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by Published on June 28th, 2011 10:04- Categories:
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The free-to-play market can be as profitable for Electronic Arts as the console sector, with the publisher reaping the rewards of cheaper production costs and reaching brand new markets.
That's according to Frank Gibeau, head of the EA Games label, who said the publisher will continue to push IP into the freemium market, and so far there has not been any cannibalisation as brands are stretched across multiple formats and devices, from console to smartphone, browser and tablets.
"We're aggressively investing in things that are very low cost like free-to-play," said Gibeau in an interview published today. "The free-to-play group inside of EA Games is growing extremely fast - we've got 17 million users.
With Need for Speed World, Russia and Brazil are number one and two. I can't sell packaged goods in those territories.
Frank Gibeau, EA
"Frankly when they get to scale, have huge audiences, are very profitable, they're not cannibalising the main games and they actually reach markets that we're not currently serving. With Need for Speed World, Russia and Brazil are number one and two - the Ukraine is in there too. I can't sell packaged goods in those territories.
"But I'm reaching an audience with Need for Speed content. It's an engine that's not as advanced as Frostbite 2 but it's certainly got great production values and great game designs, and it's free-to-play with micro transactions. It's a very exciting time from our perspective because it's not all about consoles. It's about smartphones, tablets, free-to-play, browser, social."
Earlier this month the publisher unveiled Origin, its direct to consumer store where it will selling digital versions of upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic exclusively. Looking further ahead, Gibeau said EA is evaluating new technology that will allow it to bypass other partners, including developments in web-connected television sets.
"There's new emerging technologies that we're always interested in," he said. "Exotic stuff like smart televisions, where you get the full chipset and push the game directly to them. That's right on the horizon and could be a very disruptive technology for the console manufacturers. But not for us because we'd be perfectly happy to do that."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...a-console-game ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 10:03- Categories:
- DCEmu
Customers on digital devices acquire more games than any other kind of gamer, according to a new report from NPD looking at current buying trends in the US.
The report found that 'digital gamers' - those playing games on devices where content is obtained primarily via digital download - acquire an average of 5.9 new games every three months. This compares to just 5.4 amongst core gamers.
Core gamers do play more than digital gamers, but the difference is not as marked as might be expected, at 18 hours per week to 16.
The core still represent the single biggest block of gamers, at 23 per cent, but even this is almost equal to 'family and kid gamers' at 22 per cent and "avid and light PC gamers" at 15 per cent.
NPD suggests that amongst all gamers more than one third of all game content is now acquired digitally, whether via consoles, PCs, smartphones or other media devices.
"The name of the game in 2011 seems to be choice. Gamers are increasingly branching out to methods of play other than those that the industry has traditionally expected them to use," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.
"Fuelled by the growth of smartphones and new tablet devices, mobile gaming continues to accelerate, and what a game is and what it means to be a gamer is evolving, reflecting the rapid nature of change within the industry."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ames-than-core ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 10:02
Howard Stringer, Sony Corp CEO, spoke to shareholders about recent hacker attacks on the company in a meeting in Tokyo.
"We believe that we first became the subject of attack because we tried to protect our IP (intellectual property), our content, in this case video games," the CEO explained.
"These are our corporate assets, and there are those that don't want us to protect them, they want everything to be free."
According to Reuters, during the meeting there was a call from a shareholder for the CEO to step down, but Stringer made no direct comment on the suggestion.
Sony is currently facing a lawsuit over the attacks on PlayStation Network and the Sony Online Entertainment Network.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ng-its-content ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 10:01- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
A Namco Bandai Europe community manager has withdrawn comments suggesting that Microsoft paid for Xbox 360 exclusivity on role-playing title Tales Of Vesperia, despite earlier claiming the opposite.
Junior community manager Charlotte Toci previously claimed via Facebook that Microsoft had paid to ensure that Tales Of Vesperia remained an Xbox 360 exclusive in the West and was not be released on the PlayStation 3 outside of Japan.
"Microsoft paid for the exclusivity the same way Sony paid for having Heavy Rain only on PS3," she originally said. "It's just one way the business works, sadly. Those decisions are made really high up y'know, we do try and give them the max of fan feedback, but sometimes it's just out of our hands."
Toci has now insisted she had no official information before making the statement and has retracted her claims.
"A few months ago I replied to a fan who asked me why Tales of Vesperia wasn't localised in Europe on my Facebook page. I replied that it was because of a Microsoft exclusivity, thinking that that was the reason why, even though I didn't have any official information on that," she claimed in a recent post.
"I was wrong to do so, and sadly my reply was relayed on many websites, thus sharing a false information to fans around the web."
"I would like to send my sincere apologies to all the Tales Series fans I have wrongly informed, and Microsoft and Namco Bandai for any damage that might have been caused with this."
Although lower profile exclusivity deals such as the one originally implied by Toci are still believed to take place within the industry they are rarely acknowledged by either publishers or console manufacturers.
