Japanese developer and publisher Capcom intends to stop commissioning original games from foreign developers as part of the response to its recent revelation that profits dropped 73% over the last year, 1up spotted the Financial Times reporting.

"As a group, the new titles where development was led from abroad didn't do so well," Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto told the newspaper. Capcom's annual financial report blamed the poor sales performance of foreign projects Bionic Commando and Dark Void in part for the past year's profits plummet, among other factors. Read more »

Capcom's annual financial results reveal the developer and publisher's profits dropped 73.1%--2,167 million Yen, or $23.5 million US--in the past year as compared to 2009.

Capcom explains that Bionic Commando, Dark Void and Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles "underperformed their sales and remained weak" while the postponing of Lost Planet 2 and Super Street Fighter IV to its 2011 financial year didn't help either. Read more »

Airight's rocket man simulator Dark Void may have only hit a few weeks ago, but fans won't have to wait a long, long time for more--publisher Capcom has announced a "Survival Missions" add-on that'll be downloadable on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next week.

Priced at 400 Microsoft Points ($5), the add-on is said to recreate "key events" from the game in an "arcade-esque experience where the player battles through hoards of enemies on the ground and in the air while collecting points and upgrading weaponry, with the goal being to survive to Round 10." Read more »

Dark Void builds around the basic idea that if an action hero is cool, an action hero wearing a jet pack is even cooler. William Grey, the game's hero, boost jumps, hovers, and flies around the skies in addition to the standard ground-based exploration and combat. To take advantage of the flight element, Dark Void introduces what the developers call a vertical cover system. As the name implies it rotates the usual crouch behind cover and peek out to shoot mechanic to a vertical axis. Dark Void wraps this action up in a retro alternate history mid-20th century "world of tomorrow" atmosphere with the twist of stumbling onto an alien conspiracy in the legendary Bermuda Triangle.

The pitch sounds clever enough. It's pulling together the pieces, or for that matter even a piece, that proves to be too much for Dark Void. But all of the smaller issues away fall like dominoes compared to the central problem with the game's signature jet pack. It's not the liberating, fun-to-play blast around the sky it needed to be to hang the rest of the game on. Awkward controls, an uncomfortable default flight speed, and lack of visual reference cues make it a disorienting experience at best. More often it becomes a frustrating fight just to flail around the sky without bouncing off too many things. Read more »

A 1.02GB demo of Dark Void PC is now available on FileShack, providing a playable taste of the jetpack-powered shooter coming from Aitright Studios next week.

In their suite at CES, publisher Capcom showed off the finished PC version of Airtight's Dark Void running on some beefy machines to show off the support for Nvidia's 3D Vision and PhysX effects. After playing for a while, I found they both enhanced the game when used individually but didn't work together too well.

Shine on you, rocket man. Since Dark Void isn't due for two weeks yet (January 19), you were all "I think it's going to be a long long time 'til touch down brings me round."

But not to fret! You'll be "high as a kite" later this week (on consoles, that is), as a downloadable demo for Airtight's sci-fi action game is due on Xbox 360 tomorrow (Wednesday, January 6) and PlayStation 3 the next day (Thursday, January 7). Read more »

Dark Void publisher Capcom has today unveiled the minimum PC system requirements for Airtight Games' jetpacking sci-fi shooter, though recommended specs are not given.

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Having previously led development of Portal and worked on both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 while at Valve, Kim Swift has left the studio and joined Dark Void developer Airtight Games as a project lead, the latter independent studio revealed today.

A proper sequel to the addictive color-matching puzzle-RPG Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is slated to hit Nintendo DS and Xbox 360 (as an Xbox Live Arcade download) in the spring of 2010, D3Publisher officially announced today.

Original developer Infinity Interactive is handling the sequel, with studio owner D3 promising "an enhanced real-time experience using all-new weapons, spells, and shields that make every decision meaningful...in the deepest puzzle adventure yet." Read more »

'The Watchers,' a new trailer for Capcom's upcoming title Dark Void, jet-packs in a healthy dose of antagonist-driven action featuring an ancient alien race called - you guessed it - The Watchers.

What they're watching, we're not entirely sure; however, we do know that they're armed with advanced technology and lethal firepower, on top of being kind of creepy looking. It's also worth mentioning that they seek to enslave the human race. Apparently, being banished to a parallel world called 'The Void' makes evil aliens cranky. Read more »

While Airtight's sci-fi action game Dark Void has yet to be released--it hits PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in January--publisher Capcom has inked a deal to see it become a feature film.

The film rights went to Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment, with Capcom noting that the movie could be a "potential starring vehicle" for the Fight Club, Ocean's Eleven and Meet Joe Black veteran. Read more »

Golly gee, Nikola Tesla is trapped in an alternate universe ruled by an evil alien race known only as The Watchers? Someone better call The Middleman. I guess Dark Void star William Grey would do in a pinch--I hear that dude has a jetpack, after all.

Developed by Airtight Games and published by Capcom, Dark Void hits PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on January 12 in North America and January 15 in Europe.

Infinite Interactive's addictive puzzle RPG Puzzle Quest is this week's Xbox Live Marketplace deal.

Effective immediately, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords has been marked down to 400 Microsoft Points ($5) for Xbox Live gold members. The sale will run through next Sunday. Read more »

Combining two of the latest trends in gaming, Capcom has debuted a GameStop-exclusive pre-order bonus for Dark Void with the below spooftacular video.

In short, pre-ordering Dark Void from GameStop nets you a download code for the "golden jetpack," which provides aspiring virtual rocket men with "unlimited boost." Explains the kid in the video: "Now I've got more boost than my sister's push-up bra." Read more »