[UPDATE] Staff reorganization leads to unspecified layoffs; senior vice president Christian Svensson volunteers to leave; company issues statement on the cuts.

[UPDATE] Following the publication of this story, a Capcom representative confirmed an organizational restructuring of the company resulted in "several" layoffs at the publisher's United States office.

"Capcom today laid off several employees from the US office as part of an overall organizational restructure of the company," Capcom said. "The transition to the new generation of hardware and changing industry landscape have required us to adapt our business to best meet our new goals."

"We sincerely thank each individual for their contributions and wish them well."

The original story is below.

Capcom today launched a staff reorganization resulting in layoffs affecting multiple employees, including senior vice president Christian Svensson, according to a statement from the eight-year company veteran on Google Plus.

Svensson volunteered to leave the company, though he did not say who else was affected or how extensive the cuts were.

"Sadly, I'm not the only one affected by the reorganization today," he said. "Over the next few days, I'll be gathering resumes from as many as I can and will be sending them out to my contacts around the industry to see if there's a 'love connection' to be made."

A Capcom representative was not immediately available to comment on the reported layoffs or if development on any projects is affected.

"I've had the opportunity to interface with the best fans any company could ever hope to have," Svensson added. "I know that I wasn't always able to deliver what they wanted, but I promise that I did my best to champion their needs and wants. So 'thank you' to the fans who made my job rewarding, challenging, and, if nothing else, interesting."

Svensson formerly held the position of vice president of entertainment publishing at Midway and was a games journalist before that. In his Facebook farewell post today he said he is proud of what his team accomplished but has been contemplating leaving for some time.

"While I wish the company the best of luck, Capcom is going in a different direction and the need for people at my level, relative to other areas, is lacking," he added. "Those who know me well, know that I've been ready to go for quite some time. We tried some things that worked. We tried others that didn't. We fought fights that were worth fighting and even won a few. I'm proud of what we accomplished."

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Dozens of digital discounts offered on Steam between now and July 22, alongside new trading cards and sale-specific Steam badge.

Steam's 2013 Summer Sale has officially begun across the digital distribution platform, offering a series of deals from now until July 22.

While there are discounts across much of Steam catalog, Valve is continuing its tradition of running time-limited sets of additional offers. Today's daily deals, which run for 24 hours, currently include BioShock Infinite for $29.99, Endless Space for $10.19, Defiance for $13.59, Left 4 Dead 2 for $4.99, Mars for $13.39, Scribblenauts Unlimited for $4.99, Hotline Miami for $2.49, Call of Juarez Gunslinger for $10.04, Toki Tori 2 for $9.89 and Don't Starve for $11.99.

A series of flash sales will run every eight hours, and at time of writing includes Dragon Age Ultimate Edition, Grid 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Legendary Edition, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

On top of that, a Community Choice sale will run every eight hours, allowing Steam users to vote from a list of three for the next bargain. Right now users can vote to see Dishonored, Borderlands 2, or Far Cry 3 featured in the next sale.

Valve has also incorporated its recently released Steam Trading Card feature into the 2013 Summer Sale, giving users the opportunity to craft a Summer Sale badge after collecting all the new, sale-specific cards.

The Summer Sale badge requires ten cards in order to craft, with a special sale-themed card available for the following games: BioShock Infinite, Chivalry, Dead Island: Riptide, Football Manager 2013, Kerbal Space Program, Prison Architect, Reus, Skyrim, Tomb Raider, and Torchlight II

Additional cards will be given to players for each $10 they spend in the sale, and users who are at Steam Level 5 or above will get an extra card for every third vote they make in the Community Choice sale.

Accompanying the onset of the sale, Valve announced it had added Steam Trading Card support for BioShock Infinite, Hotline Miami, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Defiance, Toki Tori 2, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Bastion, and Cities XL Platinum.

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EVO founder Joey Cuellar says Nintendo not only wanted to deny Smash Bros. streaming, but also the event itself.

Earlier this week, Nintendo tried to deny the organizers of the Evolution Fighting Game Championships the rights to broadcast the Super Smash Bros. Melee, a decision that was later reversed after community backlash. EVO founder Joey Cuellar told competitive gaming and eSports show Live On Three, hosted by GameSpot’s Rod Breslau and Twitch’s Marcus Graham, that Nintendo also tried to shut down tournament itself.

"They were trying to not only shut down the stream, but shut down the event, the Smash portion," Cuellar said on the show. "It's their IP, they can do what they want. They didn't present us any option to keep it open. We tried to wig-wam our way through it, and they were fine with just shutting down the streaming portion of the event."

Fans were upset about Super Smash Bros. Melee's removal from the stream schedule earlier today, particularly after supporters helped raise almost $95,000 for charity earlier this year to see the game included in the tournament.

Within hours of Nintendo’s decision to shut down the stream, fans worldwide of the fighting game community and competitive gaming community made their voices heard, trending ’#FreeMelee’ on Twitter and earning the #1 story overall on Reddit. Cuellar says that the community alone is what got the Smash Bros. stream back on.

