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by Published on November 18th, 2011 10:43- Categories:
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Online auction giant eBay is to open its first bricks and mortar store in the UK.
The one-off five-day experiment will be located just off London’s Oxford Street and will trade between December 1st-5th.
Interestingly, the shop itself will have a very limited selection of stock and no tills. Instead, upon inspecting the goods on offer customers will be encouraged to scan a QR code that will log onto eBay using their smartphones and bid for goods.
PCs will also be available in-store for those wishing to check out the eBay website.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ebay-...-outlet/087407 ...by Published on November 18th, 2011 10:41- Categories:
- DCEmu
Call of Duty triggered its customary retail surge, but the games that dared go up against it were also victorious.
Last week was the UK games market’s biggest week ever in terms of revenues, bringing in £120.8m. More than 3m games were sold. While Modern Warfare 3 accounted for most, GfK Chart-Track also heaped praise on Bethesda’s Skyrim.
“For the first time we had Call of Duty with another big new release,” games director Dorian Bloch told MCV. “They both helped achieve the record-breaking market figure of £121m.”
Bethesda’s European PR and marketing director Sarah Seaby added: “We’re delighted with Skyrim’s success. In the same week as the incredible launch of Call of Duty, we saw a huge amount of people queuing for the midnight opening.”
One unsung hero was Mind Candy’s DS title Moshlings Zoo, the first Moshi Monsters boxed game. It sold over 30,000 copies in its first weekend, took No.1 in the DS chart and No.7 in the All Formats Top 40.
“It’s fantastic to be seen in the same light as some amazing mainstream titles,” said senior brand marketing manager Andrew Matjaszek.
And this sales surge isn’t about to stop. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Halo Anniversary were released earlier this week, while today (Friday, November 18th) sees the arrival of Saints Row, Need For Speed, Zelda, Mario, LEGO Harry Potter and Mario & Sonic.
“Of course, it remains to be seen whether the current crop of triple-A titles will turn the market round the corner,” Bloch said. “What I can say for sure is Q4 2011 is the most concentrated Q4 that we’ve ever seen.
“The last thirteen weeks of 2011 will probably account for 50 per cent of the entire year in terms of games software by revenue, which has never happened before.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/games...eats-up/087416 ...by Published on November 18th, 2011 10:37- Categories:
- DCEmu
The Arvon Foundation has launched a dedicated games writing course, featuring the likes of Heavenly Sword writer Rhianna Pratchett.
The five-day, residential course will be tutored by Naomi Alderman and David Varela, both of whom have worked on Mind Candy's ARG Perplex City, with Alderman also writing for The Guardian.
"Gaming is now the largest entertainment industry in the world - it covers everything from FarmVille to Call Of Duty, from Wii games to alternate reality adventures," Alderman said. "Increasingly, gamelike ways of telling stories are bleeding through to older forms too - theatre, TV and even novels are becoming more interactive.
"So it's a perfect moment for any writer to start to learn what's going on in the world of games, and how to use those skills and techniques."
Pratchett added: "Game writing is the latest cresting wave of the narrative world and this course will ensure you have the knowledge to ride it."
The first course starts on January 30 at The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre in West Yorkshire, with prices starting at £575. For more, follow the source link below.
Source: Arvon Foundation
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/games-w...ourse-launches ...by Published on November 17th, 2011 22:43- Categories:
- DCEmu
Hardware manufacturers will wise up to the fact that creating dedicated consoles is a futile business strategy for the future of video games, according to Eidos life president Ian Livingstone.
Discussing his personal projections for the future of the interactive entertainment business, the industry veteran suggested that the closed environments created by multiple home and portable devices will eventually disappear allowing intellectual property to spread across any and all gaming formats.
"Hardware manufacturers will finally realise the fact that manufacturing hardware is a mug's game," Livingstone told the Launch Conference in Birmingham, yesterday.
"It's all about intellectual property and I think you'll see IP moving across all platforms and all devices. Walled gardens will one day disappear."
Portable hardware will the dominant gaming devices, said Livingstone, driven by a standard language in HTML5 - something that could become bigger for web-based gaming than social networks like Facebook.
"The dominant platform for me is going to be mobile," he offered. "Android might eat Apple's lunch but a connected device allowing gaming on the move is absolutely, undoubtedly the future."
