Update: As spotted by GoNintendo, a Best Buy leak from an employee newsletter seems to indicate that pre-orders will start in September as well. The alleged internal email reads, "Wii U cannot be pre-ordered industry-wide until September. However, through the magic of BestBuy.com, customers can sign up to be notified via email when pre-orders become available."
Original story:
Nintendo is hoping to make a big splash this holiday season with the launch of the Wii U. There are two important questions that Nintendo has yet to answer. How much will Wii U retail for, and when will it hit store shelves? We just might get those answers on September 13 in the US.
GamesIndustry International received a media invite today for a special event. It reads, "Interested in learning more about how Wii U will change the future of gaming and entertainment? Join us for a presentation by Nintendo of America president and COO Reggie Fils-Aime followed by hands-on game play and demos."
Nintendo does not mention that it's going to reveal date and price, but time is ticking and the company knows that it needs to get that information out there so it can start marketing in full force with retail partners. We'll be sure to keep you posted on any news coming from Nintendo. ...

Unlike the PS Vita, which many would argue should be selling better than 2.2 million, Nintendo's 3DS has been faring quite well, selling 19 million units worldwide as of June. While there are far more people in the world who own smartphones than Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata believes both markets can co-exist and he insists that portable gaming machines aren't going anywhere.
"I think a lot of this discussion is based on the premise that the handheld gaming device market is shrinking or vanishing and I don't think that is true and I'd like to address that," he told Kotaku.
He continued, "Something that [Nintendo of America president] Reggie [Fils-Aime] said at E3 was that the Nintendo 3DS hardware was selling more or faster than the DS, and I think that's something... that a lot of people are aware of. But something that Reggie also said is that the 3DS software sales were exceeding DS software sales." The 3DS had sold 10.5 million units of software in its first 14 months, which is more than the DS had sold in the same period of time.
"I think this is proof that even though we see an increase in smartphones and tablets and whatnot and there's obviously a huge flood of games in the market, I think the software sales that Reggie alluded to and pointed out really prove that these people, even with this flood of free games and whatnot for these portable devices-[these] non-game-centric devices-are not keeping people from purchasing software for dedicated hardware," Iwata said.
For Nintendo, one of the key differences between the 3DS and smartphones is the kind of experience that the 3DS can provide for more serious gamers. Iwata sees smartphones offering games that are more "time fillers."
"I think within games you have two needs that people fill. One is the time-filler need. The other is that it's a very important time for me and I want to have a rich experience. Those are two separate needs, I think," he said, implying that the iPhone offered more of the time-filler need.
"The other thing is how much are consumers willing to pay to play. I think that consumers who are willing to pay money for a gaming experience are looking for something that is more rich and are willing to spend some of that valuable time on that experience. I believe that as environments change and as the world progresses we're going to have different ways in which people want to spend their time. That being said, I don't think we're going to see the desire to have, again, rich and deep sort of gaming experiences... we're not going to see that vanish. That's not going to go away," he concluded.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-not-shrinking ...

CSR Racing's $12m iOS success is a welcome sign and a warning, writes Johnny Minkley

Boss Alien

Two figures worthy of a 'Number Crunching' entry in British satirical magazine Private Eye popped up last week: £8.18m - the lowest week's revenue ever recorded in the UK for boxed games sales. $12m - the revenue generated by free-to-play iOS title CSR Racing in its first month.
While excuses were sought for the High Street's miserable performance - from the summer software drought, to the Olympics - that hasn't stopped consumers throwing easier-to-justify sums at Apple hand-over-fist.
And while we're on the subject of uncomfortable parallels for the Old Industry, as tensions between the games media and console games makers run high (fromBorderland 2's 'Girlfriend Mode' debacle, to the Assassin's Creed III creative director's ill-considered allegations of "subtle racism"), sales of NaturalMotion's title have soared without the slightest need for in-depth developer interviews or magazine covers.
As the new age of gaming flies, the old era flounders as everyone fights amongst themselves. I'm over-simplifying, clearly, but the contrasts are striking nonetheless.
"As the new age of gaming flies, the old era flounders as everyone fights amongst themselves."

