John Carmack "saddened" by retreat from mobile, several projects now on hiatus

id software

id – defined by Freud as the primal section of the human psyche; id Software, located in Mesquite, Texas,...

www.idsoftware.com


id Software's has put all mobile development on hold while the studio finishes Doom 4, Polygon reports.
Speaking at QuakeCon, studio co-founder John Carmack admitted that the decision to close id's mobile projects "saddened" him, but the talent being employed to make them were required for Doom 4.
"I love doing the mobile work - taking that time, spending a month, a year or something working on a mobile project," he said.
"It was looked at as something that, yes, this is fun, this is fun for the company and it's entertaining and it makes money, but it's not a grand slam sort of thing on there. The Bethesda family really is about swinging for the fences."
As the iOS market flourished, Carmack made his enthusiasm for the new market clear, establishing a mobile team in 2007 that has produced six games, largely based on id's classic IP. The studio has "a couple of projects" for mobile on hold, including one that is basically finished, and Carmack made it clear that he intends to return to the space.
"I hope we get back to mobile in various ways in the future," he said, "but the big real aim is blockbuster, AAA titles, and for id that means Doom 4, it means that we get the whole company behind that after we get Doom 3: BFG Edition out the door. Essentially, everybody will be focused on Doom 4 as a project."
However, when asked about the possible release date for Doom 4, Carmack was evasive.
"Every decade there will be a Doom, but hopefully we can do better than that."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ent-for-doom-4

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A number of analysts weigh in on the future of Activision's Call of Duty franchise

Activision Blizzard

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide pure-play online...

www.activisionblizzard.com


Following the company's second quarter earnings report, analysts issued their usual investors notes on Activision Blizzard. One comment that raised some eyebrows came from Ben Schachter of Macquarie Securities, who said "we have significant concerns that CoD may have peaked in 2011."
GamesIndustry International followed up with Schachter to get a fuller explanation of his thoughts. He believes that Call of Duty will have a hard time showing growth for a number of reasons outlined below:

1. HD hardware and software as a whole have been declining all year (i.e., it is not just weak Wii sales that are impacting the industry)
2. Lifetime unit sales of Modern Warfare 3 are slightly below Black Ops
3. The genre seems tired
4. The futursitic setting may not have the same appeal for some
5. The macro economic environment is causing some gamers to hold back on upgrades
6. Currency fluctuations mean that European sales are worth less to ATVI shareholders

Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities largely agrees with Schachter's assessment. "Annual sales at the 25 million level are unprecedented, so it's easy to say 'that's the peak.' I think that the growth in online multiplayer fueled CoD sales, since it was (and probably still is) the best multiplayer experience available. However, last year, Battlefield multiplayer probably cannibalized it a little bit, and this year, Halo and Medal of Honor could cannibalize CoD a bit more. Next year, another Battlefield plus the Respawn and Bungie games probably cannibalize it a bit more," he said.
That said, even if CoD doesn't show growth, it's bound to post massive sales again. "There's nothing wrong with 22 million units sold, or with 19 million or 16 million. CoD will remain the best selling game (at least until GTA) and Activision shouldn't be concerned if it loses some players at the margin. They created a phenomenon, and others are emulating them," Pachter continued.
"It may very well have peaked at retail but one needs to look at the entire picture"
Jeremy Miller, DFC