"HTML 5 is going to create a real opportunity, a single platform with a single interface. That's going to be a bigger platform perhaps than Facebook."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...me-livingstone ...by Published on November 17th, 2011 22:04- Categories:
- DCEmu
So, BBM and a native email client for the BlackBerry PlayBook would be nice, but what we have today is a step in a completely different direction. DOSBox, everyone's favorite open-source x86 emulator, has been successfully ported to RIM's QNX-based tablet, bringing with it MS-DOS and Windows 3.11 support. A command-line-based OS can certainly be tiring after spending so many years with a GUI, but those ancient games of yesteryear are timeless -- Wolfenstein 3D, anyone? If you happen to live north of the border, where the Playbook just got a massive price cut, a repurposed DOS tablet could be in your future for a mere $200 -- plus a few extra bucks for a Bluetooth keyboard, which naturally you'll need to navigate DOS. Jump past the break for a tease of the action.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/17/d...s-and-windows/ ...by Published on November 16th, 2011 23:01- Categories:
- DCEmu
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD Edition got off to a sluggish start in Japan last week, debuting at number seven in the weekly chart.Konami's HD makeover of the PSP original - which is being released separately in Japan rather than along with MGS1, 2 and 3 as in the rest of the world - sold 39,743 in its first week.Sega's PSP manga tie-in Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Extend topped the chart selling 184,673 copies, followed by Capcom's PS3 button-masher Sengoku Basara 3: Utage at two.Last week's number one, Super Mario 3D Land, fell to four, shifting 93,441 copies in its second week.Here's the full top 20, as seen on Andriasang:- Hatsune Miku Project Diva Extend (Sega, PSP): 184,673 - NEW
- Sengoku Basara 3: Utage (Capcom, PS3): 124,197 - NEW
- Ore no Shi wo Koete Yuke (Sony, PSP): 94,085 - NEW
- Super Mario Land 3D (Nintendo, 3DS): 93,441 (Life to date: 436,933)
- Final Fantasy Type-0 (Square Enix, PSP): 57,091 (651,630)
- Sengoku Basara 3: Utage (Capcom, Wii): 50,747 - NEW
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD Edition (Konami, PS3): 39,743 - NEW
- Poképark 2: Beyond the World (Nintendo, Wii): 35,785 - NEW
- Kirby's Adventure (Nintendo, Wii): 24,778 (217,368)
- Battlefield 3 (Electronic Arts, PS3): 18,792 (142,171)
- Uncharted 3 (Sony, PS3): 16,150 (141,139)
- Just Dance Wii (Nintendo, Wii): 14,662 (203,779)
- Winning Eleven 2012 (Konami, PSP): 14,183 (59,620)
- Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime 3 (Square Enix, 3DS): 11,303 (50,163)
- Tamagotchi Collection (Namco Bandai, DS): 9324 - NEW
- Wii Sports Resort Wiimote Bundle (Nintendo, Wii): 7862 (645,953)
- Go Vacation (Namco Bandai, Wii): 7021 (96,484)
- PES 2012 (Konami, PS3): 6798 (387,954)
- Idolmaster 2 (Namco Bandai, PS3): 6186 (82,419)
- Labyrinth Cross Blood Reloaded (Kadokawa Games, Xbox 360): 6178 - NEW
The 3DS once again dominated the hardware chart. Sales were down from 145,271 last week to 103,962, but that was still a long, long way ahead of the PSP in second, which moved 23,472 units.The PlayStation 3 came in third, followed by the Wii, DS and Xbox 360.- 3DS: 103,962 (Last week: 145,271)
- PSP: 23,472 (27,952)
- PlayStation 3: 22,919 (26,966)
- Wii: 11,782 (11,725)
- DSi XL: 1751 (2041)
- Xbox 360: 1531 (1699)
- PlayStation 2: 1294 (1457)
- DSi: 909 (1057)
- DS Lite: 20 (33)
by Published on November 16th, 2011 22:25- Categories:
- DCEmu
Ubisoft Montreal is hard at work on 'target boxes' based on the intended specifications of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor, according to an Edge source. Delivery of the first iteration of genuine devkits, running custom hardware, is expected to reach studios before Christmas, and all signs point to the finalised console arriving at retail in late 2012.
Ubisoft’s teams are said to be working on PCs containing off-the-shelf components provided by Microsoft, and it’s our understanding that several other major developers, including certain EA studios, are also in possession of these target boxes. While our source was unable to share precise specifications, it is believed that AMD is providing the bespoke GPU solution for Microsoft’s console. A Ubisoft spokesperson said: "We do not comment on rumour and speculation."
We can also reveal that one major Sony-owned studio has now ceased PlayStation 3 development, its entire focus having shifted to the console’s successor. The studio is also said to have been involved in the development process of the graphics technology adopted by Sony’s new hardware.
It is clear that both Sony and Microsoft have learned from their respective experiences this generation and recognise the importance of being first to market. Despite rushing Xbox 360's release - games shown at E3 2005 were running on overheating Power Mac G5s, just six months prior to the console's launch - Microsoft would no doubt view the billion-dollar loss caused by the RROD fiasco as more than justified by the console's eventual market share.
Sony, too, will have learned a painful lesson from coming to market a year after its competitor, with more expensive hardware. That the runaway leader of the previous generation is only now closing in on Microsoft's sales - 55.5 million PS3s had been sold by September 30, with Xbox 360 sales at 57.6 million - speaks volumes of the importance of not giving its competitor another head start.
