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by Published on March 19th, 2012 22:21- Categories:
- Apple iPad
The new iPad has sold 3 million units, Apple has revealed
Update:Apple has now revealed actual sales figures - the new iPad sold 3 million units since launching on March 16.
"The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday."
By comparison, the original iPad took 28 days just to reach 1 million sold.
Original story:
Apple's new iPad could have larger implications for the games business, with aprojected 66 million units sold in 2012, and its launch weekend would appear to be quite strong, according to Apple.
CEO Tim Cook told investors that the new iPad had a "record weekend" and Apple is "thrilled." By exactly what measure the latest tablet had a "record" is not clear at the moment, since the company still hasn't issued any concrete sales data.
Demand for the new iPad clearly has been strong, however, as Apple did sell out of its units online before launching last Friday, and wait times for new buyers are stretching out to as much as two or three weeks. Apple commented that its customer response has been "off the charts."
Apple took the same approach last year with the iPad 2, refusing to release hard numbers following launch, although some analysts have speculated that iPad 2 sold around a million during launch weekend alone.
Apple released the new iPad in 10 countries simultaneously.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rding-to-apple
...by Published on March 19th, 2012 22:19- Categories:
- Apple iPad
Apple's readying for the next console war with its new iPad
Apple
Established in 1976, Apple is a multinational corporation (corporate headquarters based in California)...
www.apple.com
The new iPad looks much like the old iPad, until you turn it on. Then you see the razor-sharp clarity of the 2048 x 1536 screen, gleaming with more resolution than a 1080p HDTV. Don't be lulled into complacency by the beauty of the display. There's an army being created because of this new screen, and it's awaiting the signal to come forth and do battle in the next console war.
The first step in Apple's strategy has begun simply by making the 2048 x 1536 resolution the new standard for the iPad. The first reaction of game developers to this new high-resolution screen is that they will be creating a high-res version of their game as soon as they reasonably can. It's usually not a difficult process; some developers (ones who have been listening to the rumors) have been preparing their original artwork in higher resolution for months. Already, some of the key games like Infinity Blade II have appeared with high-resolution versions. Many more games are on the way; every publisher will want to take advantage of the higher resolution, if for no other reason than to produce gorgeous screen shots of their games. A few months from now, it seems like a safe bet that there will be hundreds of games for the new iPad with high-resolution graphics. By the end of the year, it will be thousands of games.
Why is this significant? Let's look at another piece of Apple's strategy for a clue. If you look on Apple's web site, the new Apple TV is listed as an iPad accessory. The new Apple TV can now handle full 1080p output for movies, and with AirPlay or through a cable your new iPad's output can be routed to your HDTV. All of those games that are soon to be in high-resolution will look excellent on your HDTV. The strategy is coming into focus now, isn't it?
"Gamers have learned to live with and enjoy FPS games on consoles, despite the apparent controller limitations. The same thing may well happen with tablet games"
Put this together with the persistent rumor that Apple is planning to release an 'iTV' - an Apple HDTV with some special features (perhaps Siri integration), which would doubtless include a version of the App Store. Probably at that same time, the stand-alone Apple TV box would gain the App Store as well. (Or maybe a newer version of the Apple TV hardware, if they feel the need to upgrade the processor.) Instantly, thousands of free or low cost games will be available in the living room. All of those games that were upgraded to better than HD resolution for the new iPad will be ready to be delivered right to your new iTV (or Apple TV plus your current HDTV). This neatly gets around the problem that most new hardware platforms have, that of limited software at launch. Usually it takes months to get a significant number of games for a new platform, if not years. Apple will have hundreds or thousands of HD apps when their new platform launches.
Now you can see the soldiers pouring out of Apple's Trojan Horse, assaulting the current rulers of the living room, the console makers. Apple's games will be just as good-looking to the casual eye as console games. No, they won't have the in-depth, immersive gameplay of the best console titles. Not at first, anyway. The limitation that you need to download the iOS games will keep them from becoming 25 gigabyte behemoths. That's just a temporary limitation; some of which can be sidestepped by clever design. For instance, large intro animations and cut scenes often take up gigabytes of space on disc; those can easily be streamed instead of waiting for a download. Massive content can be doled out in chunks if the design is tweaked to allow for that; intelligent downloading in the background can help, too.
