Ubisoft has announced its financial results for the first half of the fiscal year, with sales up 52 per cent to 261.4 million euro.

Gross profits for H1 were 167.6 million euro, up from 102.2 million during the first half of the 2006-07 fiscal year. Net income was 30.6 million euro, compared to a loss of 20.5 million during the same period of the prior year.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction, originally scheduled for a Q4 release, was moved to fiscal 2008-09. Haze, originally scheduled for a Q3 release, has been moved to Q4 which ends March 31, 2008.
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Ahead of Ubisoft's fiscal 2008 first half results expected November 20th, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has predicted the company will announce full year sales estimates of €825 million ($1.21 billion), as Assassin's Creed, Haze and its casual lineup lead a strong holiday lineup.
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Shacknews: "Much like Rudolph leading Santa's sleigh in the murky winter night, Haze, one of this year's few third party PlayStation 3-only titles, will light the way for Sony's console on December 14, reports Three Speech.

Telling the tale of a drug-enhanced commando facing a moral quandry, the first current-gen effort from TimeSplitters developer Free Radical was originally announced for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The other two versions disappeared from Ubisoft documents in May, and at the time, an Ubisoft rep declined to label the game an exclusive, chuckling, "We just felt that PS3 needed some love.""
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Pacific Crest Securities' Evan Wilson says new version of Nintendo's portable complete; holiday release torrent creating retail woes.

Wilson notes that not all games will be affected by insufficient retail space. "Clearly, the end-of-year squeeze creates limited space at retail, which limits the size of initial orders of games with less publicity and reorders of games with lower quality." He anticipates games with high preorder rates such as Guitar Hero III, Call of Duty 4, Assassins' Creed, Mass Effect, WWE, and Rock Band to be less affected by insufficient retail space. "Titles that could be at risk of getting squeezed," he continues, "include Haze, Kane & Lynch, and Uncharted."
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Nov 13, 2007 Ubisoft has pencilled in Haze for December 14 in its latest release schedule, meaning the shooter will just manage to squeeze in amongst the Christmas rush. It also means the game has been pushed back a month - it was originally scheduled to release in November. Developed by Free Radical, Haze is currently exclusive to PS3, although it's widely thought that PC and Xbox 360 versions will hit next year (but this remains unconfirmed by official channels). So it might not be ... » Read More

Ubisoft offers up an updated release calendar, confirming Free Radical's FPS for release just in time for Xmas.
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From Kotaku:

"Sources close to Ubisoft tell me that the game is indeed coming this year (although I'm hearing December 11th), so it looks like Sony will at least get one third party exclusive out the door. Still, I bet the house that Ken Kutagari built is still kicking itself that it didn't lock up Assassin's Creed as a PS3 exclusive, especially with early review scores like a 9.5 from Game Informer."
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Here is a blog post from a unnamed haze developer.It talks about the vehicles in haze.
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Gamestop now shows "Pre-Release Ships 12/4/07" for Haze.
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Whilst playing Haze in an exclusive hands-on session at GameCity 07, it is revealed that Haze is still being worked on. Previously sites like Gamepower Australia (http://www.gamepower.com.au/?aid=2728) had said Haze had gone gold.

PS3 Attitude reveal what the game looks like right now and their expectations for a release before Christmas.
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Exclusive demo of PS3 title playable this week

GameCity is offering attendees the chance to play an exclusive demo of Ubisoft and Free Radical Design's hotly anticipated PlayStation 3 shooter Haze this week.

The world exclusive demo will be free to play at the Broadway Centre on Nottingham, October 27, from 11am until 1 pm.

