Round Up: Empire, Taito CEO, Wii Online

Today's round-up includes news of Chair Entertainment working with science fiction author Orson Scott Card, Square Enix executive Youichi Wada taking additional role as Taito CEO, and the possibility of microtransactions for the Wii, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, product news, Serious Games Source news, and Gamasutra job postings. - Chair Entertainment, a development company formed by developers who worked on ambitious Majesco-published title Advent Rising, announced that the company is working on a new game called Empire with legendary science fiction author Orson Scott Card. Card is currently writing a novel, also called Empire, which will introduce the setting of a near future American Civil War, which was based on ideas presented to him by members of the development studio. The author worked with many of the team members before on Advent Rising, and is currently helping to write much of the upcoming game's storyline. While the novel is set to be published in November, there is currently no information on the game's release, or on what platforms it will be available. - According to a report translated by consumer website GameSpot, Square Enix confirmed that CEO Youichi Wada will replace Taito CEO Yasuo Nishigaki as the head of the recently acquired Japanese arcade owner, arcade game and karaoke manufacturer, and console publisher/developer. Nishigaki will take up a new role as the head of the company's board of directors. In addition to his new role, Wada will continue serving as CEO of Square Enix. The report also noted that Wada could begin developing Taito's arcade assets for network play and online community building. - According an interview with newly appointed Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime in the pages of the latest issue of U.S. Game Informer magazine, the executive does not discount the possibility of Nintendo's upcoming Wii platform taking advantage of microtransactions, an idea made popular by the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Marketplace service. Regarding this, Fils-Aime commented: “All of that is possible with what we are trying to do. If our license partners want to go in that direction, it's certainly possible in our system.” - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include the latest 'Our Blazing Destiny' webcomic, an online collection of issues of vintage computer programming/game mag Compute!, and an interview with Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon. - Also updated today: Serious Games Source news featuring an exclusive interview with Serious Games Interactive's CEO Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, plus Gamasutra product news on the release of the June 2006 DirectX SDK and Force10's TeraScale E-Series solution, plus the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from 3G Studios, Blizzard Entertainment, Datascope Recruitment, Iron Lore Entertainment, LucasArts, and NCsoft.