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August 08, 2011

No London Games Festival this year

Trade association UKIE has confirmed that the annual London Games Festival will be taking the year off, but will return next year with a "bigger and bolder group of events" to coincide with the London Olympics. Kirsty Payne, director of London Games Festival, said: "We really want to make London Games Festival 2012 a great destination for interactive entertainment and create a diverse group of events." UKIE, meanwhile, is to discuss collaborative plans with rival trade association TIGA.

http://ukie.org.uk/

UKIE

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Katsuya Eguchi on Wii U

The Wii Sports designer tells us what Nintendo's next console can offer.

Having joined Nintendo in 1986 as an artist working on promotional material, Katsuya Eguchi quickly graduated to the role of designer. His CV is formidable, including games such as Super Mario World, Star Fox and Wii Sports. Now senior producer of Nintendo EAD, Eguchi has turned his attentions to Battle Mii and Chase Mii, two new games for Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U. We caught up with him to discuss the challenges of creating, and developing for, Nintendo’s next console.

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Katsuya Eguchi on Wii U

The Wii Sports designer tells us what Nintendo's next console can offer.

Having joined Nintendo in 1986 as an artist working on promotional material, Katsuya Eguchi quickly graduated to the role of designer. His CV is formidable, including games such as Super Mario World, Star Fox and Wii Sports. Now senior producer of Nintendo EAD, Eguchi has turned his attentions to Battle Mii and Chase Mii, two new games for Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U. We caught up with him to discuss the challenges of creating, and developing for, Nintendo’s next console.

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

New BBC iPlayer debuts on PS3

The BBC has announced a revised version of its iPlayer TV catch-up service which will launch today for PlayStation 3. The update, which will be rolled out to over 300 other connected TV devices in the coming months, has been redesigned with the TV screen in mind, and offers a more personalised experience. Users can save favourite shows and view search history, with the service also making personalised recommendations. Daniel Danker, general manager of programmes and on demand, said: "With today's announcement, we're transforming iPlayer in its most natural home: right on the living room TV. By creating a product that's as simple and intuitive as flicking through TV channels, the BBC is bringing on-demand television to mainstream audiences across the UK."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

BBC

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Zumba Fitness maintains UK chart dominance

Workout title outsells the rest of the top five combined as it holds top spot for an eighth consecutive week.

Not only is 505 Games' Zumba Fitness the UK all-formats number one for an eighth consecutive week, but it is actually strengthening its hold at the top of the pile: sales increased 16 per cent week on week as the workout title outsold the rest of the top five combined.

0

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Twisted Metal delayed to next year

Eat Sleep Play's demented vehicular shooter was due in October this year, but in a post on the PlayStation Blog David Jaffe confirms it has slipped to early 2012. "We're going to miss our date," he writes. "We're going to be late. A lot of dedicated, supportive, passionate Twisted Metal fans have been waiting for a long time but the truth is: we're just not ready yet. Thing is, you gotta trust me when I tell you that – with this extra time for tuning and polish – the game is going to be so much better than it already is. With Twisted Metal we plan to ship a multiplayer classic."

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/08/05/twisted-metal-release-update/

PlayStation Blog

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

No Steam release for Battlefield 3

It should come as little surprise bearing in mind EA's ongoing dispute with Valve concerning the Steam terms and conditions which has resulted in several EA-published games being removed from the download service, but EA has confirmed that, as things stand, Battlefield 3 will not be available on Steam when it is released in October. "Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content," reads a post on EA's forum. "No other download service has adopted these practices. We hope to work out an agreement where Steam can carry Battlefield 3." In the meantime, of course, EA points users to its Steam rival, Origin.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/7468888.page

EA

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Sony announces PSN Play promotion

In what appears to be its own take on Xbox 360's Summer Of Arcade, Sony has announced Play, a PSN promotion beginning on August 24 with the release of Street Fighter III Third Strike Online Edition. Users can pre-order the four games included in the promotion in exchange for various rewards: in Third Strike's case it's a playable version of final boss Gill, saving players the bother of completing arcade mode with every character. Also included are The Baconing, Bloodrayne: Betrayal and Renegade Ops, with a free copy of Payday: The Heist for those that pre-order all four games in the promotion, for which PlayStation Plus subscribers get an automatic 20 per cent discount.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/08/05/get-more-action-with-playstation-network-play

PlayStation Blog

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Vostu to "vigorously appeal" Zynga ruling

Last week, a Brazilian judge backed Zynga in its lawsuit against Vostu, the social game developer it accused of "blatant copyright infringement." Vostu was ordered to take down four offending games within 48 hours or face a daily fine, but in a statement passed to Industry Gamers it said it would "vigorously appeal" the ruling. "This is a desperate and misguided legal tactic by Zynga, a foreign company with no real Brazilian roots - a company that has failed to secure a foothold in the local marketplace and failed to win consumers," it said. "We are confident the court of appeals will reverse the injunction when presented with Vostu's position and its full story."

