Rob Dyer, SCEA's senior VP of publisher relations has said that while Microsoft is more likely to attract third-party developed exclusives such as Mass Effect, it doesn't have enough first-party studios delivering the same level of content as Sony.

"They have very few first-party studios at Microsoft," Dyer said, in an interview with IndustryGamers. "Bungie's next Halo is the last one, Rare rarely puts out anything, you've got Peter Molyneux with his Fable stuff... but they don't have first-party development studios inside at Redmond or anywhere for that matter. We do.

"So rather than putting their money behind that, they've been going to Epic or Valve or BioWare to do what they did with Mass Effect, and that's where they throw their dollars."

"We're not going to compete with Microsoft on that front," he added. "But what we have is a global business here. Our global business is bigger than 360's and will continue to get bigger than 360, and people are seeing that. We passed them in Europe and they don't even exist in Japan, and we're going to catch them and pass them here in the US as well."

The PS3's $299 price point has "resonated", Dyer said, to the extent that many US stores are now seeing shortages.

But the even better news, he added, is how the increase in the console's installed base has translated into software sales.

"They had a year's head start against us, so we've been playing catch-up ball," he said. "Before the price cut, they had a two-to-one advantage; if you were a third-party publisher looking at the index, you should have been selling twice the number of units on the 360 as you would on the PS3."

However, that hasn't been Sony's findings, and Dyer says the ratio is down to 1.6 to 1.0 - "What we've been finding is that outside of the shooter category we literally over-index every single category - sports, fighting, action/adventure, music, etc."

"We do better for our publishing community than 360 does," Dyer stated, drawing attention in particular to Madden, which he says had an index of 1.4 to 1.0. "That's only going to get better and better as the installed base continues to grow."

"We're not going to get the exclusive games," he admitted. "The Mass Effects, Gears of Wars and Left 4 Deads aren't going to happen nearly as often."

"But we have our own first-party development and exclusives like Final Fantasy XIV and Agent. Exclusives just aren't as commonplace as they were during the PS2 days.

"What is going to be the driving force is either exclusive ad campaigns, like the Madden campaign, or exclusive content like we had with Batman.

"The PS3 version outsold the 360 version, and what we've said to [developers] is, 'if you take advantage of what the PS3 can deliver – more content on the Blu-ray disc, better graphics, being able to get more of what the player wants onto the disc – you're going to see those sales translate'."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-party-studios ...

Electronic Arts has announced plans to shut down a significant number of servers for online multiplayer titles – including games released for the current generation of home consoles.

Revealing that those facing the cull make up less than 0.3 per cent of all peak online players across EA titles, the publisher will flick the switch on March 16 and again on April 15.

"Despite some people's perception, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping these older games up and running," said the company. "We would rather our hard-working engineering and IT staff focus on keeping a positive experience for the other 99.7 per cent of customers playing our more popular games."

Games included in the first wave include PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 titles Def Jam Icon, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings: Conquest and The Simpsons Game. Need for Speed: Carbon and NFS: ProStreet on the PSP will also lose online support, as will the PC version of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

"These decisions to retire games is never easy. The EA development teams and operational staff pour their hearts into these games almost as much as the customers playing them and it is hard to see one retired. We hope you have gotten many hours of enjoyment out of the games and we appreciate your ongoing patronage," added EA.

A number of other titles will lose support on April 16 when Microsoft switches off online play for its first-generation Xbox titles and Xbox Originals sold over Xbox Live, including Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and Madden NFL 09.

Microsoft said earlier in the month that the decision to switch off the original Xbox Live wasn't an easy one, but it was necessary to upgrade the service for Xbox 360 players. Developer Bungie, who's Halo games still see high levels of traffic on the service, said it was "saddened" by the move.

Electronic Arts is slowly shifting its traditional publishing business to take advantage of online business opportunities.

The recently revealed "Project Ten Dollar" initiative gives away additional content for first-time purchases of titles such as Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, but those that buy the games second hand are charged an additional $10 if they want to access the downloadable content.

Without online support, any consumers buying second hand copies of the games singled out today for retirement will also see significant features of the game missing.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ultiple-titles ...

Battlefield producer Karl Magnus Troedsson discusses winning back the FPS crown
“Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is about to make some serious noise” – that's the claim of the game's executive producer Karl Magnus Troedsson, speaking to MCV in an interview ahead of the release of DICE's latest shooter.
“I couldn’t be more happy with the game – which the awesome team here in Stockholm has created – and I hope everyone will get to experience the huge leap in quality that we’re taking here.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/37602/BC2-...-serious-noise ...