Namco Bandai has not yet commented on why Tales Of Vesperia has not been released on PlayStation 3 in the West.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...lusivity-deals ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 09:35- Categories:
- Android News
We've already noted our slip into Bizarro World, a strange and topsy-turvy land where -- thanks to patent-infringement claims -- Microsoft strikes licensing deals with Android device makers. Redmond has used a carrot-and-stick strategy thus far, suing competing manufacturers (Barnes and Noble, Motorola) while reaching a protective royalty agreement with HTC, which, not coincidentally, also makes Windows Phones. Today, another company joins the licensee list: General Dynamics Itronix, known for its rugged computers, some of which do run Windows. Neither company offered much in the way of details, other than declaring that Itronix will pay royalties, but we've no reason to believe it's too different from HTC's arrangement. See the press release after the break for an excellent example of terse, unrevealing business-speak.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/m...uses-more-hea/ ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 09:27- Categories:
- Retro Consoles/Translation News
A no-name PMP selling for $179 at Brando -- purveyor of all things inexpensive, electronic and often USB-powered -- may not ordinarily make the grade for us, but this so-called Gadmei P83 device has one somewhat notable trick up its sleeve. It packs an 8-inch, 1,280 x 768 display that's able to do glasses-free 3D video. Of course, you're left to yourself to actually hunt down or provide your own compatible video files, and the PMP itself is decidedly ordinary otherwise: 4GB of storage, an SD card slot for expansion, and the usual media playback capabilities and nothing more (no one's going to confuse this for a tablet). Still curious? Head on past the break for a video that offers a slightly more accurate depiction of the device than the image above.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/g...ee-3d-for-179/ ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 09:22- Categories:
- PC News
Microsoft is telling Windows users that they'll have to reinstall the OS if they get infected with a new rootkit. A new variant of a Trojan Microsoft calls Popureb digs so deeply into the system that the only way to eradicate it is to return Windows to its out-of-the-box configuration, Chun Feng, an engineer with the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC), said last week on the group's blog. 'If your system does get infected with Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E, we advise you to fix the MBR and then use a recovery CD to restore your system to a pre-infected state,' said Feng. A recovery disc returns Windows to its factory settings
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/06...dows-Reinstall ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 09:17- Categories:
- PC News
Cheapie no-names are already a fifth of the market
Rebranded white-label tablet PCs are capturing ever more market share from brand name devices according to a DigiTimes report.
The no-name tablets already account for up to 20 per cent of the global tablet PC market in the first quarter 2011, according to DigiTimes sources within the manufacturing upstream supply chain.
Pricing is playing a key role in the rapid expansion into developing markets with DigiTimes sources believing that the white-label market will increasingly threaten 'first-tier tablet PC players' in the second half of the year.
The sources noted that the North American market is seeing the rise in popularity of a number of rebranded low-end tablets to the point that they have appeared in the Amazon top-20 selling product lists. Most of the devices are 7-inch resistive touch screen devices selling for a fraction of that of high-end branded models.
One such example is the UK Andy Pad set to arrive in September priced at £129. Amazon UK also provides a window into the emerging white-label Android tablets with a number of sub £100 models with generic sounding names such as Epad, Apad and Tabtech.
A common feature of such devices is that they are marketed by placing the emphasis on Google and Android rather than the brand name of the devices. With continued supply shortage of higher spec brand-name devices in the channel, such generic inexpensive devices look set to become increasing attractive to retailers.
DigiTimes source dryly noted that such devices "can be easily damaged or have a defect."
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/36561...n-major-brands ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 00:37- Categories:
- Nintendo 64 News
The original concept for N64 classic Zelda: Ocarina of Time saw the game play out entirely within the confines of Ganon's castle, according to creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
Speaking in the latest Iwata Asks Q&A on the Nintendo website, he explained that players would then access different areas via portals in its rooms.
"I thought about putting in all kinds of adventures into the different rooms, like making a dark meadow or an ocean - like in Princess Peach's Castle in Super Mario 64.
"In the worst case," he added, "Link wouldn't have been able to go outside the castle!"
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata then asked if that decision was fuelled by a lack of confidence in being able to create Hyrule Field with the limitations laid down by the N64 hardware.
"Yes," he replied. "I thought so from the perspective of the hardware's processing abilities while making Super Mario 64. At first, I didn't mind making the game complete within a single building as long as I got to make Link in 3D. In other words, it might have turned out like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link."
The decision to attempt a more ambitious structure and take 3D Link out into the open was born out of Miyamoto's desire to have the game's hero ride a horse.
"Making a broad landform that you could ride a horse across weighed down the processing, so we took it out for a while," he explained. "And after awhile I returned to work with the production team and launched a huge campaign to regain the grassland!
"We started by testing whether we could have two horses out at once. We thought if we could do that, then we could make other forms of play for that grassland. It went well, so we made a demo video with two horses. We showed that at Nintendo Space World, and I was like, 'Now that we've shown this, there's no backing out!'"
The finished game launched to massive critical acclaim in 1998 – a response as good as matched by the 3DS remake released earlier this month.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-single-castle ...by Published on June 28th, 2011 00:23- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
While Sony has dived right into 3D gaming with the PlayStation 3, Microsoft has been much more hesitant to dip its toes in the water.
Though a small handful of Xbox 360 games can be played in 3D if you have the necessary kit, it's not the same full 720p stereoscopic effect that Sony boasts with the PS3.
Speculation earlier this year pointed to an E3 announcement for additional 3D support, but that came and went without a peep. So what gives?
Well, Xbox senior product manager David Dennis told Eurogamer that Microsoft is still weighing up whether it's something consumers really crave.
"3D is an interesting space," he said.
"There was a big rush by some other folks in the industry to convince people they want to play in 3D. You can question the motivations of why they want to make everyone go buy a new TV perhaps, but I think 3D has to fit in a natural way where it fits with the gameplay.
"Something we're watching and wanting to understand from consumers is whether this is something they actually want.
"Does it add to the gaming experience? Does it distract from the gaming experience? Is it something they want to play long-term? Or is it something they try a few times and then go back to regular 2D modes?"
Despite clearly remaining sceptical, Dennis added that if it deemed the demand was there Microsoft will consider adding greater 3D support in the future.
"You watch the market penetration of 3D TVs, you look if it's something people are buying and you adapt and innovate, just like we've done by deploying different system updates and features. If there's other things we want to do with 3D because consumers are asking for we would explore it."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...hesitant-on-3d ...
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