The controllers... how can you have good games without great controls? "Playing first-person-shooters just doesn't work on a tablet, you don't get the great control you have on a console!" goes the argument from a hardcore gamer. True, as far as it goes. It's interesting to note that this is the same argument that PC gamers threw at console gamers many years ago. "Consoles may be OK for kiddie games, but real games are played on a PC," went the party line. The FPS game was purely a PC game... until Halo arrived. Even then, it was clear that the combination of a mouse and a keyboard was far superior for controlling an FPS. Microsoft toyed with the idea of allowing Xbox Halo players to play against the (then recently-released) PC version of Halo. They ran some tests, and quickly found that even mediocre Halo PC players mopped up the best Xbox Halo players without breaking a sweat. Plans to cross-connect the PC and console game audiences were quietly shelved.
Yet, here we are, with gamers having learned to live with and enjoy FPS games on consoles, despite the apparent controller limitations. The same thing may well happen with tablet games. The ...by Published on March 19th, 2012 22:16- Categories:
- PC News
"We've been speaking to Blizzard from day one. They are without doubt the kind of company we can help"
Gaikai Inc.
Gaikai's David Perry believes that his game-streaming service can help bring down the high user acquisition costs associated with massively multiplayer online games.
Speaking to GamesIndustry International, Perry said online ads for games such as Blizzard's World of Warcraft are expensive and create too much friction - when ads could be replaced with links to stream a demo of a game directly in the user's browser.
"We believe we can really help get the cost of players down in terms of bringing more people in at a lower cost than publishers pay today," said Perry. "That's one of the reasons we made Gaikai in the first place. I was in the MMO space and thinking 'goodness we have to help solve this' because it's so expensive to get players to come and try your games."
You'll see us doing more and more MMOs, it's a very important part of this puzzle.
David Perry, Gaikai
"We have our favourites that we've been going after," he added. "We've been speaking to Blizzard from day one of the company. They are without doubt the kind of company that we can help because they run Google ads all over the internet to try to drive traffic into their game. And our position is, instead of doing that, why not put the game there, wherever it is, and that person can play the game.
"You're not moving the person and you're not having to pay to move the person around anymore, it's right in front of them. Each MMO company, when they think through their funnel and acquisition costs it just makes sense. "
Gaikai announced a couple of weeks ago that it has struck a deal to stream demos of Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord of the Rings Online, part of an early move into the MMO space for the cloud gaming company.
In press demonstrations the Gaikai team has often used World of Warcraft to demonstrate the service, most notably streaming the fan-favourite to iPad and on social networking site Facebook.
MMOs have been on the agenda for a long time, revealed Perry, but various obstacles have held up bringing online RPGs to the cloud.
"It's taken longer than we thought because of discussions on how to handle patching and all that kind of stuff but we're finally out now.
"You'll see us doing more and more MMOs, it's a very important part of this puzzle. Those games are some of the biggest titles there are, I don't know if you're ever going to download such a big game onto your iPad. There's a problem there. This bridges the gap."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...sts-down-perry
...by Published on March 19th, 2012 22:12- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
The days of the triple-A blockbuster are over, for today the games industry worships a new goal – the quadruple-A title.
Well, that’s if you listen to Microsoft, which in a recent job listing spotted by Gamefront used the term quadruple-A (or AAAA, to be precise) no less than three times.
“Microsoft Studios (Xbox) is looking for a dynamic and seasoned Executive Producer to lead and develop a world-class team who will own the creation and delivery of a AAAA experience that delivers on 1st party goals,” the listing reads.
“The EP will have P&L responsibility for a major Xbox AAAA console title and deliver the end-to-end AAAA title experience (Concept, Prototype, Greenlight, Pre-Production, Production, Release, ongoing revenue streams and a complete franchise plan).”
Those who believe they’re packing the prerequisite number of As will need to be able to commute to Redmond in the US. And some other market experience – all of which can be found in the official ad.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/forge...riences/093003 ...by Published on March 19th, 2012 22:09- Categories:
- Apple News,
- Apple iPad,
- Apple iPhone
World of Warcraft could yet be released on iOS, providing developer Blizzard can find a way of acceptably mapping the MMO’s controls onto touch screens
“You've got to put an interface, what do you do?” WoW senior producer John Lagrave told Eurogamer. “Maybe we'll stumble on the great way to put WOW on the phone - maybe we won't, but we're certainly looking into it.
"We won't do it until we think it's decent. So we certainly look at that, but we just haven't solved it. What we've done with WOW [with the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory app] on mobile devices is very simplistic: view the armoury, you check your auctions – not just on mobile but also on web.
"When we have an epiphany, everyone will know. But for now, no epiphany!"
