DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
wraggster
by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:36- Categories:
- Nintendo DS News
Retail chain HMV has outlined its trade-in plans for the forthcoming Nintendo 3DS handheld, ahead of its launch later this week.
The company is offering an extra £20 discount to customers handing over a DS Lite, DSi XL or DSi in exchange if pre-ordering by March 24, bringing the ticket price down to £109.99 - while those doing so are also entitled to a £20 HMV gift card.
Meanwhile, customers exchanging those older consoles for a 3DS between March 25 and April 7 will still see an additional £10 discount on top of the trade-in price.
The retailer has also taken the unusual step of guaranteeing a trade-in price for the 3DS itself, to the tune of £200, if handed in by April 7.
"We want to help make this one of the biggest and most memorable games launches ever, so HMV's going full-out to offer 3DS customers the best deal anywhere on the high street," said the company's head of games, Tim Ellis.
HMV is Nintendo's official partner for the launch, and is opening 100 stores across the UK at midnight on Thursday, including regional flagship stores LiverpoolOne and 150 Oxford Street, London.
The first 500 customers to purchase a 3DS console at the London store will also receive a free 3DS game of their choice.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...gest-3ds-deals
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:35- Categories:
- PSP News,
- PS3 News,
- PS2 News,
- Nintendo DS News,
- Nintendo Wii News,
- PC News,
- Xbox 360 News
THQ's first person shooter Homefront has defied a mixed critical response by debuting at number one in the UK sales chart.
The Xbox 360 version was by far the most popular of the three SKUs, accounting for 70 per cent of sales - compared to 26 per cent on the PlayStation 3 and 4 per cent on the PC. Homefront on Xbox 360 has already sold 82 per cent of the lifetime total of developer Kaos' last title, 2008's Frontlines: Fuel of War.
Officially Dragon Age II is the second-biggest seller of the week, with a fall in sales of 68 per cent. But if sales of Pokémon White and Black were combined they would have been enough to push Nintendo's portable release into second place.
PC exclusive Total War: Shogun 2 debuted at number four, although unlike the other new releases it was launched on the Tuesday rather than Friday. Nevertheless the game made almost 80 per cent of its retail boxed sales in the first 24 hours.
Outside the top 10, Take-Two's well-reviewed tennis title - Top Spin 4 - entered the charts at number 13. Here sales across the two HD console formats was much more even, at 51 per cent for the Xbox 360 and 45 per cent for the PlayStation 3 (plus 4 per cent for the Wii).
In what was a busy week for new releases there was no sign of Capcom's Okamiden in the all formats top 40. Even in the Nintendo DS top 40 the game only managed to debut at number 10.
Sega's Yakuza 4 did enter the all formats charts at number 25 though, and like Top Spin 4, just one place below that achieved but its previous iteration.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-in-uk-charts ...by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:31- Categories:
- PC News
Blizzard co-founder and vice president of product development Frank Pearce has told press that he feels Diablo III is likely to cannibalise World of Warcraft's audience well before new MMO 'Titan' hits the scene.
Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Pearce spoke about the likelihood of WoW players leaving to play Diablo, but pointed out that if the game is going to lose players to anybody, it may as well be another Blizzard product.
"It's hard to say," said Pearce when asked about Titan and WoW running concurrently. "I think even a shorter-term concern is whether or not we might see cannibalization of WoW players from Diablo III when we launch it, because it's a similar type of experience. Not exactly similar, but it's that RPG feel.
"For us, I think it's really important that we recognise that somewhere, sometime it's likely that someone is going to cannibalise World of Warcraft players, so it's better we cannibalise them ourselves than let someone else do that, because if we cannibalise them ourselves, they're still a Blizzard customer."
However, Pearce doesn't see the current level of player engagement as a plateau - there is, he believes, still room for another big game or two in the market.
"Whether it's a Blizzard game or another great MMO, I think there's plenty of space in the market for great MMOs to share customers," Pearce claims.
