The Left 4 Dead Survival Pack is now available for the PC and Xbox 360, free of charge to all owners of the game. The full change list for the PC release is below. In addition, both the retail and Steam versions of the game (PC and 360) are now available for a special price. Check Steam and local retailers for pricing details. For more information about L4D, please visit www.l4d.com

Survival Mode
- New gameplay Mode
- 16 maps including Last Stand
- Leaderboards
- 7 new achievements

Versus Changes
- Fixed a case where versus team score would continue to be recalculated after the score panel was displayed
- Fixed an issue with recalculating the versus score health bonus for a player when they are rescued from being incapacitated
- Fixed being able to start a swing as an infected, then teleport to the survivors and have the claw swing hit a survivor
- Fixed a case where teleporting to the survivors would not reset the ability timer
- Fixed an exploit where you could load the chamber of a weapon with bullets by holding down the melee key
- Fixed a case where it was not possible to join a game while it was in a finale
- Fixed a rare case where listen servers would speed up the game over time
- Removed convars related to melee fatigue
- Fixed a case where infected players would get a respawn time on their initial spawn into a map

Server Changes
- Made ms_force_dedicated_server not require cheats
- Add a message when queuing a heartbeat
- Simplified setting of game mode.
removed convars director_no_human_zombies and director_holdout_mode
added mp_gamemode [coop,versus,survival]

General
- Added lobby join and leave messages ...

The latest financial presentation from European video game retailer Game comes complete with lifetime European sales numbers for the current crop of consoles and handhelds. Let's take a look!

The information is presented in the form of a hardware install base chart, with data provided by GfK Chart Track and Game's own internal data, tallying the lifetime sales of each major console up to January of 2009. Taking a look at the UK numbers alone, we see that Nintendo has completely dominated the United Kingdom, with the Wii's 4.9 million topping the Xbox 360's 3.2 million and the PlayStation 3's 1.9 million. As if the Wii domination weren't enough, Nintendo's DS tops the entire list with lifetime sales of 8.8 million. What about the PlayStation 2, with 10 million units sold? It had a 4 and a half year head start, so we're disqualifying it.

So how does the rest of Europe and Australia stack up?

Well, technically we can't be sure. Game's numbers only include those European countries where Game stores are located, so only France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Australia are represented, leaving out notable countries such as Germany and Italy, who will probably launch their own sales numbers aggressively across Europe at a later date.

The limited picture we get of Europe and Australia pretty much follows the same trends as the UK numbers, with the exception of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, with Sony's console showing a 300,000 console lead over the 360. Combining both totals together still has the PS3 a million behind, but it's catching up.

http://kotaku.com/5222722/lifetime-p...es-figures-get ...

It's a great time to be in grade school, if you live in Japan or Great Britain. Several dozen schools in both countries are putting Nintendo DSs in K-12 classes.

Games are no stranger to schools, of course. Think back to the 80s when at least 30 minutes of every school day was given over to drowning your wagon in Oregon Trail in the name of History class, or letting your SimCity fall to ruin through crime and tornadoes on behalf of Social Studies. From the first school-sanctioned games like these to the full-blown edutainment of today, it's safe to say educators are aware of the learning potential in video games.

But taking a step further and actually developing a curriculum around the Nintendo DS takes innovation – and money. After all, there's only so far math drills can really take you whether you're on a PC or DS and money for education systems still doesn't grow on trees.

Leading the charge toward a Nintenducation in the UK is Scotland. Their Centre for Games and Learning (aka The Consolarium) is an extension of the Scottish Government Schools Directorate that presents teachers and education administrators with ideas for implementing all kinds of gaming consoles into schools.

Derek Robertson, National Adviser for Emerging Technologies and Learning and administrator of the Consolarium, says that the use of the DS in schools is now commonplace, compared to when he first introduced the consoles to schools in 2006. "Initially I purchased 30 [Nintendo DS consoles] and carried out my first Dr. Kawashima [aka Brain Age] trial. The extended trial saw us handing out over 450 consoles to support our project."

The Consolarium encourages schools to the use the DS for more than just math drills and brain training puzzles. "We suggest that schools follow [the Brain Age] methodology although they are free to trial other approaches," said Robertson. "Our main approach is not to prescribe a series of lesson plans but to suggest how the game, be it Nintendogs or Hotel Dusk, can be used as the contextual hub about which learning in a variety of curricular links can grow from."

Translation: students get to play Hotel Dusk. In class.

This application of the DS to schools marks a paradigm shift in the relationship between games and education. In the old days (by which I mean the 80s and early 90s), Oregon Trail and SimCity were phased out in favor of more learning-specific software like Math Blaster. There's nothing wrong with dressing up multiplication tables in interactive software, of course. But it did limit learning opportunities to whatever the game was programmed to do and it put teachers in a hands-off role.

With games like Nintendogs, teachers get to be creative, designing lesson plans around what happens in the game. For example, teachers in two Scottish schools used the virtual pet sim back in 2008 as a way to tempt kids into reading up on the first dog in space. Students also wrote stories about their Nintendog and competed with their classmates in the in-game competitions for real life prizes from the teacher. This year, another Scottish teacher has used the Nintendogs initiative to launch an art project where students tried to use what they saw in the game to influence the dogs that they drew or painted in real life.

