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by Published on February 16th, 2011 08:30- Categories:
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- PS3 News,
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news from play asia:
Chinese New Year Lucky Sales are now in full swing, to spice up the fun, here are some new items in the Sales category and a lot of products are further reduced.
Take a look again, some of the games and CDs have returned and other very special, very limited products, too have entered the section.
Large box sets such as the Call of Duty Prestige Edition get extra price cuts, now's the time to grab that Surveillance Vehicle and maps. The Tales of Graces Nintendo Wii Bundle comes with the game, the console and the classic controller, while the Taiko no Tatsujin Bundle comes with the drum which makes Taiko games all the more fun.
Take another dive in the Sales section, there is always something more going into it.
In case you've missed the old announcements about the lucky draw, here's a brief recap: all discounted products will spot a rabbit on its page, snatch it and you'll be entered into the lucky draw. To see the fabulous prizes and learn more about the event, please visit this original post.
...by Published on February 16th, 2011 05:00- Categories:
- PC News
News via http://www.aep-emu.de/
Commander Genius formally known as CloneKeen Plus is an interpreter for the Commander Keen 1-3 Series for Windows and Linux.
It has been released in a new test version.
Quote:
no changelog/notes ...by Published on February 16th, 2011 04:15- Categories:
- PSP News,
- PS3 News,
- PS2 News,
- Nintendo DS News,
- Nintendo Wii News,
- PC News,
- Xbox 360 News,
- Android News,
- Apple iPhone
54 per cent of all illegal game file sharing takes place in France, Spain, Italy, China and Brazil, according to new research....
A report filed by US trade group the Entertainment Software Association and reported by Gamasutraasks for 33 countries to be put on a watchlist of nations not taking adequate measures to combat copyright infringement.
The ESA claimed that game piracy in the aforementioned countries had reached "extraordinarily high" levels, accounting for 78 million of 144 million unauthorised peer-to-peer connections logged worldwide.
That's more than five times the amount attributed to users in the USA, according to the study.
"Our industry continues to grow in the US, but epidemic levels of online piracy stunt sales and growth in a number of countries, including Italy, China, Spain, Brazil and France, where we see crushing volumes of infringing peer-to-peer activity involving leading game titles," commented ESA president Michael Gallagher.
Spain was singled out for special attention in the report, with the ESA asking for it to join China and Canada on a "Priority Watch List". It claimed "lax policies" in the country "have fostered a culture permissive of piracy".
It was recommended that Brazil and Italy should remain on a lesser "Watch List" as there were signs that both nations were attempting to address the issue.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...or-game-piracyby Published on February 16th, 2011 04:00- Categories:
- PS3 News,
- Nintendo Wii News,
- PC News,
- Xbox 360 News
With over-exposure cited as one of the key factors behind the demise last week of Activision's once mighty Guitar Hero franchise, industry talking heads have now turned their attentions to the publisher's other cash cow – Call of Duty – and asked if it's hurtling towards a similar fate....
The answer? No. Probably.
A number of pundits chimed in on the topic during a lengthy IndustryGamers report, among them Wedbush Morgan's pontificator-in-chief, the irrepressible Michael Pachter. He peered into his crystal ball and saw a relatively bright future for the FPS juggernaut.
"I don't think they are comparable at all," Pach-man insisted.
"Guitar Hero is a franchise that people buy once, because the peripherals are great. As it saturated the installed base, the only buyers were people who are new console purchasers, and the 'fad' appeared to wear off at the same time. Guitar Hero was a victim of its own success.
"Call of Duty, on the other hand, has a vibrant online community that keeps growing. When a new version comes out, the 'network effect' kicks in, and many people buy it because their friends have done so. The risk to the franchise is competition, not people tiring of the gameplay.
"Call of Duty won't fade unless Activision opens the door to competition by making a bad game," he concluded.
Colin Sebastian of Lazard Capital Markets toed a similar line, reinforcing that Call of Duty's future was dependent on the quality of the finished product.
"I think music games were a fad - just like fitness games were at one point, and maybe dance games are today. But after years of franchise growth, I wouldn't put Call of Duty in the same category.
"Could Activision mess it up? Sure, but if they focus on maintaining high game quality, fresh story-lines, and online multiplayer, then I don't see an obvious reason for the franchise to decline."
Mike Hickey of Janco Partners, took a slightly more fatalistic stance, though speculated that Guitar Hero's grisly end was sped up by its status as a flash-in-the-pan social phenomenon.
