Namco Bandai has unveiled a beat-'em-up campaign mode for Tekken 6 at E3.

Think third-person action but with the characters of Tekken stomping around, battering enemies, unravelling a proper story and even using guns and giant robots as well as their assorted bag of martial arts attacks.

This Scenario Campaign can be tackled alone or online with a friend, and the further characters progress the stronger they will become.

Eurogamer TV has a video of the Scenario Campaign and it looks odd in motion; these characters with their clunky wooden legs and shuffles don't appear well-suited to open levels, exploration and crowd control.

But they are designed to go head-to-head, which they will - in destructible environments where players can be thrown through walls and floors.

Tekken 6 is out on PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3...em-up-campaign ...

Namco Bandai has unveiled a beat-'em-up campaign mode for Tekken 6 at E3.

Think third-person action but with the characters of Tekken stomping around, battering enemies, unravelling a proper story and even using guns and giant robots as well as their assorted bag of martial arts attacks.

This Scenario Campaign can be tackled alone or online with a friend, and the further characters progress the stronger they will become.

Eurogamer TV has a video of the Scenario Campaign and it looks odd in motion; these characters with their clunky wooden legs and shuffles don't appear well-suited to open levels, exploration and crowd control.

But they are designed to go head-to-head, which they will - in destructible environments where players can be thrown through walls and floors.

Tekken 6 is out on PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3...em-up-campaign ...

Ubisoft's head of marketing in the UK, Murray Pannel, has told GamesIndustry.biz that he feels Sony is facing a big challenge to become the dominant player in the country's next-gen platform landscape - but also believes that if the PlayStation 3's value and price proposition is right, the brand still has a huge appeal.

Pannel, who spent over six years at Microsoft marketing the Xbox and Xbox 360, joined Ubisoft in March this year, and is happy, as a third party, to support all of the platforms increase installed base numbers in order to help his new company sell more games.

"So if I'm just looking at the UK specifically, we all know that Nintendo has done an amazing job, the 360 has solidified its position and is still doing well, and PlayStation I think would say themselves that they would have liked to have sold more hardware units," he said.

"Coming at it from a platform perspective, when I was at Xbox we never underestimated the power of the brand for PlayStation - despite the hiccups they had at launch, and the price particularly, there's still a latent demand for that product. And if they can get their value proposition right in terms of pricing and online, and a software line-up that's unbeatable, they're still a force to be reckoned with.

"But they will take a long time to even get their installed base up to that of the Xbox, let alone Nintendo's level, so they've got an uphill struggle in the UK.

"Obviously we support all platforms, and frankly, the more installed base you've got, the more games you can sell. So we'd rather have all the platform holders growing the IP as much as they can, so there are more people playing games that we can sell to.

"That's very much our hope, and we support all the platform holders where we can to push that, if that's exclusive games, or specific games for specific platforms to help drive those to new audiences."

Pannel was also confident that 2009 would be another strong year for the games industry, despite overarching economic conditions - but did query whether or not the market could sustain the kid of growth that it's seen in the past two years.

"It's certainly not going to decline," he said. "The question is, how long can it continue to grow at the rate of the last two years? I think the jury's out on that, but we're expecting a good year this year.

"Ubisoft has got some great titles, and if you look at the broader line-up there are some great titles as well - Square Enix coming in with Final Fantasy should be great, no doubt about it, and Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty... there's a lot of competition out there, and we'll all be looking eagerly to see what's coming when, but I enjoy the challenge - and there's plenty of consumers out there to appeal to, so we'll make sure we're getting our marketing, PR and product right to make sure they have a good time."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...m-space-pannel ...

Digital distribution service Metaboli has announced the launch of a new parental control feature based on nationwide research from online parenting resource Mumsnet.

The new tool allows parents to set up each child with its own Metaboli account and pre-select the games they can play, according to age certification, genre or on a case-by-case basis. Parents can also use a weekly calendar to dictate how long a child can play for and when.

At the same time Metaboli has revealed details of a UK study which shows that 45 per cent of parents are unaware of the content of the games their children play, rising to 66 per cent for children over 11 years old.

Only 29 per cent admitted to being concerned about how much time was spent playing games though, with just 17 per cent claiming they found it difficult to monitor the games being played. 14 per cent agreed that they spent too much money on buying new games.

However, a total of 94 per cent of parents found that arguments over whose turn it was to play games was a problem.

On a positive note 72 per cent thought that playing games helps to teach new skills and 27 per cent thought that it "teaches them about the world".

