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Developers working on titles for Wii U are reportedly using development kits which have been underclocked, meaning that the graphics they produce are almost indistinguishable from a PS3 or 360.

A report from consulting firm Hit Detection has suggested that Nintendo chose to show tech demos at it's E3 reveal "due to titles not looking much better than what is currently available on Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo decided late in the game to not show those titles."

"Developers have underclocked development kits, and worked hard to deliver titles running on that hardware to demonstrate live at E3," reads the report.

"THQ stated that Darksiders II was running on development hardware and could have been shown. Also, Epic vice president Mark Rein tweeted during E3 that Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines was being made for Wii U with Unreal Engine 3, showing that Epic is bringing its tech to Wii U."

However, third party developers have told GI that the Wii U is expected to exceed current consoles. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said that visual quality should be "at least" that of the 360.

"It should be even superior for some of the games. We don't know everything, so we have a few things Nintendo is telling us that will have such and such powers."

Hit Detection was founded by influential games journalist N'Gai Croal.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-underclocked ...

Sega's latest entry in the Yakuza franchise has proved a significant hit in Japan, with the PlayStation 3 game selling 298,717 units in its debut week.

Although it retains many of the same characters as the previous titles, the new game is a more action-orientated spin-off featuring a zombie attack on Tokyo. Despite the strong sales, the debut is still less than that of the more serious-minded Yakuza 3 (372,000 units) and Yakuza 4 (384,000 units).

Sales in the rest of the chart were as slow as previous weeks, with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D on 3DS holding onto second place but selling only 15,551 units.

The second-highest new entry of the week was an anime-themed pachinko game at number six with just 6,808 first week sales.

Although its chart position is higher than that achieved in the UK individual format charts Red Faction: Armageddon at number nine sold only 5,436 units on PlayStation 3.

In terms of hardware sales there was little change from the previous week, with the gap between the PSP and 3DS remaining much smaller than previous months. Sony's portable was still the biggest-seller though at 26,681 units to 24,649.

The success of Yakuza did little to affect PlayStation 3 sales, with only a minor increase to 17,104.

Last Week This Week Title Format
New Entry 1 Yakuza Of The End PS3
1 2 Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D 3DS
3 3 Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS DS
4 4 Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional DS
2 5 One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP 3DS
New Entry 6 Gekiatsu!! Pachi Game Tamashi Vol. 1: CR Evangelion - Shinjitsu no Tsubasa PSP
13 7 Wii Party Wii
7 8 Akiba's Trip PSP
New Entry 9 Red Faction: Armageddon PS3
9 10 Patapon 3 PSP
Platform This Week Last Week
PSP 26,681 30,155
3DS 24,649 27,357
PlayStation 3 17,104 16,510
Wii 6,357 6,315
Nintendo DSi XL 5,283 5,452
Nintendo DSi 5,232 5,187
Xbox 360 2,370 2,499
PlayStation 2 1,291 1,228
Nintendo DS Lite 146 138
PSPgo 69 62

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...apanese-charts ...

Update

Eurogamer has revealed that it has been subjected to 'blacklisting' by 2K games, as a result of issues arising from coverage of the company's products.

A tweet by Eurogamer operations director Tom Bramwell made public the fact that the site has been cut off by 2K, expressing sympathy for the fate of Redner PR for simply following what Bramwell calls 2K's "standard practice."

"I feel sorry for @TheRednerGroup today. We are blacklisted by @2KGames and it seems to be standard practice," reads the tweet.

No further details were provided on how the situation arose. Take-Two has told GamesIndustry.biz that it has no further comment on the matter.

Original Story

Publisher 2K has disengaged the services of the PR agency which tweeted about the possibility of 'blacklisting' journalists and media outlets which published bad reviews of Duke Nukem Forever, with the publisher publicly denouncing the practice.

The PR agency in question: The Redner Group, had been representing 2K in the US. Yesterday, the company posted a tweet, since deleted, stating that it was considering which reviewers had "gone too far" with their criticism of Nukem, resulting in them being taken off game mailing lists for good.

"Too many went too far with their reviews...we are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom," read the company's account, followed by, "Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews...that's completely different."

Today, 2K has sought to distance itself from the slip. A tweet yesterday from the official 2K account made clear that The Redner Group was no longer being retained by the publisher.

"2K Games does not endorse or condone the comments made by @TheRednerGroup and confirm they no longer represent our products," read the announcement. The company then further distanced itself from the scandal with a message to press.

