Late Night Consoling

The 3D racer Mad Tracks is set for release tomorrow on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points. Mad Tracks places tiny, stylized cars amidst giant environments such as bathrooms and kitchens, and will allow players to choose from one of 12 compact cars in competition with a maximum of three other drivers over Xbox Live. Two expansion packs are planned for the near future, each costing 350 Microsoft Points and extending the basic game with 15 new courses and mini games.

Developed by independent studio Load Inc., Mad Tracks was previously released on the PC. A free demo of the game can be downloaded from Load's official website. Some screenshots of the XBLA version are also available.

Ubisoft today announced its annual sales take, reporting that it has seen a revenue of 608.3 million euros over its 2007 fiscal year. The total sum amounted to a 24.4% increase in sales over the previous year, which has resulted in 40.5 million euros of profit after factoring in operating costs. Early titles released on next-generation consoles such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (Xbox 360) and Rayman Raving Rabbids (Wii) were credited with the increase in performance.

Gaming analyst Michael Pachter believes that the report is a conservative one, particularly with respect to projected earnings. Pachter placed an estimate of Ubisoft's 2008 sales at 850 million euros--25 million higher than the company's own guess. Pachter's employer Wedbush Morgan Securities says that shares of Ubisoft are "seriously undervalued, as the market does not appreciate the companyÂ’s potential to grow faster than the market and deliver contribution margins in line with its peers."

This strong fiscal report comes on the heels of some controversy regarding rival Electronic Arts' hostile purchase of Ubisoft shares in 2004, which left EA holding a 20% hostile stake in the France-based company. "I think everybody is for sale. I think in general, successful intellectual properties in all media are undervalued, especially in our media," said EA's Bing Gordon last week in a Gamasutra interview. Ubisoft president Yves Guillemont replied to the talk of a merger today, stating that no decisions had been made. "We're still considering," Guillemont said. "The first option for us is to manage our own company and grow it. The second option is to work with the movie industry, and the third is to merge. We think the market is going to grow fast, and we can take a big share of that market, so we don't have to change the way things are done at the moment."

Publisher Sega of America has revealed that Richard Jacques will join composers Jesper Kyd and Chris Chudley to collaborate on the music for Bizarre Creations' upcoming third-person shooter, The Club.

Jacques, who will be responsible for scoring the single player portion of the game, is best known for his work on titles such as Headhunter (Dreamcast, PS2) and Jet Set Radio (Dreamcast). "Having previously worked on the music and sound design of the genre defining Metropolis Street Racer, I was extremely pleased to be chosen to provide tracks for The Club," Jacques said. Metropolis Street Racer was also produced by Sega and developed by Bizarre.

Jesper Kyd (Hitman series) will compose a main theme, with Bizarre's own Chris Chudley (Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved) writing music for the game's multiplayer levels. The Club is due out later this year on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Nintendo has carted out three new (old) games to the Virtual Console for you to enjoy this week. Quintet's acclaimed side-scrolling/urban planning game ActRaiser (SNES, 1 player) and Sega Technical Institute's platformer Kid Chameleon (MegaDrive/Genesis, 1-2 players) are both available for 800 Wii Points ($8). Hudson Soft's detective-themed action game JJ & Jeff (TurboGrafx-16, 1 player) will set you back 600 Wii Points ($6).

Check back tomorrow for Shack's writeups on the three games.

An issue that is causing Xbox Live connectivity to halt for players of Konami Entertainment's Pro Evolution Soccer 6 is under investigation by the company. Konami advises those users affected--of which they claim are few--to monitor this page for updates on the situation.

Microsoft Game Studios has confirmed that June 6th will see the launch of a Shadowrun demo on Xbox Live. Developed by FASA Studios, Shadowrun is a team-oriented multiplayer shooter based on the cyberpunk-themed Shadowrun universe. The demo will include three levels of training missions and one full map, with offline bot-play and online multiplayer both supported. Weapons, races, and special powers will be limited to a handful of those found in the full game.

The first game to allow PC and Xbox Live players to participate in multiplayer action on the same servers, Shadowrun saw its release to store shelves today, available to players with Windows Vista-equipped PCs and Xbox 360s.