DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
DCEmu Featured News Articles
by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:44
The Xbox 360's download games service Xbox Live Arcade may have passed its tipping point, one of the platform's most successful developers has said.
According to Foundation 9, the parent company of the developers behind download games OutRun Online Arcade, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Deadliest Warrior: The Game, around 30 per cent of Xbox 360 owners are buying games through XBLA.
"Certainly XBLA is past tipping point now," CEO James North-Hearn told Eurogamer.
"We estimate there are about 16 million game purchasers out there currently. The 360 numbers are somewhere between 40 to 50 million, depending on who you listen to.
"It's pretty healthy. 30 per cent of the hardware base is not only online and using Xbox Live, but it's all those and buying games. It's got to be encouraging for that type of distribution going forward."
Xbox Live is currently a billion dollar business, buoyed by sales of movies, avatar gear and game add-ons.
According to Microsoft about half of XBLA's 25 million users paid an annual fee to play games online in the year ended June 30.
But what of Sony's rival service the PlayStation Network?
"Clearly with PSN the market's not as big and therefore the data is not as established," North-Hearn said.
"Even though it's a smaller user base, and even though it's generally accepted as currently not being as successful or as popular, it's definitely growing. We can see that.
"There's less competition on PSN but currently a smaller user base."
As of June this year, the cumulative number of registered accounts on PlayStation Network had exceeded 50 million worldwide.
North-Hearn should know about XBLA and PSN. Foundation 9 claims responsibility for nearly 15 per cent of the 300 or so games on Xbox Live Arcade. Its top five XBLA games by revenue have generated more than $22 million.
Foundation 9 owns six studios: Backbone Entertainment, Double Helix, Griptonite, ImaginEngine, Pipeworks and Sumo Digital. It reckons it's the world's "largest independent game developer".
Looking to the future, North-Hearn predicted big things for digital downloads, and Microsoft and Sony's platforms.
"We're strong believers that the market will move to both online and to digital distribution at some point, almost exclusively. The unknown is just what the timing of that is.
"PSN and XBLA are both great platforms for that to build upon.
"Connectivity and digital distribution, and dare I say cloud solutions are all where the market's going to go. XBLA and PSN are in a great position."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-tipping-point ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:43
Insomniac's now acclaimed PS3 alien shooter series Resistance could run and run and run; work-in-progress Resistance 3 certainly won't be the end of it.
"Resistance 3 is a story within the Resistance universe that can be expanded upon. Doors will be shut, but they won't be slammed," developer Insomniac revealed in the November issue of Game Informer (reported on PS3Center).
That statement coincided with an information splurge about the new game that was mopped up on NeoGAF.
Resistance 3 takes place after Resistance 2, and the central character will be Joseph Capelli, who started a family with the sister of Resistance 1 & 2 hero Nathan Hale. He's on some sort of mission to New York to find a vaccine for his son. Sounds boring but, thankfully, the Chimera aliens with all their eyes and teeth are back to spice things up.
Campaign co-op will return, as will online multiplayer - although Insomniac is keen that the latter be more organised than the 60-player insanity of Resistance 2.
Resistance 3 will have smarter artificial intelligence that can climb over walls and through windows, plus enemies that jump from rooftop to rooftop, firing down at you.
You'll have lots of guns to fire back with, of course, including returning favourites Bullseye, Magnum, Shotgun, Auger and Carbine. There's a new Mutator weapon, too. This deploys a chemical mist that causes boils to swell and pop on the skin of enemies, forcing a damaging puss to splurge over nearby aliens.
Game Informer also noted that you'll come across humans cannibalising their friends due to a lack of food, and that Insomniac boss Ted Price has handed the reins to Marcus Smith on this project. Those two details are unrelated, of course.
Resistance 3 was unveiled at gamescom in August this year. We haven't seen much, just an atmospheric video and a spattering of are-they-in-game-aren't-they screenshots.
