PlayStation players have donated more than 129.7 million yen (over £1.01m) to Sony's Japanese earthquake appeal.

Thousands of gamers answered Sony's call for support following the devastating natural disaster in Japan earlier this year.

North American PSN users raised £260,955, those in Europe and PAL territories stumped up £538,122, while Asian countries other than Japan coughed up £16,673. Japanese gamers themselves put down £181,751.

The money is being donated to organisations in each region already supporting relief and recovery efforts in earthquake and tsunami hit areas. Beneficiaries include the American Red Cross, the British Red Cross for Europe and the Red Feather Community Chest Movement for Japan and Asia.

PSN users who donated have now been given several unique PS3 themes as a reward for their efforts.

Sony itself initially donated 300m yen (£2.34m), a figure matched by Nintendo. Sega, Namco Bandai and Tecmo Koei were among other companies to make sizable contributions.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...quake-donation ...

Xbox Live Arcade's portfolio director Chris Charla has admitted that the average price of a game on the service is increasing.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the Develop conference, Charla stated that prices on XBLA aren't subject to the same downward pressure as other digital retail platforms.

"If you look at Live Arcade, and do the math, and look at the publicly available sales numbers, you can see that average prices on XBLA have crept up over the last few years, which has been an interesting trend because on some app markets there's been a race to zero as fast as possible," he said

"We've seen a little bit of the opposite happening. I don't really know where prices are going to go - ultimately, that's set by the market - but it has been really gratifying to see that people are willing to a premium price for digital content."

Average prices on XBLA have crept up, which has been interesting because on some app markets there's been a race to zero as fast as possible
Chris Charla, Microsoft
In 2009, 21 of the 86 games released were priced at 1200 Microsoft Points. That figure rose to 27 out of 85 games released in 2010, and 2011 already has 20 games confirmed at 1200 points, with a number of significant releases due before the end of the year.

However, the proliferation of more expensive games has coincided with a rise in quality. Charla claims that the average Metacritic score for Xbox Live Arcade releases has risen by 12 points since the start of calendar year 2008, challenging widely held assumptions about where to find the best products.

"Sometimes, when [developers] talk about Live Arcade they're like, 'We want to do a boxed quality game on Live Arcade', and I'm like, 'What does that mean?' I can point at a bunch of 38 and 42 and 56 metacritic scoring boxed games, so it actually kind of pisses me off."

"I think the games that we're shipping - a Limbo or a Castle Crashers - are as good as anything on the market."

For Charla, the "beauty" of the XBLA service is that it allows games to be "the correct size," so the experience doesn't suffer in the pursuit of scope.

However, when questioned about the possibility of free-to-play games appearing on the service, Charla had less to offer.

He pointed to Magic: The Gathering, Magic: 2012 and Pinball FX 2 as examples of the service experimenting with micro-transactions, with Pinball FX 2 performing "extremely well".

"For us that's a really interesting model, and we're always looking to be the pointy end of the spear when it comes to experiments, and that's kind of where we're focused right now."

Charla wouldn't comment on free-to-play games on XBLA, but he believes that developers underestimate how open the company is to new ideas, and the company expects innovation on the service to be "game-led."

"Sometimes people get this incorrect impression about Microsoft, that we're very hide-bound or set in our ways, and just because somebody might not have been seeing everything that we're doing, they might think that Microsoft will never do that."

"The reality is... it's actually a pretty dynamic company, and always eager to look and learn. We want to do things right, so we might take our time, but we're always eager to see the innovations people are bringing us."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...es-creeping-up ...

Google Labs isn't the only thing winding down in Mountain View, it seems Google's Firefox toolbar is also kaput. Citing exponential growth in the browser space, the outfit declared that the Google toolbar for Firefox is no longer necessary -- modern browsers are just too darn capable. Support will continue for older versions of the browser, but Firefox 5 will have to stand on its own. Still, El Goog admits that dropping the toolbar kills more than a few features, and is offering a list of similarly featured add-ons to users via the defunct toolbar's help page. Not enough? Head on over to the announcement's comment page and join the peanut gallery, a few clever legumes seem to have uncovered a FF5 workaround. As for the rest of us, it's not like we didn't know Google had its own browser (and interests) to take care of, right?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/22/g...rt-for-firefo/ ...

Google wants to keep its third-party app developers 'appy by letting them upload multiple APKs to the Android Market under a single product title. This means developers can subtly offer different versions of their app to suit different devices and OS versions without having to worry about mixed-up download stats, user reviews or billing data. They can also tailor their software to exploit the capabilities of a new handset or tablet without having to mess with their existing customers. What will the App Guy have to say about this?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/22/a...iple-apks-for/ ...

Look at the chart above and you'll see two things happening. First, Apple has overtaken Symbian to become the top smartphone platform in the UK (with a 27 percent market share). And secondly, Android has grown 634 percent year-over-year to shoot into second place, with less than half a percentage point keeping it from the top spot (other reports already place it ahead). As you might expect, much of that growth isn't coming from folks switching from one smartphone to the other, but from new smartphone users -- Comscore found that 42 percent of all mobile users in the UK used a smartphone in May of this year, compared to just 27 percent a year ago. Of course, that also means that 58 percent of UK cellphone users are still potential smartphone users (to say nothing of those that still don't have a cellphone at all), so there's certainly still plenty up for grabs for all involved.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/22/c...pple-overtake/ ...

