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by Published on April 16th, 2012 21:43- Categories:
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EA force pushes Kinect Star Wars off top spot to dominate UK chart
Not even Jedi mind powers were enough to hold off EA this week, as FIFA Street regained its place at the top of the UK software chart, knocking Kinect Star Wars down to fourth place.
So, in a fairly uneventful week for the top 20, EA managed to dominate the top three spots, with FIFA Street enjoying its fourth time at 1, Mass Effect 3 jumping back up to 2 and FIFA 12 rising to 3.
There was only one new entry in the entire top 40 this week, with Nintendo's Pandora's Tower sneaking in at 38.
All chart data is courtesy of GfK Chart-Track.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...et-back-on-top
...by Published on April 16th, 2012 21:33- Categories:
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A survey from Playr2.com has claimed that as many as 36 per cent of parents check the age restrictions of games their children are playing.
Of that 36 per cent, 55 per cent claimed that in their opinion age restriction on games “didn’t matter”. 51 per cent of the respondents said they would not be concerned if their children were playing 18-rated titles.
Curiously, when asked the same question about movies, 54 per cent said they would be concerned if their kids watched 18-rated films.
Additionally, 61 per cent of parents rejected the idea that games could negatively affect childrens’ behaviour.
The site surveyed 1,221 parents who have kids under the age of 17 that regularly play games.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/only-...ratings/094486 ...by Published on April 16th, 2012 21:24- Categories:
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Electronic Arts is to lay off between 500 and 1,000 staff, sources claim, reducing its total workforce by five to 11 per cent, raising questions over the future of CEO John Riccitiello.
Multiple sources have confirmed to Startup Grind that EA originally intended to announce the layoffs this time last week; instead, confirmation is expected in the coming days.
The reported layoffs come at the end of a financial year which, despite several highlights, has been an expensive one for EA. While the acquisition of PopCap in July for an initial $750 million was well received in most quarters, it is expected to be some time before that investment is recouped. Losses rose by 69 per cent in the quarter during which the acquisition was announced.
While it is generally accepted that EA was successful in its bid toeat into the Call Of Duty userbase with Battlefield 3 - which sold 8 million units in its first month on sale, almost four times as much as predecessor Bad Company 2 - that too came at a cost. One source claims EA spent $30 million marketing a game which has sold an estimated 13 million copies.
It has spent heavily, too, on The Old Republic. BioWare's Star Wars MMOG, which was in development for over three years, had 1.7 million subscribers in February, and again in March - though EA was quick to stress that should not be interpreted as signs that the game's popularity had peaked, pointing out that many of the first 1.7 million were still in the 30-day trial period, and had since converted to full subscriptions.
Yet late last week came signs that EA was nervous about losing users, offering a free week of play to lapsed subscribers to coincide with the release of the game's 1.2 update, Legacy. Player churn in MMOGs is far from uncommon - Blizzard said last year it wasspeeding up development of World Of Warcraft expansionsbecause lapsed players resubscribe, charge through the new content and leave again - but at the time, WOW had 11.4 million subscribers, and it says a lot that EA is acting so early in the game's life.
Startup Grind suggests all this could spell bad news for John Riccitiello, the EA CEO who has an approval rating of just 53 per cent on Glassdoor, a website which collates reviews of US companies from anonymous employees.
When Riccitiello took over EA in February 2007, its share price stood at $51.96; by the close of business on Friday it was $16.18. While few would dispute that the five intervening years have heralded unprecedented change in the game industry, a 69 per cent fall in company stock is hard to defend; Activision's share price has risen 41 per cent in the same period.
Riccitiello's tenure has also seen a number of high-profile departures from EA's management team, with many leaving for Zynga. Five of Zynga's 11 top executives came from EA, and CFO Eric Brown left in February. Riccitiello said that the senior staff that left EA for the king of Facebook gaming did so for the money, and that EA hadn't been weakened by their departures; he will find it much harder, however, to explain away the layoffs of up to 1,000 staff.
EA, however, has moved to deny the news, with a spokesperson telling MCV: "There are no layoffs as such, we always have projects growing and morphing. At any given time there are new people coming in and others leaving.
"EA is growing and hiring and building teams to support the growing demand for digital games and services."
http://www.edge-online.com/news/repo...over-500-staff ...by Published on April 15th, 2012 22:20- Categories:
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Cliff Bleszinski also says he wants the consoles always-connected to the Internet
Epic Games design director Cliff Bleszinski recentlysaid at PAX East that he wants future consoles to have astounding graphics. He joins the chorus of voices calling for significantly more powerful next-gen consoles, including CD Projekt artist Marek Ziemak who wants true-to-life animation.