We do know, however, that Resistance 2 was much better than Resistance: Fall of Man. Insomniac's got the measure of the PS3 now, and all signs point to the third instalment being very good indeed.
But what's more interesting is Insonmiac's new multi-platform deal with EA - the game that Ted Price must have excused himself to direct. Confidence is running high, causing EA Partners' David DeMartini to predict scores of 9/10 or higher before we've even seen the game.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...nt-be-the-last ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:42
3DS games Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, PES, Contra and Frogger will all be released in Europe, Konami's confirmed.
We knew of their existence following the 3DS handheld's E3 2010 reveal in June, but now we have official word the quartet will be hitting our shores.
Details are scarce. We've got nothing on the 3DS Pro Evolution Soccer, Contra or Frogger, but there's an on-rails video of Snake Eater, which you can see below.
Today Konami president Kunio Neo promised "more news in the coming months". The 3DS will be released in Europe in March 2011.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...nfirmed-for-eu ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:42
DanceEvolution for Kinect will be released alongside the motion-sensing add-on on 10th November, Konami's announced.
CROSSBOARD 7, another Konami Kinect game, is also slated for release on 10th November. Hudson Soft's Sports Island Freedom will follow on 25th November.
DanceEvolution asks players to follow on-screen routines. CROSSBOARD 7 "uses the player's movements to steer their on-screen creature who is barrelling down a series of hazard-strewn courses". Boom.
And Sports Island Freedom is a collection of ten sporting events designed for Kinect. There's tennis, boxing, archery, paint ball, beach volleyball, dodge ball, kendo, mogul skiing, snowboard cross and figure skating.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...danceevolution ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:39
Apple's mobile application and game marketplace has now passed 300,000 entries, reaching that milestone in just over two years.
The App Store currently attracts around 1000 new Apps per day, reports Mobclix (via VentureBeat), with the ratio of paid to free entries approximately 69 versus 31 per cent.
Games constitute the second-most popular download category at 16.6 per cent (just behind books at 16.8 per cent).
The 300,000 total count is not exact, with tens of thousands of Apps now inactive - but conversely many non-US Apps are not covered.
The rival Android Marketplace is fast on the rise, however – currently reported as exceeding 113,000. This may increase as a wave of Android-based iPad rivals, such as the Advent Vega and Archos 70/101, arrive at retail next month.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...300-000-titles ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:38
Research from the NPD Group has found that boxed physical sales still account for the majority of US dollars spent on game software - but not by much.
Total consumer spend on new physical video and PC game software in the first half of 2010 came in at $3.7 billion, representing 60 per cent of total sales, according to the firm.
Used games, game rentals, subscriptions, social network games, DLC and full digital downloads accounted for the remaining 40 per cent, worth $2.6 to $2.9 billion.
NPD analyst Anita Frazier said: "While the new physical retail channel still generates the majority of industry sales, our expanded research coverage allows us to assess the total consumer spend across the growing number of ways to acquire and experience gaming, including social networks."
A number of the industry's leading publishers have attempted to combat pre-owned sales in recent months by only including access to features like online play in new boxed copies of their games.
EA pioneered the one-time code in the area, implementing its controversial Online Pass across its sports portfolio.
Ubisoft has publicly supported the idea, whilst Activision has admitted that it wants to "limit the supply" of content in pre-owned games - so that it can take a slice of revenues from second-hand sales.
THQ told CVG earlier this year that it believes second-hand sales "cheat" developers out of income.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:35
Apple launched its Game Center connected gaming community for iPhone and iPod touch in early September, as part of its iOS 4.1 software. So how's it doing?
The company has not provided any official figures, but there is a certain amount of transparency built in to Game Center, since on your device, its app shows the number of connected players for each game.
Sister site ME did some number-crunching, pulling out the stats for 20 of the games on our iPhone, and comparing them where possible to publicly-announced sales figures for those games.