Colin Sebastian of RW Baird believes that CoD may have peaked already too. "Activision has provided financial guidance assuming that Call of Duty is lower this year than last year, so I think that is a rational comment, especially given the tough console market right now," he said. "Also, if new consoles are coming next year, that is typically a disruptive period for game sales, and that could drive sales lower as well, at least temporarily. The bigger question I think is whether the franchise (or any franchise) is in a continuous period of decline. Personally, I don't know which competing console title would take so much share from Call of Duty."
Of course, these days, thinking about a product's retail life is not the only way to measure success. Call of Duty lives in an online world, and with Elite, and the expansion to China via Tencent, it could be argued that the brand's potential hasn't peaked at all.
"With the movement to digital and opening of new markets like China there will be an entirely new source of revenue for Call of Duty that will both replace some of whatever is lost at retail and also not be tracked in retail sales data," remarked Jeremy Miller of DFC Intelligence. "We feel that Call of Duty is a very strong brand and has plenty of ways to monetize. Tracking retail unit sales year over year is not really a fair comparison as they could be down but overall revenues might be up. So it may very well have peaked at retail but one needs to look at the entire picture. In that sense we do not feel Call of Duty has peaked."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...d-says-analyst

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SWTOR going free was the "only way to go", says SOE's Smedley
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything event, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) president John Smedley said that Electronic Arts and BioWare were making the "right decision" by taking Star Wars: The Old Republic free-to-play. Smedley has dealt with the Star Wars brand in the past, as SOE once ran Star Wars Galaxies, the first MMO based on the brand.
"It is the only way to go for new games. It was the right decision for SWTOR (which is a fantastic game). Wait till you see our next round of games after [Planetside 2],"said Smedley when asked about SWTOR free-to-play shift.
Smedley also had some choice words for those talking about the decline of the PC industry.
"I hate it when people talk about the decline of the PC industry. It's idiotic garbage spouted by morons that can't count where the players are playing. It's not like League of Legends reports numbers to NPD. The players are playing F2P games on the PC not going to retail," he said.
The full AMA thread can be found here. Planetside 2's beta event begins next Monday, August 6, 2012.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-soes-smedley

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As Vita posts another awful quarter and PlayStation slips into loss, how does the games business hang on?

Sony

Sony Computer Entertainment

Sony Computer Entertainment is a Japanese videogame company specialising in a variety of areas in the...

www.playstation.com


Rumours have abounded, in recent weeks, of an imminent redesign for the PS3 - a third physical iteration of the hardware which would boast an even slimmer profile and an even lower price point. At this stage its existence is such a poorly-kept secret (or such a spectacularly executed hoax) that it seems a complete certainty that it'll appear at Gamescom later this month.
That certainty, by the way, is an illustration of the importance of keeping secrets in this business. Sony's desire would have been to unveil a new super-slim PS3 model to a surprised audience, creating a buzz around the platform which would be conveyed to consumers in subsequent media reports - Sony blows away Gamescom with new PS3 redesign and price point! Now, we've all seen the machine laid bare all over the Internet prior to the announcement, and there's been endless speculation over how low the price can go.
"Vita, PS3 and PSP this year don't match the sales of PSP and PS3 alone last year, and that's a miserable situation to be in"

If Sony doesn't reveal it at Gamescom, it'll be a huge disappointment; if it does reveal it, it'll earn little more than an expansive shrug, since we've already seen it all. A failure of secrecy has transformed a potentially hugely positive announcement into one which has little upside, in media terms, but a huge potential downside if it doesn't happen or doesn't match expectations. Now, secrecy is a tough thing to maintain in a high-profile consumer electronics or entertainment business - even the notoriously secretive Apple has had pretty convincing pictures of the upcoming new iPhone splashed all over the web - but Sony is particularly bad at it. As a journalist, it may seem churlish to complain about a company failing to plug its leaks, but for Sony's own sake, learning to keep its lips sealed and its prototypes in a locked cupboard would do no harm at all.
It's not just from a media perspective that Sony needs new hardware at Gamescom, though. In fact, even if there hadn't been any leaks, we'd all be looking to Gamescom for something pretty dramatic - because after the shockingly awful quarter the PlayStation business just had, Sony needs to show us that it's still in the game.
In the three months to June 30th, Sony's PlayStation business posted an operating loss - ¥3.5 billion, or £28 million - reversing the fortunes of the same quarter last year, in which it posted a similarly sized operating profit of ¥4.1 billion (£33.5 million). That's a perturbing development for a division which has generally been seen as a bright spot in Sony's gloomy catalogue of ailing businesses - but it's less worrying, in terms of the overall picture, than the decline in revenue which created that operating loss. Compared with the same quarter last year (in which, let's not forget, PlayStation Vita had yet to hit the shelves, so there should theoretically have been depressed demand as consumers waited for a new product), revenue from PlayStation products was down 14.5 per cent. Granted, the still strengthening Yen hasn't helped that figure - in real terms, once you account for currency fluctuations, the decline in sales is more like 10 per cent.
That's still rather awful. The June quarter isn't exactly peak season, of course, but year to year comparisons are reasonable to make, and losing 10 per cent of your sales in a single year is a painful thing to do. It's even more painful when you consider that the year in question saw the launch of a successor to your actually rather successful handheld console. Sony somewhat optimistically notes that sales of Vita have made up for some of the revenue lost through declining PSP and PS3 sales; the reality is that Vita, PS3 and PSP this year don't match the sales of PSP and PS3 alone last year, and that's a miserable situation to be in.
"Despite Sony's attempt to claim that the Vita's sales are making up for falling sales elsewhere, the absolute root of the problem clearly lies with the firm's newest launch"