"All entertainment experiences have life cycles; an accelerated cultural burn will likely extinguish the cycle faster than a gradual iteration philosophy. Ultimately, it's the development studio and collective culture that defines greatness, not Wall Street or the executive teams managing toward a linear path of growth.
Only Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research struck a more cynical note, calling out Activision's lucrative but destructive "strip mining" strategy but adding that the publisher seemed to be getting better at it in recent years.
"Guitar Hero and other former franchises may appear to be publisher failures, but the truth is that strip-mining franchises is a successful, risk-averse strategy. ATVI made good money on GH. Sequels were produced quickly and cheaply.
"The hit it and quit it model - carpet-bombing the market with sequels and then slashing the assets - pays off big in the short term, so ATVI's shareholders are happy. ATVI is learning to execute this strategy with greater efficiency each go-round."
"There is an alternate strategy," he continued, "but it's more risky as it requires careful investment and isn't necessarily as lucrative. Publishers can attempt to keep a franchise going for a longer period of time by spacing out sequels.
"In either scenario, the trick is to keep the franchise selling for as long as possible before it (or the developers) burn out. The endgame is always ugly because layoffs are typically involved."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...tar-heros-fateby Published on February 16th, 2011 03:29- Categories:
- PS3 News,
- PC News,
- Xbox 360 News
An all platforms patch for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will launch soon, Infinity Ward has announced....
It will address "security issues that have affected online play", community man Robert Bowling said on the game's official forum.
The patch, which has finished production and is now going through internal quality assurance, will release for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
"Modern Warfare 2" and "security" have enjoyed a strained relationship following the release of hacker George "GeoHot" Hotz's PS3 jailbreak code onto the internet.
Last month Bowling, aka fourzerotwo, took to the official Infinity Ward forum to blame PS3 Modern Warfare 2 hacks on the console's compromised security.
"Sony has recently acknowledged a breach in security on the PS3 which resulted in games to become exposed to exploits and hacks," Bowling said.
"Modern Warfare 2 is no exception to this security exploit and we understand that some of you have experienced problems with stats and other issues associated with this."
Apparently PS3 Modern Warfare 2 players are susceptible to hacks that affect their statistics and, in some cases, delete their progress.
According to Bowling, Infinity Ward was powerless in the matter.
"Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they're played on, therefore; updates to the game through patches will not resolve this problem, unless the security exploit itself is resolved on the platform," he said.
Was he wrong?
Following that controversial post, Bowling followed up with another that revealed Infinity Ward was working to resolve hacking issues.
The studio's "main focus" was on "preventing hackers from affecting legitimate players" and "addressing users who have already been affected", he said.
The patch will also address a "small geo exploit on the map Fuel". Players exploited it to get inside a rock on the outskirts of the map, apparently.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...h-nearly-readyby Published on February 16th, 2011 02:00
HP closed its recent "Think Beyond" event with a remarkable announcement that webOS would becoming to PCs. How, exactly, the company planned on doing that has been a mystery. The Seattle Timesjust interviewed HP's CTO, Phil McKinney, who helped put to rest some premature speculation that HP would be dumping Microsoft Windows in favor of webOS while adding some clarity (though not much) to its webOS on everything strategy. According to Phil, people still want an OS appropriate to PCs, tablets, and smartphones with webOS pulling it all together by "taking the existing operating systems and bringing WebOS onto those platforms and making it universal across all of our footprint." That doesn't mean that webOS will run as a virtualized instance within Windows. Phil says, "it's not virtualization. It's an integrated WebOS experience we're looking to bring." He then adds, "We're working with Microsoft on the future of Windows and we're very optimistic on what that future is, but what we think is we can bring an enhancement to that." The goal is to create a large device footprint that makes webOS a very attractive platform to developers -- "you can develop your WebOS app that'll run on your phone, your slate and your PC," according to McKinney. Hmm, apparently HP didn't get the Elopcalypse memo about the "three-horse race" that considers HP's and RIM's ecosystems irrelevant.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/15/w...ed-experience/ ...by Published on February 16th, 2011 00:02
The game industry has reacted angrily to the leaks of two of 2011's most anticipated shooters: Crysis 2 and Killzone 3....
Over the weekend a near complete build of the PC version of Crysis 2, complete with multiplayer, hit Torrent sites. Reports then came in that the final version of Killzone 3 was online.
German developer Crytek this morning moved to reassure gamers of its commitment to the PC despite the Crysis 2 leak, but Gamers' Voice, the UK gamer pressure group, said it would not be surprised to see a third game in the science fiction shooter series launch as a console exclusive.
"It's hard to understand the reasoning behind video game piracy or the justification by those that do so," chairman Paul Gibson told Eurogamer.
