DCEmu Featured News Articles

via Eurogamer


Sony spokesperson Patrick Seybold has played down yet more suggestions the new PS3 wand is called Arc.

This time the suggestions have come from THQ boss Brian Farrell. According to VG247, he referred to the wand as Arc in a recent conference call.

However, Sony spokesperson Patrick Seybold has since told everyone to calm down. "We haven't announced the name of our Motion Controller," he wrote on his Twitter page. "He referred to it as a rumored codename."

US journalist N'Gai Croal responded by asking, "When will the Vice President of Peripheral Nomenclature announce the real name?"

Seybold replied, "You'll be among the first to know when we do."

Reports that the wand's name is Arc began to emerge last month. Other rumoured names have included Sphere, Gem and Kaz Hirai's Magic Wonder Stick of Electronical Joy maybe not the last one. ...

An anonymous reader links to Greg Kroah-Hartman's explanation of a rift (hopefully mendable) in the development culture of Google's Linux-based Android OS and the Linux kernel itself.
"As the Android kernel code is now gone from the Linux kernel, as of the 2.6.33 kernel release, I'm starting to get a lot of questions about what happened, and what to do next with regards to Android. So here's my opinion on the whole matter ..."

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/0...rnel-Community ...

Developer Fabien Sanglard has written a code review for id Software's iPhone port of Doom. It's an interesting look into how the original 1993 game (which he also reviewed to understand its rendering process) was adapted to a modern platform.
"Just like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom was rendering a screenframe pixel per pixel. The only way to do this on iPhone with an acceptable framerate would be to use CoreSurface/CoreSurface.h framework. But it is unfortunately restricted and using it would prevent distribution on the AppStore. The only solution is to use OpenGL, but this comes with a few challenges: Doom was faking 3D with a 2D map. OpenGL needs real 3D vertices. More than 3D vertices, OpenGL needs data to be sent as triangles (among other things because they are easy to rasterize). But Doom sectors were made of arbitrary forms. Doom 1993's perspective was also faked, it was actually closer to an orthogonal projection than a perspective projection. Doom was using VGA palette indexing to perform special effect (red for damage, silver for invulnerable...).

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...For-the-iPhone ...

The Wii and various mobile gaming platforms have done wonders for the trend toward casual or "easy" games. But the success of a few recent titles, despite their difficulty, has caused some to wonder whether the pendulum has swung too far; whether a little frustration can be seen as a good thing. Quoting:
"The evidence is subtle but compelling. For one example, look to major consumer website GameSpot's Game of the Year for 2009: Atlus' PS3 RPG Demon's Souls, which received widespread critical acclaim – none of which failed to include a mention of the game's steep challenge. GameSpot called it 'ruthlessly, unforgivingly difficult.' Demon's Souls was a sleeper hit, an anomaly in the era of accessibility. One would think the deck was stacked against a game that demanded such vicious persistence, such precise attention – and yet a surge of praise from critics and developers alike praised the game for reintroducing the experience of meaningful challenge, of a game that demanded something from its players rather than looked for ways to hand them things. It wasn't just Demon's Souls that recently flipped the proverbial bird to the 'gaming for everyone' trend. In many ways, the independent development scene can be viewed on the macro level as a harbinger of trends to come, and over the past year and into 2010, many indies have decided to be brutal to their players."

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...ty-As-a-Virtue ...

Gameloft CFO Alexandre de Rochefort has said that he expects mobile game sales to quadruple over the next 3-4 years – even if actual mobile phone penetration remains the same as it is today.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz following Gameloft's release of its 2009 year-end financials, de Rochefort said that as Java handsets are replaced by the new generation of smartphones, game sales will increase exponentially simply because the games that can be made for those handsets are of such higher quality.

"If I look at the long term growth for Gameloft and for mobile gaming in general, what I see is that the attach rate on Java phones is around 3 per cent, whereas on the next generation of smartphones, beginning with the iPhone, the attach rate is above 10 per cent. On the iPhone several studies have shown it's even as high as 15 per cent," he said.

"My point is that, basically, there is absolutely no doubt that in the next 3-4 years all Java phones will have been replaced by the next generation of smart phones. And this means that even if we have a similar install base – I'm not even betting on the increased penetration of mobile phones in the world, I'm just saying at equal install base - we are capable of growing this market 3-4 times just due to the fact that because the games are so much better on the next generation smartphones than they are on Java phones, because of that the consumer experience is much better and therefore – and we are living and experiencing this as we speak – the tie ratio is much higher on these phones.

"Just keep in mind that a Gameloft Java game is a 1MB game whereas a Gameloft smartphone game like on the iPhone is 100 – 400MB. So there's no question that the consumer experience is much better."

Mobile game revenue accounted for 94 per cent of the company's total in 2009, while iPhone sales grew a staggering 231 per cent on the previous year. In total the company has sold over 10 million games through the App Store since 2008 – an achievement that de Rochefort puts down to Gameloft's focus on creating quality, 3D games for mobile phones early on, and also to its fearless approach to new platforms.