There are a few factors to be borne in mind before we all pile in to criticise Sony's performance. Firstly, although the company itself posits the 10 per cent figure as a constant currency estimate for its declining sales, such figures can't reflect the real impact of currency fluctuations on the PlayStation business. What the strong Yen has done, more than anything else, is seriously restrict Sony's ability to manoeuvre in the console space. The Yen's strength is far beyond anything that would have been predicted in Sony's most pessimistic financial models a few years ago - it long ago soared through the valuation at which the Bank of Japan might have been expected to step in decisively, revealing the BoJ to be practically powerless in the face of global financial ...

Time’s up for our media assassins – now it's your turn, retailers.
MCV and Square Enix is looking for the UK games industry's deadliest assassin with our Hitman Sniper Challenge competition. The best performers each month will win a 16Gb Wi-Fi iPad 2 and a 10" Agent 47 statue.
The second and third prize is the 10" statue. A 2" version will be given to the rest of the Top Ten – and let's not forget our secret star prize for the Ultimate Assassin, which will be decided in September.
July was our Media league. We’ll be totting up the final scores and bringing you the winners of our Media league next week, but it’ll take a special kind of killer to top the score of Future’s Iain Wilson: a whopping 4.7 million points. You can see how he did it by watching the video below.
Wilson and other deadly media professionals will be back in December as we seek the UK games industry’s deadliest assassin. The current leaders can be seen in the score table below.
RETAILERS – HOW DEADLY ARE YOU?
If you want to take part in our Hitman Sniper Challenge contest, all you have to do is fill in your details attinyurl.com/sniperchallenge.
Download codes are available for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. If you already have the Hitman pre-order game, Sniper Challenge, send in a photo of your high score to [email protected].
You have until August 30th to send in your scores. September will be our Publisher league, followed by Developers in October and Others in November. We'll then have the winners of each league back in December as we search for the Ultimate Assassin.
THE UK'S TOP MEDIA ASSASSINS
Final scores to be released next week
Iain Wilson, Future Publishing – 4,748,625
Ryan Janes, FanCensus – 2,945,687
Andrew Spenceley, VideoGamer.com – 2,534,382
Sam Clay, VG247 – 2,367,007
Reece Heywood, Ve3tro – 2,111,685
Martin Mathers, Uncooked Media – 2,205,057
Martin Baker, God Is A Geek – 1,879,335
Martin Wharmby, MyM – 1,845,300
Dave Scammell, VideoGamer.com – 1,682,896
Martin Gaston, VideoGamer.com – 1,429,774
Richard Burley, NewbReview – 1,183,881
Matthew Reynolds, Digital Spy – 1,161,054
Craig Pearson, freelance journalist – 522,641
Tom Orry, VideoGamer.com – 213,797
Matt Kamen, freelance journalist – 166,969
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/hitma...w-open/0100595 ...

