training (Nintendo)
9. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Electronic Arts)
10. FIFA 07 (EA Canada)
    

More information about the highly-anticipated Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End video game that's pretty much sailing to every platform there is just came in. Many of the head honchos over at Disney Interactive revealed quite a bit about the game and the differences between versions, as well as a few goodies for Nintendo DS owners. We're here to savvy you landlubbers up and get you sea-worthy.

The first big announcement was the introduction of DS download hotspots in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World theme parks, to be activated after the video game's release. Park-goers carting their Dual Screens around with them will be able to download quite a few goodies for the DS title from these hot spots, such as Unlimited Health, Unlimited Savvy (a key battle element), as well as extra costumes for multiplayer games. Not bad!

There's also the good news that there will be, in fact, differences between the numerous versions, besides the obvious cosmetic ones. We're not sure what they are at the moment (besides the Jackanisms for the Nintendo Wii), but we also have the assurance of a lot of side quests and stories BESIDES the actual main storyline - so yay for massive amounts of replay value. In any case, here's the video interview in full - enjoy!

 

Probably trying to market its way to success as the TMNT franchise has, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End also adapts the latest in the movie franchise into a multi-platform title. Going for both current-gen and next-gen consoles, the game is slated to be available on the PC, Wii, PlayStation 3, PS2, PSP, and Xbox 360 by May 22, 2007.

In an interview with IGN, Iain Riches, producer of the game at the recently renamed Disney Interactive Studios, revealed that they have two teams working on the title: one for current-gen and another for next-gen. They have separated the teams in order to deliver two different versions of the game, each one tailoring to the technology available on each platform.

Next-gen titles would no longer be seeing an option to block enemy attacks, but will be able to use "Jackanism" maneuvers to parry, push away and take advantage of incoming melee attacks. Current-gen will be keeping the block option, but will be coming with a nice overlay option that gives your character the ability to throw opponents off bridges, for instance.

The next-gen version will allow gamers to feel the rush of fully-fledged sword fights like in the movies, with all the smoothness and skill that the fights in the big screen are known for. Both games will have unlockables, although current-gen titles will be coming with mini-games and subtle cheat "achievements."

All teams have shared assets to develop the content of the game, but they didn't want to know how the other team was developing their version of the game. They want each version to be different, so that a gamer who grabs either version will love one version for some features and the other version for other features.