A study has found that 38 per cent of sports fans spend either as much or more time playing games based on a sport as they do watching that same sport on TV.

It's a result which TNS, the company that carried out the research with EA, says highlights how effective in-game advertising can be for companies interested in sport sponsorship.

"Fans consume sports in multidimensional ways," said Robert Fox, senior VP at TNS. "Today's interactive entertainment enables fans to engage with their favourite sports on a platform that looks incredibly close to the real thing.

"When a person is engaged in the video game, there is no channel surfing, and the game is paused only for necessity. This is a terrific way for real-world advertisers and sponsors to develop incremental affinity for their brands."

In the ESPN Sports Poll study, those surveyed were asked whether they spend more time watching live sport on the television or playing a game based on that sport in a typical week during its season.

The survey showed that half of sports fans and 69 per cent of 'avid' sports fans own at least one sports videogame.

It also found that three-quarters of sports gamers are male and that the group tended to be more physically active than sports fans in general. 60 per cent of sports gamers said they had exercised or participated in a sports activity within the past week, compared with 44 per cent of sports fans.

Three out of four said that in-game advertising played a part in reinforcing a company's real-world sponsorship of that sport.

"Fans have grown to expect that the game experience mirrors the real world and allows them to be Mark Sanchez for the night. Part of the authenticity is the advertising that is embedded in the game or that is dynamically served during connected play, and includes the finer details like in-stadium and in-arena signage," said Elizabeth Harz, Senior VP of global media sales at EA.

"For sponsors looking to differentiate their brand in a crowded field, the sports gamer is influential and the messaging options robust."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-watching-live ...

LittleBigPlanet, Pain, Flower and Resident Evil 5: Alternate Edition are just some of the existing games that are being updated to support Sony's new motion wands when they arrive later this year, and Sony says it's looking at more of its franchises, too.

Speaking with the Official PlayStation Magazine UK, Michael Denny, senior VP of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe, said: "When you give our development teams exciting new technology, it's great to see the experiences they come up with.

"And that's both in terms of new concepts and new games, but also the application of those technologies to our existing franchises."

He later added: "We are both working on new games and looking at applications to our existing franchises."

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

Mobile games firm I-play appears to be the latest mid-tier publisher to abandon the Java and BREW markets.
A rumour published on Mobile Games Blog today suggested that the company - a subsidiary of Oberon Media - has started informing developers of its plans not to release any more J2ME or BREW games after Q1 this year.
ME contacted I-play for the official line, and the company sent us this statement, from its global VP of sales and marketing for mobile Keith Adair:
"I-play remains very excited by the potential growth in the mobile games market. We are actively scaling investment into our games development for 2010, specifically across new high-end smartphone platforms offering premium quality gaming with cross platform socially connected capabilities."
We're assuming that's confirmation of the J2ME/BREW pullout then.

I-play is certainly ramping up for Android. Yesterday, the publisher revealed that it's releasing 20 games for Android this year, with Adair telling MocoNews that it expects numerous mobile operators to launch their own versions of Android Market.
For that reason, today's news shouldn't be read as I-play abandoning the carrier world. Instead, it's shifting its focus to smartphones in the expectation that the operators will also be ramping up their efforts in this area.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/36002...nd-BREW-gaming ...

Black Inc adds more direct control system and adds new features
Ion Assault – the first German-made game to be released on Xbox Live Arcade – will undergo an automatic update as Cologne-based developer Black Inc looks to revise the title’s control system and add new features.
The top—down Geometry Wars-like shooter will offer more direct controls, with the Xbox’s right thumbstick now used to directly align the player’s ship.
And Black Inc have released a new gameplay mode to reflect the more immediate, rapid gameplay. A new high-score-based “survival mode” pits players against a rising tide of enemies, demanding faster reactions and greater stamina.
The game became Germany’s first CBLA title when released in September last year.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...A-game-tweaked ...

Bungie has called Halo: Reach its 'most powerful ever title' in an exclusive new Official Xbox Magazine feature.

The 10-page preview of the title, which appears in OXM 57 - on newsstands today - includes an extensive hands-on, as well as interviews with key Bungie figures.

