he industry should be working on ways to evolve the console download platforms, with new game design ideas and business models needed if Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network are to move up to the next level.

That's the opinion of newly-installed Vanguard Entertainment Group CEO Arthur Houtman, talking to GamesIndustry.biz in an interview published today.

The company, which has released Greed Corp and is currently working with EA on Gatling Gears, will be looking at ways to bring some of the learning from the social games space into the core downloadable games market - but Houtman believes some changes are necessary if then can genuinely thrive.

"I feel it's a little bit stagnant where we are with the consoles, and even the console market," he said. "Looking back at the PSone and PS2, then where we are today with the market, a few years into this console cycle - and I haven't looked at graphs comparing previous generations - but I don't think we're doing as well as we should.

"I know that the manufacturers are trying to figure out where to go from here, and so I can only imagine that they need to evolve a little bit into that space. They are trying to figure it out - but I think one of the big things is the education of the industry."

He went on to explain that developers should think about a greater variation in how they bring games to market, instead of arguing for an 800 or 1200 Microsoft Points price - and instead think about whether they could argue for a 100 Point level, with a host of additional elements on sale for similar price points.

"I think that kind of model is going to be more interesting," he said, going on to explain why the responsibility doesn't just lie with the platform holders themselves to push through such changes.

"What I think is that we, as developers, have a role to work this further," he explained. "I think that developers themselves - I hear a lot from colleagues that Microsoft doesn't want to move, or Sony doesn't want this or that. Actually, I think it's different - I think they can't move without having really clear ideas, and people coming to them with concepts.

"I feel a little bit of responsibility lies with the development community, and not people just saying that's the way it is, and we're going to continue to put out games as we used to - without coming up with clever, new ideas that could be attractive, and some proof in them from what happens in the casual space. There's not a lot of that happening - we might be sticking out our necks a little bit, to say that we'd love to have Sony and Microsoft on board with these strategies..."

But Houtman was confident that, given such ideas, the platform holders would be amenable to an evolution of their respective downloadable games platforms.

"I think they will get there, I think they'll get there easier if they have people like us presenting ideas of how to get there. It doesn't have to be a direct switch - you can take small, baby steps and try things out - and that's where we need to be. So the responsibility lies on both sides."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...sole-platforms ...

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes that combined sales of Move and Kinect could top 8 million units by the end of the year.

Looking further ahead, he expects the peripherals to shift between 20 and 25 million units by the end of 2011, although he noted that software sales will only rise marginally.

"These 20-25 million households are likely to buy 2-3 games apiece, resulting in software sales of 40-75 million units and publisher revenues of $1.6billion-$3 billion next year.

"These sales are not all incremental; clearly, consumers who buy Kinect or Move are console owners, and presumably, they would have bought other games had they not purchased the peripherals. We think that the incremental contribution from the two devices will be around $500–$800 million in 2011, or around 2.5-4 per cent of industry sales next year."

Both Microsoft and Sony have pushed out numbers for the peripherals this week, with Microsoft claiming 2.5 million sales, and Sony 4.1 million sales - although it later amended the number to units shipped to retail.

Pachter added that he believes Microsoft will cut the price of its basic Xbox 360 model to $249 in the US, prompting Sony to bundle Move with its standard 160GB $299 PlayStation SKU.

The new bundle could add value for Sony, as he believes Move has a manufacturing cost of around $40. Currently, Sony's Move and PlayStation 3 bundle retails for $399 with a 320GB unit.

"If Sony were to take such action in early 2011, we think it would accomplish its goals of profitability, solid console sales and Move penetration, and think that its controller would have a dramatic impact on software development and sales next year," he added.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-8m-this-year ...

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes that combined sales of Move and Kinect could top 8 million units by the end of the year.

Looking further ahead, he expects the peripherals to shift between 20 and 25 million units by the end of 2011, although he noted that software sales will only rise marginally.

"These 20-25 million households are likely to buy 2-3 games apiece, resulting in software sales of 40-75 million units and publisher revenues of $1.6billion-$3 billion next year.

