Gamers are not the only ones who have to spend quite a bunch for their gaming needs. With the next-gen consoles, game development is getting more difficult that even Final Fantasy's creator Hironobu Sakaguchi complained about its complexity. During the Northern Exposure conference, Blast! Entertainment CEO Sean Brennan expressed his frustrations toward expensive game development.

"What embarrassment" Brennan said when referring to how difficult it is to gain profit, or even just get back the $ 20 million spent on making a game. He mentioned that next-gen games will only sell when "the installed base is high enough." According to him, game publishers right now are just releasing games as an ego trip or caused by having a copycat mentality.

Apparently, he's talking about American publishers and said that they're looking internally to make sure an external developer doesn't waste the budget. He also advised UK developers to play their strengths, and said that UK tastes don't always work while US dominates the world. No one would detest to that if Nintendo, Square Enix, Konami, Capcom and all those big names weren't Japanese...

 

In pursuit of expanding global sales and expanding band with to support multiple game formats, Mastertronic acquires Redback Sales, a specialist sales agency. Mastertronic Group's MD, Andy Payne, said about the acquisition of Redback that,

we're very pleased to add an established and successful sales agency to our portfolio. We already have a mix of products and services and a reputation forged on the principle that our customers come first. This move will be the foundation stone upon which we will expand ours and our customers' sales further overseas and also allow us the bandwidth to support multiple formats.

Redback focuses on worldwide sales, licensing and distribution agreements. James Cato, who has worked for Eidos Interactive and GT interactive prior to establishing Redback, will now head up the sales team as Group Sales Director. Andy Hoskin will join him in the sales team as Key Account Manager.

Mastertronic's new sales team will be responsible for sales of all of the games publishing labels namely Sold Out, PC Gamer Presents, MAD, Just Flight and Blast! Entertainment Ltd. James Cato further comments that he is looking forward to leading the sales team, and that "Mastertronic have impressed me with their strategic plans and it was an offer I simply could not refuse."

Regardless of what we all think about TV shows and movies being adapted into videogames, certain developers are quite serious about perfecting the craft. Well, we do not know about perfecting and all, but Blast! Entertainment Ltd. has been releasing media to promote Little Britain: The Video Game.

We hosted some screenshots a few weeks back and to be fair, they look neat and promising. However, there are still no details on the game's feel and gameplay. What we only know is that the mini games will be centering around one whole episode of the sketch show. Also, all the regular cast will be featured in the game starting from Lou and Andy, and even Mr. Mann.

We have attached the newly released trailer for Little Britain: The Video Game and we're letting you decide if you like it or not. The trailer mentioned that the PS2 and PC version of the game will be available this coming February 2. The PSP version, on the other hand, is still listed under Coming Soon.

Download: [Little Britain Trailer]

We know that a lot of people here (myself included) are followers of the cult hit comedy sketch show "Little Britain." However, when it was announced a while back that it was getting some game industry treatment, a bunch of you guys gave it a piece of your mind. We know how many TV-to-video-game titles suck balls, so could this quirky show be a success among gamers?

To answer that, we'll just quote teenage chav Vicky Pollard: "Yeah but no but yeah but no but..." I'd actually hazard a guess and say that this could be one of those hit-or-miss kind of games. If you like it, you'll really like it, if you don't like it, then... maybe you'd rather sniff a Pritt Stick.

Blast! Entertainment Ltd. is developing Little Britain: The Video Game for the PSP, PS2, and PC. It's going to be chockful of mini games that would take you through an episode of the sketch show. The regular cast will be in the game, and the actors and actresses are also voicing their own 3D-rendered selves. Care for some screenshots with your tea?