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Microsoft has told GamesIndustry.biz that it will announce the price point for its motion-based control system Kinect at this year's gamescom.

The Cologne event, taking place in mid-August, will also see a raft of new announcements on product.

That's according to country manager for Entertainment & Devices at Microsoft Germany, Oliver Kaltner, who explained that the company was keen not to distract people from the accessibility of Kinect at this point.

"I believe that the price point is not the critical topic, but something you need at the end of the communication in order to place a product properly into a market," he told GamesIndustry.biz Germany at this year's E3 Expo. "From that standpoint pricing is an important topic for our target groups, our partners and, of course, also for us.

"I also think it is the right decision not to determine price points now, because it distracts completely from our actual core story with all its possibilities in the area of gaming, movie, music and social entertainment. We firmly believe that we can offer an unique innovation.

"We have first and foremost a product to offer that doesn't have any entry barriers - which means that the access to fun, family entertainment and social entertainment is a direct access. I would never be able to communicate all these aspects if we mentioned a price point.

"That would mean that the price is the key point of our message, and it does not belong there for now. We will find a price which is attractive in the market," he added.

The company is currently under pressure from rival Sony, which priced its Move peripheral at £39.99 / €39.99 / $49.99 this week, while reports put Kinect at a rumoured figure of $189 - despite speculation last year that Natal (as it was known then) would come in at around $50.

"You develop a product, you look at the markets and at a certain point you end up being confident that it offers good value for money and is relevant in the market," continued Kaltner.

"Beyond that we have to consider that E3 is a very important event for the whole industry. But we are still two weeks in our last fiscal year. That means we are in the middle of the endgame of finalizing our budgets and we of course use our insight from E3 to evaluate the market volume again.

"Being responsible for the business in Germany, it comes in handy to still have a certain flexibility. In eight weeks we are at gamescom and we will know the price not later than that, because we will start to sell [to retail]."

And Kaltner also revealed that there was plenty more to come from the Cologne event this year, with Microsoft lending it strong support.

"Microsoft is without doubt the significant force at E3 this year," he claimed. "However, for me personally it is even more important what I can learn out of that for gamescom.

"I am very proud to say that Microsoft as a corporation did understand, how important gamescom is. We will have a much bigger and more spectacular appearance at gamescom this year than we did last year.

"We have invested well - and because we did not unveil everything on E3 we will have also for gamescom a lot of fresh information."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ng-at-gamescom ...

Ubisoft has revealed Innergy, a new peripheral that monitors body readings and aims to lower stress. Key to the game, unveiled during Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, is the Innergy Sensor – a biofeedback tool that measures heart rate variability, blood flow and pulse, akin to Nintendo’s Vitality Sensor.
The game itself guides players through a series of scenarios that help identify personal sources of stress and offers a range of breathing exercises designed to relieve this. An illustrated diary helps them track their progress.
“It has been an exceptional experience creating this game in collaboration with such leading talents,” said Ubisoft’s creative director Sebastien Kochman.

“Our creative and technical teams are working together to build a game that is unlike any other product on the market: entertainment that offers real benefits that players can feel everyday in their body and mind.”

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/302...y-Sensor-rival ...

Konami announced a new action title in development at its E3 press conference. Called NeverDead, the title is currently being developed by UK-based studio Rebellion.
Konami’s Shinta Nojiri is designing the new game, which bases its gameplay around the idea that the central playable characters are immortal.
NeverDead is set for release on Xbox 360 and PS3, but no release date has yet been announced.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...w-action-title ...

Ubisoft has announced the latest entry in its best-selling Raving Rabbids series will be released this November. Raving Rabbids Travel In Time will be available for Wii on November 11th and sees the crazed bunnies tampering with history.
A trailer shown during Ubisoft’s E3 press conference depicted the Rabbids helping a caveman create fire, knocking the nose of the Sphinx and preventing Arthur from pulling Excalibur from its stone.
While the footage confirmed that the series’ trademark quirky humour remains intact, no gameplay details were given. It is likely to be another mini-game compilation, although it’s always possible that it could be a third-person adventure, similar to last year’s Rabbids Go Home.

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/302...ng-back-to-Wii ...

Kinect won't work if players are sitting down, claim developers who've worked with Microsoft's motion cam.

Microsoft has said that playing Kinect sitting down "varies" by experience, but several developers have argued "the exact opposite", according to IGN.

We think, if true, this could massively hamper Kinect's popularity. Both the Wii and PlayStation Move allow players to sit down while playing, which is an essential for those who play games for hours on end.

Sounds like you'll have to 'drive' standing up in Forza Motorsport Kinect then.

We brought you the full line-up of Kinect launch titles on Monday.

Update: Aaron Greenberg posted on his Twitter account earlier, "Yes you can sit or stand with Kinect, depends on the game or experience." (Thanks Black Mantis)

It's pretty much a reiteration of Microsoft's 'it varies' comment above but could suggest you can race sitting down. Result.

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

Platform: PC
Developer: Runewaker Entertainment
Publisher: Frogster Interactive


Ratings:

PEGI:









ESRB:


Runes of Magic is a free to play MMORPG developed by Runewaker Entertainment, a Taiwanese company but is localised for Europe by Frogster Interactive.

Despite being only a little over a year old the game is already on its third major patch, called chapters, which add to the game and the story.

The game at first glance is a World of Warcraft clone, but to leave it at that misses the point. Yes the UI and gameplay are very similar to WoW, but Runes of Magic doesn't just leave it at that, instead it takes this foundation and builds upon it, adding features and mechanics that WoW would benefit from.

