Greg Canessa, one of the main people behind XBLA has just announced in an interview with Next-Gen.biz that now that XBLA is "now a permanent, lasting success in the video game marketplace", he's going to make the move to Pop-Cap. The reasoning he gives is that he wants to follow his entrepreneurial ways and join the small nimble company that he thinks "could be the next Blizzard or EA in the game industry".

We wish Greg all the best with his new position of bringing PopCap titles to the non-PC market, and hope that he remembers XBLA when deciding where any new titles will go.

You can check out the whole interview here.

thanks for the heads up steverulez

There's a new interview up on K1lla’s Xbox Domain with Garth Chouteau, the PR Director at PopCap.

The good news?
Will support both four player battles as well as co-op play.

The bad?
Not out till fall '06

Check it out here

It seems that some info is starting to leak out from the pre E3 darkness. According to a press release from PopCap, they are going to be in Microsoft's booth showing of the XBLA version of Heavy Weapon.

PopCap describes the game as:

Heavy Weapon is a classic arcade-style side-scrolling action game in which the player strives to defeat hordes of enemy armies in the form of tanks, jeeps, fighter jets, helicopters and other land- and air-based vehicles. Power-ups that provide additional speed, shields, firepower and other capabilities help the player overcome increasingly nasty enemy forces and bosses while progressing through levels representing the oppressed (fictitious) countries over which the war is being waged. Since launching for Web and PC Play, Heavy Weapon has been downloaded more than 10 million times.

The multiplayer survival game to be included exclusively in Heavy Weapon for Xbox Live Arcade will be on display at the E3 expo. This game mode allows the player to test his/her tactical prowess with up to three friends on a high definition widescreen display. The single player survival game is already a frenzied battle where the player is pitted against inexhaustible enemy forces. In multiplayer mode the action is even more furious, with as many as four sets of cannons blazing and endlessly intensifying waves of enemy forces. The ensuing chaos would make even a battle-hardened Geo Wars veteran sweat! Stop by the booth, grab a controller and get your nuke on.

If you want to see more of Heavy Weapon, head over to the PC versions site here

According to Major Nelson’s post here Astropop has been released. Here’s the features according to the XBox Site:
Fire your rockets and blast off to fast-paced, arcade-puzzle action! Astropop™ blends fast twitch challenge with an offbeat, fun storyline. Choose from four space pilots, each with unique abilities and weaponry. Then grab, group, and blast bricks to create combos and clear a path to the stars. As you progress, a mysterious link between the pilots unfolds against a backdrop of spectacular graphics, captivating sound effects, and myriads of scoring opportunities. Astropop’s two different gameplay modes, coupled with 33 challenging bonus rounds, offers hours of extraordinary replay value for players of all ages and skill levels.
Considering this was supposed to be out in Feb. it’s good to see.

PopCap Games, the creators of the XBLA titles, Zuma, Bejewelled 2, and the upcomming Astropop are growing the team once again. In an industry that seems to be all news about layoffs and the like, it’s certainly good to see one of the Arcade developers doing so well.
This article at gameindustry.biz has a few great tidbits about the growth. My favorite being that PopCap has grown from three employees in 2000 to an expected 70 or so in the next 12 months.
More info as it comes in…