If pre-orders are anything to go by EA's on the right track with Battlefield 3 ahead of the game's release this October.

According to Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz, channel checks "indicate that pre-orders are roughly comparable to those of Call of Duty: Black Ops last year, which has gone on to sell over 20 million units".

Creutz expects EA's game to be a "major hit" and has upped his first year sales forecast from eight to eleven million units, although he added that Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders are tracking ahead of both BF3 and Black Ops, confirming reports from retailers GAME and GameStop.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...k-ops-analyst/ ...

"There has never been a causal link established between real-life violence and video game violence in any verifiable scientific study."

True facts. But not good enough for 'expert on teen killers' Phil Chalmers.

Big Phil refutes such evidence. Big Phil's not for turning. Big Phil's got his own research.

Sure, it's anonymous and he chooses not to directly quote from it. But "basically, y'know", it exists.

How can we be so certain?

Because Big Phil says so. And now, thanks to Fox News 8, he says so to millions upon millions of viewers - over sinister synth tones and black'n'white images on PS3s drenched in dread.

Here he goes: "The medical community has released a joint statement that basically says, you know, if children are exposed to violent media, they're going to become violent."

"Basically, y'know." That little clarification is vital. Because even Phil admits they don't really say that.

Off-camera, according to Fox's supplemental write-up, he adds that "they [the medical community] make it politically correct by saying 'some' or 'maybe'".

Big Phil does not explain where 'they' put those words. Or quite what political correctness has to do with anything. (Bloody Guardian-reading, bicycle-riding, veggie-munching medical community. They'll be renaming antibiotics next, just because they're 'anti' something.)

Why is Big Phil on Fox News 8 in the first place? Good question. We're still not really sure.

For some reason, he's discussing a tragic, unique case that took place almost five years ago. (Find our detailed account of those events below. Probably best you refresh your memory before you watch Fox 8's video. They miss out a few details...)

Other than that, we really don't have a scooby.

He does have a book to sell: "Inside the mind of a Teen Killer". Looks great. Edge-of-the-seat stuff.

According to Amazon, Big Phil released it on the tenth anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Classy.
In the publishing world, they call that a 'tentpole release'. Like when they do Harry Potter books when Harry Potter's out.

Big Phil's obviously no marketing slouch. And he certainly believes that video games can inspire teenagers to kill. "They become desensitised to murder," he says. "All of the lines to reality fade away and they just act on impulse."

And to think they could also grow up to be a weirdo in a basement too.

Phil signs off on his Fox 8 appearance with a stark message to parents: "Learn from this case. This could be you."

Don't have nightmares.

A severely depressed 16-year-old shot both his parents in Ohio, US, in 2007 - killing his mother and severely wounding his father. Daniel Petric was subsequently sentenced to at least 23 years in prison for aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder.

It was discovered during the boy's trial that his mental instability stemmed from an injury - and subsequent staph infection - that left the previously active Petric house-bound for months.

During this time, he reportedly purchased Halo 3 during this time, and began to play it for over 12-hours a day.

His parents, concerned by the game's violent content, confiscated it and placed it in a locked safe, alongside a 9mm pistol - the same gun their son used to shoot them.

Once Petric had shot his mother in the head, arms and chest, he opened fire on his father, Mark Petric. According to his testimony, Daniel then placed the gun in his dad's hands - to deliberately shift suspicion onto Mark and make the events look like an attempted "murder suicide".

Daniel tried to flee in the family's van. However, Daniel's sister discovered the scene, called 911 and testified that her brother killed his mother and tried to kill his father.

In the boy's trial, Petric's defence attorney James Kersey made the unprecedented argument that Halo 3 was to blame for the shooting. "We have a.. normal young man," he said. "Until he starts viewing video games."

Kersey claimed that Petric did not comprehend the fact that death was real or permanent due to his time playing the game. The US national media began to dub him the 'Halo Killer'.

However, the prosecuting attorney sensibly disagreed, and said that Daniel showed no remorse for his actions.

He pointed out that Petric tried to fool the police, framing his father for murder by placing the gun in his hand - not a tactic he could have adopted from the video game, nor the actions of a frenzied killer copying what he had seen on screen.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...t-halo-killer/ ...

The Star Wars Kinect Xbox 360 hardware bundle announced this morning will set you back £349.99.

That's the price retailer GAME's started taking for pre-orders of the limited edition 360.

In case you missed it, this is what your money will get you:
Kinect Star Wars game
Custom R2-D2-themed Xbox 360 Console with custom sounds
White Kinect Sensor
Custom C-3PO-themed Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
320 GB Hard Drive
Xbox 360 Wired Headset
Kinect Adventures game
Exclusive downloadable content

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...osts-pound350/ ...

Ohio-based Impulse Technology is suing Microsoft for allegedly infringing on patents it holds for technology that tracks users' movements and lets them play games without a controller.

Impulse claims that Kinect infringes on seven of its patents covering a "wide variety of games where the movement of a player is tracked in three dimensions ... and certain exercise games where the motion of the player is tracked to effect movement of a virtual avatar, and the exertion of the user is monitored, including where the tracking of the player is done by use of a camera."

According to Patent Arcade, eight game makers - including EA, Sega, and Konami - are named as defendants in the suit too. They're also accused of making exercise games, sports titles and others that violate the patents.

Impulse is seeking a permanent injunction, damages, interest, attorneys' fees and costs.

In January Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft, labelled Kinect the "fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history".

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...r-kinect-tech/ ...