Feedback for the forthcoming Ubisoft title Assassin's Creed II has been "extremely positive," according to the publisher's head of marketing in the UK, Murray Pannel, while the lion's share of its advertising spend is still to come.

"All the feedback we're getting is extremely positive - certainly better than I was expecting, having come into the company in the last six months and remembering the Assassin's Creed I days which were nearly two years ago now," he told GamesIndustry.biz.

"So really positive in terms of the product. The marketing itself we discussed earlier in the year - we started it very early in the cycle, just after Easter and going into summer. We've been very keen to ensure we're maintaining our presence - if that's not in press and PR it's in events where we can showcase the product where possible.

"The reality is that our true marketing, our big heavyweight spend, will launch in the early weeks in November - that's when you'll see the big TV campaigns and the broader online, events and PR kicking in.

"But the signs so far are incredibly encouraging, and I'm convinced we're sitting on a true triple-A blockbuster title."

Yesterday the publisher released the first episode in its Hybride Studios-developed mini-series of short films setting up events in the build-up to the game via YouTube, with the game itself set to hit the shelves on November 20.

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A total of 86 per cent of 10 to 19 year olds in America will ask for at least one videogame as a gift this Christmas, according to a survey published by US specialist retailer Game Crazy.

In the survey conducted by Weekly Reader Research over 1000 US teens and tweens (defined in the survey as those aged 8 to 13 years old) were asked which games they most wanted this Christmas. The most popular genres proved to be "action" and "music".

The four most keenly desired titles across all ages and genders were Guitar Hero 5 (48 per cent), Wii Sports Resort (44 per cent), New Super Mario Bros Wii (41 per cent) and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (33 per cent).

For 8-10 year old gears the most popular choice was Wii Sports Resort (56 per cent), for 11-13 year old girls it was Guitar Hero 5 (53 per cent) and for 14-17 year old girls Activision's latest rhythm action game also topped the list with 57 per cent of respondents expressing an interest in the game.

A wider variety of titles were mentioned by boys, with 8-10 year olds plumping for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (48 per cent). For 11-13 year olds it was Guitar Hero 5 (42 per cent). Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (46 per cent) proved the most popular choice for boys aged 14-17 years old, even though the game is Mature-rated in the US and 18-rated in the UK.

The survey also suggests that 66 per cent of children plan to ask for a new video game system for Christmas. The number one choice came out as the Nintendo DSi (24 per cent), followed by the PlayStation 3 and Wii (both on 21 per cent).

"As Game Crazy's survey indicates, it's not unusual for younger kids to want to play what the older kids are playing. Parents need to understand that not all video games are intended for younger players," said Patricia Vance, president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).

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ASDA has admitted to selling key videogame titles at below cost price in order to deliver "good value for money" to its consumers.

In response to a GamesIndustry.biz story earlier this month, in which Chips MD Don McCabe accused supermarkets of "bully boy pricing" following their discounting of FIFA 10 by more than 50 per cent of its RRP, Duncan Cross, ASDA's games buying manager commented: "It might surprise Don and others, but we aren’t making any money on FIFA 10 because the price we have had to pay to the supplier is more than we are charging our customers.

"I am sure the other supermarkets are in a similar boat, so to criticise them as 'bully boys' doesn’t make sense to me – how can you be a bully if you are selling something for less than you buy it at?"

McCabe however says these comments "illustrate my point exactly."

"Any idiot can sell something for less than they bought it for and have fantastic sales but it doesn't exactly make a business," he added.

"We've all known it's been going on for years and years and I think certainly over the recent weeks we've seen evidence of very low pricing on some of the videogames. It makes it difficult because people perceive that's what you can buy it for and therefore we must be making humongous profit, but now [Asda has] admitted to selling at below cost.

"I'm not surprised they're doing it but I'm surprised they're admitting it."

The latest game to be sold at a discounted price was WWE: Smackdown vs RAW 2010. Over the weekend, ASDA sold the Xbox 360 version of the game at GBP 25 while Tesco offered the PlayStation 3 version for the same price.

These are pricing strategies that are "distorting the market" according to McCabe.

"It's destructive pricing. We all like competition but it's about playing fair a little bit. At least try and make a little bit of profit so we can compete on service and quality of range and good staff. But if they're going to give it away then the consumer is ultimately going to go for the lowest price.

"It's very difficult for me to explain to a customer why ASDA can afford to sell something at GBP 25 because obviously they wouldn't sell at a loss, says the customer, so why is your price GBP 35-40? And it does distort competition - it really does.

Writing on the ASDA Aisle Spy blog, Duncan Cross also responded to McCabe's previous comments the supermarkets would ultimately "reduce choice and screw suppliers."

"This is simply not the case at ASDA," he said. "We've been growing our games range consistently for the past five years and now stock more titles from more suppliers than ever (over 350 lines)."

McCabe dismisses these figures though - "350 units. Wow. There's something in the region of 20-30,000 games available in the UK marketplace. I think in our particular range we carry 2500 SKUs in any one shop and across the company we probably have in the region of 6-7000 SKUs."

And ultimately the supermarkets' special deals makes life very difficult for the specialist retailer, he adds.

"It's no longer just a situation of looking at a title, working out how good it is, working out what market it is, and then buying a quantity for your customer base. Now you've got to think, who's going to trash the market, and if they trash the market what effect is it going to have on my stock holding?"