The idea: to see if any conclusions can be drawn about Game Center's popularity - if x people have bought a game, and y of them are counted in its Game Center leaderboards, then perhaps the percentage of iOS users who've signed up for Apple's community is z.
In a word, no. The data is interesting, but defies any attempts to make such general conclusions.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41373/How-...is-Game-Center ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:34
Microsoft updated Kinect's software just "a few months ago" to allow players to use the controller-free device while seated.
The platform holder has previously been somewhat evasive about Kinect's ability to detect seated players, and not without good reason, according to comments from Blitz Games Studios co-founder Andrew Oliver.
He told Eurogamer that the device's difficulty in detecting seated and lying players was caused by it setting the base node used to create skeletal models at the bottom of the spine.
Microsoft altered the software so that the base node was switched to the back of the neck quite recently, said Oliver, who's currently working on Kinect titles like movie karaoke game Yoostar2 and personal fitness title The Biggest Loser: Ultimate Workout.
"A few months ago they changed stuff around," he said. "A lot of developers were like, 'Oh my God! Everything's broken,' because all the nodes were moved. But then it was like, 'Oh, actually, this is more logical.'"
Prior to the update, developers had to create Kinect software internally in order to make a game in which players could sit or lie down.
"It was one of those ones where it was probably borderline whether Microsoft would have fixed it for you or not," Oliver said.
"We were talking to them last February saying, 'Are you ever going to fix the libraries so it will work on the floor?' And they went, 'Oh come on, that's lying on the floor. That's so rare. We've got other issues we're dealing with.' We said, 'Okay, we'll go write it ourselves.'"
With Microsoft;s update to the software, "games going forward won't have a problem," Oliver added.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...by Published on October 18th, 2010 14:33
After what can be described as a rough ride to retail, EA’s reinvention of its popular Medal of Honor franchise has debuted at the top of the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40 in its first week.
In doing so it ends the two-week reign of fellow EA release FIFA 11 at the top of the listings.
Ubisoft’s dance sequel Just Dance 2 manages an impressive third place debut in its first week. That represents a huge improvement over the week one performance of the first Just Dance, which charted in 30th in its first week back in December 2009.
It later went on to topple the mighty Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 from the top of the charts.
There’s a third new entry in the Top Ten this week, too – Namco Bandai’s licensed kids’ title Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, which claims 9th.
Elsewhere in the charts Namco’s Enslaved: Odyssey to the West slips out of the Top Ten to 11th and 2K Games’ Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition enters the battle in 35th.
Here’s the UKIA GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top Ten in full (for the week ending October 16th):
1. Medal of Honor (EA)
2. FIFA 11 (EA)
3. Just Dance 2 (Ubisoft)
4. Wii Party (Nintendo)
5. PES 2011 (Konami)
6. F1 2010 (Codemasters)
7. Dead Rising 2 (Capcom)
8. Halo Reach (Microsoft)
9. Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 (Namco Bandai)
10. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (Konami)
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41367/UK-C...Honor-prevails ...by Published on October 17th, 2010 21:59
News via http://www.psp-hacks.com/2010/10/15/...t-for-6-20-tn/
You’ll be happy to know Total_Noob’s 6.20 TN is shaping up nicely… The man himself has shared a progress update stating that 90% of homebrew is now working (from the XMB; not HBL) thanks to Davee. Below is a video demoing just that on a PSP-1000.
- Search DCEmu
- Advert 3
News Categories
- Links of Interest
Sony Consoles News
- Nintendo Consoles News
- Sega Consoles News
- Apple & Android News
- Xbox Consoles News
- Open Source Consoles News
DCEmu News Archive
- Advert
- Retro Consoles News
- PC News
- Latest DCEmu News
- DCEmu Network Sites
-
Menu 
Forum Stats
- What is the DCEmu Homebrew & Gaming Network
Catherine: Full Body’s English translation for the Vita