An anonymous reader writes
"I can't help feel that this generation of games for both consoles and PCs are getting increasingly dumbed down and easier to complete. There's no challenge in today's games, most of which can be completed on the day of purchase. Triple A titles such as Halo, Modern Warfare 2 are the worst of the lot. The whole reason for this article is Medal of Honor, this can be completed within hours of purchase. Where's the fun in that?"

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/1...Getting-Easier ...

Back in July, the Librarian of Congress officially made it legal to jailbreak your iPhone (or any phone). So why is it that the government is trying to prosecute Matthew Crippen for jailbreaking Xbox 360s? If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison, and lawyers are trying to prevent the author of a book about jailbreaking the original Xbox from testifying in Crippen's defense. What kind of law says it's okay to jailbreak the phone in your pocket, but not your gaming console?

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/1...Real-Jailbreak ...

Sony will slash the price of the disc-less PSPgo by £65 on November 1, but analysts are doubtful the move will reverse the embattled console's fortunes.

The PSPgo currently has an RRP of £225 in the UK. From 1st November it'll go for £159.99. The download-only handheld has also seen a price cut in Japan (now ¥16,800) and in the US (now $199).

"Sony's fifty US dollar price cut on the PSPgo is too meagre and too late," M2 Research's Billy Pidgeon told Eurogamer.

"The UK price reduction is more dramatic, but had to be considering the recent MSRP which was too high in my opinion. Now that 'sources' have revealed more details regarding PSP2, including a proposed fall 2011 date, it is very unlikely that these prices will clear shelves. PSP will see sharp declines this holiday into Q1 2011 without more aggressive price cuts."

The PSPgo launched in the west last October and has been a commercial flop for Sony, although some suggest it was an experiment ahead of the much-rumoured PSP2.

"I think that the sales levels speak for themselves," Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter offered.

"The PSPGo just hasn't gained any traction with consumers, and in fairness, it's due to the high price point. Until it's priced competitively with the PSP-3000, I don't expect to see a huge lift in sales."

The PSP-3000 currently enjoys a RRP of £139.99 - £20 cheaper than the new PSPgo price.

"I think the PSPgo has likely suffered under the weight of a declining market for handheld game devices as well as the rise of Smartphones as compelling platforms," Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian said.

"I imagine that PSPgo is searching for a sweet-spot in terms of pricing, and certainly under $200 there should be a bigger market. However, I think it's too early to say whether this will be the right price point or whether this is now the right platform for core gamers."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...gre-too-late_7 ...

Free online music video service Vidzone has streamed over half a billion videos since launch.

More than 3.7 million PlayStation 3 users have downloaded the application, delivering over 3 billion ad impressions, according to Vidzone Digital Media. The service is currently available in 18 countries and seven languages.

The service most recently added 120 pre-programmed TV channels focusing on music by genre and record label, and hosts an impressive 30,000 music videos

VidZone launched in June 2009, and according to Louisa Jackson, director of marketing for the service, it has a more influential reach than more traditional media from the likes of MTV, MSN and Yahoo!

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-videos-on-ps3 ...

The name Mark Skaggs won't have gaming ears twitching like the name Shigeru Miyamoto (yet), but as the creator of one of the biggest games of the moment, Farmville, he's certainly earned his stripes.

Recently asked to predict the future of gaming, Skaggs first says that mobile platforms will become increasingly important as a larger number of gamers look to take their experiences with them.

"We're going to live in a world where games move with you. Mobility is key - everyone is taking their PCs with them in the form of laptops and on tablets. Games are playable across multiple devices and instantly accessible, leaving downloads and delays in the dust," he told Kotaku.

Coming as no surprise from the creator of Facebook's top game, Skaggs also sees social features in games becoming standard. "Game play will continue to change to the point where every game has social built into its core. Any game that does not have a strong social component will seem as old fashioned as a joystick with a single shooter."

And finally he says games with adaptive difficulty that dynamically shapes itself to the abilities of the player are something we have in store. "I think we're going to start seeing the initial inklings of adaptive game experiences. Games are getting smart - and eventually systems, along with the management software, will monitor a player's progress and adapt game play difficulty, mechanics and experience accordingly."

We're not too keen on that last one - we play Halo on Legendary because we like the challenge of something kicking our asses, and spending hours beating it is the ultimate reward. We don't want games getting easier just because we're losing.

What do you think?

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

Harmonix's Rock Band 3 hit US shelves earlier today - and there was DLC waiting at home for day-one consumers.


A three-pack of The Doors' songs has been made available for free to fans during the first week of launch (Oct. 26-Nov. 1).

The free pack, available through the Rock Band 3 in-game Music Store, includes Light My Fire, Riders on the Storm and Touch Me.

As already announced, an additional nine-pack of songs from The Doors was released today, available for purchase.

More DLC coming to Rock Band 3 in the near future includes tracks from artists including Billy Joel, John Lennon and Bon Jovi.

The game has won handsome reviews. Xbox World 360 gave it 95/100 calling it "close to pefection. It's out in Europe and the rest of the world on Friday.