A 2012 release would also do much to stop Wii U gathering momentum. While Nintendo's new console is significantly more powerful than its predecessor, it boasts little improvement over the current generation of HD consoles in terms of raw processing power.
Wii U has been positioned to developers as a suitable home for Xbox 360 and PS3 ports, and putting new consoles on shelves next year could leave Nintendo scrambling for thirdparty support. Reports this week claim that Microsoft could announce its console at CES in Las Vegas in January; Nintendo is not to reveal the finalised Wii U hardware until E3 in June.
Evidence of an approaching new generation of consoles has been building for some time. Square Enix announced its next-generation Luminous Engine in August, and showed it off last month, while Epic Games demonstrated an enhanced version of Unreal Engine 3, which VP Mark Rein said brought "unprecedented levels of realism and demonstrates what the next generation of gaming will be", at GDC in March.
Internet sleuth Superannuation last month found four Microsoft employees whose LinkedIn pages referenced the next-gen Xbox, and just last night discovered a casual forum reference to Kinect creative director Kudo Tsunoda's "NextGen team at MS".
Square Enix's worldwide technology director Julien Merceron told us in June that companies prepare for new hardware by moving their best talent off current projects. "In the next year and a half or so we'll see a drop in innovation," he said, "because the talent is moving on to something else."
Ubisoft Montreal is currently recruiting for a senior animation programmer, with one of the job's responsibilities the creation of a "next-generation animation system." Yves Jacquier, executive director of production services at the studio, said in July that AI, rather than better graphics, would be the "real battleground" of the next generation.
"Our challenge with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox [360] is that we're extremely limited in what we can do," he said. "It's a challenge for the engineers to provide nice graphics and nice AI and nice sound with a very small amount of memory and computation time.
"We think that the next generation of consoles won't have these limits any more." It appears Jacquier knew more than he was letting on; there is now a very real possibility that all three platform holders will have new consoles on sale this time next year.
http://www.next-gen.biz/news/next-ge...on-arrive-2012 ...by Published on November 16th, 2011 21:57- Categories:
- DCEmu
Yesterday, we saw the Kindle Fire get ripped apart. Today, it's been rooted. The solution comes courtesy of a user lovingly known as "death2all11o," who posted the "1-click' recipe to Android Forums earlier today. The procedure seems relatively straightforward, requiring only a copy of SuperOneClick 2.2, an Android SDK, and a bit of hacktastic know-how. For a more detailed guide, hit up the source links below.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/16/k...-way-for-amaz/ ...by Published on November 16th, 2011 00:54- Categories:
- DCEmu,
- PSP News,
- PS3 News,
- Nintendo DS News,
- Nintendo 3DS News,
- Nintendo Wii News,
- PC News,
- Xbox 360 News
Amazon calls this deal "Buy One, Get One 50% Off" but we prefer to think of it as "Get Two $60 Games for Just $45 Each." Normally, these kinds of deals have perhaps one marquee title playing the role of siren, calling your wallet-shaped ship to its rocky, mediocre-game covered shores; however, this deal is different.
Blockbuster titles like Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim, Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3, Rage, and more are available choices, with some junk like The Black Eyed Peas Experience and Go Vacation, just to keep us on our toes. With this many options, we're more inclined to think of it as a "Buy Three, Get One Free" deal. This offer is good for a "limited time," which we think means "not long."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...reative=390957
...by Published on November 16th, 2011 00:06- Categories:
- DCEmu
The introduction of PEGI ratings in the UK has been delayed again, meaning that any enforcement of the system is at least 6 months away.
PEGI ratings were part of the Digital Economy Act passed 18 months ago, but according to UK Interactive Entertainment, the passing of a Statutory Instrument needed to bring the Act into force has not been notified to Europe or put before the House of Commons.
"This further delay to PEGI's implementation is extremely frustrating not to mention disappointing," said UKIE chairman Andy Payne.
"We have received repeated assurances from Government that the process is in hand, yet PEGI is still no closer to implementation.
"It is also disappointing that a Government constantly - and quite rightly - pressuring industry to put measures in place to protect children - can't seem to deliver on its side of the bargain.
UKIE claims it has been in contact with the Department of Culture Media and Sport to ensure the Statutory Act is drafted correctly, as well as with the Regulatory Policy Committee - set up by the Government to analyse legislation and ensure it does not become a burden for the industry to adopt.
"The Government has set it stock by making the UK one of the best places in Europe to do business yet despite industry consistently calling on the Government to introduce the necessary measures to reduce the cost of doing business, we have been hit by delay after delay," added Payne.
"It seems that the much talked about red tape has yet again got in the way of creating wealth for UKPLC."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...yed-once-again ...- Search DCEmu
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