"Face-melting graphics," said Bleszinski. "I really want our next-generation consoles to pass what I call the 'Mom Test.' So that if you were to show this console and games to your mom, she would be like, 'Wow, that clearly looks better than your last console,' and it's an essential step that needs to be taken by both Sony and Microsoft."
The idea of consoles that are constantly connected to the Internet is a somewhat controversial idea, but Bleszinski is in favor of it. "Always-connected consoles that basically require an Internet connection. So that I can just wake up in the morning and say, 'Oh a new demo has been downloaded on my hard drive, so I can check it out'," he said, adding. "As well as considering streaming gaming from the cloud, which would be very nice."
Despite the recent cancellation of the Gears of War Kinect project, Bleszinski is still intrigued by motion controls. "The other things I want to see are gesture-based controls," he said. "I think Kinect is quite cool, and I'm a big fan of using Kinect to control movies with Netflix. Maybe it will be built-in [to a future generation Xbox], maybe it won't. We'll have to see what actually comes out of that."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-gen-consoles
...by Published on April 15th, 2012 22:13- Categories:
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Speculation is rife that the next generation of consoles will be focused on download titles, and Ubisoft says it is laying the groundwork now for a new digital strategy to match.
When asked about the rise of simultaneous boxed product and download releases, the publisher’s VP of digital Chris Early said Ubisoft was paying close attention to sales of games on Vita – which are available via PSN at the same time as retail.
“We’re going to have to wait and see where the platform holders go with the next generation,” he told MCV.
“But publishers can already form a strategy around how they approach a market where digital versions are available on the same day and date as retail ones.
“We’re starting to figure out our strategy now. We’re getting some good precursors with Vita and PlayStation 3, which means that however it changes in the future, we’ll be in a position to take advantage of that.”
However, the Ubisoft exec remained doubtful whether a generation of consoles where downloads take precedence over retail is feasible in the current market.
“I think we have to be able to service our players wherever they happen to be,” he explained.
“Even in the US, there are pockets where connectivity is poor, so expecting someone there to download a 1GB or 2GB game would take them hours and hours. Can we push that? I don’t think the infrastructure’s there yet.
“There’s a bunch of other factors to be considered: are you going to enable the same types of pre-order packages? What if someone wants a collector’s edition that comes with extra goodies as well as the game?”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ubiso...onsoles/094387 ...by Published on April 15th, 2012 21:48- Categories:
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New NPD data has spilt out since their initial March 2012 reportcame in just yesterday.
Several new bits and figures have been passed on to Joystiq by an NPD source—specifically numbers on units sold for a handful of titles released during the sales period.
Total Mass Effect 3 sales for its launch month of March were 1.3m units across Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. That figure covers purely new physical retail sales, which means no digitally distributed product on PC or PS3 is counted.
While the NPD doesn't publicly share sales breakdowns by platform, Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg did share that 360 moved 943,000 units in the month for the title.
After catching wind of the updated NPD info, EA weighed in.
"We think the monthly NPD reports are a very poor indicator of the industry's performance given the proportion of digital sales – including digital downloads via Origin, DLC, mobile and social games and much more – that are not captured in their reports," John Reseburg of EA's corporate communications stated. "Taking these reports as an accurate snapshot of the industry today is a dangerous assumption."
The NPD also brought to light Kid Icarus: Uprising numbers, stating the 3DS title sold approximately 140,000 copies in the US in March.
“In a list of the top 10 SKU's for the month (as opposed to top titles as listed here), 3DS Kid Icarus: Uprising would have been among the top selling individual SKU's for the month of March,” analyst Anita Frazier reported.
The 3DS debut was on sale for just eight days of the sales period.
Additionally, NPD shared that February release Resident Evil: Revelations sold around 122,000 in March.
Last and in this case unfortunately least, Binary Domain (Sega’s sci-fi shooter which launched February 28th) only sold 20,000 copies last month.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/more-...figures/094408 ...by Published on April 15th, 2012 21:43- Categories:
- DCEmu
The US videogame market declined 25 per cent year on year last month, according to data released by NPD Group.
Total spend on new hardware, software and accessories at US retail came to $1.1 billion, a decline of $370 million from the previous year. The biggest decline was in hardware sales, which fell 35 per cent; software sales fell by a quarter and accessories were down 8 per cent.