Since it is similar to WoW, anyone who has played Warcraft will find Runes of Magic very familiar. The UI and control scheme will be a natural fit to you. Map in the top right? Check. Customisable action bars? Check. Symbols hovering over quest givers? Check. Crafting system? Double check.



The execution of the game however is where the differences come in and where Runes of Magic shines.

When creating your character you get to pick from 8 classes. Most of these will be familiar to you, Warrior, Druid, Rogue etc. With a few unusual ones such as Scout and Warden.

The first big difference comes when you reach level 10. At level 10 your character can choose a second class to enhance your first. So if your first class is Knight and your second class Warrior you will be a Knight (level 10)/Warrior (level 1).

If you are a Knight, you will have two sets of skills: Knight Skills and Knight Class-specific skills.

Holy Strike is a Knight skill. All Knights have it and all classes who choose Knight as a secondary class have it.

Holy Seal is a Knight class-specific skill. Only those with Knight as their primary class may use it.

You can swap between your primary and secondary classes, this is actually required as you need to level both classes to max to access both sets of skills. So if the Knight/Warrior swaps his classes, he will become a Warrior/Knight gaining access to the Warrior class-specific skills but losing access to his Knight class-specific

Improving skills can be done also by using talent points, these points you spend on a per-skill basis to increase the level of your chosen skill. These talent points cannot be revoked or undone so you need to choose carefully what you improve.

The crafting system is also very different from most MMO's. While in most MMO's you may only learn a few professions, Runes of Magic lets you learn all of them, but you're limited in how many you can specialise in. At level 1 you can be an apprentice Woodcutter, Miner, and Herbalist as well as a Tailor, Alchemist and Blacksmith. This is both good and bad. It's great because it means you can explore the various professions without locking yourself into a few. It's also good to get some starting cash as you can sell the lower level herbs and ore to other players. However to a new player this can be overwhelming as there's too much choice at too low a level.



Runes of Magic's User Interface has a few improvements over other MMO's. When logging into the game, when you click in the password input box an on-screen keyboard will appear in a random location on your monitor. This is here to combat account stealing, as it is much more difficult for a keylogger to trace your password when it is clicked in on a random location on your screen.

Inside the game there is also an automatic movement option. By enabling this your character will automatically move to where you want them to go. Every quest has this option to let you auto-run to the quest giver or quest receiver. This drastically cuts down on the running around to find one guy that plagues a lot of MMO's.

As a free MMO they need to make money somehow, as with most Free MMO's Rune of Magic uses a Real Money Transaction (RMT) system. This allows you to purchase, with real life cash, items to enhance your characters, as well as mounts and pets for vanity purposes. Thankfully these items are mostly for player convenience not player power. This means they offer items like luck potions which increase the chance of better drops, or items which reduce or negate the experience penalty from dying. There are a few player power items in jewels which increase the power of an existing item, but it seems like you can get these outside the store albeit they are less reliable.

Despite that these items are player convenience not power it seems like a lot of the game is intentionally ...

In what could potentially be a very interesting move for Nintendo’s new 3DS handheld, a new video has hinted at the possible inclusion of Achievements in the new system’s software design.
“Brilliant – that was my first reaction [when I saw the 3DS],” EA’s senior director Ryan Stradling stated.


“Think of all the gameplay possibilities we can have. Playing games is about applying with friends and I want to know when my friends are online. It’s also going to let me know what games they are playing, what real time updates are available and exchanging achievements with other players.”
Of course, Stradling could be referring to the sharing of a wide assortment of content types and not Achievements in the Xbox 360 sense. Hopefully Nintendo will clarify the situation in the near future.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39637/E3-2...t-Achievements ...

News via http://www.psp-ita.com/?module=news&...2&view_reply=1

After a period of (almost) calm scene on the PSP this time we return to talk about possible exploits kernelThe attention of the coder, as usual, is made to the holders of the Go with PSP firmware 6.20, but does not exclude the possibility that this hypothetical exploit is exploitable even on the latest system software. The most encouraging news this time comes from the known Lan.st forum, where recently some Coyotebean confirmed to be in possession of a so-called kernel key is for fw 6.20 to 5.70 for both operating on the Go, but not only ... it seems that in recent times different teams have access to this exploit, and that some are already working on something more practical (read: HEN / custom firmware).
Before claiming victory, as we are now accustomed to, but we must remember that very often these "discoveries" are maintained secret convidise or are only a small group of coders, given the high probability that its bugs are quickly corrected in later releases by Sony, for this reason, if the rumors prove unfounded, we should wait some time before you touch the results.
Following are the words of Wololo, who expressed his opinion on this matter.

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There is an implicit agreement among local hackers That These exploits SHOULD NOT be disclosed, Because kernel exploits Have Become Extremely Rare Since firmware 6.00 (it is believed a major cleanup of Sony's code Happened at That Time to protect the psp go), I know it is quite Likely That These Are Actually one single kernel exploits exploits (I know Revealing Would it ruin the Efforts of That other teams try to keep it secret). Also, Depending on the hackers, kernel exploits are kept secret for personal and / or ethical reasons. ...

News via http://www.psp-ita.com/?module=news&...4&view_reply=1

New update from the developer for his homebrew Chinese cooleyes PMPlayer Advance, PSP video player, now in version 3.1.1, with some advanced features that allows the viewing of movies in PMP format. This new release fixes a bug related to viewing some videos.

Changelog v3.1.1:

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- Eboot updated
- Fixed a bug related to viewing some videos. ...