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At E3 2011, as part of the Electronic Arts press conference, Insomniac Games announced Overstrike—a campy, over-the-top cooperative shooter. Around a year later, the game had received a facelift and a new name: Fuse. I spoke to Insomniac Games' CEO Ted Price about rebranding, multi-platform development, and what it is like to launch a brand-new franchise at the end of a console cycle.

BioShock Infinite is a violent game, and it has to be. That's a contrast to BioShock, an equally violent game where combat conveyed nothing about its main character and had little to do with the game's themes other than spurring the player to engage in its various economies. Any stimulus—using plasmids to solve environmental puzzles, for instance—would have sufficed. That's not so in Columbia. Violence is essential to who Booker DeWitt is, and what Columbia is. Their story cannot be told without it.

It's understandable to want to jump to conclusions based on Mr. Kato's statement above. Does this mean that Sony would dare to repeat its $600 miscalculation from 2006? Could this mean higher costs than expected at retail and potentially put off consumers? Does this open the door for Microsoft to undercut Sony out of the gate?

You might not have heard of a new game outfit called Modern Dream yet, but you will. They've recently released a slick 2D runner called The Button Affair, and are already starting a new project inspired by the works of acclaimed abstract painter, Wassily Kandinsky. I spent a short while chatting with Oliver Clarke, one of the members of Modern Dream, and this is what he had to say about buttons, affairs, and what it's like to start making your own games.

NPD sales data for April is set to arrive tomorrow (May 16th). I don't expect many surprises nor many changes to the status quo when it comes to hardware sales rankings for the month.

Extra Credits looks at employing scale (i.e. more enemies) and tone to break up gameplay and maintain a player's interest level. Extra Credits' example of a game that got this right was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare—who knew that Call of Duty could be the game to actually teach us something?

I'm not going to completely break down Activision Blizzard's results or get into the publisher's specific future as I see it. I will quickly say that I believe Call of Duty: Ghosts will be the best-selling console video game of 2013, although Grand Theft Auto V will push Ghosts for dominance. I also believe that Skylanders: Swap Force will have strong competition from Disney Infinity this year.

I've heard absolutely no one talking about Black Rock Shooter: The Game, but it was just released by NIS America and it's currently available on the PSN store for $20. (Designed for PSP, but compatible with Vita.) I just completed it yesterday, and I have to say, I had an absolute blast with it. It's a very small, focused game that feels perfect for playing on the go, and there are a lot of very smart design decisions on display.

Let's get the hyperbole out of the way first. Not having a Madden game in 2013 will not kill the Wii U. It's instinctive to think that a lack of EA presence on the platform could be akin to a kiss of death, similar to what we saw with EA spurning SEGA and the Dreamcast. This is a different animal, I think.