The first 3DS Mario adventure outpaced its closest competitor by more than two to one in Japan’s November sales chart, ending a poor run of software sales for Nintendo’s latest console.
Super Mario 3D Land sold 542,842 copies between October 31 and November 27, according to Famitsu figures reported by Andriasang.
It was followed on the monthly chart by Sega’s Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend for PSP and Square Enix published Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 3 for PS3, which shifted 234,627 and 227,219 units respectively.
3DS has topped the weekly Japanese hardware rankings since itsmid-August price cut, but the console’s sales momentum is only now being matched by that of its software. Mario 3D Land sold 343,492 copies in its first week of availability, the best launch on record for a 3DS game, although Nintendo president Satoru Iwatasaid yesterday its performance has been surpassed by Mario Kart 7, a feat that will be confirmed when Media Create reveals its latest sales data tomorrow.
01. Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo)
02. Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend (Sega)
03. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 Subtitled Version (Square Enix)
04. Zelda Skyward Sword (Nintendo)
05. Final Fantasy Type-0 (Square Enix)
06. Battlefield 3 (EA)
07. Uncharted 3 (Sony)
08. Sengoku Basara 3 Utage (Capcom)
09. One Piece Gigant Battle 2 New World (Namco Bandai)
10. Ore No Shikabane Wo Koete Yuke (Sony)

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/japan-s...november-sales ...

Although a great industry for entrepreneurs to thrive, the business of making games is still "shockingly immature" according to Epic Games president Mike Capps.
Speaking in an exclusive interview published today, Capps said that there needs to be more shared learning, content and experiences for the industry to grow bigger and better, and his company is dedicated to furthering the greater good of the games business.
"Our games industry is shockingly immature from a business perspective, because so few folks have business experience before coming in, or an education for business," he said.
"It's awesome because it's entrepreneurship gone right, that's what our industry comes from, and that's really exciting, but there's not a lot of sharing, there's not a lot of great game business 'how to' books, so we try to share and people listen to us, for some reason, and we try to learn as much as we can from everybody else and their mistakes. It just seemed like the right thing to do."
It's awesome because it's entrepreneurship gone right, but there's not a lot of sharing, there's not a lot of great game business 'how to' books

Mike Capps, Epic Games

Epic famously lobbied Microsoft to up the memory of the Xbox 360 from 256MB to 512MB to help make better games on the system, and it has also been vocal with Nvidia's hardware and for future home consoles. "It's one of our values," adds Capps.
Licensees of Epic's Unreal Engine also contribute to the community, said Capps, rather than acting selfishly to get the upper hand on competing companies.
"There's no reason, if you find a bug, you don't go 'ha ha ha, that'll give us an edge on Splinter Cell!' Because it doesn't at all and so you share it, because it's one less thing that Epic has to find and fix and they can focus on something you care more about. And you share with the Mass Effect guys and they share with you.
Elsewhere in the interview Capps revealed that although the company is supporting the PlayStation Vita, the company doesn't have a game for the handheld in development and he's unsure at this point how the audience for Epic experiences will adopt the new hardware.
"We're not currently making a Vita game, I'm not sure how well it's going to be accepted in our Western market which is primarily where our games sell," he said. "It's a really cool platform, but I have a phone, and it's really hard to compete with that.
"So I'm not sure if it will be successful or not, I hope they are, it's good for the games industry, but we got our tech on it really early.
"We were, I think, one of the very first people to get one and work with it and we were on stage at the launch, because we have a lot of licensees who are curious about it and so we did the first part. But we can't really fully support that platform unless we're shipping our own games, that's how we know we know that platform, and it's really important for us to do that."
The full interview, where Capps also discusses why he's "scared" of revealing new IP to fans, can be read here.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ingly-immature ...

From McGill's news site: 'Thousands of video game players have helped significantly advance our understanding of the genetic basis of diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer over the past year. They are the users of a web-based video game developed by Dr. Jérôme Waldispuhl of the McGill School of Computer Science and collaborator Mathieu Blanchette. Phylo is designed to allow casual game players to contribute to scientific research by arranging multiple sequences of coloured blocks that represent human DNA. By looking at the similarities and differences between these DNA sequences, scientists are able to gain new insight into a variety of genetically-based diseases.'"Hopefully Phylo will be as successful as Foldit.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/1...netic-research ...

