Maybe you're one of the lucky few who have plenty of space where 65-inch televisions are barely big enough to outfit your palatial estate. If so, we hate you (not really). Or perhaps you're like us at Engadget HQ where our city apartments are barely big enough for our Nabaztags. If so, Nyko has a $29 device coming August 23 called the Zoom that'll attach to your Kinect sensor to reduce the amount of flail-space required by about 40 percent. That translates to just four feet of distance from your Kinect. How does it do it? With lenses that refocus the sensors, so it has no power requirements. Call them glasses for your Kinect without the jabs from your classmates because they can't see you playing Kinect Adventures anyway, trooper.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/10/n...m-on-august-2/ ...

So much for not keeping pace, huh? We heard back in June of last year that Microsoft had blown through 150 million Windows 7 licenses, and just a few months later, it had surpassed 240 million. At this year's Worldwide Partner Conference, head honcho Steve Ballmer took great pleasure in announcing that said figure has now swollen to beyond 400 million in under two years. Not surprisingly, that makes Win7 the fastest-selling operating system in history, and Tami Reller -- corporate vice president and chief financial officer of Windows and Windows Live -- made clear that it's "the path to Windows 8." The outfit also announced that 100 million copies of Office 2010 have flown off the shelves since launch, and while no one really came out and said it, we're counting on seeing a Windows 8 build at the BUILD event this fall. Head on past the break for a whole heaping of (deserved) self-congratulations.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/11/m...-7-licenses-s/ ...

Ready for a newly refined recipe for the next flavor of iOS? After dropping iOS 5 beta 2 on us on June 24th, Apple has now unleashed beta 3, meaning those with sensitive taste buds (and developer accounts) can start sniffing and sussing out what's changed. Of note seem to be a bevy of toggles controlling location services in detail, while there's also a new switch for voice roaming in settings. From what we're seeing not a lot has changed visually anywhere outside of the gears icon, but don't let that stop you from grabbing this savory download.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/11/i...s-and-toggles/ ...

Trip Hawkins has unequivocally endorsed the free-to-play virtual goods model by telling GamesIndustry.biz that any game using it, no matter what the platform, will make more money than it would otherwise.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz after his presentation at last month's Gamelab event in Barcelona, Hawkins made very clear his position on where the smart future lies in terms of monetisation models.

"Well, I don't care what category it is, any segment of the games industry on any platform - if you make it free-to-play with virtual goods it'll be better, financially," Hawkins told GamesIndustry.biz. "You'll get more people to try it, you'll get more revenue from more customers, in the end."

Hawkins was speaking specifically about the launch of Chair Entertainment's Infinity Blade in Asia under a free-to-play model - a move which represents something of a change of heart for the company which was arguing in March that Apple needed to re-evaluate its curation policy in order to help support higher price points for high-end App Store titles.

Adopting that free-to-play policy, driven by the virtual goods which Hawkins described as the "most important" factor in the making new business models work, does have its own dangers, however. Introducing the ability to buy progress and advantages is likely to upset those players who have already invested time into a gaming eco-system.

"Then of course eventually Warcraft had to give in and say, okay, we need to do this ourselves. So eventually that's the way it's going to go."
"I know in the MMO market this is where it's most difficult for them to believe in it. There are so many customers - the personality of many hardcore gamers is that they want to feel better about themselves because they're dominant in the game. They're willing to put in hours and hours and hours to create a level 65 character in LOTRO and then they get mad as heck when LOTRO decides to go free-to-play and let people buy virtual goods. That drives them crazy, right?

Hawkins went on to detail the story of Brock Pierce, a former child actor who saw a gap in the market for WoW players, founding his own company which allowed account trading - something which Blizzard had precluded.

That strategy soon made Pierce a rich man, but also incurred the wroth of Blizzard, who began destroying his inventory by deleting accounts held by Pierce's company, IGE, for violating game rules. His story is long, complex and strewn with legal action, but Pierce changed the market, Hawkins says.

"Then of course eventually Warcraft had to give in and say, okay, we need to do this ourselves. So eventually that's the way it's going to go."

