DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
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by Published on November 12th, 2011 00:17- Categories:
- Nintendo 3DS News
With Zelda’s next epic chapter due in shops next Friday (November 18th), the producer of Skyward Sword has hinted at an exciting new 3D future for the series.
And furthermore, none other than Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto is fronting the project.
“Mr. Miyamoto himself has been talking recently about going back to the 2D Zelda games," Eiji Aonuma told GamesRadar. "In particular the ones that were designed with multiple levels to the world like A Link to the Past, and taking those 2D graphics and recreating them in 3D so that you could get a sense for the depth of those worlds.
“That's something that might be interesting to do, so I would say there might be a possibility of something like that in the future."
One thing that might work against the plan, however, is Nintendo’s emerging strategy of avoiding the use of 3D in its 3DS marketing. What that means for the use of the tech in future Nintendo releases remains to be seen.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/miyam...s-in-3d/087302 ...by Published on November 12th, 2011 00:09- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Activision has confirmed that modern Warfare 3 has shattered the record held by Call of Duty: Black Ops to become the biggest entertainment launch of all time.
In total the game sold a staggering 6.5m units in just the UK and North America alone in its first 24 hours on sale, amassing sales of $400m in the process.
It’s the third year on the trot that a Call of Duty release has set day one entertainment launch records – an all-time first.
"We believe the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories," Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated.
"Other than Call of Duty, there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row. Life-to-date sales for the Call of Duty franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time."
CEO Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg added: "Call of Duty is more than a game. It's become a major part of the pop cultural landscape. It is a game that core enthusiasts love, but that also consistently draws new people into the medium. It is the most intense, adrenaline pumping entertainment experience anywhere.
“I would like to thank our incredible teams at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games for making a brilliant game. But most of all, I would like to thank our millions of passionate fans worldwide. We made this game for you."
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/moder...ch-ever/087304 ...by Published on November 12th, 2011 00:07- Categories:
- DCEmu
Battlefield 3 sold really well. Modern Warfare 3 sold really, REALLY well. But who won the war?
Of course, that all depends on how you deal with the numbers.
EA’s mission prior to the release of Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 was simple – it wanted to prize some of Call of Duty’s prized market share from it.
“We will give Activision a hard time in the space,” EA’s European Publishing SVP Jens Uwe Intat, told MCV in September.
"That’s what we are doing in the shooter space. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We might not do it Day One. Activision has 90 per cent of the shooter market, and we want to see that go down to 70. I would be even happier if they were left with 60 per cent.”
Did EA achieve its goal?
Well. We now know that Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 units in its first 24 hours in just the UK and US. Battlefield 3 sold 5m units “in a matter of days”.
There are lots of variables and mitigating factors we have to consider here. First off, Activision’s numbers are for the UK and US while EA’s are, presumably, global. But as we’re not sure we’ll ignore that for now.
So taking those numbers and squaring them off against one another, that works out as a 56 per cent share for Modern Warfare 3 and a 44 per cent share for Battlefield 3.
That’s a big PR win for EA, right? It has achieved its aim. It has claimed some of Call of Duty’s cherished market share.
But of course, it’s also a PR win for Activision for the simply reason that it’s just launched the biggest entertainment release of all time and smashed the records set by Black Ops. It. Sold. More. Games.
Now, to the other mitigating factors. Then there’s EA’s ambiguous “a matter of days” statement. Its numbers were released a week after the US launch and four days after the European launch.
So let’s try and give Modern Warfare 3, which has now been out for over three days, a more even footing.
Black Ops grossed $360m in sales in its first 24 hours. By the end of its firth day on the market that had reached $650m, nearly doubling it sales.
So, following that sales pattern we can presume that by the weekend Modern Warfare 3, which will have then been on the market for five days, will have sold around 14m units.
Now, if we take the five day figures of 12m for Modern Warfare 3 and 5m for Battlefield 3 we get a very different result – a 7o per cent market share for Activision and 30 per cent share for Battlefield.
Who wins then?
Well, EA has successfully eroded Activision’s market share. Though Activision has sold many, many more games. EA has eroded Activision’s 90 per cent share of the market and claimed a bigger pie. Activision has blown EA out of the water.
My dad’s bigger than your dad. I can run faster than you. Digital claims its biggest market share ever. GameStop posts record sales and profits.
That’s the thing with numbers – you can do what you want with them.