The BBC has announced it will offer iPhone applications for its news and sport content from April.
The free apps will be followed by versions for BlackBerry and phones running Google's Android software.
The BBC said they had been developed because more people use "sophisticated handheld devices" to view content.
Several other news organisations offer iPhone apps, including Sky and the Daily Telegraph - which are free - and the Guardian - which costs £2.39.
Analysts at research firm CCS Insight said the apps would "increase tension between publishers of paid-for content and those reliant on other revenue".
The news industry is currently struggling to find a business model for the digital world.
"Whilst the BBC's impulse to enter an already crowded news and sport apps market place is understandable, the move belies the fundamentally competitive nature of the Corporation's approach to new services," Emily Bell, director of digital content at the Guardian, told BBC News.
"Applications are a long way away from being 'broadcast' media, and, unlike the web, they form a market which the BBC is seeking to disrupt."
In addition, she said, the "considerable cost" of developing apps for all platforms meant the BBC was in "territory most publishers could not afford to inhabit".
But Erik Huggers, BBC director of future media and technology, said the BBC audience "want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them".
"Today's announcement means that we are catching up with our audiences," he told the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
'Open platforms'
The news app, to be released in April, will offer content from the BBC News website, including written stories, correspondent blogs as well as audio and video.
Users will also be able to send comments and pictures directly to the newsroom.
The BBC said the sports app will be released in time for the World Cup, which starts in June, and will initially focus on football.

Our approach has always been simple: web equals mobile; mobile equals web
Pete Clifton, head of editorial development

Read Pete's thoughts in full
It will combine content from the BBC Sport website and 5 Live radio, including live commentary and scores, and will allow fans to watch sports matches live on their phone.
The apps will be updated later in the year to include more content, including Formula 1.
A different version of the apps will be offered to international audiences, supported by advertising.
The BBC said it was also considering releasing apps later this year for its popular iPlayer service.
The on-demand video and audio player serves up 20 million requests for TV and radio programmes every week.
The BBC has said that it will initially focus on building applications for the iPhone but follow with applications for Google's Android operating system and RIM (BlackBerry).
It said it would also "work with other providers to enable these applications on their mobile devices".
However, the organisation did not mention specific plans for an app for Symbian, the world's most popular smart phone operating system.
According to figures from analysts CCS Insight, Symbian software is used on 47% of all smartphones.
BlackBerry accounts for 21% of the market, compared with Apple's 15%, Microsoft's 9% and Android's 5%.
The BBC does however already offer a BBC iPlayer app for certain Symbian phones.
Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said that the BBC should concentrate on developing "open platforms" rather than building apps for closed systems such as the iPhone.
"That way everyone can access the content regardless of what device they are using," he told BBC News.
Several unofficial apps already exist on Android handsets and the iPhone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8519783.stm ...

News/release from Caux

The world has changed during your coma. Influenza A H1N1 was right of humanity and 99% of the
population died. Yet something happened, the dead came back and very hungry.
be part of the 1% who survived is perhaps not a chance.

compatible with any custom firmware PSP all



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News/release from Preyker

Annotations:

- Things I left out due to time reasons:
> Endingsequence(-"movie")
> Multiplayer
> reworked help menu

- In case you get stuck during the game, you can activate cheats in the Lua code (script.lua).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtwit...layer_embedded


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News via ARUNORVIC

Audio Boost Plugin v2b

Working Well In Games 30% boost in sound
Small lag in XMB

Try It YourSelf And Reply

With audioboost you can higher the volume limit of your PSP.
Press HOME+R to enable audioboost.

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News/release from DSPSP

Here is the testversion of pspmulti 0.26,full version comes soon!

Changelog:

-New Plugins
-Game Maze
-Game Categories Support


Notes: Tetris only starts without GC!

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News via http://x360.gx-mod.com/modules/news/...p?storyid=2519

axc97c proposes a new version of its dashboard alternative, largely reflecting the original interface NXE.

New / fixed:

- Do not download already downloaded artwork on the HDD
- Support for foreign characters (accent?)
- Fixed black screen at startup.
- No change in skins, those of 1.08 are functional.

Warning: this is a beta version following the transition to unicode. Thus some previous function could be non-functional. To use only for testing purposes then. ...