"We did nothing on our end. It had to been the bad PR they were getting in conjunction with the power of the Internet. We're grateful to everyone that contributed to making Nintendo make a great decision for the fans worldwide."

EVO 2013 is this weekend at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and can be watched live on TwitchTV. GameSpot will be at the show and providing live coverage on the GameSpot's eSports portal.

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Remastered version of NES game launching August 13 for PSN, Steam, and Wii U; coming to Xbox Live September 11; retail version announced for PS3.

DuckTales: Remastered--the high-definition update of the classic NES game--will be available beginning in August, Capcom announced today.

The $15 game will release August 13 for PlayStation Network, Steam, and Wii U, while the Xbox Live version will debut on September 11. No reason was provided as to why the Xbox 360 version is coming about a month after the other iterations.

In addition, Capcom announced today that a special boxed edition of DuckTales: Remastered will be available at United States retailers for PlayStation 3 on August 20.

This $20 bundle--not announced for Xbox 360--will include a download code to play the game and an "exclusive DuckTales Disney collector's pin."

Capcom also today released the first video in a new "duckumentary" series detailing developer WayForward's process of creating an "authentic Disney look and feel" for the new game.

DuckTales: Remastered was announced during PAX East 2013 in March. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

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Deep Silver announces distribution deal with developer inXile to publish retail release of Kickstarter success story Wasteland 2.

Saints Row IV and Metro: Last Light publisher Deep Silver has announced a distribution partnership with developer inXile for runaway Kickstarter success Wasteland 2.

Deep Silver will now handle the publishing duties for the retail release of Wasteland 2, QA testing for the non-English versions of the game, and the fulfillment of the physical goods given as part of the Kickstarter reward tiers.

Creative control of the game remains with inXile. ’This has the added bonus of allowing us to spend more of the Kickstarter funds on development while continue to retain all ownership and control,’ said inXile CEO Brian Fargo.

Wasteland 2 raised a whopping $2.93m on Kickstarter in April last year, with the post-apocalyptic RPG more than trebling its original target of $900,000.

Following the success of Wasteland 2, inXile also saw huge success with another Kickstarter campaign for Torment: Tides of Numenera, a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment. Tides of Numenera raised $4.1m.

Wasteland 2 is aiming to be released later in 2013.

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Single-player role-playing game was reportedly built on Skyrim's engine and featured guns, time travel, and cyborgs.

Multiple sources have informed Kotaku that a small team at Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol developer Obsidian Entertainment was working on a "sci-fi Skyrim" in early 2011.

Image credit: Kotaku

The project was called Backspace and was reportedly going to feature guns, time travel, and an alien invasion--all powered by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's game engine, including its "Radiant AI" system.

Obsidian Entertainment CEO Feargus Urquhart confirmed the studio was working on the game, saying Backspace "was a project concept that we neither cancelled nor greenlit."

"We've been around for ten years now and have had a bunch of great ideas that we still have sitting around that we may be able to return to in the future," he added.

According to a design document obtained by Kotaku, Backspace was a single-player action-RPG set in a sci-fi space environment with "simple elements of time travel." The combat was reportedly paced "similarly to Skyrim, but slightly faster since there is no concept of blocking."

"The easiest way to look at it is a mix of Mass Effect, Borderlands, and System Shock 2 for gameplay and setting," the document reads.

Backspace was designed, according to the documents, casting players as a cyborg--90 percent human and 10 percent machine. The game was set in the "distant future" when mankind had colonized the "far reaches of the galaxy."

The game's story, according to the design documents, revolved around players jumping back and forth in time between the occurence of an alien attack and an alien-occupied future.

Backspace was also planned with a leveling system likened to that of Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas, with players able to choose a preset background for their characters, including The Mad Scientist, The Lone Wolf, and The Arrogant Savant.

Combat in the game was reportedly "Skyrim with guns," with players able to wield machine guns, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers--as well as melee weapons like mauls, battle axes, and chainsaws, among others.

Backspace is not the only unreleased project Obsidian Entertainment has spoken of. The Irvine, California-based developer also spent time developing a Snow White prequel and pitched an idea to the now-defunct LucasArts for a new Star Wars RPG.

Obsidian Entertainment is currently working on South Park: The Stick of Truth and Project Eternity.

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Publisher says number of characters on-screen cut down for PS3, Xbox 360 versions, though game is fundamentally the same across generations.

The current-generation and next-generation versions of Ubisoft's upcoming open-world game Watch Dogs will be "the same game," according to a new blog post from the company.

Ubisoft explained that the game's new Disrupt Engine is "flexible" enough to allow those who pick up the game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to "still get an amazing experience."

"We knew we would have next-gen hardware coming out before we ship," senior producer Dominic Guay said. "But we started off knowing we wanted to support PS3 and Xbox 360."