Nonetheless, Hawkins believes that allowing players to buy advantages is unlikely to drive away dedicated customers. Instead, the investment they've already made in your game is likely to keep them engaged - potentially turning them into the top-level spender 'whales' which exist at the top of every freemium and virtual good economy.

"And yeah, there'll be a small number of customers who'll fight against it, kicking and screaming because it takes away an advantage they have - they can put more time in," says Hawkins. "They're still going to put the time in. They're still going to play the game better than anybody else and eventually they'll put some money in to make sure they're still better."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...you-more-money ...

CCP's upcoming persistent first-person shooter DUST 514 will require a cover charge from PlayStation 3 players, with the fee refunded as in-game currency.

The unusual approach is part of the developer's plan to help manage the roll-out of the highly-anticipated title, where consequences in the console game will have an effect on PC virtual world EVE Online, and vice-versa.

"In the beginning you have to pre-buy credits, so you pay something like $10-$20 to enter the game and you get the equivalent number of credits in the game once you do that. We call this the 'cover charge'," CCP's CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson told GamesIndustry.biz.

We might go fully free-to-play down the line, but in the beginning we have a cover charge just to manage the initial launch of it
Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CCP
"You're really getting the game for free but you have to pre-buy credits in the beginning. We might go fully free-to-play down the line, but in the beginning we have a cover charge just to manage the initial launch of it.

He added: "We have always been a big believer in growing up a social network behind the game in a slow and predictable way. Because we have seen that if you don't do that you can end up with a very unstructured experience, where there's no cohesion to the community. By growing it at the beginning we help to make a healthy environment initially."

A PlayStation 3 exclusive, DUST 514 is one of the new wave of titles that Sony is using to try out various free-to-play models on its home console - the only format-holder willing to experiment with a business model growing in ubiquity for online titles.

In-game currency will be spent on micro-transactions, although Pétursson wouldn't elaborate in detail on whether these will be vanity items like those that have caused outrage in the EVE Online community, or more game-changing content such as weaponry and ammunition.

"It's not like in shooters where you've seen virtual goods sales. Whether that's some of the games you've seen in Asia, whether that's Battlefield, or other games," he said. "We don’t really have a set of things we're communicating on now because a lot of this comes out in the private trials that we're starting at the end of this year, where we're just starting to tune and test and see what works. That's how we'll define it.

"We have some initial assumptions but we'll put it out there and see how the player base during the trials reacts to it."

CCP was happy to make the game a PlayStation 3 exclusive because it meant the company could experiment more, and would face less restrictions than trying to fit the game to two home consoles.

"The console platforms are very difficult, especially when it comes to how they organise the backend. They take very different approaches. To be able to work within both limits a lot of innovation we can do.

"By going exclusive with either platform allows us to do more innovation. The lowest common denominators would have been so small we couldn't do things that are really interesting. Sony was quite motivated in allowing us to do things we requested of them to the point they said 'no one has really asked about that before and we've never thought about, but why not?' They were very enthusiastic and open to really do something world changing and that's what swayed the decision to go with them," he added.

While the game isn't due for at least another year, the EVE Online community has already mobilised itself, creating a meta-game to recruit top-class first-person shooter players from other online worlds to act as 'mercenaries' for EVE corporations.

"That is very similar to when we announced EVE Online in September 2000, we already saw corporations forming, this meta-gaming happening on the forums, people creating websites and recruiting three years prior to EVE launching," offered Pétursson. "We're now seeing a similar thing happen and it's very encouraging to see."

He also highlighted that DUST 514 should offer more varied experiences than the repetitive crop of online shooters available on console.

"We hear from the shooter community that people really love the idea that there's a persistent action and reaction to their gameplay. A first-person shooter can have a feeling of déjà vu with the same thing happening over and over again.

"And on the EVE side we have a lot of positive reaction that relates to people having friends that don't necessarily enjoy EVE but they like the idea of the content of EVE. So now there's an experience that they think friends will enjoy and they're excited about that. I've heard EVE players say that finally there's something in the EVE world that my son will enjoy."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...om-ps3-players ...