"I'd like to point out that 2K Games does not endorse the comments made by Jim Redner and we can confirm that The Redner Group no longer represents our products," read a statement from 2K's Markus Wilding, senior director of global PR.

"We have always maintained a mutually-respectful working relationship with the press and do not condone his actions in any way."

Review scores for Duke Nukem Forever have been generally very low, resulting in a 49 per cent Metacritic average for the game on Xbox 360. A round up of the web's best reviews can be found in GamesIndustry.biz's Critical Consensus.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...d-blacklisting ...

It may not yet have a release date, but the biggest third-party games publishers are preparing to hit the ground running when Nintendo releases the Wii U next year.

Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Sega are all backing the system day and date without hesitation, with only Take-Two remaining cautious of the first new home console to hit the market since 2006.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz that the publisher is pledging new intellectual property for the system and is keen to see early adopter feedback on the new hardware.

"We will announce one game that we want to launch day one that is a new type of game, which should be interesting. It is still very important, just because you can test a market and also see through the eyes of the first consumers.

Getting in early is partly about being a successful transition company and figuring out where the hardware is going to go
Frank Gibeau, EA Games
"They are the people that actually have the word of mouth factor. The trendsetters," he added.

For Electronic Arts it's a gamble to go big on the day of release, but Games label president Frank Gibeau is confident from previous form.

"It served us well on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3," he told GameIndustry.biz. "Getting in early is partly about being a successful transition company and figuring out where the hardware is going to go.

"With the Wii U it's important for us to get there on day one so we can get in and build as big an audience as possible. We've been doing this for 25 years and trying to pick platforms and more often than not we get it right. I hope we have this one right. That's the gamble," he admitted.

Although some third parties were stung by dedicating separate resources to the Nintendo Wii and seeing poor return on investment, Sega West president Mike Hayes said his company was confident a long-tail approach would pay off even if day one was daunting prospect.

"At some point we were the biggest, certainly top three third-party publisher on Wii, so for us it was a great platform... we've got absolutely no qualms about [Wii U].

The recent launch of the 3DS highlighted how sluggish sales can be for Nintendo without one of its hit franchises such as Mario or Zelda, but again, Hayes is willing to play the long game.

"I just think we're all a bit premature in being a bit glass half full on 3DS. Everyone was clamouring 'oh please bring it out in March, you must bring it out' and then it's like you get to June and it's all 'sales aren't very good...' Well, they haven't got the software yet."

Karl Slatoff, chief operating officer at Red Dead Redemption publisher Take-Two was more cautious, suggesting his creative teams need time to assess the hardware before committing to launch.

"For us it's really about understanding what the hardware capabilities are and understand how it's going to fit into what our goals are from a franchise creation perspective," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "Really understanding what that platform can deliver and developing for that platform.

"So that's our philosophy, not just with the new Nintendo console but across the board. Whether we're looking at the 3DS or the PlayStation Vita or any of the new formats that are coming out. We can't look at them all the same way. We're not just going to port over."

Porting games from established Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 franchises is an opportunity now that Nintendo's Wii U is said to have comparable technology, and will help keep costs lower than an entirely higher spec console.

"It doesn't increase [costs] very much because the advantage is in being close to the other machines, you can do the game for all the formats at the same time," offered Guillemot.

But he also made it clear that Ubisoft is evaluating the Wii U for "both new content and a third location" for existing franchises.

Although the costs of bringing existing titles over to the Wii U won't be high, Hayes said Sega is willing to spend more money on implementing the unique tablet controller, helping to distinguish the Aliens: Colonial Marines experience on Wii U from the same game on Sony or Microsoft hardware.

"That controller is absolutely brilliant and we have to think of innovative ways to use it. We're doing high definition Sonics, we're doing obviously Aliens: Colonial Marines, so you can bring them across, and that's relatively low cost, which is good news.

"Then you spend your money on how do you use that controller effectively to make it unique and differentiate it."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ntage-on-wii-u ...

A patent application filed by Apple, and obtained by the Times, reveals how the software would work. If a person were to hold up their iPhone, the device would trigger the attention of infra-red sensors installed at the venue. These sensors would then instruct the iPhone to disable its camera.

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/0...ming-in-Venues ...

The rumours were true: Microsoft's released the Kinect beta SDK for Windows, so PC users can now start (officially) dancing and motion-tracking in front of their keyboards.