Asda however insists its one objective is make its goods and services more affordable for its customers.

"Our customers continue to tell us that computer games are an expensive product in today's economic climate so we are working hard to try and offer them consistently good value for money within the games category.

"Given the amount of units sold through the supermarkets on this title it would appear the majority of customers feel that ASDA (and indeed the other supermarkets) are offering terrific value for money when compared to other retailers on this title," concluded Cross.

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EA boss Keith Ramsdale has said he believes consumers have a "hunger" for digitally delivered content that has led to the days of the single player experience being over.

Speaking at the London Games Conference on Tuesday, Ramsdale also expressed his view that established franchises will end up leading the digital space.

"When mobile gaming started there was a rush of products - too much - and where it seems to be settling is with well known franchises," he said. "Only a few mainstream franchises will stand the test of time."

The exec used figures from the just-released FIFA 10 to prove the digital revolution is "already here".

Three weeks following its launch, 54 million matches had been played online, he said. "The game hasn't yet launched in the US. That's just European numbers."

Furthermore, online play allows companies to see how gamers are engaging in their products, he added. Which wouldn't be possible with a single player experience.

"There's a hunger for it. FIFA Ultimate Team is a download option - we've sold about USD 12 million worth.

"This year's forecast is that digital download revenue is around a billion dollars in gaming. That's more than 40 per cent bigger than music digital downloads in revenue terms. We're eclipsing music, we're already there, it's growing and yet we see it as different."

It's a seamless journey, he pointed out: "Customers buy packaged goods at retail, then want more," but he did admit that traditional retail wouldn't disappear overnight.

"Every week 30-40 million consumers walk into retail shops - it's not a market we're going to quickly ignore. While there are disc drives in machines in homes, consumers will still buy discs."

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You know, we've been pretty skeptical about the whole "fit" part of the "Wii Fit" phenomenon, and for good reason: as studies have shown, the health benefits of gaming, whether you're sitting, standing, or faux-bowling, are minimal at best. Still, for a number of consumers at home and abroad, the game conjures up notions of leading an active lifestyle. So perhaps it is no surprise, as the Telegraph reports, that Britain's National Health Service is using it to promote its Change4Life initiative -- even going so far as to allow the company to append the Change4Life logo on its upcoming Wii Fit Plus release. And how about those who cry foul -- specifically, those who point out that the deal includes Nintendo shelling out money to help promote the NHS-funded program. See how one might get the idea that this is a "pay to play" affair? To the government's credit, it does stress that it's endorsing an exercise, not a video game system. "Active video games, where kids need to jump up and down or dance about as part of the game, are a great way to get kids moving," a spokesperson said. Rob Saunders, the British spokesman for Nintendo, had this to say: "If you are worried about your bingo wings or your flabby bum, the game will give you specific exercises to target those areas." Bingo wings? Flabby bums? Why didn't you say so in the first place?

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Sub-$200 Blu-ray players certainly aren't new -- heck, some guys have been doing it since the year 2008 -- but you'll never catch us kvetching about a little more competition. JVC has today introduced (in the briefest way possible, might we add) its newest Blu-ray player just ten months after deciding to play the BD game here in the States. The ultrathin (and "now available") XV-BP11 should slide into just about any AV rack, bringing Blu-ray / DVD playback, AVCHD support, HDMI 1.3, a USB socket and compatibility with a slew of audio formats. Curiously enough, the outfit doesn't bother to mention if this thing is Profile 2.0, but we're guessing (read: hoping) that it wouldn't do something as ludicrous as charge two bills for a Profile 1.1 deck in late 2009. Then again, we've seen zanier things go down...

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"Very fast," "a dream," "fantastic." It looks like you can add "on hiatus" to the list of superlatives -- at least for the time being. That boffo Sky Player that Microsoft debuted for the Xbox 360? "Suspended." Why, you ask? "Due to an unforeseen technical issue." Luckily for Britons and ex-pats, the £15 monthly service should resume tomorrow, barring any further technical issues. In the meantime, it looks like the poor avatar above will be stuck watching Benny Hill on Netflix like the rest of us. Statement after the break.

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We apologize for being fanish, but Google has pulled off something with its new Navigation elements in Google Maps (or is it Google Maps in a Navigation app? It's hard to tell) that has serious ramifications for a navigation device industry used to charging money for functionality. The introduction of satellite view, a tasteful touch of street view (peep a still of your next turn, or see your destination), and of course regular stuff like spoken directions and street names, and Google's voice recognition applied to search (anywhere on the device just tap voice search and start your phrase with "navigate to") make this a pretty astonishing offering for what's essentially a free app with the purchase of an Android 2.0 device. The biggest worry here is that if you lose signal you won't be able to pull maps, but while there's no whole-map caching, it does cache a route when you enter it in, so as long as you don't stray too far from the beaten path you should be fine with a dropped signal here or there. But enough of our blather, check out a video walkthrough after the break.

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We're not sure who's winning the ratings war in Houston, but we're going to give the upper-hand to KHOU based on these shots alone. As you can clearly see in the image above (and the enlarged versions there in the gallery), this newscaster is wielding a Wiimote. It's hard to say if the news station actually has their slide transitions setup to change with a swing of the controller, or if weather map zooming is handled with something typically used for gaming, but one thing's for darn sure -- lightning rounds of Wii bowling during commercial breaks are definitely happening.

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