Round Up: GameStop PS3, Blue Fang Hire, Wii Marketing

Today's round-up includes news of low launch shipments of Playstation 3 consoles giving GameStop pre-order trouble, a new director of software engineering at Blue Fang Games, and Nintendo's Wii advertising push, as well as the latest Game Career Guide updates, Serious Games Source posts, GameSetWatch posts and Gamasutra job postings. - In the lead up to the November 17 launch of the PlayStation 3, a report from consumer website GameSpot has confirmed that U.S. video games retailer GameStop is not anticipating enough units of Sony's upcoming console to fill its pre-orders. According to the report, Sony has notified GameStop of its launch day allocation of PlayStation 3 consoles, and that unfortunately the number of units being provided is less than the number of pre-orders currently accepted by the retail chain. GameStop opened pre-orders for the PlayStation 3 the morning of on October 10 with a $100 deposit, and subsequently stopped accepting pre-orders from customers noon PST that same day, due to all existing pre-order slots being filled. A GameStop representative commented on the situation, noting, "As this is not an ideal situation, we are asking employees to wait to purchase systems until the second shipment. We are anticipating having systems to cover reservations before Christmas." - Officials from developer Blue Fang Games (Zoo Tycoon) have announced that the company has hired Bill Schofield as the company's new director of software engineering. In his new role, Schofield will be responsible for creating and driving the overall goals of the engineering department, as well as that of Blue Fang as a whole. Schofield will also coordinate and prioritize departmental work, foster use of best development practices and apply his knowledge and experience with Agile development to game development projects at Blue Fang. Prior to joining Blue Fang Games, Schofield was a senior software architect at development consultancy firm Ternary Software. Schofield has also held positions as Electronic Arts, where he was responsible for engineering on Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault for the PC. He also was a senior programmer at Ritual Entertainment (Elite Force II (PC), Counterstrike (Xbox), and Counterstrike: Condition Zero (PC)), and senior software engineer at Retro Studios (Metroid Prime). - Officials from Kyoto-based Nintendo have confirmed that the company plans to puts forth a “multimillion-dollar marketing campaign” to promote its forthcoming Wii console, including an online social-networking community, sampling events in people's homes, urban "gaming" hours, retail midnight madness events, a multi-city music tour, and extended hands-on opportunities in malls nationwide. The news from Nintendo corroborates a report from financial website Bloomberg, which noted that Nintendo would spend “more than $200 million” to market the Wii, of which nearly 80 percent of this would go towards marketing that appeals to adults, as a way of shaking Nintendo's traditionally perceived focus on children. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister alt.gaming weblog GameSetWatch include the Gears Of War competition winners, a look back at Sunsoft's classic Batman for the original Game Boy, and a speed run through Capcom's NES classic Ghosts 'N Goblins. - The latest updates from Gamasutra sister website Game Career Guide include a postmortem of Camden County College's Ember: The Last Dawning, and the launch of IGDA's 7th annual Student Scholarship Program. - Also updated today: the latest Gamasutra job postings, including openings from Cranky Pants Games, Human Head Studios, Juice Games, LeapFrog.com, Mutant Interactive, Naval Postgraduate School, Pandemic Studios, Snowblind Studios, The Zizo Group, and Turbine.