The European PlayStation website will introduce Trophy comparisons and leaderboard support in mid-July.

Sony's portal manager Emmanuel Orssaud announced and detailed the changes on the blog (spotted by vg247), claiming these additions to be "much-requested" by you, the community.

"My Trophies - Compare with your friends" will show the awards earned for particular games and pit them side-by-side with a friend. Similar data will be the basis of a leaderboard that tracks not only how well someone is doing, but how well they have done previously, and whether they've climbed or fallen. Fun graphs!

These planned changes are announced as the US PlayStation blog adds mobile compatibility, so it can be read on iPhones, PSPs and mobile phones.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/so...ot-com-updates ...

The European PlayStation website will introduce Trophy comparisons and leaderboard support in mid-July.

Sony's portal manager Emmanuel Orssaud announced and detailed the changes on the blog (spotted by vg247), claiming these additions to be "much-requested" by you, the community.

"My Trophies - Compare with your friends" will show the awards earned for particular games and pit them side-by-side with a friend. Similar data will be the basis of a leaderboard that tracks not only how well someone is doing, but how well they have done previously, and whether they've climbed or fallen. Fun graphs!

These planned changes are announced as the US PlayStation blog adds mobile compatibility, so it can be read on iPhones, PSPs and mobile phones.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/so...ot-com-updates ...

Sega's recent targeting of a mature audience on the Nintendo Wii has been successful in the long-term, with the publisher telling GamesIndustry.biz it has more budget for similar adult content on the format.

Although The House of the Dead: Overkill didn't set the charts on fire on initial release, the company said that sales at a lower price point have made the game profitable, and the company is still willing to experiment with product despite the Wii being seen as the home of sugar-sweet games.

"House of the Dead: Overkill was a profitable title for us," revealed Gary Dunn, MD of European development for Sega, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz.

"Whilst it had a rather sharp tail at full price, they do bubble away at a lower price point for a long time. You get your money back and a bit on full price, but over the years, if we do the final product return on investment, profits come from the lower price point."

Although another mature title – MadWorld, developed by Platinum Games – also didn't hit blockbuster status, Dunn is happy to take the risk, and has cash in the bank if the company decides to release more 18-rated titles.

"You have to push boundaries and explore. I think whilst MadWorld commercially didn't sell what we were expecting I wouldn't say it's game over for mature Wii titles from Sega.

"We're taking a look at the resources we have now. We've got money to invest in development, we're just considering where to invest it next," he added.

Sega was one of the first publishers to try to sell mature games to a Wii audience, with Electronic Arts also now eyeing the market with its Dead Space franchise.

Bethesda, publisher of Fallout and the Elder Scrolls, is also planning to try its hand at mature Wii games, with a title due to be announced this year.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ure-wii-titles ...

THQ will release three downloadable content packs for Red Faction: Guerrilla, starting with Demons of the Badlands on August 13.

Baldands is set to include "a destructive single-player mission arc" that takes place in new Mars landscape outside of the original game's world. From the screenshots you can also assume that Marauder characters and tech will feature heavily.


THQ's also promised two additional content packs later this year, though it's keeping quiet on those for now. We did ask.

Demons of the Badlands will be available on Xbox Live for 800 Microsoft Points (£6.80) and PlayStation Network for $9.99. Check back soon for more.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=218583 ...

Industry observers expecting videogames to follow music and offer full console game downloads in the near future are wrong - it won't happen until at least 2019, according to a report by Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter - and even then downloads will represent less than 50 per cent of total game sales.

Full game downloads won't become a reality until console hard drives get bigger, the report reasons, since game files can exceed 10Gb in size and the average Xbox 360 only has a 20Gb hard drive, with only a small percentage of consumers owning the Elite version of the console with its 120Gb hard drive.

"In ten years, we envision a world where the typical console has a terabyte or more of storage, and where full game downloads are the norm," the report states.

Furthermore, there will always be consumers that place value on owning a physical copy of a game.

Currently, up to one-third of all games traded in the US are used, which logically indicates that one-third of consumers place some measurable value on the ability to resell a game.

Some consumers will also want the portability a physical disc allows - to take their games to different locations and loan them to friends - predicts the report.

"There will always be a sizeable number of consumers who value the trade-in option and portability, and we expect those consumers to favour physical goods over digital downloads. Thus, we expect that digital downloads will represent less that 50 per cent of total game sales in ten years' time."