A new report from The NPD Group puts the total spent on games in the first quarter of 2011 at a massive £5.9 billion.

In Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend, The NPD Group puts consumer spending on physical game software (as opposed to rental or digital) at $2.03 billion. Other methods like rentals, subscriptions, micro transactions, digital downloads, DLC and mobile games are estimated to account for $1.85 billion.

Overall spending on games is up by 1.5 per cent on the first quarter of 2010.

The report uses a mixture of retail tracking, consumer research and estimates from retailers and publishers.

"While the new physical retail channel still generates the majority of industry sales, our expanded research coverage allows us to assess the total consumer spend across the growing number of ways to acquire and experience gaming, including mobile apps and downloadable content," said Anita Frazier, NPD industry analyst.

"Through a combination of point-of-sale and consumer research tracking, The NPD Group is providing an expanded, more comprehensive measure of a dynamic and rapidly evolving games industry."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...mes-in-q1-2011 ...

Zumba Fitness is in its fourth week in a row at number one in the UK software chart. It's also the 505 Games' exercise title's seventh appearance in the top spot since the Wii release at the start of April.

Codemasters' Dirt 3 has climbed to second place, while Transformers: Dark Of The Moon has moved into third, pushing LA Noire into fifth.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops' return to the top ten, up ten places to seventh place, is almost certainly the result of the the Annihilation Map Pack DLC on XBLA. UFC Personal Trainer also climbed from twenty second place to thirteenth.

A quiet week for new releases means no new entries into the top 40.

Last Week This Week Title
1 1 Zumba Fitness
7 2 DiRT 3
6 3 Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
2 4 LEGO Pirates Of The Carribbean
3 5 LA Noire
5 6 Virtua Tennis 4
17 7 Call Of Duty: Black Ops
9 8 Brink
4 9 F.E.A.R. 3
8 10 Top Spin 4
10 11 FIFA 11
23 12 LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars
22 13 UFC Personal Trainer
19 14 Red Faction: Armageddon
16 15 Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
14 16 Portal 2
13 17 Wii Sports Resort
15 18 Infamous 2
20 19 Dungeon Siege III
18 20 The Sims 3

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...re-type-charts ...

If you're the proud owner of an Xperia Play then you're about to get prouder with two more classic PlayStation titles becoming available on the Sony handset.

WipEout is the first to glide on to the device, being available on the Android marketplace for £3.99.

If you've still got a bit of change left over then you can also pick up Syphon Filter, which is also priced a penny shy of four quid.

The duo join a long list of games for the Android phone. A new line-up of titles including Battlefield, Rainbow 6 and Lumines was announced for the device last month.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...t-xperia-play/ ...

Epic's Cliff Bleszinski will definitely be in line for a Nintendo Wii U when it comes to release and, if you ask him, so will Nintendo sceptics.

The Gears of War designer told Industry Gamers over the weekend that naysayers surrounding the new Nintendo machine need to recognise patterns in history.

"From what I've seen, it looks pretty cool," he said. "It seems like you can stream your game from your television directly to your [tablet] controller, so if you have irritable bowel syndrome, or a small bladder, you can still play it in the toilet.

"That's great. But, you know, from what people are saying online, they're like, 'Oh, it's just a DreamCast, whatever.' But it's like, 'Dude, what's old is new sometimes.'"

"The Power Glove [back on NES] led to the Wii," he pointed out. "The Virtual Boy led to the 3DS, right? A lot of these older technologies that you forget about are [the technological predecessors]. The Kinect is a sophisticated webcam, right?

"So I'm just dying to see it. It's Nintendo. I'll buy it. I know I'll buy it. They'll talk sh*t but they'll buy it," he added, referring to the sceptical gamers on message boards, according to Industry Gamers.

Epic is yet to make its official plans, if any, on the Wii U known, although, at GDC this year, Mark Rein famously said, "the second Nintendo releases a piece of hardware that can run our engine well, we'll be on it like water on fish."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...ay-bleszinski/ ...