"These sales are not all incremental; clearly, consumers who buy Kinect or Move are console owners, and presumably, they would have bought other games had they not purchased the peripherals. We think that the incremental contribution from the two devices will be around $500–$800 million in 2011, or around 2.5-4 per cent of industry sales next year."

Both Microsoft and Sony have pushed out numbers for the peripherals this week, with Microsoft claiming 2.5 million sales, and Sony 4.1 million sales - although it later amended the number to units shipped to retail.

Pachter added that he believes Microsoft will cut the price of its basic Xbox 360 model to $249 in the US, prompting Sony to bundle Move with its standard 160GB $299 PlayStation SKU.

The new bundle could add value for Sony, as he believes Move has a manufacturing cost of around $40. Currently, Sony's Move and PlayStation 3 bundle retails for $399 with a 320GB unit.

"If Sony were to take such action in early 2011, we think it would accomplish its goals of profitability, solid console sales and Move penetration, and think that its controller would have a dramatic impact on software development and sales next year," he added.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-8m-this-year ...

Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Division CEO Dennis Durkin believes that 2010 has been a milestone year for the Xbox business.

"It's been a good three years for us," he told listeners at the Credit Suisse Group Technology Conference yesterday. "We've had nice stair steps in terms of growth every year sequentially getting bigger than the previous year, and this year is going to be our biggest year ever."

He also revealed that last week had seen "our biggest Black Friday in history, in our Xbox history."

Live and Kinect appeared to the focal points of growth, with Durkin revealing high take-ups for paid Live subscriptions. "Of our 25 million members, about half of them are subscribers for the business and pay us about $60 a year for that. So, it's a very, very large business for us and for our partners." The average subscriber was on the service for three hours a day, he claimed.

Kinect had been a success, he felt: "It was an amazing launch, amazing momentum, and it's something we're very, very excited about, still very committed to our 5 million number for the holiday, well on path for that."

Although not acknowledging the mixed critical response to Kinect's launch titles, he claimed consumers were pleased. "There's more than 300 reviews within the Amazon ecosystem. I've read all of them the best part about it is that almost 90 percent of them are four or five-star rated. And when you go through those, you realize that we are touching a bunch of new audiences."

While he declined to reveal Microsoft's specific intentions for Kinect's future, he hinted that it had potential for "healthcare, entertainment, other verticals, and you can really see some of the applications that are coming to life.

"There's a lot of experimentation going on right now in the developer community, which our CEO has famously avowed his support for developers over time."

Microsoft was no longer in the game of hardware experimentation for experimentation's sake, he claimed: "I want to make money on things that we sell. I think the business of subsidizing things is a historical artifact. And so, for us, it's about making money and extracting value for the things that we're building.

"I think with the pieces that we have today now in our hardware platform, in our Live ecosystem, and now with Kinect, and the new input paradigm that you have with Kinect, we think we have a real opportunity to have a five to ten-year major growth spurt within our business and space."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...gest-year-ever ...

UK Interactive Entertainment is attempting to pre-empt the BBC's Panorama broadcast next week, which intends to "reveal the hidden psychological devices in games that are designed to keep us coming back for more."

The show will air views "from youngsters who've dropped out of school and university to play games for anything up to 21 hours a day," and "describe their obsessive gaming as an addiction."

But according to UKIE there is no solid evidence that so-called games addiction exists or is a legitimate affliction.

"There is currently no proven link between videogames and addiction, with there being mixed opinion among academics about whether a game can be clinically addictive," said Michael Rawlinson, director general of UKIE.

"There is no official medical diagnosis of videogame addiction, either from the American Medical Association or the World Health Organisation."

Rawlinson was interviewed for the Panorama programme - along with other industry figures - but has not seen a final edit of the show, to be broadcast on BBC One on Monday December 6.

"UKIE is aware of some individuals that play games excessively but often the causes of many of the sad cases that we hear about are down to other underlying medical, social or environmental issues concerning the individuals concerned," said Rawlinson.

"UKIE continues to monitor any research developments on the issue of excessive gaming and will welcome reviewing any conclusive new research. Any new research undertaken should be as balanced as possible.