Mass Effect 3 was the best-selling game of the month, outselling its predecessor Mass Effect 2's first-month sales by two copies to one - little surprise given that it's the first game in the series to be released simultaneously for all platforms.
NPD analyst Anita Frazier admitted it was "a disappointing month, and first quarter, for new physical retail sales" but added it "wasn't entirely unexpected given guidance we've seen from several sources." Xbox 360 was the most popular hardware for an eighth consecutive month.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/npd-...ines-us-retail ...by Published on April 15th, 2012 17:41- Categories:
- DCEmu
We knew Best Buy planned to close 50 of its big box retail locations by the end of its 2013 fiscal year, and now (just days after Mike Mikan took the CEO-reigns from Brian Dunn) it's detailed all of the stores that'll be getting the boot. As it stands, two locations have already been shut down, with six others set to close before the year is out -- and the company hopes to clear out the remaining 42 before May 12th. Employees at most of the stores were informed of the news this weekend, and despite the impending closures, the company says it'll try to re-position them within the company or offer up severance packages. Past that, Best Buy is also reaching out to the customers of these stores, noting that they'll still have other nearby locations to choose from -- try-before-you-buy online shoppers rejoice. There's still no specific word about the 100 Best Buy Mobile stores it hopes to setup, but more information will be forthcoming later in the year. Hit up the press release after the break if you'd like to parse the full list of affected locations or find out more details about the planned closures.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/15/b...tion-closures/
...by Published on April 12th, 2012 23:25- Categories:
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Located on a rather nondescript industrial estate in a suburb of Leicester you'll find an equally nondescript warehouse unit. Nestled amongst the usual glut of logistics companies and scrap metal merchants, the building in question once housed a firm that was poised to dramatically alter the world of interactive entertainment as we know it, and worked with such illustrious partners as Sega, Atari, Ford and IBM.That company was Virtuality. Founded by a dashing and charismatic Phd graduate by the name of Jonathan D. Waldern, it placed the UK at the vanguard of a Virtual Reality revolution that captured the imagination of millions before collapsing spectacularly amid unfulfilled promises and public apathy.The Lawnmower Man may not have been a critical success, but it kick-started the general public's interest in VR....
The genesis of VR begins a few years prior to Virtuality's birth in its grey and uninspiring industrial surroundings. The technology was born outside of the entertainment industry, with NASA and the US Air Force cooking up what would prove to be the first VR systems, intended primarily for training and research. The late '80s and very early '90s saw much academic interest in the potential of VR, but typically, it took a slice of Hollywood hokum to really jettison the concept into the global consciousness and create a new buzzword for the masses."The fundamental driver was public interest," says Kevin Williams, who worked at another UK-based VR company during this period, and has since become something of an expert on the topic. "The 1992 motion picture The Lawnmower Man boasted ground-breaking CG special effects that encapsulated what had been written and reported about VR, and drove imagination in a similar way to how Steven Spielberg's Minority Report recently fuelled perception of what Augmented Reality can offer."It wasn't long before savvy developers saw potential applications in the sphere of interactive entertainment, and given the groundswell of interest in the tech, it was fairly easy for an energetic start-up like Virtuality to capitalise. "The company was the UK superstar of the VR concept," adds Williams. "They were willing to self-promote to publicise their vision of how VR worked, and took a route to adoption through the amusement sector - an industry that was at the time trapped in a downward spiral, in need of unique technology to distance itself from the erosion started by the home console revolution." VR was about to become huge news, and Virtuality had jumped on the bandwagon at precisely the right moment.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...happened-to-vrby Published on April 12th, 2012 22:57- Categories:
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The collapse of GAME took a heavy toll on the UK games retail market last month.
2.7m games were sold during March, a whopping 34 per cent drop on the 4.1m games sold during the same period in 2011.
In total, retail generated £67.7m last month, a year-on-year drop of 33.5 per cent.
For the entire first quarter, physical game sales in the UK were 30 per cent down compared with Q1 2011.
The crisis that engulfed GAME would have had a big impact on the figures. The market leading retailer fell into administration last month and was unable to source new stock for almost eight weeks.
EA’s titles were amongst those missing from GAME shelves, but the firm still dominated the March charts, with Mass Effect 3 the biggest seller, well ahead of FIFA Street at No.2, SSX at No.3 and FIFA 12 at No.4.
The publisher’s line-up accounted for almost one third of all the games sold in the UK at retail last month.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/game-...ression/094284 ...- Search DCEmu
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