The widely-rumoured deal between graphics card-maker NVIDIA and Nintendo, which was thought to have seen technology from the former company make its way into the forthcoming 3DS handheld, is no longer going ahead.

That's according to a report in videogames tech blog Digital Foundry, which claims that Nintendo has opted for a Japanese partner instead - and that the new platform is "almost certain to be revealed at E3" next week.

"According to our two independent, unconnected sources, the Nintendo 3DS features a design totally divorced from the NVIDIA Tegra SoC (system on chip) initially thought to have been powering the DS successor," it reports. "It's now thought that Nintendo has instead chosen a Japanese partner for the 3D acceleration hardware within the 3DS.

"Sources also confirmed that the 3DS' development codename is 'Nintendo CTR', meaning that this motherboard picture we ran a couple of weeks back, sourced from the FCC website, is indeed something akin to a development or test station for the new handheld.

"This strongly suggests that 3DS does feature a widescreen "glasses free" stereoscopic 3D display, along with a more conventional 4:3 2D display beneath it. Interestingly, it appears that the images of the board published on the FCC website were uploaded in error: they were supposed to have been made public 10 months after the submission in April this year, presumably after the 3DS itself ships."

E3 action itself kicks off next week, with the Nintendo press conference set to take place at 5pm BST on June 15.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-dead-article ...

Piracy on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP formats costs the industry an estimated £28.9 billion ($41.6bn / ¥3.816tn) over five years, according to research by Japan's Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association.

The group, which organises the Tokyo Game Show, conducted the research between June 2004 to 2009, in cooperation with Tokyo University's Baba Lab.

Research was based on downloads of the top 20 software titles in Japan across 114 piracy sites, according to a translation by Andriasang. Piracy costs the Japanese market ¥953 billion during the period, and assuming the region accounted for 25 per cent of the global software market, the figure was multiplied by four.

The research noted that peer-to-peer networks were not included in the research, and admitted the actual costs to the market could be much higher.

The CESA said that America had the most pirate servers, followed by China, with the two regions accounting for 60 per cent of all piracy servers. The US was the busiest region for piracy, followed by Japan and then China.

Both the PSP and the DS are known to suffer from very high piracy rates, with multiple methods to play hacked software on both machines easily available online and in retail stores.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ver-five-years ...

Apple CEO Steve Jobs today revealed that the iPhone app market has since its birth grossed $1.43 billion in revenues worldwide.
And, since Apple takes a thirty per cent cut on all App Store item sales, Jobs stated that the thousands of iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad developers have together made $1 billion in sales.
Speaking at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Jobs told attendees that the App Store “crossed 5 billion downloads” as recently as last week.
Both statistics arriving at the same time offers an interesting, though somewhat rudimentary, calculation: Based on Apple’s stats, each download on the App Store – including the ones that are free – represent revenues of 20c each to developers.
That figure is no doubt intoxicated from the reams of free content available on the App Store, yet it puts a contrasting perspective to what Jobs said on stage in San Francisco today:

“This next thing is my favourite stat of the whole show,” he said in front of a gigantic screen, resplendent with, presumably, PowerPoint slides.
“You know we give 70 per cent of revenue to developers. So how much have we paid? To date? Just a few days ago we crossed $1b.”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...s-just-hit-1bn ...

Heralded as the biggest leap since the original iPhone with over a hundred new features, the iPhone 4 was unveiled to huge cheers at this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.
Powered by Apple’s A4 processor, the device is 24 per cent thinner than the iPhone 3GS – making it the thinnest smart phone on the market. It features front and rear facing cameras with an LED flash, a gyroscope as well as the accelerometer, and a micro-SIM slot. Design-wise, it features squared lines and steel edging that serves as an antenna, compatible with Bluetooth, wi-fi, GPS, UMTS and GSM.
The demonstration heavily emphasised the new Retinal Display, so named for having 326 pixels per inch, whereas the human eye can process up to 300 pixels per inch. It features a 960 x 640 display on a 3.5-inch screen, with a 800:1 contrast ratio that is four times better that the iPhone 3GS, and IPS technology for better colour and a wide viewing angle.
Jobs also revealed that the iPad would receive an update later this month, allowing users to view PDF’s, and discussed the App Store’s support for the HTML 5 platform and its approval process, highlighting the reasons for rejection – the app doesn’t do what the developer said it would, the use of private API’s and stability.
A number of other industry faces also joined Jobs onstage. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced the release of Netflix for iPad and iPhone, Mark Pincus, CEO of Zygna, revealed that the hit game ‘Farmville’ will be coming to the iPhone from the end of June, and Activision senior vice president Karthik Bala demonstrated an iPhone version of Guitar Hero.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/33671...e-4GS-unveiled ...

Long-running children's franchise Sesame Street will be making its Wii debut this autumn with two games that use none of the Remote’s buttons. The games – entitled Elmo’s A-To-Zoo and Cookie’s Counting Carnival – will be packaged with plush covers for the controller in the shape of Elmo or Cookie Monster. These will cover all buttons and triggers, making the game more accessible for younger gamers.
“This is the first time anything like this has been developed and licensed for Nintendo,” said Sesame Workshop’s senior vice president of media distribution Scott Chambers.
“We will be the first to introduce such an aid. We’re doing it so that preschoolers can play learn from these Sesame Street games without feeling frustrated with the controller.”