Haze isn't the only game that will get an exclusive public session this week. Traveller's Tales' Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for the Wii will be hands-on at GameCity ¿ a world exclusive for the growing UK festival.
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Spanish PlayStation website confirms that a demo of Haze will be available on the EU PS Store on November 16, 2007.

http://es.playstation.com/ps3/news/articles/detail/item82530/Demo
-exclusiva-de-Haze%E2%84%A2-en-PLAYSTATION%C2%AEStore/
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Oct 22, 2007 Korn, in a buzz of extra-curricular activity, has written an exclusive track for Free Radical's forthcoming FPS Haze. Yes, Korn the rock band. No, theyre not dead. Korn's track is to air on the radio waves and video next month, to coincide with the launch of Haze on PS3. You'll be able to buy the track from online music download sites, too. We havent heard the tune yet, but theres evidence of lots of Korn hair. "Gaming for me is a religion and Haze is the shit!" said Jonathan ... » Read More

Ubisoft announced that the hard rock band Korn has written and recorded an original song inspired by Ubisoft's upcoming Haze video game. The song will be launched to radio and video in November 2007, to coincide with the launch of the Haze video game. The single, entitled "Haze", will be available for purchase via online music download sites.

"Gaming for me is a religion and Haze is the shit!" said Jonathan Davis, Korn's frontman. "I had to come up with a track that can hit up that kind of rush I get from the game and I think we really rocked it!!"
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New Nectar abilities:

Nectar Perception: While on Nectar, your enemies will become far more visible to you, even if they are hiding in the shadows or foliage.

Melee Blast: Performed the same way as the normal melee attack, but with 10 times the power, thanks to Nectar.

Nectar Resilience: Bullets won't bounce off you, but you'll certainly take less damage from them.

Nectar Focus: When you are sniping or using the zoom function on your helmet, Nectar will give you a new level of focus, helping you aim and making it easier to kill in one deadly accurate shot.

Nectar Foresight: If you are in danger while on a Nectar high, a visible "pulse" will ripple outward from the point of threat. This could be a grenade at your feet, or someone about to melee you from behind.
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The European Playstation Network Store has been updated and is Live right now. The update includes:

Clive Barker's Jericho Demo
Stuntman: Ignition Demo
Bladestorm Demo
Skate Demo

Snakeball Trailer
GRAW 2 Trailers (Launch Trailer, Moves/Control/Aiming Trailers)
Haze Gameplay Trailer

Blast Factor Wallpapers (Red and Lab)
FlOw Wallpaper
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Free Radical is aiming to challenge the way other independent studios do business by improving its staff's payment system, and start paying them overtime.

The move comes as a bid to avoid the pitfalls that other developers fall into when it comes to crunch and overworking staff with no recompense.
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This week, the Poll Police are laying out the heavy-hitting games that are going to try to grab your attention at the Tokyo Game Show. There are a ton of games on the horizon, but a lot of them aren't the ones that everybody is talking about. Based on our comments throughout the last month or so, the Poll Police have compiled a list, by no means exhaustive, of the games that generate the most buzz. Now then, which of these games do you want to see the most of, more than anything else in the gaming world:

What PS3 game demands your undivided attention at TGS?

It's gotta be Final Fantasy XIII (any of them)
Metal Gear Solid 4, no contest
Haze -- it's another exclusive, after all
White Knight Story
Folklore
Silent Hill 5
Resident Evil 5
LittleBigPlanet
Killzone 2

Vote after the jump.
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Haze-related news, rumor and speculation have been doing the Internet-rounds over the weekend regarding the fact that the game is a PS3-exclusive. You may recall Spong's coverage of Sony exclusives as mentioned at E3 in which Haze was pegged as PS3-only at least until the end of the year.

This - plus comments made a Leipzig, plus the fact that all mention of any other platforms has been removed from Free Radical's Haze web-pages - has apparently lead to the conclusion that the game will be PS3 exclusive.

So, Spong spoke to a representative at Ubisoft who spoke slowly and clearly to Spong, explaining, "Basically at E3 it was announced that the game would be PS3 exclusive for Christmas. That's where we stand - other platforms have not been ruled out but nothing has been confirmed."

Therefore, right now Haze is exclusive until Christmas... and then might or might not be.
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Ubisoft has told GameSpot that First Radical's sci-fi first-person shooter Haze is now being planned solely for Sony's PlayStation 3 platform.

The Web sites of Free Radical, the Official Haze site, and Ubisoft site, all now only list the PS3 version of the game.
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