It's most likely that 2012’s top three best-selling games will be Call of Duty, FIFA and Assassin’s Creed. But not in that order, says Ubisoft.
EMEA managing director Alain Corre has told MCV he hopes momentum behind Assassin’s Creed III will push it to the No.2 slot this year. The fifth game in the series, ACIII arrives on October 31st.
“In the last few years there’s Call of Duty and FIFA on top,” Corre told MCV.
“This year with the product we have and the buzz we’ve been hearing, we can say hello to FIFA. Hopefully we will beat it.
“We are lucky this year because there are not a lot of other action games coming and our product is better than before. When you mix the two, I think the potential for ACIII?can be really, really big.”
Corre says the market has prior form in pushing older franchises to the top.
“Call of Duty was the first one to go above 20m worldwide, at a time when it was five years old. It shows that when a game is perfect, perfectly accepted, then the consumers, with word of mouth, will go for it. I think with Assassin’s Creed we are going that way.”
For Creed specifically, broader appeal will help too, he added:
“We have a lot of different gameplay in the game. There are a lot of quests you can do that can appeal to the hardcore gamer, can appeal also to the father and his son, to the 30-year-old guy with his girlfriend. We’re trying to open up that so it can be an adventure game for everybody and I think there is no limit to what we can achieve.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/look-...-creed/0100690 ...

Linkin Park and Fort Minor frontman Mike Shinoda will score the soundtrack for the upcoming Medal of Honor: Warfighter.
Meanwhile a new Linkin Park song Castle of Glass - off the band's No.1 album Living Things – will feature in-game footage of Warfighter.
It's not the first time Linkin Park has teamed up with Medal of Honor, songs from the band's last album was used in the promotional material for the game's 2010 reboot.
Shinoda is the rapper from Linkin Park and is credited for writing most of the band's songs, he also has a rap side-project Fort Minor.
He also wrote the score for the Linkin Park iPhone game - 8-bit Revolution – and last year wrote the movie score for The Raid.
“Linkin Park’s involvement with the 2010 reboot of Medal of Honor was a hugely positive experience for all of us,” said Shinoda. “The opportunity to take this creative collaboration several steps further was something that we knew we had to be a part of.”
Medal of Honor executive producer Greg Goodrich added: “Linkin Park has always shown a great deal of respect and gratitude for our servicemen and women, many of whom are fans of their music.
“Partnering with them for the Medal of Honor Warfighter soundtrack and the Castle of Glass music video is a natural fit for us. We have shared values and respect for these heroes from many different nations – and their families – who serve on our behalf around the world.”
Medal of Honor: Warfighter is listed as one of the 20 games to save Christmas in this week's MCV. You can buy the magazine to discover the full list, here.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/linki...-honor/0100691 ...

It has only been out a week, but already New Super Mario Bros 2 is one of the 3DS' biggest selling video games.
The game has sold 430,185 copies in Japan according to data from Enterbrain. It follows the release of the 3DS XL (or 3DS LL as it is called in Japan), which sold 193.441 units.
New Super Mario Bros 2 could prove to be a significant release for Nintendo. The last two games for DS and Wii are amongst the biggest selling Mario games of all time, shifting well over 20m units each worldwide.
There's a Wii U New Super Mario Bros game, which is set to launch with the hardware.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter is listed as one of the 20 games to save Christmas in this week's MCV. You can buy the digital version of the magazine to discover the full list, here.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/enter...-japan/0100693 ...

There was a point in the Olympic Stadium on Saturday evening, at about 9.20pm, when you wanted to put the world on pause and just revel in it all for a moment before the next wonderful thing caught you round the chops.
One day, six Olympic gold medals for Great Britain? Hell, in one hour, around one small oval of track in east London, British athletes won three golds in such dizzying, dreamlike succession that all context and precedent disappeared off into the dark London sky.