Although the success of these programs is hard to measure (aside from teacher, parent and student testimony), something clearly seems to be working for Nintenducation. Robertson said Scottish schools are starting to shell out for their own consoles because they've seen results from the Consolarium's initiative. One school even received a donation offer within the last two months for 2500 DS consoles.

Meanwhile, in England, the Consolarium's ideas are starting to catch on. Dawn Hollybone is a teacher at Oakdale Junior School in London where students aged 7-11 are getting their hands on both Brain Age and Professor Layton to further their education.

"We use the consoles for 20 minutes a day," she said. "Each year group has a session timetable per day and then I ask that they use it at least three times a week. The use of these is planned into each individual lesson, [so if it's] part of a maths session, then it may be used as a mental starter to warm up… or as part of a Literacy lesson, the class may use the reading aloud programme or syllable counter."

Additionally, Hollybone also uses PictoChat as a way to bulk up writing exercises by having students write to one another and collaborate on projects.

"In this way they are not merely 'just' playing the games they are used as a way into a lesson or as a plenary," Hollybone said.

It all looks incredibly awesome (or maybe we're blinded by jealousy); but there are some concerns that critics have raised over DS usage in schools. There's the obvious "games don't teach kids" arguments we're used to hearing from the Oregon Trail days; but there's also a valid concern about the cost of putting a DS in the hands of every school child. Not all school systems are as small Scotland's or Japan's – and here in the US, the cost of public education through taxes barely covers school ...

The Nintendo Game Boy—the most popular game console of all time—was born today, April 21, back in 1989. Here are its 20 years of history in a timeline that actually goes back to 1889.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...meline-HD2.jpg

http://i.gizmodo.com/5222211/the-def...e-boy-timeline ...

The Nintendo Game Boy—the most popular game console of all time—was born today, April 21, back in 1989. Here are its 20 years of history in a timeline that actually goes back to 1889.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...meline-HD2.jpg

http://i.gizmodo.com/5222211/the-def...e-boy-timeline ...

The first episode of Caprica premiered last night (did you buy it on DVD or iTunes?), so if you like what you saw, Zune has a 90-minute Q&A session for you on April 28

http://i.gizmodo.com/5222956/zune-ma...as-on-april-28 ...

The most recent tie ratios (number of different games per console) for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii were presented by news site Gamasutra. The figures reveal that the PS3 had recently amassed a 6.5 tie ratio in North America, whereas the Wii’s was at 6.2.

NPD Analyst Anita Frazier offers a reasonable explanation for the recent trends, stating that the Wii enjoyed a striking run of hardware sales during the second half of 2008, yet the PS3 has experienced five straight months of lower year-on-year hardware sales.

The simple equation here being that hardware sales have just as much a significant effect on tie ratios as software does. Tie ratios are, after all, total software numbers divided by total hardware.

As the PS3 failed to get many new customers, its current users had many more games to purchase over the late months of 2008. The Wii, meanwhile, is selling incredibly well despite an inordinarily low turnout of significant titles.

Either way, the Xbox 360 looks best of the three when viewed from a tie-ratio angle.

Both the Wii and PS3 were released in November 2006, so the most recent tie ratio figures show each system’s performance after 29 months at retail. In examining the Xbox 360’s tie ratio after the same 29-month period, Microsoft’s box shows itself to have a significantly more impressive balance, at 7.5.

Interestingly, the console’s tie ratio rate has plateaued somewhat in the last eight months, as the figure in August 2008 was at 8.0 whereas today it has edged up to 8.3.

http://www.gamebizblog.com/gamebizbl...sses-wiis.html ...

500 million online games since June last year, as FIFA and NFL each clock over 2.4 million registered users

EA is flaunting the popularity of its online game services by announcing that its Sports label has clocked 500m online games since June last year.

EA says that an average of 2.2 million online games have been played each day since June, when the publisher first started releasing its 2009 EA Sports product line. This level of online play reflects an increase of more than 175 percent from the same period last year, the publisher said.

“The massive migration to online gaming has transformed the video game landscape, and this week's 500 millionth online EA Sports game highlights the radical shift that we've helped pioneer in the industry,” said Peter Moore, president of the division.

EA also provided a number of different angles to view its online volumes, stating that “4 billion minutes” of EA Sports games have been played since June, and that “35 years” of online play is amassed each day.

Both NFL 09 and FIFA 09 have over 2.4 million registered online users each, the company added.

http://www.developmag.com/news/31728...by-online-play ...

Microsoft’s Xbox Live is well established as one of the most successful digital download networks in the world and now a new release in the Community Games section of site hints at a possible app-related future for the service.
Developed by a user called MatthewM, the 1080p optimised Ping Time download is a clock based on arcade classic Pong.
The press release explains: “Created on a whim while half asleep one night, Ping Time transforms your Xbox 360 and TV into an expensive retro wall clock. Watch in awe as the two AI opponents bounce a ball back and forth endlessly (or until you quit, whichever comes first), carefully maintaining their score to represent the current time.

“Ping time boasts HD Black and White graphics, and the intriguing sound of silence, efficiently packed into less than 200 KB, making it currently the smallest product on Xbox Live Community Games.”
The arrival of the download throws up an interesting prospect for the Community Games portal, and it will be fascinating to see if similar non-game downloads appear over the coming months.
Ping Time costs just 200 Microsoft Points and is available to download now.

http://www.casualgaming.biz/news/284...e-the-Xbox-360 ...