NCsoft has announced their first quarter financials, and their net profit is down 43%. How this happened with Guild Wars doing so well is unclear, but it is partially because NC has been developing MMO games like crazy, we think.

From NCSoft:

MMORPG.com presents an exclusive first look at City of Heroes Lead Writer Joe Morrissey's developer journal telling us about the Midnight Squad, a group of heroes that has appeared in past lore, but makes their first appearance in Issue 12.

From NCSoft:

We’ll have more details as to who will be there and what we will be showing as we get closer to these dates, but we want to give those who may be interested in attending advance notice.

Also, we want to mention that we will be doing a player Meet ‘n Greet in the San Francisco Bay Area in mid to late October this year. We had a great time and received a lot of positive feedback from last year’s Meet ‘n Greet event and we’re excited to be planning for another one this year. We’re still working out the details of the event and we will let you know more about it as we get closer.

PRESS RELEASE

Thursday 24th April... Brighton, England/... NCsoft® Europe (http://eu.plaync.com/eu/) today announced the release of Hellbound™, the newest addition to the Lineage® II (http://www.discoverlineage2.com) franchise, in conjunction with its Limited Collector’s Edition retail package. Continuing the storyline and content in December’s popular expansion Kamael, Hellbound increases the game’s level capacity to 85, and adds significant quests and skills. Players finally get the chance to best the diabolical boss Beleth, fighting their way through multiple towers in the Steel Citadel. Enhancements to the pet system enable players to grow their wolf pet into a mount called a Fenrir. Additionally, this update adds more transformation options, where players earn the ability to temporarily transform into a powerful alter-ego with special skills that will aid them in their ventures into Hellbound.

From NCSoft:

Level Designer Melissa “War Witch” Bianco gives us a blow by blow account of what is changing in the Hollows with the “Gameplay Makeover” for the zone that will be included in the next free expansion, Issue 12: Midnight Hour.

PRESS RELEASE

Tuesday 26th February/... Brighton, UK — NCsoft® Europe and ArenaNet® have announced that the Guild Wars® franchise of online roleplaying games has surpassed five million units sold in Europe, North America, and Asia.

NCSoft has released a PR Q&A for the upcoming Issue 10 of City of Villains/City of Heroes. It sounds like some great additions, click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

Wednesday 13th February/... Programmer CW Bennett explains how the development team behind City of Heroes/City of Villains is implementing an update to the game’s User Interface (U.I.) to include the numbers behind the game’s combat system.

From NCSoft:

Shing Jea Monastery is currently making preparations for the coming Canthan New Year's Festival! The festivities will commence at Noon PST (-8 GMT) on Friday, February 8, 2008. Try your luck at the re-opened Shing Jea Boardwalk, or test your mettle in the Rollerbeetle Races and the Dragon Arena. The culinary inclined can help collaborate in creating a feast to please the Celestial Rat. There's even more to do, and many special surprises, so head over to the special event page to get all the details of this annual celebration.

NCSoft's North American president, Chris Chung, has stated that the shift of MMO games to home consoles is inevitable. Speaking to Gamedaily regarding NCSoft's exclusive deal with Sony, he noted that PC MMOs have to be optimized for home console play.

"I think the shift is inevitable; real-time strategy is one of the last PC genres moving onto consoles, and I think we'll see a similar trend for online games as well."

Austin-based Spacetime Studios has announced that NCsoft will no longer be funding the company's ongling MMO project. The company is working on an original IP space combat MMO, and two years ago entered into an agreement with NCSoft. Well, it seems that there was just not enough movement in the project for NC's liking, so they finally pulled out.