"We have players that burn through content in weeks or months that takes us two years to create. There are so many people looking to play these experiences so passionately, so many hours a week, I think there's plenty of space for the industry to grow."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...annibalise-wow
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:30- Categories:
- PC News
Hardware manufacturer NVIDIA has told GamesIndustry.biz that it believes while the console platforms do have an advantage in terms of stability, the resulting disadvantage is that the hardware is static - and the gap to mobile and PC is closing.
That's according to the company's senior corporate and Tegra PR manager Bea Longworth, speaking in an interview published today.
"Already mobile gaming is hot on the heels of what you would expect from console-class gaming," she said. "We were demonstrating an Xbox 360 game running on our quad-core Project Kal-El technology demonstration at MWC.
"The gap is definitely closing, and that has always been the Achilles' heel of the console - its greatest strength is it's a stable platform, it's very much plug and play, you don't have to fiddle around with the hardware and have all the hassle that you might get from the PC.
"But that's also its biggest disadvantage, the fact that they are static from one generation to another, and also that the technology can't improve. Whereas with other platforms like the PC and now mobile gaming, they will be constantly moving ahead.
"So it will be really, really interesting to see what console technology has to do in order to differentiate itself and stay ahead when it has to compete with a very mass-market mobile format instead of digging in its heels."
The company has been working hard to establish its technology in the mobile space, and while Apple uses its own chipsets, NVIDIA's confident its supply to the Android market can help it compete in the future.
"It already is extremely important to us, but in terms of the proportion of the business dedicated to that particular sector, it's definitely going to become one of our most important businesses in the future," she explained.
"We've been pretty open, over the last two or three years, that we have that expectation. And obviously mobile is currently the fastest-growing and the most exciting area of computing and technology, so it makes a lot of sense for us to be there at the forefront.
"So yes, we're definitely extremely committed to our mobile business and we're really excited to be able to start introducing devices from major manufacturers like LG and Samsung and Motorola based on our technology."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ble-but-static
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:28- Categories:
- Apple iPad
Latest device will arrive on March 25th – but not till 5pm
The UK launch of Apple’s iPad 2 will be delayed on Friday due to an error in shipping the device to its UK stores.
Although Apple has denied rumours of a delay, insisting that “the website says 25 March and that’s when it’ll be”, it would seem that any Apple fans who queue up on Friday morning might be disappointed.
According to Robert Peckham, former executive director of the Mac Technology Association reseller group, a mistake in shipments means that UK Apple Stores will not receive stock in time for the anticipated launch time on Friday morning.
As a result, the US vendor has ordered its UK resellers – including PC World – to delay selling the devices until 5pm on Friday evening, forcing them to make a number of last minute changes to their preparations for the launch and in spite of the fact that many of them have already received their allocated shipments.
“It’s upset quite a few people,” Peckham told PCR. “They’ve now got to squeeze an entire day of sales in to one or two hours on a Friday evening.”
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/36000...launch-delayed
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:25- Categories:
- Xperia Play News
Sony Ericsson explains why it thinks it offers a viable alternative to iPhone
The marketing boss of Sony Ericsson UK has confirmed to MCV that downloadable games for the Xperia Play will be available for between £1 and £10.
David Hilton also explained why he thinks the device can successfully fight for market share against behemoths such as the iPhone.
"The main thing is to offer something different," he told MCV. "iPhone is a hugely popular product and Angry Birds on iPhone is a delight.
"But now the hardware allows you to play far more complex games. You don’t want to be playing these with your fingers all over the screen. You want full visibility and the ability to control the games with the sort of interfaces you have on your games console."
There was also some insight into how consumers will access the games.
"As soon as you slide open the phone, the screen will go into a game finder app that will show you all the games you own and all the games you can download," he added. "What we have heard about Android is that locating games in the marketplace is a struggle. So we have created this app to easily navigate through the games."
