Gaming News Round-Up: April 11th, 2005

Today's round-up includes information on a new PSP title starring one half of a popular Sony franchise, as well as MindArk's revenues from the sale of virtual property in its MMO, plus info on today's featured book extract and new industry jobs. - In addition to the newly announced Jak X: Combat Racing game from Naughty Dog Studios, the Jak & Daxter franchise will continue in an action/adventure game starring the comedy sidekick Daxter on his own. The PSP game will be developed for not by Naughty Dog itself but by new studio Ready at Dawn, as their first project. Not many other details on the project, such as a release date, are available yet, but the title will mark one of the first significant PSP-PS2 connectivity features: owners of the Daxter game will be able to use characters from the portable game as racers in Jak X. - MindArk Studios, recently exonerated from charges brought up through the Business Software Alliance, is publicizing the apparent success of its "Home For Everyone" campaign to promote the Project Entropia MMORPG. The campaign rolled out apartment-sized dwellings for its players to purchase in lieu of paying a monthly fee; each apartment sells from $25-$45. To date, the company has made over $135,000 from sales of the virtual property within the game. - Also updated on Gamasutra today (free reg. req.): an exclusive book extract from Vaughan Young's 'Programming A Multiplayer FPS In DirectX' discusses the issue of scene culling. There are also newly advertised jobs from 7 Studios, Blue Fang Games, BreakAway Ltd, Buena Vista Games, Gameloft, SCEA, Tea N' Turtles, Tripwire Interactive, and Ubisoft.