The statistics follow results recently published by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which found that 62 per cent of parents in the US thought games were a positive part of their children's lives.

"We welcome the introduction by Metaboli of an easy-to-use parental control feature which will help parents have greater power over their children's gaming, said Carrie Longton, co-founder of Mumsnet.

"Although many parents are already actively monitoring and supervising their children as they play PC games, this pack will make mums lives much easier," she added.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ntrol-software ...

Human-computer interaction expert Johnny Chung Lee, famous for his series of YouTube videos utilising the Wii, has revealed that he is working on Project Natal for Microsoft.

Lee rose to fame through a number of videos which used a standard Wii and controller to perform head tracking, finger tracking and other advanced features. Although none of his innovations were taken up by Nintendo or other Wii developers, Lee was employed as a researcher in the Applied Sciences group at Microsoft.

As such Lee has revealed in his personal blog that he has been "helping Xbox with Project Natal" - the motion control system unveiled at E3 2009 this week. Specifically, Lee has been part of a team attempting to ensure the technology works in normal living room conditions.

Although unable to reveal any further details about the system, Lee describes the 3D sensor used as "providing detailed 3D information about the environment similar to very expensive laser range finding systems but at a tiny fraction of the cost".

"The human tracking algorithms that the teams have developed are well ahead of the state of the art in computer vision in this domain", he adds. "The sophistication and performance of the algorithms rival or exceed anything that I've seen in academic research, never mind a consumer product."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-project-natal ...

Publisher’s top sports producer hits out at critics ahead of FIFA 10’s upcoming release
FIFA producer David Rutter feels that it is time for the press to stop attacking EA Sports – as the firm attempts to top last year’s groundbreaking FIFA release.
Rutter is the man tasked with meeting EA Sports president Peter Moore’s ambitious targets for FIFA 2010, which include reaching an average Metacritic score of 90 and adding to the ten million current FIFA gamers from the world’s two billion football fans. And Rutter is confident that this pressure will push the team to create the best FIFA game yet.
“I am extremely proud and privileged to be doing this job,” he said.
“It does upset me that people bad-mouth EA, and I used to be one of those people. But the fact that I am allowed to spend so much money on making good gameplay, without having to do anything gimmicky, to me speaks volumes of the work Peter Moore and other people in the organisation are doing.
“And that is doing what matters most to the fans, refining the game, innovating and putting in game modes that people want.”

“The critical and commercial success of FIFA 2009 has put a lot of pressure on us for this new game, but I am fortunate that I work in an environment that lives and breathes on pressure.
“Everyone here knows what is expected of them in terms
of quality.
“It is going to be very, very hard. Our Metacritic is currently 87, and getting those extra three per cent is a really hard challenge to overcome. But I’m confident that when FIFA 10 finally comes out, it will be exactly what the gamer wants.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/34633/Its-...ad-mouthing-EA ...

Apple reported to be hiring in-house game devs

Rumours are circulating that the next-generation iPhone will feature a 3D graphics chip, which would allow the device to support far more advanced games. Next week Apple are to unveil a new edition of the iPhone at the company's annual World Wide Developers Conference, reports Kotaku. The website claims that a source has informed it that forthcoming version of the device will include a built-in 3D graphics chip, operate on a new, higher-speed network, and be hit retail in mid-July.

http://www.developmag.com/news/32114...-graphics-chip ...

These days I'm out of touch with hardware stats in Japan but still here's the latest figures for last week below:


Nintendo DSi: 65,537
Playstation Portable: 32,251
Nintendo Wii: 17,810
Playstation 3: 12,427
Nintendo DS Lite: 7,519
Xbox 360: 4,857
Playstation 2: 4,120 ...

via Eurogamer


Nintendo has updated the WiiWare store with Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, which costs 800 Nintendo Points (GBP 6 / EUR 8 approx) to download.

This, a spin-off of the episodic series for mobile phones, follows the adventures of Ceodore - son of FFIV heroes Cecil and Rosa. There are further episodes to download for 300 NP (GBP 2.25 / EUR 3 approx.) a pop.

Meanwhile, Art Style: Kudos and Animal Crossing applications bolster the DSiWare stock cupboards.

The Art Style series is worth nothing, and Kubos presents a tower-climbing game with 10 levels and high scores to chase. Art Style: Kubos costs 500 NP (GBP 3.50 / EUR 5 approx.)

Clock and Calculator are the Animal Crossing applications, and they've got features like Animal Crossing-themed alarms and animations to make checking the time or totting up sums more fun. These cost 200 NP (GBP 1.50 / EUR 2 approx.) each. ...