Six games will come pre-loaded onto the handset – FIFA 10, Crash bandicoot, The Sims 3, Tetris, Star Battalion and Bruce Lee Dragon Warriors.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43586/Xper...t-between-1-10
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 18:20- Categories:
- Nintendo 64 News,
- Snes News
Mario Kart on the Snes is one of the all time great games despite getting around 82% in reviews at the time of release, the 2 player battle mode in my opinion has never been done has good as the first release of Mario kart on the Snes.
Today BFrancois has posted many videos and screenshots of his work on remoddiling the N64 version of Super Mario Kart to look more like the Snes Version.
The results so far are outstanding and worth a good look and makes my mouth water for the finished article.
Me personally i always wanted to hack the original Snes game and bring out a new version with different races and other features (anyone know of any decent modded versions of Snes Mario Kart?)
Anyway check out BFrancois`s work here --> on Emutalk ...by Published on March 21st, 2011 14:00- Categories:
- DCEmu
Australian Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor has said that a failure to reach a consensus in the debate over an R18 classification for games in the country would not necessarily mean a stalemate, indicating that the Federal government would be willing to investigate other options should an agreement prove elusive.
Currently, any games which are deemed too mature for a 15 rating are refused classification in Australia, leading many publishers to re-edit content to make it appropriate for that age-bracket, or simply to decide not to release the title in the territory at all.
"We're becoming the laughing stock of the developed world, where we're the only country that doesn't have an R18 classification level for video games," O'Connor told ABC News.
"I foreshadow that if there is not a consensus around this issue, the Commonwealth will certainly be considering other options because we cannot continue to have an outdated classification system that's actually, in my view, causing harm to young people.
"I'm not going to let this matter end because it's too important to allow one or two jurisdictions to stop the majority of jurisdictions in this country moving on an important reform," Mr O'Connor continued.
"But can I say my very strong preference is to have consensus around the table in July."
O'Connor has long been an advocate of the higher band rating, as have the majority of surveyed Australians. However, some religious and parent groups have claimed that an R18 rating would expose children to new levels of violence.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-in-australia
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 13:58- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Mysterious listing about a new hardware project points to unconfirmed launch date
A somewhat ambiguous posting on a web portfolio of a designer currently working for Microsoft has got tongues wagging about a potential 2015 launch date for the next Xbox console.
Posted by Ben Peterson, who was recently recruited to work at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, the art (spotted byZDNet) reads: "Confidential / Collaboration with Microsoft's IEB Design Group investigating future user experiences and hardware for 2015."
http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...ox-due-in-2015
...by Published on March 21st, 2011 13:56- Categories:
- Nintendo 3DS News
Nintendo says portable "has the potential to be one of our biggest launches ever in the UK"
Over 1,200 stores are planning to open at midnight this Thursday (March 24th) and start selling the Nintendo 3DS at the earliest opportunity.
The official retail launch event will take place at HMV’s Oxford Street store, where the first 500 buyers will be able to claim a free 3DS game of their choice. All customers on the night will be given a a special commemorative launch-night pack, including a ‘space blanket’ to keep them warm in the queue, a limited edition launch T-shirt and a commemorative issue of the Official Nintendo Magazine.
In addition, there are 13 ‘VIP’ launch shops spread around Britain and Ireland. The first customers at these stores will be able to pick up games for substantial discounts – and the very first buyer at each shop will be given a free taxi ride home.
Nintendo UK’s general manager David Yarnton commented: “We’ve been blown away by both retail and consumer reaction to Nintendo 3DS. With over 1,000 stores opening across the UK at midnight to launch the console, this has the potential to be one of our biggest launches ever in the UK.”
The official retail launch event takes place at HMV’s 150 Oxford Street store. The 13 additional VIP stores are:
Argos – Leeds
Asda – Derby
GAME – Glasgow
GAME – Cardiff
GAME – Manchester
GAME – Oxford Street, London
Gamestation – Birmingham
Gamestation – Hull
Gamestop – Dublin
HMV – Liverpool
Smyths Toys – Dublin
Tesco – Cambridge
Xtra-Vision – Letterkenny
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/43584/3DS-...store-openings
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