Loss of phone "would cause huge disruption" to their lives.
Tennesse-based technology protection firm Asurion found that 32 per cent of mobile phone users aged 60-64 are very reliant on their devices.
The consumers said that their mobile was the primary means of contact and its loss "would cause tremendous disruption to my life", according to the report.
The results will likely come as a surprise to many as trends dictate that it's mostly the younger generation that can't go without their phones.
Bettie Colombo, spokesperson for Asurion, said: "When we envision the 'cell phone generation' most of us think about the teenage through college-age groups that have grown-up with cell phones.
"But our research disproves that assumption. As a nation, we're all coming to see the cell phone as an indispensable part of our lives."

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...-mobile/016411 ...

Secretary of state for education Michael Gove has said that he backs the call for computer science to be part of the National Curriculum.
Replacing ICT with computer science in schools is central to theNext Gen Skills campaign launched last month by UKIE with help from Google, NESTA, and Skillset, who see it as crucial to putting the UK at the forefront of future high tech business.
Talking to students at Catmose College about ICT in schools, Gove said: "What we should have is computer science in the future, and how it fits into the curriculum is something that we need to talk to scientists, to experts in coding, and to young people about, to make sure that that part of what happens in schools which deals with technology and computing is relevant."
Gove's comments are the first since the government said it understood the need to develop skills in the digital and creative sectors, but at the time remained uncommitted in its official response to the Livingstone Hope review.
That review was submitted to the government in February, with 20 recommendations to boost the digital games and visual effects industries in the UK.
The remarks by the secretary of state for education will please campaigners such as Ian Livingstone, who has held meetings with Gove's special advisor Dominic Cummings about introducing computer science to the classroom.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ool-curriculum ...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has requested a loosening of America's laws on the jailbreaking of smartphones, tablets and consoles, claiming that current legislation "harm(s) competition, consumer choice, and innovation."
The group achieved a relaxation of the previously existing law last year, but is seeking to capitalise on that victory with further requests.
The legislation in question is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA), which the group claims is restricting many valid fields of use and experimentation - far beyond its original remit of preventing the use of pirated games, programs or music on consumer electronic devices.
"The DMCA is supposed to block copyright infringement. But instead it can be misused to threaten creators, innovators, and consumers, discouraging them from making full and fair use of their own property," said the EFF's intellectual property director Corynne McSherry.
"Hobbyists and tinkerers who want to modify their phones or video game consoles to run software programs of their choice deserve protection under the law. So do artists and critics who use short excerpts of video content to create new works of commentary and criticism. Copyright law shouldn't be stifling such uses - it should be encouraging them."
The EFF also published a detailed account of the requests it's making of the US Copyrigt Office in a PDF, listing both the desired changes to law and the arguments supporting them - making specific reference to the removal of the "otherOS" support from PS3s.
"All three major video game manufacturers - Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo - have deployed technical restrictions that force console purchasers to limit their operating systems and software exclusively to vendor-approved offerings, even where there is no evidence that other options will infringe copyrights," reads the report.
"This severely constrains not only consumer choice and the value of the console to its owner, but also the incentives for independent developers to create copyrightable systems and software that would expand the marketplace for these devices and promote the progress of science and the useful arts in these areas."
Every three years, the EFF re-evaluates it's position on current legislation in the light of technological and cultural advances, resubmitting new suggestions to the relevant governing bodies about potential changes to those laws.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-jailbreaking ...