Reach's creative director Marcus Lehto told the mag: "Halo Reach is probably the most powerful title we've built to date with regards to story, character, new gameplay features we're throwing at the player, and new experiences overall."

The article includes details of new NPCs - as well as beefed-up old ones, such as the marines that fight alongside you.

"The Halo 3 marine was nothing to write home about, so that was a serious kick in our pants to do something better," added Lehto.

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

Bill Gates has given his opinion in Apple’s iPad, saying that he still thinks that a netbook offers better functionality.
Speaking to BNet, he said: “You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard - in other words a netbook - will be the mainstream on that.
“So, it’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’”
It has been noted, however, that this is almost exactly what he said about the iPod, before going on to launch the Zune.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/33140...riticises-iPad ...

A Queensland man who has to pay Nintendo $1.5 million in a piracy case is little more than a shy gamer who uploaded his copy of a new game on to the internet only to prove a point to friends, his father said.


But Nintendo maintains James Burt deliberately distributed the game illegally online in order to gain acceptance with a game hacking group.


Burt, 24, a part-time freight worker who still lives at home with his parents in Sinnamon Park, will be forced to pay Nintendo $1.5 million after an out-of-court settlement was struck to compensate the company for a claimed loss of sales revenue.

Burt uploaded a game file from the Nintendo Wii game New Super Mario Bros on to the internet on November 6 last year, a week before its official release in Australia.

A large Australian retailer had sold him the game early by mistake.

Nintendo Australia managing director Rose Lappin claimed thousands of people accessed the game illegally after Burt uploaded the file and that his actions created "a major cost to us and the industry".

But Nintendo itself announced recently that the game in question was among the fastest selling of all time. The game earned about $20 million in revenue in just seven weeks.


New Super Mario Bros was among the first Wii titles to launch in Australia before the rest of the world, and Nintendo said Burt's actions could mean that early releases for Australia would not happen in future.

Burt, who must also pay Nintendo's legal bill of $100,000, has been forbidden by Nintendo from commenting on the settlement.

But his father, Richard, said in a phone interview that his son was far from a commercial pirate.

He said his son was a fanatical gamer who owned every console released since he was a teenager and worked part-time at a freight handling company.

"As a parent I can tell you that he's a very quiet lad, he's a fanatical computer game player - to his detriment," he said.

"It was peer pressure on the internet forums and the blog sites that led him to do a very very silly thing to prove that he'd actually managed to purchase a game before its release date."

He said his son now realised the extent of his actions but did not foresee the consequences at the time.

"It was certainly [done] with no malice or intent to make money - he actually bought the game legitimately from a major retailer," he said.

He added that the game file his son uploaded to the internet did not, on its own, allow people to play the game.

"Somebody hacked it from the internet once James had put it there and made it work," he said.

Nintendo rejected Richard's claims that his son made an innocent mistake, saying James deliberately sought out members of the game hacking community and released the pirated files to them in order to gain acceptance.


Nintendo said forensic investigations had revealed the file was downloaded 50,000 times over a five day period, but it conceded that James did not earn any money from the act.

"Nintendo obtained evidence during its investigations that James Burt knew by uploading a copy of the game to a known hacking website that the security measures would be overcome by members of this community to allow the game to be hacked and ultimately downloaded," the company said.


Despite Nintendo's claims that Burt's actions cost it revenue warranting a $1.5 million damages fine, the company announced on January 27 that more than 200,000 units of New Super Mario Bros were sold in Australia in only seven weeks.

It said the game was the only title on any format to sell 200,000 units this quickly.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/g...0210-nrlr.html ...

this is a tool i used to find raw images in binary files. i don't know who made it and i don't know where it comes from. But it sure is usefull and easy to use. You basically view a file in graphics form, you can specify options like which color format etc. just check it out could be usefull for other things then dingoo as well (do note only works for raw image data not compressed image data)

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,15,266 ...

New special offer from Play Asia:



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Taking Magna Carta 2's place as our weekly special is UFC 2009 Undisputed. Enter the ring and fight until you drop. The game is region free and is available at an unbeatable bargain price of US$ 19.90. Although this is an Asian version, the game display an array of European languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian and German.

http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...-2bl-84-n.html ...