While storage capacity remains limited, the download model Pachter expects to see more developers emulate is the 'creeping download' one - or selling games in instalments.

"We think that the poster child for this scenario is Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360, a game first sold in physical form, with additional levels sold periodically thereafter through downloads. After a tepid embrace of its first downloadable episode, Take-Two decided to offer the first and second episodes in a combined physical package, with the two episodes allowing full game play without the purchase of the original GTA IV game disc.

"This model reinforces our belief that packaged goods will capture the majority of game purchases for the next ten years."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...minent-pachter ...

The number of second hand games trading annually in the US has reached an estimated 100 million units, accounting for one-third of games sold every year and bringing in revenue of USD 2 billion, according to an industry report published by Wedbush Morgan.

However, the research finds that as few as five per cent of new games sales are affected by the pre-owned market, and the trade in of old product could result in more new games being bought.

"The vast majority of used games are not traded in until the original new game purchaser has finished playing - more than two months after a new game is released - typically well beyond the window for a full retail priced new game sale," said analyst Michael Pachter.

According to Pachter, the commonly held perception that retailers such as GameStop are 'pushing' used games on customers prepared to buy new ones is largely untrue and that, on the contrary, used game sales are benefiting new games sales by providing currency to gamers with less disposable income to purchase additional games.

"If trade-ins occur at GameStop, they should position the trade-in customer to buy more new games than he/she would otherwise normally purchase. Because the average used game value is around 20 per cent of the new game price, we think that used game trade-ins fuel incremental sales of over six per cent of total new game sales, suggesting that the cannibalisation from the used game 'push' is more than offset by the benefit from used game currency," the report concluded.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...annually-in-US ...

Get your techie hat on; Sony has filed a patent for Emotion Engine (PS2's CPU) emulation tech for the PS3's Cell processor.


Techie jargon aside, that basically means Sony has the tech to make the PS3's microchips do what the PS2's brain does - i.e. play PS2 games. Which points to the possibility that PS2 backwards compatibility could be on its way back to PS3 soon.

Sony hasn't confirmed this, nor would it pass comment on the patents when we asked earlier today, but it's an encouraging sign.

Although PS3s currently on sale contain no support for PS2 games, the first PS3s released in Japan and the US in 2006 had both the Emotion Engine CPU and the PS2's graphics processor chips in them, allowing for full backwards compatibility with PS2 games.

The EE chip was later removed for the PAL (Euro) release of PS3 to cut costs, but early PAL PS3s still played most PS2 games using the remaining PS2 graphics chip and software emulation.

Hopefully the new patent means Sony will be able to re-introduce PS2 support using software emulation via a firmware update. Fingers crossed for version 3.0 then.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=218563 ...

Sir Clive Sinclair versus Chris Curry to be broadcast on UK TV


The story of how the home computer gained prominence throughout the eighties is being retold - in a new BBC comedy drama. 


The new show, called Syntax Era, is currently in production and will air on UK TV later in the year. It will focus on the growing rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair and his former colleague Chris Curry; masterminds behind rival systems Sinclair C5 and the BBC Micro.


“Those of us who lived through the 1980s will remember the sense of excitement when gadget and technology started to appear in our homes, but not many of us will know the fascinating stories behind their arrival,” said Richard Klein, controller of station BBC4. 


Sinclair and Curry will be played by Alexander Armstrong and Martin Freeman. Klein said the two are “excellent choices to portray Sir Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry at a time when battling to have the UK's most-loved home computer was their number one priority."

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/31873...es-comedy-show ...

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter expects Xbox 360's home console market share to fade to third by 2015, largely due to a lack of penetration in Japan.

"We expect the dominant console at the end of the this cycle to be the Wii, as we think that the console's low price point, innovative control mechanism, and compatibility with standard definition televisions will provide it with a competitive advantage over the next two years," he said, noting that he still expects the company to introduce a high definition Wii.

"We think that the PS3 will capture significant market share, primarily due to Sony's victory in the high definition DVD format war, and will end up in second place by 2015," he added. "Although Microsoft's Xbox 360 enjoyed a first mover advantage, we think that its market position will fade to third place due to lack of penetration in Japan."

By the end of 2009 he expects Wii to have captured a 49 per cent share of the US and European markets, followed by the Xbox 360 at 29 per cent and the PS3 at 22 per cent.

Two years he sees Wii market share having slipped marginally to 48 per cent, while PS3 and Xbox 360 each hold a 26 per cent share.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=218574 ...