Adafruit's bounty on open source drivers for Microsoft's Kinect may have been already won. Someone called 'KinectMan2' has posted videos of Kinect's output as seen on Windows 7 to YouTube. That was fast. Hopefully Linux drivers are coming soon."
A few more details are available on a forum post the man made. Adafruit said the bounty could be his if he posts the source code, and they also upped the reward to $3,000 in response to another silly statement from Microsoft.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/1...nect-Challenge ...

Activision has urged Call of Duty: Black Ops owners to report exploits, server reliability issues and bugs directly to creator Treyarch.

"These are things that the Treyarch development team needs to hear about in order for them to fix them," Activision's social media guru Dan Amrich wrote on his blog.

"Every game has bugs; it's a reality of gaming. And the bigger the game, the more likely you will find bugs that would never even come to light in less popular titles. So the best way to help get rid of those bugs is to share what you've learned with the team that has the power and insight to fix them."

Amrich urged fans to report issues on the official Call of Duty forum.

He also offered some advice to those who wish to do so. "When you explain your issue - whichever realm it falls under - it helps to be polite (insults in all caps might make you feel better, but it makes it tougher to get to the useful stuff), be specific (the more detail you can offer about what was going on when the problem occurred, the better) and be clear and direct, and you have a much better chance of finding the info you need and/or helping get the problem fixed.

"Less helpful things include angry Tweets directed at nobody in particular, how-to-exploit-the-bugs videos on YouTube, and screaming at the walls, so I do not recommend them."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...to-report-bugs ...

Rockstar's new open world detective game LA Noire will be shown this week.

"The first trailer", as it's billed, will arrive at noon on Thursday, 11th November. That's noon Eastern Time, which means five hours later here: 5pm UK time.

LA Noire was delayed recently to "the first half of calendar 2011". The game was announced years ago in 2005.

It's a 1940s crime thriller based around you rising through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department. Central to everything is a magnificent-sounding motion-capture system, which records the look, voice and actions of real-life actors and then processes them into the game.

Such a level of detail enables a sophisticated interrogation mechanic, whereby players can judge facial expressions and behavioural quirks to determine whether a suspect is holding anything back. Team Bondi is also said to have written an unprecedented 300 pages of script for the game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ideo-this-week ...

Homefront 1 isn't out yet, but Homefront 2 is already on the cards.

THQ's core games boss Danny Bilson said a sequel would be set on the other side of the Mississippi river.

"The sequel has new features and doesn't even deal with the same characters," Bilson revealed during an IGDA speech (reported by Joystiq).

"It takes place on the other side of the Mississippi - nobody knows what's going on over there because the North Koreans have irradiated the Mississippi with radioactive iodine and nobody can cross it without a hazmat suit. It's very interesting stuff."

Homefront is being aligned as THQ's big shooter series - its Call of Duty. Set in America's own back yard, the premise works around the "what if?" scenario of North Korea invading the home of the capitalist world.

It's not out until March 2011, but THQ has a book co-written by the Apocalypse Now screenwriter ready for early next year.

Homefront is in development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...g-a-sequel-thq ...

The next Operation Flashpoint game, Red River, will be released at some point between 1st April and the end of June 2011, Eurogamer can exclusively reveal.

"I don't think it does any good to publish in a congested period when everyone's putting out their shooters," Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens told Eurogamer.

"A number of leading companies have their fiscal year ends around that time, and so they'll be firing heavyweights in terms of their product releases to give as much boost to their fiscal year end as they possibly can.

"That's not a window I want to go out in. It will be between 1st April and the end of June."

Rally game DiRT 3 will be released in the same window, Cousens revealed.

"What we're not going to do is do more of the same with each rendition of the game," Cousens promised. "There is a lot more to it.

"Let's put it into context. It's from probably the finest racing studio in the world. It's between us and the Need for Speed guys, and I would argue we're better."

The next game in the Race Driver: GRID series will be released in 2012.

"We're not difficult to predict," Cousens said. "If DiRT comes out next year, GRID will come out the following year, and then DiRT will be out the year after that. So you can map us out.

"Sitting alongside that will be F1 every year. Flashpoint we'll do every other year. The idea is to come up with a new IP that sits in opposite years to each other, but we're in the racing segment and the action segment.

"So you can pretty much lay out my business plan for the next five years."

Codemasters' new IP for 2011 is Codemasters Guildford's Bodycount, due out early summer.

Codemasters has already teased a "massive" title that utilises version 2.0 of the EGO engine. Will it be 2012's new IP?

"Could well be," Cousens replied.

"There's still a lot being planned. It's something big and something is happening, but your thought process is right."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...t-3-mapped-out ...

Xbox Live Indie Games are now back in the Games & Demos section of Xbox Live after Microsoft controversially placed them elsewhere.

Following the most recent dashboard update, independent games were moved to the Speciality Shops section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, with title names absent from searches on the service - causing upset amongst developers who felt their work would struggle to be discovered by consumers.

Microsoft defended the move stating it was an effort to group Xbox Live Indie Games together and make them easier to find.

However, the move has now been reversed, with the Xbox Live Indie Games once again in the Games & Demos section of the Game Marketplace.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...n-of-xbox-live ...