"They might get a game for free, or early, but ultimately they are damaging the industry and hurting all the legitimate gamers who purchase copies.
"Consumers don't like DRM as it seems to only cause problems but publishers will continue to include it if pirates continue to steal their games. By doing this piracy hurts the gamer as much as any developer or publisher.
"The industry only makes money from game sales; losing these sales to piracy ultimately means no more games for us. We can already see this in the PC market and it would not be surprising to see Crysis 3 released for consoles only after this latest leak.
"We condemn all forms of video games piracy; there is no excuse for it. But we hope that publishers look for ways to fight piracy without harming those who legitimately purchase a game."
The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) added its voice to the universal condemnation of the leaks, saying piracy "poses a very real threat to the UK's games industry".
"The differences between a successful game and an unsuccessful game can be small and interactive entertainment businesses can go out of business off the back of poor sales of just one product," director general Michael Rawlinson told Eurogamer. "If these sales are affected by piracy it could mean job losses and fewer new games for consumers to enjoy."
UKIE recently claimed that for every one game sold at retail four are pirated - an estimate based on information received from "a number of publishers".
UKIE failed, however, to reveal which console formats were included in its estimates, or whether PC games were included.
In truth, the true impact of piracy on game sales is unknown. But publishers and developers are united in their belief that it is harmful.
Crytek and EA issued a joint statement condemning Crysis 2's availability to download online, although Guerrilla and Sony are yet to comment on the Killzone 3 leak.
"Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community," the duo said.
Nicholas Lovell, author of How to Publish a Game, said the leaks force publishers to consider alternative ways to sell their games.
"In an online, connected world, making one more copy of a game is trivially easy," he told Eurogamer.
"Building games that rely on a combination of DRM and copyright law will get ever tougher as broadband gets faster, competitive pressures drive down prices towards zero and, yes, many consumers conclude that when it costs nothing to make one more copy, it's hard to justify spending money on that copy.
"There are many successful, alternative business models to charging $50 for a game. These leaks only hasten the day when all publishers have to adopt them."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-only-crysis-3by Published on February 14th, 2011 18:33- Categories:
- PC News
"Christopher Tin made video game history yesterday by winning a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for his song, Baba Yetu, featured prominently as the main theme song of Civilization IV. The composer, who wrote the song for his former Stanford University roommate Soren Johnson, has also seen the work featured at the largest choreographed water fountain in the world at the Burj Khalifa tower in Dubaihttp://games.slashdot.org/story/11/0...For-Video-Game ...by Published on February 14th, 2011 18:24- Categories:
- PS3 News,
- PC News,
- Xbox 360 News
Both Sony and EA have in recent days suffered leaks of major upcoming titles, weeks ahead of their planned release dates.
A copy of Sony and Guerrilla's PlayStation 3 title Killzone 3 appeared on a number of filesharing sites over the weekend, and is rendered playable by home users due to the recent clutch of copy protection hacks.
The foremost of these was achieved by one George Hotz, who Sony is currently suing. The hacker recently posted a self-performed rap concerning the ongoing legal battle.
The source of 41.4GB Killzone 3 leak has not been identified as yet, but it is known to be the European version of the game. A smaller copy, with the stereoscopic 3D functionality removed, is apparently also available. The game is not due for retail release until Feb 25.
Meanwhile, last Friday saw the news that an early PC build of Crytek title Crysis 2 had been leaked online. The shooter, to be published by EA Partners, is due for release on March 22. The pirated version is believed to be a near-finished copy, playable from start to finish but strewn with error messages and missing elements.
In a joint statement, EA and Crytek claimed to be "deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on 22nd March.
"Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the ultimate action blockbuster as the series' signature Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion.
"Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community."
As yet, the game's Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions apparently remain secure.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-leaked-online
...by Published on February 14th, 2011 18:20- Categories:
- PSP News,
- PS3 News,
- PS2 News,
- Nintendo DS News,
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Atari's Test Drive Unlimited 2 has taken first position in the UK chart on its week of release, with a significant skew in platform sales showing that 68 per cent of copies bought were for Xbox 360.
Elsewhere in the top ten, Nintendo's Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem on DS climbed to sixth from eleventh in its second week on the chart, with Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto IV: Complete Edition entering the table at ninth. Ubisoft's Dance Juniors comes in at twelfth in its first week.
Dead Space 2 slips to second after two weeks at the top, whilst perennial top five titles FIFA 11 and Call of Duty: Black Ops holding third and fourth. Little Big Planet 2 falls to tenth after a relatively short stay in the upper echelons of the chart.
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