What's interesting about CSR's success is that it backs the point NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil made at last month's Game Horizon conference, where he argued that the way to stand out in the mobile space today is by insisting on console-quality production values.
This was intended as a positive message to veteran games developers: your expertise and investment in technology gives you an edge. And CSR is the proof - developed by Boss Alien, a studio formed from the ashes of cutting-edge console racing game maker Black Rock.
We've all seen what Epic has achieved with Infinity Blade and its sequel, probably the most recognisably 'triple-A' experiences on iOS. As a cosy tech bedfellow of all hardware manufacturers in the games space, Epic generally gets in there early - as evidenced by the huge exposure it received from Apple for Epic Citadel, its Unreal Engine iOS demo.
But with the latest mobile hardware capable of serious graphical performance - iterating ever upwards at a rate alien to the console business - more and more developers with the means are going to town on those tiny screens.
As my learned colleague Rich Leadbetter suggested in his piece on what to expect from iPhone 5, "within the next 12 months mobile graphics technology will finally catch up with the capabilities of the current-gen consoles."
The thing is, to most consumers it already looks like it has. And when the games are starting to look as good as , it's little wonder. So the question then becomes: as mobile games begin to match triple-A console games in performance, will they attract more of the creators of them?
" So the question then becomes: as mobile games begin to match triple-A console games in performance, will they attract more of the creators of them? "

I was among the 1,200-strong crowd in Cologne last week for Sony's Gamescom press conference. And I gasped along with everyone else as Media Molecule's Alex Evans treated us to a superb demo of the enchanting Tearaway, the studio's new, Vita-exclusive IP.
But I might have gasped as well at the revelation that one of Sony's top studios was working on the portable platform. After all, Uncharted was handled not by Naughty Dog, but Bend; Resistance: Burning Skies by Nihilistic, not Insomniac; and still to come: Killzone: Mercenaries by Sony Cambridge, not Guerrilla; and Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified by Nihilistic, not Treyarch.
Now, considering PlayStation Vita is the most versatile gaming device ever created, and one of its main USP's was the promise of home console-style gaming without compromise, isn't it funny how many leading creators seem uninterested in making games for it? It's the PSP problem repeating itself, second stick or not.
Well, okay, it's not that funny. There's the resource-sapping lure of the next gen, naturally, but the commercial reality cannot be ignored, either: as strong as Sony's Gamescom content offering was, success remains far from assured for its handheld. And in being reluctant to truly commit to the platform, the creators of gaming's biggest franchises are simultaneously hurting its prospects by effectively making it less likely others will.
No such concerns with smartphones. "But you'll never be able to do proper games on a phone," the hardcore perpetually sneer. To which I say, why does triple-A gaming require a controller, or a mouse and keyboard for that matter? Where's the stone tablet with the words "Thou shalt point thy reticule with the right stick" angrily chiseled into it?
"While I cannot see - nor do I wish to imagine - a near-future in which I can't play deep, complex games using a controller, I can envisage one in which that becomes an increasingly specialised niche."

I was rather taken with an analogy made by Denki's Colin Anderson during ...

UK telephone and internet provider BT has said that it believes its 2.6 per cent stake in troubled cloud gaming firm OnLive will probably be written off.
OnLive folded at the weekend only to instantly emerge again under a new owner, using the same assets, technology and IP. However, over half of it staff lost their jobs in the process.
As well as the human cost, the process OnLive underwent allowed it to write off all of its debts, leaving investors without a penny as the company carries on as it did before.
One investor, UK firm BT, has told TechRadar that it suspects the 2.6 per cent stake it acquired from OnLive in May 2010 will likely be lost.
"We cannot comment on speculation about the future of OnLive, but we are keeping a close eye on developments,” a spokesperson explained. "Questions should be directed to the company in question. BT customers who are customers of OnLive will continue to be able to access the service.
"In any event, the 2.6 per cent shareholding in OnLive does not represent a significant investment for BT as a whole. We consider it highly likely that we'll have to write off our investment."
Smartphone manufacturer HTC has already written off the $40m investment it had made in the cloud gaming company.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/bt-pr...stment/0101582 ...

The High Street has been called in to help Sony ramp up subscribers to its PlayStation Plus service.
The platform holder has today (August 17th) launched new one-year (£39.99) and 90-day (£11.99) subscription cards into specialists stores, and is set to embark on a ‘really big’ marketing and PR push for the service.
The news follows Sony's Gamescom announcement that PlayStation Plus will be coming to Vita.
It also detailed a series of updates, including big name titles added to the services’ Instant Game Collection such as Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption. The company also announced it was increasing the amount of Cloud Storage available to users.
“By releasing the cards into specialist retailers, we can increase our audience beyond those who already know the PlayStation Store and offer not just Plus, but the idea of digital software and the PSN to a new audience who typically have only ever bought their games from the shelves of a traditional retailer,” said European PS Plus product manager Ross McGrath.
“We’re going really big this year with awareness, with a presence in retailers, a huge amount of coverage across the gaming press and through our own channels, like PlayStation.com.
“We’ve announced more than seven new titles from third-party publishers which will be available in Plus as they launch, and of course Red Dead Redemption included from September, which we hope shows you the kind of quality bar we look at when it comes to content we source for our members.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sony-...n-plus/0101591 ...