The key thing here is that in face of the most hostile retail environment in over a decade two companies have successfully produced and released two games that have enjoyed huge popularity with consumers. Games are still a success.
We all win.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/mw3-v...t-share/087306 ...by Published on November 12th, 2011 00:01- Categories:
- DCEmu
The rate of games piracy is on the rise, according to new data.
Research firm Envisional says that illicit game downloads in the UK climbed 20 per cent over the last five years. It claims that “that the five top games of 2010” were illegally accessed online almost one million times.
None of the five titles were named, nor was the metric in how they were ranked.
Develop has more on this story. Including a graph!
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/games...e-years/087311 ...by Published on November 11th, 2011 22:37- Categories:
- Apple iPad
[DJ FileSpnR] did a number on this IDJ Live hardware to make room for an integrated iPad. Those that have seen the hardware before may not even recognize it. In stock condition the controller has two turn-table actuators with cross-fader control in between them. The iPad perches on top like a book, making it a fairly bulky setup.
In its hacked format, the device is much more mobile. The physical turntables have been removed, and the center console was moved to one side. This leaves just enough room to fit the iPad 2 (the original iPad is probably too thick for this to work). A cresent of the original turn table bezel has been retained to clamp the iPad in place, and to protect the dock connector at the same time. Now the touchscreen serves as turntable control, with physical sliders to the right which mange the cross-fading.
Check out the video after the break where the DJ explains his alterations and demonstrates the finished project.
http://hackaday.com/2011/11/11/ipad-...-live-console/ ...by Published on November 11th, 2011 22:33- Categories:
- Nintendo Wii News
During a panel at the London Games Conference yesterday David DeMartini, senior VP of global E-commerce at EA, said Nintendo could recover from a miserable year which has left it forecasting itsfirst annual loss in over 30 years.
Asked if Nintendo should pull out of the hardware market altogether, he said: "Lots of us here have been in a similar situation. Lots of people have had that experience and pulled themselves out before. It would be premature to rule anyone out: even Apple was down for a while.
"There are an awful lot of smart people at Nintendo with a tonne of experience on hardware. That story may yet to be told."
DeMartini's position isn't that surprising - after all, his employer washit with a loss of $340 million (£212 million) in the three months to September 30, and has been loss-making in eight of the last 12 fiscal quarters - but his tone was markedly different to the others on the panel.
PopCap's David Bishop said Nintendo should have quit the hardware race "about 18 months ago"; GOG.com's Guillaume Rambourg agreed. But one of the biggest laughs of the night was reserved for John Clark, UK MD of Sega.
"On November 18," he said, "Mario And Sonic At The London Olympics will be released for the Wii and we hope to have a fantastic Christmas."
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/lgc-201...do-can-recover ...by Published on November 11th, 2011 22:31- Categories:
- Cloud News
Tom Paquin, CTO of OnLive, last night highlighted the game development possibilties of the company's cloud gaming service and appealed to creators to use the platform to make games that will "really knock our socks off."
During his talk at the London Game Conference last night, Paquin focused not on the subscription-based streaming service thatlaunched in the UK in September, but on the potential of OnLive as a development platform.
After highlighting one of the service's unique selling points to developers - its immunity to piracy - Paquin explained that the technology used in OnLive's Brag Clips, where users press a button to save the last ten seconds of gameplay, could be used for realtime monitoring of QA and beta tests.
"When a game dumps core in our environment," he said, "not only do you get the dump but you also get the 30 seconds of video leading up to it. You can see how it happened.
"It's an opportunity for changing release models, changing development models. Do episodic releases; do trial releases. We're convinced there are numerous pay-as-you-something opportunities here, but it's up to you. We're OS engineers; we'd only get it wrong."
Paquin went on to explain that the fact that all of OnLive's processing occurs server-side, delivered to users over a broadband connection, meant graphical advances could be made without requiring customers to have powerful hardware. After showing a video of a highly detailed facial model, made in theBatman: Arkham Asylum engine with a greatly increased polygon count, he said: "We're not happy with faces in games. They need to get past the uncanny valley.
"We'd like a company to have a library of [assets] they can share across the industry with as many polygons as they need. It's totally deliverable right now. The really creative companies could come up with a game that could only run in this type of environment and really knock our socks off."
Paquin's insisted his talk wasn't a pitch, or an advert. In fact it was more like an appeal. In an earlier session, consultant Nicholas Lovell had backed rival cloud service Gaikai over OnLive, saying the former had a better business model because it was a platform that companies were able to work out how to use on their own terms.