"Therefore any research undertaken should ideally be independent of the games industry and any other bodies that may have an interest in the results."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...tion-broadcast ...

A first-of-its-kind court case brought against an alleged Xbox 360 modder has been dismissed after the judge gave prosecutors a 30 minute dressing-down.

As reported by Wired, US district judge Philip Gutierrez bellowed that he had "serious concerns about the government's case," adding, "I really don't understand what we're doing here."

He then criticised prosecutors of 28-year-old Matthew Crippen, who was accused of two counts of violating the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, for calling witnesses who could also be guilty of criminal behaviour themselves.

The defence claimed Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario violated California privacy law when he secretly videotaped Crippen allegedly performing an Xbox mod in his LA home.

Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who inspected two consoles allegedly tampered with by Crippen, admitted that he had modded Xboxes while at college too.

"Maybe two of the four government witnesses committed crimes," the judge said. "I think it is relevant and the jury is going to hear about it – both crimes."

Prosecutors were arguing that Crippen ran a small business modifying Xbox 360 firmware to allow users to run pirated games, an offence that could carry a maximum 10 year prison tarrif.

Crippen had attempted to argue a "fair use" defence, claiming it was legal to hack the consoles on the grounds that the mod had non-infringing purposes, like running homebrew software or backing-up games.

The judge had initially prohibited him from doing so but then backtracked during the course of his rant.

Once the judge was done with his outburst, prosecutor Allen Chiu meekly said, "I apologise to the court" and asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, dismiss the case entirely or go ahead with the trial.

Just before the trial was set to begin Chiu told the judge, "The government has decided to dismiss the indictment," allowing Crippen to walk free

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...0-hacker-trial ...

Ubisoft has instituted a novel measure to combat freeloaders looking to pirate the DS version of Michael Jackson: The Experience: it's figured out a way to make hacked ROMs play a vuvuzela chorus over the classic Jacko tunes.

Tiny Cartridge spotted a YouTube clip that shows a pirated version of the game rendered unplayable by the obnoxious buzz of the South African horn. Not only that, but crucial on-screen prompts aren't displayed either.

Nice try Ubisoft but we'd imagine a spot of vuvuzela might actually enhance a few of Jackson's later numbers. Earth Song, say.

If the Wii version is anything to go by, the DS take on Ubisoft's homage to the erstwhile King of Pop might actually be worth shelling out for. Eurogamer's resident crotch-grabber Johnny Minkley awarded the game 7/10 earlier this week.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...cko-ds-pirates ...

Not all videogames are bad and violence inducing - some can alleviate symptoms of one of the world's worst diseases: Parkinson's.

A British doctor has been awarded £35,000 to research the benefits that playing Wii can have for people with Parkinson's. Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren, who was reported to have been paid half a million quid by Nintendo to advertise Wii Fit, is interested to see how the research turns out - she has a close friend with Parkinson's.

The Wii helps Parkinson's sufferers by physically and mentally challenging them - a process that can slow the degradation of nerve cells.

"Keeping moving is really important because of the stiffness. By doing the Wii I find that you loosen up the muscles that are constantly spasming," said Karen Rose, a lady who suffers from Parkinson's. She's been chosen to appear in Nintendo's real story TV adverts.

"Most people with Parkinson's find that they lose their confidence. So I tend to do exercise at home. I've got all the benefits of a gym, but I can do it to fit in with my lifestyle and my medication. It gives you a burst somehow, and it makes you feel better, and then you have a better day."

Dr Cathy Craig, the woman in charge of the research, added: "Our hope is to harness the benefits of the Wii technology to develop a system designed specifically for people with Parkinson's.

"If the project is successful the benefits could be twofold. It could allow us to develop a simple way to assess Parkinson's symptoms yet provide a safe and effective way for people with the condition to be more active and keep fit."

Presumably Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's PlayStation Move could help people with Parkinson's as well.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...insons-disease ...

Translation:

Google Code Site: Dolphin PS3

Source: Logic-Sunrise forums ...