Activision has given Call of Duty a fittingly glamorous debut at retail by staging midnight openings and launch events across Europe, attracting celebrities and gamers to queues and parties as the mammoth franchise broke cover.

In the UK, HMV opened 100 stores at midnight last night, including its flagship Oxford St branch, where a queue of 350 gamers was headed up by student Imran Chowdhury – who'd been queueing since 11 am. He was rewarded for his dedication with a free copy of the special Prestige Edition of the game.

Other prizes were on offer for the first 500 buyers of the game, whilst all HMV stores are also running an exchange promotion which puts Black Ops at just £7.99 when customers trade in a copy of EA's recent Medal of Honor.

"Call of Duty: Black Ops is all set to challenge last year's phenomenon Modern Warfare 2 to become the fastest and biggest-selling title in games history," said HMV's Head of Games, Tim Ellis.


Imran Chowdhury picks up his free copy.
"Well over one million sales are predicted for its first week alone, and with Christmas coming up and more people now owning a console than ever before, we expect it to go on to become not just the most popular game ever, but an iconic release that will take gaming on to a new level.

"HMV has taken huge pre-orders online at hmv.com for Call of Duty: Black Ops, including for the exclusive Prestige limited edition, and well over 100 of our stores around the country opened at midnight to give core gamers the earliest possible opportunity to get hold of the game and start playing it with their mates."

Many other major retailers opened doors at midnight for the launch, with many supermarkets joining specialist retailers in doing so. Tesco was one of the biggest participants, opening 362 of its UK branches.

"More and more people are going to midnight openings to get their game at the first possible opportunity so it will be the biggest night time launch so far," said Tesco spokesman John Stanhope.


Battersea power station lit up by the game's logo.
Over in the US, GameStop opened a total of 4408 shops across the country, with Walmart committing to 2700 and Best Buy 700. So many stores were taking part in the event that Activision launched a special store tracking website to enable customers to find their nearest.

The official launch party for the UK, which was liberally studded with minor celebrities and self-professed gaming VIPs, took place at the disused Battersea power station and featured a celebrity tournament and a performance by garage star Tinie Tempah. The US launch event was enlivened by a stage performance from rock veterans Metallica.

Pre-orders for Black Ops have been strong, many retailers are reporting, although fiscal guidance from Activision indicates that the publisher expect it to sell 20 per cent less than Modern Warfare 2.

"Black Ops has more than double the pre-orders Modern Warfare 2 achieved at the same point," said Chris Poad, Amazon gaming sector director, while GameStop's senior VP of marketing Bob McKenzie told Eurogamer that Black Ops was the most pre-ordered game in company history.

Competition between retailers on pricing and offers has been high, with many offering trade-in deals or special offer prices. Of the retailers GamesIndustry.biz spoke to, many seemed to be capitalising on trade-ins of Medal of Honor.

HMV is offering Black Ops for just £7.99 if a PS3 or 360 copy of EA's rival title is exchanged at the same time, while Blockbuster is offering £30 of credit for customers trading in MoH against CoD as long as Medal of Honor was bought at a Blockbuster branch.

Game is bundling Black Ops with various other chart titles for a reduced price, while Tesco is offering £20 off to anyone buying the game in tandem with three months' Xbox Live gold membership, a £20 PSN card or 2100 Microsoft Points.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-for-black-ops ...

GameStop's senior VP of marketing Bob McKenzie has said that he expects Kinect to outsell Move this Christmas, and that Call of Duty: Black Ops is the most pre-ordered game in company history.

Speaking to Eurogamer, McKenzie said that sales of the Kinect hardware in the US had actually been better than the retailer was initially expecting.

"I'd say right now Microsoft's Kinect is looking to be the winner of the two for us. We're very happy with the sell-through over the weekend. It has met our expectations and actually exceeded our initial forecasts."

"I do have them both, obviously, and the Move Sports bundle is a great option," he added, "but I knew for my family – with an eight-year-old daughter and ten-year-old boy – that Kinect was really going to be the thing that was more geared towards my household."

No official sales figures are available yet for Kinect, but Sony's Move is thought to have sold over 2.5 million units worldwide after Sony's Andrew House told press that 1.5 million had been sold in Europe and Jack Tretton revealed that over 1 million had been shipped in the US.

During the same call with Eurogamer, McKenzie also told our sister site that Call of Duty: Black Ops is the most pre-ordered game in the store's history, which would indicate that sales could well be even higher than those of its predecessor, Modern Warfare 2.

What he doesn't think will affect sales of the game is the fact that it was made by Treyarch instead of Infinity Ward.

"With each one they've done a better job," he told Eurogamer. "They're both making quality products, they both have a strong following and they're both known for great gameplay."

The review embargo for Black Ops has now expired, and reviews are up. Scores seem to be a little lower than they were for Modern Warfare and its sequel, but still in the 8-9 range.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...this-christmas ...

It looks like 1 million players have already hit Xbox Live to partake in the multiplayer gunfights of Call of Duty: Black Ops.

The news comes from Treyarch's Josh Olin, who tweeted last night, hours after the game's release: "Am I getting solid intel? Is there really almost 1,000,000 players on Xbox LIVE right now??"

That's an astonishing number, and that's before they even talk about PS3 and PC figures.

Black Ops hit shelves at midnight last night, and already players are finding glitches in its multiplayer mode.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...