The games will be published by Warner Bros, and will also be available on PC and DS – with a larger stylus for the latter included with each title.

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/302...-Sesame-Street ...

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock will see the launch of a new, transformable guitar controller,
The new guitar controller will essentially be a standalone neck and fret board, but consumers will be able to customise the device with a range of separate body parts that attach to the central controller.
The first two designs, spotted by Gizmodo, are inspired by rock ‘n’ roll and metal, with the latter currently exclusive to anyone that pre-orders Warriors of Rock at GameStop. They will be available for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii versions of the game.
Activision is expected to release more body parts for the guitar controller in the future, although it has yet to announce pricing for the standalone controller or individual parts. Existing Guitar Hero customers can use any of their previous controllers with the new title.
Warriors of Rock will be released this autumn and shakes up the Guitar Hero formula by introducing a fantasy story mode narrated by Gene Simmons, character powers and a focus on rock ‘n’ roll.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39319/Tran...aded-to-retail ...

The contest is open to all developers, who can enter any app not currently in the iTunes App Store.
Winners will get a publishing deal with all the monetisation promise offered by Teletext, which has access to AND sister publications such as Metro, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Jobsite.co.uk, FIndaproperty, Motors.co.uk and Teletext Holidays.
The combined potential audience is 40 million people.
There's already been one winner after soft launch in April. That was MirrorMe, which uses facial recognition software and medical research to show what a person will look like in the future, depending on different lifestyles.
The App Factor competition deadline is the first Monday of each month. The next deadline is 5th July 2010.

Richard Titus, CEO of AND, said: “Since the launch of their first apps almost 90 days ago, Teletext Mobile has had almost 600,000 app downloads.
"It’s a great start and I’m sure that with our strong product pipeline, Teletext Mobile will soon achieve its aim to be the biggest mobile publisher in the UK and potentially Europe.”

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/37406...pp-competition ...

The PlayStation brand has always enjoyed a strong following in Europe and, in particular, the UK but Microsoft’s VP of interactive entertainment business for EMEA Chris Lewis has revealed why it remains one of his firm’s key territories, too.
“We don’t break out figures by country, but the UK continues to be a very strong market for us with the highest attach rate in the world,” he told MCV in an exclusive interview in this Friday’s magazine.
“In the face of price drops, new form factors and massive marketing expenditure by the competition, Xbox 360 still grew full-year market share in EMEA from 2008 to 2009.
“In November, we also celebrated selling 10 million consoles into customers’ homes in EMEA. Our games attach rate remains the highest in the industry, by an increasing margin, which makes us both an enviable platform and a great partner for publishers and retailers alike.”
MCV has spoken to each of the three platform holders in its E3 Special Edition, which will be circulated at the LA event next week. To read the interviews in full, make sure you check MCV magazine this Friday.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39310/UK-h...60-attach-rate ...

The Terms of Use section of Wired Magazine's first iPad app offer clues to additional features that will be included in future issues.
They include paid subscriptions; sweepstakes and contests; the ability for readers to post comments, photos, and videos; third-party companies selling products and services through the app; and in-app online auctions.
I spent a bit of time yesterday reading the app from cover to cover (or whatever the iPad app equivalent is), including the Terms of Use at the end. There's some intriguing stuff:
1. Wired may get people to register their details in the future. "Service Provider may at all times require that you register and/or set up an account to use certain portions of the App, or the App as a whole."
In a later privacy section, it says this: "For instance, if you enter a sweepstakes or contest, complete a survey, make a purchase, subscribe to our publication(s), or register for any portion of our services..."

The Terms of Use also say that unless otherwise specified, "Service Provider may sell or share personally identifying information with our affiliates and with carefully selected companies who we think can offer you services and products of interest to you." Don't want this to happen? You have to write to Wired at its street address. Can't this sort of thing be handled with a checkbox at the time of registration?
2. The magazine may be planning to sell content and services. "Service Provider or third parties may charge you fees for products or services offered for sale through the App, and/or for access to portions of the App or the App as a whole."
It goes on to specifically mention credit, debit and charge card payments - hinting at an annual subscription perhaps. However, a separate section later on refers to merchandise, products and/or services sold by third parties through the app too.
3. Social features are clearly on the way, with the Rules of Usage section referring to posting "graphics, text, photographs, images, video, audio..." - it can't be spam advertising, defamatory or offensive or sexually explicit. "Do not engage in 'cyber-sex' (i.e. virtual or simulated sex) or solicit another to participate in 'cyber-sex' on or through the App" is one amusing clause. Chat-rooms? Users are also warned not to post content that will infringe copyright laws.
4. Another section focuses specifically on "comments, opinions, or statements posted on forums, blogs or otherwise contained in the App". Oh, and incidentally any text, graphics, photos, images, video and audio files posted by users of the app grant Wired a "royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive, unrestricted, worldwide license" to use, modify and distribute - among other verbs - including users' identities. Par for the course for UGC?
5. Could Wired do a deal with eBay? Here's the relevant section: "We may at times offer auctions on the App; should we do so, we may use third-party service provider(s) to administer the auctions..."
I'm naturally cautious of taking sentences out of a Terms of Use document and saying that they offer a clear roadmap of future features. Wired could just as likely be keeping its options open.
However, the sections highlighted above do give a sense of where Wired's app may be heading.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/37402...ireds-iPad-app ...