Meanwhile, Harmonix and EA has revamped the game's official website. When players link their RockBand.com accounts to their Rock Band 3 profiles, all their gameplay goals and achievements will be published to a personalised "My Gameplay" page on RockBand.com.

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

The internet swung its fists around like Lady Macbeth on her sixth Stella last night when it was speculated, by analysts and journos alike, that Apple was going to make a sensational unsolicited takeover bid for... something.
That’s right; something. It could be EA, city analysts said. It could be Sony, others claimed.
And then, in what I’m sure is irrefutable evidence that there’s a complex and beautiful inherent logic to all of this, analysts started making completely different predictions.
Wait! It could be Netflix, they said. Hang on, what about Disney? Facebook, they screamed, it must be Facebook. Oh, that means Twitter too, innit.
Never doubt the sheer insatiability of market speculation. By the end of the day, we had one analyst, whom I’ll spare the mention of, suggesting Apple could be buying Adobe.

Sod it, why not? Apple has $51 billion in its iPhone-hugging pockets. That’s enough to match the GDP of Bulgaria, with spare change to buy Manchester United, the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees, Real Madrid and – perhaps if he has no issues selling himself – Tiger Woods.
So why shouldn’t the analysts go a bit crazy? Why stop there? Why not predict Apple buying Nestle, claim ownership of the Catholic Church and acquire a 51 per cent controlling half the moon? (The shiny half, naturally.)
Of course, that’s only part of the reason why the markets suffered a spot of post-recession stress disorder last night.
Not only is Apple richer than Jesus, it’s also a company with interests in music, film, smartphones, PCs, apps, social networks and, of course, games.
It meant there was whole village of possible buyout targets that the analysts could throw their grenades at. But a games company? Let’s not be cruel.
Those predicting Apple is going to buy a games firm have published their spiel, I suspect, with little consideration for the manner in which Apple has invaded the games market, where it has succeeded and how it has rewritten the rulebook.
Apple’s made over $330 million from app and game sales in less than two years. And it’s doing this with a Greenspan-esque lighter-than-light-touch approach: No exclusivity deals, no timed DLC packages, no studio buyouts, no messing. It simply approves games, takes a 30 per cent cut, and watches them either sink or swim on its oceanic App Store.

Why Apple would like to risk making its own games in this money-making equation is quite beyond me. It’s like a casino owner deciding he can make a pretty penny if he spends a week or two on the roulette table.
Not wishing to talk the games industry down, but the publishing and development sectors are brutally factionalised, with firms often saddling frightening levels of debt just to nod ahead of the pack.
Sales are utterly unpredictable, too. While the likes of Just Dance and Aliens vs Predator jumped atop the charts, the heavily-promoted Enslaved and MMA made little more than a dent.
The last two years alone have seen old empires Midway and Atari fall off a cliff, and the biggest games studio in Scotland evaporate after spending five years on developing a game.
As much I like to visualise Apple announcing a game company acquisition (surely it would come with a ‘magical’ video of the lucky game company boss talking the usual bollocks to the background music of some acoustic-guitar-pop), the likelihood is slim.
Valve, however, might be an option. Steam is a digital buoy keeping the sunken ship of PC gaming away from deep waters. Bringing that exclusive to Mac would deliver immediate schadenfreude.
But I’m not especially convinced that Apple is going to procure anything at all, really; at least not anything as well defined as the big companies that are being cited.
Apple doesn’t build on existing businesses. It’s got to the stage it’s at today by, quite uniquely, building everything from scratch.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...y-a-games-firm ...

The iPhone 4, iPad and iPod Touch take the top three spots on kids' Christmas wish lists, research has found.
According to the Duracell Toy Report, around 39 per cent of the five to 16-year-olds who took part in the study are asking for Apple gadgets this year.
17 per cent of five to eight year-olds, 50 per cent of nine to 12 year-olds, and 66 per cent of 13 to 16 year-olds put the Apple items at the top of their lists.
In fourth place was the new Kinect for Xbox.
The report also revealed that modern children had on average of 39 toys or gadgets to play with - more than twice as many as their parents did at the same age.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/34990...hristmas-lists ...

Grumbling over the prospect of spending $150 on a Kinect sensor? At least you didn't have to drop $30,000 to get your Sonic Free Riders on. The NYT reports that the first Kinect prototype cost Microsoft that much to build -- which kind of makes the fact that Microsoft was able to get that technology into a $150 box (on each sale of which, the Times' Ashlee Vance notes, MS will profit) a bit more impressive.

The article provides a tidbit of new information about how the device recognizes people. In the case of identical, identically-dressed twins, the Kinect's software will evidently distinguish between the two by asking each to identify him or herself. "'If it can't disambiguate, we say, 'Please tell us if you are A or B,'" Xbox director of incubation Alex Kipman said. "Then, you end up with the equivalent of a different bar code." You'll be able to turn your family into bar codes on November 4.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/25/fi...rosoft-30-000/ ...