Remember that time when they told you that stereoscopic 3D was THE next big thing in gaming? They lied.
Having been conspicuous by its absence at E3 in June, Gamescom has now been and gone without a single mention of the technology. And that’s despite Sony having the lion’s share of the German limelight.
It’s probably opportune to point out the faith that companies were once putting into stereoscopic 3D technology.
Sony itself once predicted that 3D screen technology would experience a swifter uptake than high definition. But that’s nothing compared to Ubisoft. In 2010 its then marketing manager Murray Pannell (who incidentally now works for Sony) claimed that 3D TVswould be in the living room of every home by next year!
That’s not to say that everyone was convinced, though. And don't forget that Sony has a vested interest in the uptake of the technology.
Indeed, while 3D may yet have a future in gaming, it will likely have to undergo some fine-tuning if it wishes to succeed. And by ‘fine-tuning’ we mean the eradication of 3D specs, which have proved the big sticking point for consumers – not least because of the cost.
Saying that, gaming’s first foray into glasses-free 3D hasn’t been a smooth ride either, with even the mighty Nintendo admitting that it was wrong to focus on the 3D part of the 3DS and that such tech would take a back seat in future.
Now EA COO Peter Moore has reiterated the words of his boss John Riccitiello, who last year admitted that it had seen very poor returns on the 3D investments it had made in titles like Crysis 2.
"3D is certainly not in any way on our list of things we are focused upon as a company,” Moore toldEurogamer. “I look at gaming, and it just doesn't seem to be a major factor.
"I'm always impressed when I go home to the UK by how many people watch TV in 3D. Much more so than in the US. The Olympics was available in 3D. I bet it wasn't available in 3D in the US. It's just not a technology particularly in our world of gaming that seems to have got traction. I remain sceptical."
What we really need is for someone to come along and start the whole 3D thing all over again. Oh.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-de...-games/0101595 ...

AVR programmers can be bought for just a few dollars on the Internet, but if you’re building an expansion board with an AVR for your Raspi, this is the build for you. It’s a safe way of programming an AVR via the Raspi’s GPIO pins that uses an extremely minimal circuit.
The AVR ISP interface looks a lot like an SPI interface, and the easiest way to program an AVR with a Raspi would be to bitbang all the commands from the GPIO pins. Sometimes, though, the logic of the AVR and Raspi would be at different levels, so while bitbanging may work in a pinch it’s not something anyone should use regularly.
To get the Raspi and AVR talking to each other safely, [Steve] built a small circuit from a 74244 buffer and a FET. With the added support for Linux GPIO avrdude programming, it’s a snap to program an AVR with a Raspi.
A few days ago we ran across a hugely overwrought PIC programmer for the Raspi, so we’re glad to see another round in the PIC/AVR holy war go to the AVR camp.
Thanks [Mateusz] for sending this one in.

http://hackaday.com/2012/08/20/raspb...vr-programmer/ ...

[Gjoci] just became a father, and to make up for not having to carry a baby to term he decided to make himself useful in another way. He developed a sensor to detect a baby’s breathing, allaying the fears of nervous parents who are wondering why their child is so quiet.Unlike similar builds and products that rely on microphones or capacitive sensors, [Gjoci]‘s build uses the camera from a wiimote to triangulate points of light and detect motion.The build started off with infrared LEDs, but the batteries were big and there is always the possibility of the baby swallowing electrical components. [Gjoci] finally hit upon the idea of using small 1mW laser diodes to project points of light. This worked beautifully, and since newborns don’t move much there’s no danger of shining a laser into a baby’s eye.The rest of the build is just querying the camera every few milliseconds and seeing if the position of the reflections captured by the wiimote camera have changed. In two weeks of operation, [Gjoci] only had to respond to a few false alarms, and the hardware hasn’t crashed at all.After the break are three videos [Gjoci] put up for us that show a test of the breathing detection system, a demo of the alarm, and an example of the build in full operation. A very awesome build, and we look forward to this post being used as evidence of prior art in a patent dispute a few years down the line.
http://hackaday.com/2012/08/21/makin...and-a-wiimote/ ...

Jurors in the Apple v. Samsung case will receive a 100 page 'instructions to the jury' document. They will also receive a multi-page form with numerous questions to come to a verdict. From the article: 'The document, which both sides have yet to agree on, is still in its draft stage. In Samsung's case, it's 33 questions long, and stretched across 17 pages. For Apple, it's 23 questions spread over nine pages.' Perhaps this is standard in patent trials? Perhaps road sobriety tests will soon include hopping on one foot while juggling?"As usual, Groklaw has the juicy details on the battle over writing the jury instructions.

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/0...-on-700-points ...