Microsoft has been keen to support Kinect development on PC ever since bedroom programmers started cracking the motion sensor and creating all kinds of magic.

The SDK, which you can download here, features:



Raw sensor streams
Access to raw data streams from the depth sensor, color camera sensor, and four-element microphone array enables developers to build upon the low-level streams that are generated by the Kinect sensor.

Skeletal tracking
The capability to track the skeleton image of one or two people moving within the Kinect field of view make it easy to create gesture-driven applications.

Advanced audio capabilities
Audio processing capabilities include sophisticated acoustic noise suppression and echo cancellation, beam formation to identify the current sound source, and integration with the Windows speech recognition API.

Sample code and documentation
The SDK includes more than 100 pages of technical documentation. In addition to built-in help files, the documentation includes detailed walkthroughs for most samples provided with the SDK.

Easy installation
The SDK installs quickly, requires no complex configuration, and the complete installer size is less than 100 MB. Developers can get up and running in just a few minutes with a standard standalone Kinect sensor unit (widely available at retail outlets).

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

Games axed at the eleventh hour due to unimpressive performance, paper claims
Nintendo axed a number Wii U demos at E3 due to concerns that they would fail to impress, a new report suggests.
Games consultancy group Hit Detection claims in a white paper that external developers had created Wii U game demos with “underclocked development kits” for this year’s E3.
These developers “worked hard to deliver titles running on that hardware to demonstrate live at E3”, the paper read.
“However, due to titles not looking much better than what is currently available on Xbox 360 and the PS3, Nintendo decided late in the game to not show those titles and focus instead on tech demos.”
Hit Detection’s white paper, which Develop has obtained a copy of, is the first documentation of Nintendo’s alleged decision to pull third-party games from the E3 show floor.

Games built with the Unreal Engine, such as the next Batman and Darksiders titles, were initially scheduled for presentation at E3.
“THQ said Darksiders 2 was running on development hardware and could have been shown”, Hit Detection claimed.
The full technological potential of Nintendo’s next-generation system is a matter of debate.
Several sources speaking anonymously to Develop say the hardware specifics are yet to be finalised.
Unreal Engine and CryEngine 3 are said to be supported on the console, primarily due to the Wii U allowing for programmable shaders.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...-U-demos-at-E3 ...

Atari action RPG Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale was the most downloaded Xbox Live Arcade game last week, Microsoft has revealed.

According to a set of charts posted on Major Nelson's blog, Pinball FX2 came in second, followed by Full House Poker, Castle Crashers and Trials HD. Here's the full top 20:

Dungeons & Dragon Daggerdale
Pinball FX2
Full House Poker
Castle Crashers
Trials HD
Game Room
Portal: Still Alive
Outland
Battlefield 1943
Section 8: Prejudice
Torchlight
Plants vs. Zombies
Uno
Dead Rising 2: Case West
Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Decade Duels
Magic: The Gathering
Sega Rally Online Arcade
The Fancy Pants Adventures
Peggle
Limbo
Elsewhere, the Xbox Live activity chart made for some rather depressing reading, with not a single game released this year cracking the top 10.

Based on global unique users, Call of Duty continues to be Xbox 360 users' multiplayer franchise of choice, with Halo: Reach and FIFA also still riding high.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Modern Warfare 2
Halo: Reach
FIFA Soccer 11
NBA 2K11
GTA IV
Battlefield: Bad Co. 2
Gears of War 2
Halo 3
Call of Duty 4
L.A. Noire
Call of Duty: WaW
Red Dead Redemption
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
Forza Motorsport 3
NHL 11
Fallout: New Vegas
Mortal Kombat
Madden NFL 11
Left 4 Dead 2

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ads-xbla-chart ...

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the forthcoming remake of the first game in Bungie's juggernaut FPS series, will have a RRP of £34.99 when it launches in the UK later this year.

In comparison, it's selling for $39.99 in the US, which translates to around £24.60.

Due out on 15th November, 343 Industries' game lets you play through the original Halo: Combat Evolved either in its original Xbox state or with new current-gen visuals.

Earlier this week publisher Microsoft refuted allegations that it was just milking fans of the franchise with the release.

"We had discussions about 'will people look at this as us milking it'," explained Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer, "but we figured with Achievements, Xbox Live, and 'up-res-ing' the game it was a project out of passion not a project out of business."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-cost-GBP34-99 ...