Paquin did much to show that OnLive has the potential to be both: an opportunity for developers to push boundaries, backed up by subscription revenue. Candid throughout, he admitted the company could not do it without the help of the several hundred developers in the room.
"The coolest things to happen on OnLive won't come from OnLive, or people like us," he said, calling on the audience to "make the entire gaming industry go to places that I currently haven't thought of. We want the best minds in this space to be thinking this way."
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/lgc-201...f-dev-platform ...by Published on November 11th, 2011 22:28- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
One-to-one Kinect control may offer gratifying feedback, but it isn’t sufficient to make players feel truly connected to onscreen characters, according to Blitz Games’ Nick Adams.
Delivering a talk titled ‘Designing for a Radical Control Method’ atBradford Animation Festival 2011 this week, the design manager drew on challenges faced by the studio during development of the Xbox 360 version of Puss In Boots, a game based on the upcoming Dreamworks film.
“We had to make the player feel connected, we had to make the player feel like a hero,” he explained. “This is where we came up against a problem, because Puss in Boots is Zorro in cat-form: he’s dynamic, he’s got flair and every one of his poses has been lovingly crafted by Dreamworks animators, so he always looks awesome.
“Most players don’t exhibit that same degree of flair.”
Despite a potential lack of elegance, however, players usually believe their performance to be significantly more polished than observers might – a hurdle Adams described as "egocentric bias". To illustrate his point, he referenced YouTube phenomenon Star Wars Kid.
“I can’t speak for this guy – I’ve never met him and I don’t know what was going on in his head, but he probably thought he looked quite cool,” he told attendees.
“Other people didn’t see him in the same way.”
When Blitz initially added Kinect to the game, it used a system called avateering, which maps the exact skeletal movements of the player directly onto the character.
“We really wanted to create this one-to-one bond with the character, but after trying it, it didn’t really work, and it didn’t look cool,” he admitted. “So somehow we had to go beyond one-to-one, but we had to do it in such a way that we didn’t break the bond.”
The initial solution was a system Blitz Games dubbed ‘semi-teering’, which is based on gesture-driven animations. Instead of mirroring players' movements, the game instead recognises gestures then plays one of a number of pre-canned animations.
“Rather than make the player look worse, we were making them look better – taking what they were doing and exaggerating it,” said Adams.
But semi-teering threw up its own problems: “We were reading the gesture, and then when it finished we’d play the animation,” Adams continued. “But you end up with lag. It looked good, but it just didn’t feel right – you were in this uncanny valley of animation. Sword fighting is such a fast dynamic action that any lag is going to feel horrible.”
The final piece in the puzzle was pre-emptive gesture recognition, wherein the game makes an educated guess at what the player is going to do and prepares an animation early. Halfway through the player’s movement, the full animation, which is usually between two and four frames long, is triggered which in turn leads to a more satisfying experience for the player, with apparently-realtime feedback.
“This was probably our greatest success in the game,” said Adams. “It’s the core mechanic that people are going to judge it on.”
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/blitz-g...rol-not-enough ...by Published on November 11th, 2011 22:19- Categories:
- Playstation Vita News
Sony has announced the opening of an open beta program for its PlayStation Suite SDK, available to residents of the UK, US and Japan.
The PlayStation Suite is an initiative to design games and programs for portable PlayStation Suite approved devices such as the Sony P and S tablets, Various Xperia range smartphones and the PlayStation Vita.
The system uses C# and supports Windows XP and 7.
Developers interested in accessing the beta can apply here.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...r-ps-suite-sdk ...by Published on November 11th, 2011 22:15- Categories:
- Playstation Vita News
Sony has released a pricing list for its Vita Passport system, which will allow users to download digital versions of their UMD games to play on PlayStation Vita.
Prices for the digital versions of the games appear to range from £4-£12 when converted from the original Yen values. All cost are on top of the original UMD prices.
To enable the process, gamers will need to register and download the UMD Registration Application to their PSP, insert the UMD they want to register and start the application. That UMD will then be uniquely registered to that account to prevent duplication.
200 games from 40 publishers are included in the initial offering, with the most expensive game being Persona 3 at 1500 Yen. A full list of the games has been translated and posted at the NeoGaf forums.
Games registered in this way can also be played in their digital form on PSP or PSPgo.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-games-on-vita ...- Search DCEmu
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