Eidos president Ian Livingstone was the one who broke news of a new Hitman game from IO Interactive a few months back, and now he has reiterated that the Hitman franchise is sitting squarely in IO's corner.

Agent 47 is coming back. That was confirmed by Eidos president Ian Livingstone a few months back. Back then, Livingstone mentioned that IO Interactive was working on the game, but that may no longer be the case.

Reports are circulating that Eidos has recently filed a trademark for a sequel to 2007's co-op third-person shooter, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC). Sparse details after the jump.

Eidos president Ian Livingstone has confirmed what pretty much every Hitman fan has been waiting for: a new Hitman game. It's not really a surprise, but it's still good to have some confirmation at least.

Say what?! Gaming is just "one notch up from porn"? Not literally, but seriously, the British parliament pays little attention to the gaming industry, treating it like some cultural minority. As a result, gaming in the UK has gotten so bad that developers from other countries are buying British companies out. More in the full article.

In the 2007 Edinburgh Interactive Festival, Eidos Product Acquisitions director Ian Livingstone observed that gaming was still significantly behind movies and comics in terms of character "recognizability". This led him to say that the gaming industry "needs more Lara Crofts."

GameSpot narrates that in Livingstone's presentation at the aforementioned shindig, he presented the audience images of popular movie and comic characters first, then went on to flash pictures of iconic game personalities. The result: movie and comic book characters were easier to recognize for the crowd.

The Eidos bigwig then goes on to ask, "If we all work in the games industry, what does that say?" And then he went on to answer that same question by saying that developers need to establish more character in their games.

Livingstone discussed some key elements which can make a character linger in the psyche of gamers. One of the most important, he says, is the name. ""With a name like 'Darth Vader,' you know he's not going to be nice," he says. "Now 'Jar Jar Binks,' he's going to be much more fun."

Livingstone also pointed out that a distinctive look always helps. He cited their character Agent 47 from the popular Hitman series and revealed that the bald head with the bar code at the base often fascinated their audience, giving the character more life than others.

Finally, he says there are catch phrases. These are amazingly cool and original lines that will help people identify with a given character. Much like in a movie, people will find it hard to forget a particular line that hits close to home.

Team Xbox reports that Microsoft has announced that Electronic Arts' Boom Boom Rocket will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade today at 0900 GMT (2:00 A.M. PDT). Xbox 360 owners can download the game for 800 Microsoft Points.

Developed by Geometry Wars creators Bizarre Creations, Boom Boom Rocket is a rhythm music game where players trigger rockets to the beat of the music while traveling through a 3D cityscape. The fireworks effects in the game - choreographed to 10 tracks created by Ian Livingstone - become more spectacular according to how well-timed players time the explosions.

Players can either play through the single player mode or go head to head against a friend on the same console. Boom Boom Rocket offers players three gameplay modes: normal, speed, and multiplayer head-to-head.

The Independent reports that Eidos plans to stay ahead of the video game market by continuing to broaden the profile and demographic of games. Here's the legendary Ian Livingstone on the subject:

I am always trying to broaden the profile and demographic of games. We now have the Wii and interactive DVD quiz games. I want grandmothers to play bingo and bridge online. There is a game for everyone out there.

Eidos is now Britain's only major games publisher, and the Independent reports that their success is attracting the attention (and investment) of companies such as Warner Bros. What's important here is that despite Warner Bros' present involvement with the company, Livingstone emphasizes that they will continue to focus on making original games.

Of course a little money from a project or too wouldn't hurt, but their main focus is still on making great games and not making mediocre ports of famous TV shows. Here's his words:

I tend to put my finger into everybody else's pies, but I add creative input to make good games rather than making an average game based on an existing TV show. That will not drag a poor game through the marketplace.

Funny to hear reports about Eidos' success after reading about a retailer bashing them for their price drop.

This comes a bit weird after we mentioned yesterday that industry veteran Ian Livingstone has been pushing developers and publishers to focus on gameplay and new IPs. Gaming giant Electronic Arts seems to have been listening, as the company just admitted that game franchises could only take them for so far.

EA is known for annually making various sports game, which when you really think about it, are all quite the same. They came up with Superman Returns for the Xbox 360, yes, but it is still based on a well established pop culture icon. EA Montreal General Manager Alain Tascan acknowledged this and then mentioned that its time to take bigger risks:

We think this is something that people are going to react well to, because EA is not known for this. I mean, if you look at the comments of people on some of the things I've said and they say 'How can you dare talk about innovation?' And that's what we want to prove that as a company we can do it.

Currently, EA has various upcoming titles for different consoles over at the Montreal Studio. Some of these include SSX Blur for the Wii, Army of Two for X360 and PS3 as well as one unannounced new IP.

"Like watching television." That's how Eidos exec Ian Livingstone described the forthcoming next-gen entry in the classic Tomb Raider franchise during an interview with Eurogamer TV.

"I've seen some of the in-game models and it's just like watching television; if you felt you were in love with Lara Croft previously, you ain't seen nothing yet. You'll be drooling when you see the new Lara as she appears in the next iteration," said Livingstone.

Livingstone also revealed that plans for a third Tomb Raider movie, which will reportedly have Angelina Jolie once again playing the role of Lara Croft, is in the works. Lara Croft's two previous movie outings have netted hefty revenues of US$ 430 million.

"There's a possibility - we've been talking to Paramount, who've agreed to assign a scriptwriter," he told EGTV. "That's nowhere near the green-light process but it's a very healthy start to have a scriptwriter which they're going to pay serious amounts of money to write the first script."