Digital rights advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is seeking to make the "jailbreaking" of smartphones, tablets and consoles legal under US copyright law.
The group has filed exemption requests with the US Copyright Office, asking that jailbreaking - the act of bypassing a device's system security to install unsigned software - be exempt from the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the US law protecting copyrights online.
"The DMCA is supposed to block copyright infringement," EFF IP director Corynne McSherry said in a press release. "But instead it can be misused to threaten creators, innovators, and consumers, discouraging them from making full and fair use of their own property.
"Hobbyists and tinkerers who want to modify their phones or videogame consoles to run software programs of their choice deserve protection under the law… Copyright law shouldn't be stifling such uses - it should be encouraging them."
Last year the EFF successfully lobbied for the jailbreaking of smartphones to be made exempt from the DMCA, and is calling for that to be expanded to cover consoles and tablets as part of the Copyright Office's three-yearly review process.
Earlier this year the EFF hit out at Sony over its handling of the PS3 jailbreak, in which the platform holder cited the DMCA, as well as the Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, in a lawsuit against George "Geohot" Hotz, the man who posted the console's root key online and opened the door not just to homebrew on the PS3, butwidespread piracy. The case was eventually settled out of court, with Hotz donating to the EFF what remained of the $10,000 he raised to cover his legal expenses.
The Copyright Office will consider the EFF's requests next spring, with a decision expected in October.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/eff-cal...be-exempt-dmca ...

Modern Warfare 3 has seen its first weekly increase in sales since its release, with units up two per cent over last week. That increase means that Activision's shooter keeps hold of the UK's top software sales spot, despite renewed competition from EA's FIFA 12 in second.

The sales gap between the two games remains significant, however, with Chart-Track indicating a 55,000 difference in weekly sales for the two titles.

Assasin's Creed: Revelations slips below FIFA to third, with Just Dance 3 jumping up the chart from eighth to fourth. Professor Layton's latest, The Spectre's Call, holds onto seventh, ahead of the newly release Mario Kart 7 in eighth. That game is the only new entry in this week's top 40.

Last Week This Week Title
1 1 Modern Warfare 3
3 2 FIFA 12
2 3 Assassin's Creed: Revelations
8 4 Just Dance 3
4 5 Skyrim
3 6 Saints Row: The Third
7 7 Professor Layton and the Spectre's Call
New Entry 8 Mario Kart 7
9 9 Battlefield 3
10 10 Super Mario 3D Land
13 11 Mario and Sonic at the 2012 Olympic Games
11 12 Need For Speed: The Run
12 13 Moshi Monsters: Moshling Zoo
6 14 WWE 12
16 15 Batman: Arkham City
20 16 Uncharted 3
15 17 Skylanders
22 18 Forza 4
14 19 LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
18 20 Zumba Fitness

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-spot-retained ...

Revelations that several smartphone brands contain a secret usage tracking software from Carrier IQ has resulted in a storm of controversy and at least two class action law suits against the firm.

Carrier IQ is essential a third-party metrics service or quality-of-service application, which the firm admits has been installed in up to 140 million handsets. Not one person asked for it, nor even knew it was installed.

So when security researcher Trevor Eckhart uncovered the application and showed that it had been given the ultimate access to log everything including location and key presses, alarm bells began to ring worldwide. Not the least since Carrier IQ issued a Cease and Desist letter against Eckhart. As the PR disaster spiraled out of control, Carrier IQ issued a retraction and said issuing the letter was 'misguided'.

Carrier IQ moved to downplay the controversy, saying that key presses were not logged, saying online that: "We measure and summarize performance of the device to assist Operators in delivering better service." Eckhart then published a video that demonstrated the key logging explicitly.

Hooks for the software were even in Apple's iPhone although Apple quickly moved to say that Carrier IQ is not used in iOS 5 and will be completely removed in the future but the firm is the subject of at least one lawsuit regardless.

US class action lawsuits have since been filed against Carrier IQ and handset makers HTC and Samsung, alleging violations of the US Wiretap Act. Another lawsuit is targeting US network operators AT&T, Sprint, Apple and T-Mobile.

Without a mobile operator enabling Carrier IQ, the software may never be activated on phones or not installed in the first place. The Telegraph said that no British carrier currently used Carrier IQ.

The Register was also apparently shown technical details as part of an interview with Carrier IQ marketing chief Andrew Coward which apparently convinced El Reg that the software "doesn't represent a privacy threat to handset owners."

As evidence of the sensitivity to privacy issues within the smartphone industry, Apple, Nokia and RIM have all moved to distance themselves from Carrier IQ.

Android users, however, may not be so easily convinced that Carrier IQ is a benign presence on their phone.Several apps have appeared on the Android Market which claim to detect whether the phone has Carrier IQ installed.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...-furore/027609 ...