"When we started to work on the Nokia N-Gage, I remember a lot of analysts were quite dubious about our reasons for going there. The thing is, we've been preparing Gameloft to be able to develop 3D games since 2004. And the reason why Gameloft has such high market share on the App Store, along with EA, when Glu and the other companies are nowhere to be seen, is really because we've been preparing for this shift for years now," he said.

He adds that the company "isn't shy" about investing in new devices – even when it doesn't know how those devices are going to perform in the long term.

"Gameloft was, as far as I know, the only European company invited by Apple to present on stage for the launch of the iPad and, to a certain extend, I believe this was because we've shown to Apple that we were ready to invest on new devices really as ahead of the new device as possible," he said.

"We're not shy, we are not fearful of investing – even if we don't know what the output will be. We've been investing on Google phones, on the Palm, on the iPhone and we're going to continue doing this and clearly it is our will to be present on the iPad when it is launched. I don't know with how many games but we'll be there."

On the subject of the iPad, de Rochefort is reluctant to offer an opinion - "I personally have not seen the device myself," he says. But he offers some insight as to its potential in the gaming market.

"The processor seems to be more powerful than that of the iPhone, the definition of the screen seems to be even better than on the iPhone, and the size of the screen is obviously much bigger. So, all things considered, my guess is that it's going to be a good device to play games on."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...next-few-years ...

iPhone users are much more interested in games than Android or BlackBerry users, according to stats released by app discovery firm Mplayit.
Games make up only 20% of the 130,000 iPhone apps available to browse on Mplayit's Facebook service, yet they account for 47% of the traffic for the site's iPhone section.
Only 20% of the traffic to Mplayit's Android section is games-related, while the proportion is 30% for its BlackBerry section.
The data was collected from the browsing habits of more than 50,000 users in the last two weeks of January.
"iPhone developers are driving this phenomenon, putting out simply fantastic games that get people excited," says Mplayit boss Michael Powers.

"But the developer catch up is underway on Android, and although BlackBerry is renowned for apps, it continues to be underrated and overlooked as a games platform."
While the most active game categories were roughly the same across all three smartphone platforms according to Mplayit's data - Arcade, Casual, Card/Casino and Puzzle - there were some differences in tastes.
The company says music games were more popular among iPhone users, while Android users showed more of a preference for games using GPS, camera and augmented reality features. And BlackBerry gamers? They like TV and movie spin-offs.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/35886...ackBerry-users ...

Electronics giant Sony has posted operating profits of $1.6 billion for its third fiscal quarter – its first profit in five quarters.
The results are a big improvement on the $197 million loss seen in the same period the year before.
Increased sales for Sony’s Blu-ray operation paved the way for a 22 per cent increase in profits at the B2B & Disc Manufacturing Division, totalling $110 million.
There were also strong results at the Networked Products and Services Division (which houses Sony’s PlayStation operations), with the period brining an operating profit of $213 million – up $277 million year-on-year.
Sony has now halved its forecasted full-year loss from $415 million to $207 million.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/33107...strong-profits ...

Campaign Magazine claims TV spot was the second most effective in the UK in 2009
UK trade publication Campaign Magazine has hailed Nintendo’s Ant and Dec TV advertisement as the second most effective in the UK throughout 2009.
Created by Karmarama, the prime-time TV spots saw the likeable Geordie pair chatting with UK families about the various functions of Wii and DS.
Campaign’s results come from a TNS survey that measured how likely consumers were to purchase products or services after watching an ad. 250 separate advertisements were measured in total.
Nintendo’s creative missed out on the top spot thanks to Dettol’s antibacterial spray campaign, which was given a significant boost thanks to last year’s global swine flu scare. Other campaigns recognised for their success included Walker’s Gary Lineker ads, Apple’s iPhone 3G marketing and Comparethemarket.com.
Now, if Nintendo can just ensure that the next DS has built-in swine flu protection…

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/37445/Prai...dos-Ant-Dec-ad ...

CasualGaming.biz can reveal that Cobra Mobile’s excellent iPhone action title iBomber has been downloaded over 1.5m times since its release last year. Furthermore, the coming weeks will see the release of an update to the game will for the first time introduce in-app purchases. And that's not all...
The franchise is set for an even bigger evolutionary step, however, with news that Cobra is currently working on versions for console platforms – with Xbox Live Arcade and PSN being the most likely candidates.
Cobra last year announced its intention to port the game to Sony’s PSPgo.


The developer has also confirmed that it is already working on iBomber 2.
“Since release, we have managed to successfully build a really strong gaming brand from the ground up with iBomber and we are now expanding the game out onto a host of new platforms to build out the whole experience,” Cobra CEO Mark Ettle told CasualGmaing.biz.
“Cobra’s slogan is ‘We Create, You Play’ and with iBomber there has been an awful lot of playing.”
We’re big fans of iBomber on Casualgaming.biz, naming it as our Game of the Week last August.

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/297...-soar-past-15m ...