Though both versions of the game will be fundamentally "the same," Guay said current-generation players will see fewer characters on-screen at any given time.

"On current-gen systems we may need to cut down the number of people on the street a little, but it's still the same game," Guay said. "You don’t get the same sense of the crowd, but it allows us to scale certain bits and keep the same experience."

Animation director Colin Graham expanded on the differences between the two versions, saying though the Xbox One and PS4 iterations will be the "real HD experience," players on current-generation machines won't find the game to be lacking in any way.

"Players are going to know they aren't getting a bad experience if they play Watch Dogs for the current-gen, but the next-gen is the real HD experience. You can zoom in another level. You can have better shaders, better simulation on the wind or the water, more particles, better atmospherics’ Basically anything you can get with more computing power."

"So have no fear if you plan on playing Watch Dogs on the PS3 or 360," Ubisoft concluded. "There are no trimmed-down mechanics to make you feel as though you are missing out on the core experience."

Watch Dogs launches for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC on November 19. The Xbox One and PS4 versions will release sometime this holiday. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Watch Dogs.

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Yves Guillemot believes Xbox One, PS4, Wii U won't be the last round of consoles.

The next-generation of consoles won't be the last, according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot.

Speaking with CVG, Guillemot said he envisions a console future beyond the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.

"I still think it is not the last generation, because the manufacturers want a way to control their platform and the machine is the best way to have a specific access to that," he said.

God of War creator David Jaffe holds a different opinion, saying in June 2012 that dedicated consoles will die off after the Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4.

"I'll go on the record and say that the next generation of hardware will be the last consoles. And they should be," Jaffe said at the time.

Elsewhere in the interview, Guillemot--who has been critical of the extended length of the current-generation cycle--said the industry has the potential to grow "very fast" with the arrival of the Xbox One and PS4 this holiday.

"What I'm happy with is, because we've been waiting for a long time, if we really come with high quality games then the public will come very quickly to buy them. So we will see a big increase in the market," Guillemot said.

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Founder Tim Sweeney says games will reach photorealism in next decade, though doing so will create new challenges, he argues.

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney believes game graphics will be indistinguishable from reality in the next decade. Based on the current rate of progress, Sweeney claimed today at Develop, as reported by Games Industry International, that games will be "absolutely photorealistic within the next 10 years."

"An indistinguishable-from-reality level of graphics," he added.

Along with this visual advancement, Sweeney cautioned, will come new challenges and difficulties that will require a great investment in research before full virtual reality is accomplished.

"That just moves the challenge of graphics to the problems we don't know how to solve. Like simulating human intelligence, animation, speech, lip-syncing," Sweeney said. "There are still a lot areas that will require ongoing research for probably the rest of our lives before we come close to approaching reality."

Sweeney's comments echo those of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) visual effects supervisor Kim Libreri, who said in August last year that game graphics will be "indistinguishable from reality" over the course of the next decade. Libreri worked on Star Wars 1313, as well as Super 8 and The Matrix.

Epic Games is the creator of the Unreal Engine as well as the Gears of War franchise. The company's most recently released title was March's Gears of War: Judgment. The studio is presently working on Fortnite, an Unreal Engine 4-powered PC game due out this year.

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19-year Microsoft veteran Julie Larson-Green the new head of Microsoft's Devices and Studios Engineering Group, overseeing all Xbox development.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has announced a major organisational shake-up at the company, confirming former Windows boss Julie Larson-Green as the new head of Xbox hardware.

Writing a memo to all Microsoft staff, Ballmer speaks of his vision for "One Microsoft" will enable the company to operate at "greater speed, efficiency and capability in a fast changing world."

Larson-Green, a 19-year veteran of the company, will now lead Microsoft's Devices and Studios Engineering Group, and will look after all of Microsoft's hardware development--including the Xbox brand.

As the head of Microsoft's Windows division, Larson-Green oversaw the launches of Windows 8 and Windows 7. She also led the visual redesign introduced in Microsoft Office 2007.

Former Microsoft boss Don Mattrick was reported to have been lined up for Larson-Green's new role, but recently departed Microsoft to join social gaming giant Zynga as its CEO.

Elsewhere in the company, former Windows Phone boss Terry Myerson will now head up the Operating Systems Engineering Group that will encompass all versions of the company's flagship operating system across console, mobile, and PC. The Applications and Services Engineering Group, led by Qi Lu, will focus on developing applications services, and search.

Former Skype boss Tony Bates will take charge of Microsoft's Business Development and Evangelism Group, and will work on strengthening the company's relationship with other manufacturers and developers.

"Lots of change," said Ballmer. "But in all of this, many key things remains [sic] the same. Our incredible people, our spirit, our commitment, our belief in the transformative power of technology--our Microsoft technology--to make the world a better place for billions of people and millions of businesses around the world. It’s why I come to work inspired every day. It’s why we’ve evolved before, and why we’re evolving now. Because we’re not done."

"Let’s go," concluded Ballmer.

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