Jessica Ennis

• Born in Sheffield, her mother, a social worker, and father, a painter and decorator originally from Jamaica, first introduced her to athletics to stop her getting bored in the summer holidays
• Won bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne
• Suffered a stress fracture to her right foot which ruled her out of the 2008 Olympics.
• Recovered from injury to become one of the best all-round female athletes

• Watch Ennis secure gold

You tried to grab a record book before they all got thrown on the bonfires. In the 16 Olympics from 1928 to 1996, only once did Britain win more than five golds in an entire Games. Not since 1908 had GB won five in a day, and that was an event so unrecognisable it included tug-of-war and real tennis.
The greatest single hour, the best night, unarguably, in the long history of British athletics. The best day in British sport? It sounds like hyperbole, so apply what logic you have left.
Saturday's medal count, taken just on its own, would constitute Great Britain's ninth most successful Olympic Games tally in 118 years of competition.
In three different sports, by men and women, on water and on dry land, the golds kept on rolling in, roared on by partisan crowds at stadiums across the city and its hinterland and by millions on television, radio and electronica.
From Eton Dorney to the velodrome at the north end of Stratford's Olympic Park to within toasty distance of the Olympic flame itself, there was the same expression on British faces: I can't believe I'm here, I can't believe I'm watching this.
What do you have to compare it to? England's World Cup win in 1966 was precisely that - England's. So was Jonny Wilkinson's iconic drop-goal in Sydney nine years ago.
Play media

BBC Olympics experts go crazy for Mo Farah

This one truly belonged to Britain - a collective grin of national pleasure, a domino-chain of sporting success that had you clapping and cheering new heroes like you'd loved them all their lives.
The rowers had started the celebrations with gold in the men's four and the women's lightweight double sculls before track cycling's women team pursuiters added track cycling gold.
That was quite good enough. But those lucky enough to be among the 80,000 at the athletics were about to hit the jackpot in quite unprecedented fashion.
We knew after the morning's long jump and javelin that Jess Ennis would, barring pestilence and plagues of locusts, be crowned Olympic heptathlon champion. We hoped that Mo Farah might do what no British male had ever done and win a global 10,000m title. A few even lumped some cash on Greg Rutherford to win the long jump, although a gamble was exactly how it felt.
That all three came off in 46 minutes left you laughing with disbelief at the madness of it all.
When London hosted the Games for the second time in 1948, Britain failed to win a single track and field title. Having waited 104 years for an athletics gold, three arrived in the city in such quick succession that the waves of noise barely stopped rolling.

Mo Farah

• Born in Somalia, Farah spent most of his early life in Djibouti and arrived in London when he was eight to join his father
• Farah's left leg is reportedly more than one inch longer than the right, a cause of several injuries in the past
• Became the first British man to win double gold in the 5,000 and 10,000m at the outdoor European Championships in Barcelona

• Watch Farah win gold

When you looked up at one point and saw the women's 100m was about to start, there was genuine surprise. When a race so good the sixth place athlete runs 10.94 seconds feels something of an anti-climax, you know you've witnessed something altogether rare.
Seven long years ago, when the 2012 Games were awarded to Britain, athletics in the host country could not have been at a lower ebb.
The British team returned from that summer's World Championships in Helsinki with a sorry haul of one gold and two bronze, ending up buried down at 16th in the medal table behind such track and field powerhouses as Estonia, Bahrain and Belarus.
To have predicted then the sort of giddy scenes we witnessed in London on Saturday night would have been to invite scorn and straitjackets.
That it happened to Ennis, Rutherford and Farah had a neat symmetry and happy resonance.
Four years ago in Beijing, all three were enduring the sort of miserable sporting slump that makes you want to sack it off and do something less capricious instead: Rutherford, nowhere and unnoticed in 10th; Farah, gone in the heats; Ennis, watching it all at home in Sheffield with her fractured right foot encased in plaster.
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