Lagrave also stated that it’s possible the studio may choose to port a portion of the game – such as a fishing mini-game or pet battles – to iOS, although nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/blizz...ibility/093005 ...by Published on March 19th, 2012 21:41- Categories:
- DCEmu
Game Group has begun the process of shutting down 35 of its 610 UK stores, and is notifying customers in writing that their local store is closing its doors.
A Eurogamer reader sent in a letter confirming the closure of Game in Bracknell, Berkshire, with the company pointing him towards his local Gamestation. Forum posts have also confirmed closures inHull and Wrexham; thanks to Xabismission and GaidenZero in the comments below we can confirm that Gamestation branches in Southport and Southampton are also closing their doors.
The letter confirms that all outstanding pre-orders will be transferred to the customer's local Gamestation, but it appears remaining reward points will not be carried over because Gamestation runs its own loyalty scheme.
Game Group, which announced plans to close 35 stores and the Gameplay website last month, has said it will not release the full list of closures, and is instead notifying customers individually in writing. If you've received a similar letter, let us know in the comments below.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/game...closures-begin ...by Published on March 19th, 2012 21:38- Categories:
- Android News
Online retailer Amazon says its Android download store has hosted "millions" of downloads as the service celebrates its first birthday.
The retailer is running a week-long promotion to celebrate the Amazon Appstore's first year in business, with discounts planned for the likes of Fruit Ninja, Tetris, The Lost City and Plants Vs Zombies.
While Amazon declines to specify just how many downloads it has hosted over the past year, it does confirm that the store's catalogue has grown from 4,000 at launch to 31,000, and that games are the most popular category. Cut The Rope was the most-downloaded paid app, with Angry Birds the most popular free download.
Amazon Appstore director Aaron Rubenson said: "Customers have used the Amazon Appstore to test-drive and buy millions of apps the game for their Kindle Fire and other Android devices in the first year alone. To thank customers for shopping with us, we worked closely with our developers to offer special discounts on some of the most popular apps all week long."
The store launched last year to no little controversy. Apple sued over Amazon's use of the phrase "App Store" - something Microsoftprotested, with Amazon following suit. Then, the International Game Developers Association hit out at the control Amazon exercised over pricing, preventing developers from offering better deals elsewhere.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/mill...tore-turns-one
...by Published on March 19th, 2012 21:32- Categories:
- PC News
Linux 3.3 has been released. The changes include the merge of kernel code from the Android project. There is also support for a new architecture (TI C6X), much improved balancing and the ability to restripe between different RAID profiles in Btrfs, and several network improvements: a virtual switch implementation (Open vSwitch) designed for virtualization scenarios, a faster and more scalable alternative to the 'bonding' driver, a configurable limit to the transmission queue of the network devices to fight bufferbloat, a network priority control group and per-cgroup TCP buffer limits. There are also many small features and new drivers and fixes.Here's the full changelog"
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/0...ux-33-released ...by Published on March 19th, 2012 21:27- Categories:
- PC News
At last count, Activision Blizzard pegged the number of World of Warcraft subscribers at 10.2 million. It takes a massive amount of gear to host all the different game worlds, or realms, as they're referred to. Each realm is hosted on its own server, and in late 2011, Activision Blizzard began auctioning off retired server blades from the days of yore to benefit the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. They sold around 2,000 retired Hewlett-Packard p-Class server blades on eBay and donated 100 percent of the proceeds (minus auction expenses) to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which seeks to advance the treatment and prevention of catastrophic diseases in children. This article has a look at one of those retired server blades
http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/0...rcraft-servers ...by Published on March 19th, 2012 21:24- Categories:
- DCEmu
Epic vice president Mark Rein thinks developers looking at engines for next-generation console launch titles would be best served by sticking to Unreal Engine 3.
In an interview with CVG, Rein said that UE3 can power visuals like those seen in the famed 'Samaritan' demo 'right now', but only on high-end PCs.
"In fact, Unreal Development Kit has all the features that powered Samaritan - every single graphics feature you can do. We could have shown another 30 videos," said Rein.
"We have guys doing stuff on high end PCs that are just outside of the gaming space that are really pushing the envelope there. So that to us is pretty exciting - and you can do that now."
Unreal Engine 4 was shown at GDC to select industry partners, and is expected to get a public unveiling later this year.
“The UE4 stuff is very futuristic. UE3 is really the horse for this year.”
http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...ext-gen-titles ...- Search DCEmu
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Catherine: Full Body’s English translation for the Vita