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/social-firm-vostu-to-vigorously-appeal-ruling-that-favors-zynga/

Industry Gamers

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Sony plays down slow 3D takeup

Speaking to GI.biz, SCEE senior development manager Simon Benson said the slow uptake in 3D televisions would not cause the company to drop 3D support from its games. "It isn't a huge overhead," he said. "In some cases we've had titles where 3D has been half a per cent of overhead. It can literally be the render programmer spending a couple of weeks manipulating it. So often it's a case of it doesn't even hit the radar of whether we should or shouldn't, it can just be done." Benson, however, believes that 3D TV will take off eventually, pointing to a gradual decrease in prices and saying that, eventually, people won't have a choice. "We're not asking people to fork out twice as much here," he said, "and I think what is probably going to happen over time is it'll be the case like now: if you go out and buy a standard definition TV you probably just wouldn't be able to. I think that's where 3D is going."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-08-04-3d-the-story-so-far-interview?page=1

GI.biz

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

PS3 jailbreak ring raided in South Africa

Egamer reports that the South African police service's commercial crime unit last week raided a property in Parktown, Johannesburg, in what it claims is the first PS3 circumvention arrest in the world. Police found computers, software, USB jailbreak devices, PS3 consoles and hard drives, as well as counterfeit PS2 games, original PS3 games and related documentation. One suspect was arrested and is being held pending an initial hearing set for the coming days.

http://egamer.co.za/2011/08/breaking-worlds-first-playstation-3-raid-takes-place-in-johannesburg/

Egamer

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

August 07, 2011

News round-up August 1-5

PSone emulation, litigation and record breaking achievements - the key stories from a week in the videogame industry.

Monday

Blizzard announces that Diablo III will controversially require an internet connection to play and include a real-world currency auction house.

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

August 05, 2011

Wii U: The future starts here

How Nintendo is tackling the task of reinventing its world-beating Wii.

For Sony and Microsoft, plotting out the directions for their most recent pieces of console hardware may not have been their most difficult work to date. With worldwide console sales of over 86 million units to date, Nintendo’s Wii appeared to signal that success in the modern-day gaming landscape is all about motion control, so why shouldn’t the company’s competitors follow its lead? Despite their distinctions, Kinect and Move thus felt less like pure innovations and more like strategically deployed reactions.

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Bethesda hits Mojang with trademark claim

The Minecraft developer's next project, the digital card and board game Scrolls, was revealed at GDC over five months ago. Evidently Bethesda's lawyers have only just cottoned on: Mojang head Markus "Notch" Persson revealed on Twitter that he has received a letter telling him the name infringes on Bethesda's Elder Scrolls trademark and that consumers will confuse it with the upcoming Skyrim. In a subsequent tweet, Notch said: "I still love Bethesda. This is hopefully just lawyers being lawyers."

http://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/99490084570660864

Twitter

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Evo 2k11 sets new record

Last weekend's Evolution Championship Series - better known as Evo, the world fighting game championships - set a new record for online viewers of a competitive gaming event. More than 2 million tuned in over the course of the weekend on video streaming site Ustream, with many more watching on PlayStation Home. Evo 2k11 was also the biggest fighting game competition of all time, with over 2,400 competitors in attendance and thousands more spectating at the Rio casino in Las Vegas. Follow the source link below for our take on the action, with videos of some of the weekend's best moments.

http://www.next-gen.biz/features/evo-2k11-report

Evo 2k11 report

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

The Friday Game: Variations on a theme

Chris Donlan investigates two browser games that are happy to mix up their ideas.

Two of the browser games doing the rounds of the blogs this week present variations on a theme. Weirdly enough, the theme in question is variations on a theme. How do they stack up?

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

FIFA 11 tops Nordic chart

EA football title makes it five weeks out of six at number one.

EA Sports' FIFA 11 is once again top of the Nordic chart - the fifth time in the last six weeks that it has been the best-selling game across Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.

There's just one new entry this week, EA's The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff. Skate 3 climbs four places to tenth place, but that aside the top 10 looks startlingly similar to last week's.

0

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Minecraft sells 3 million

Mojang's seemingly unstoppable sandbox game passed 2.5 million sales in June, and less than two months later it has reached the three million mark. Studio head Markus "Notch" Persson said in April that the game had grossed £20 million from 1.8 million sales; with Minecraft currently costing €14.95, that total is now somewhere around £35 million. We can't imagine Notch has an awful lot to worry about these days, but at this rate there may be no-one left to buy Minecraft by the time it's officially released in November.

http://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/99421036612820992

Twitter

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

From Dust breaks Ubisoft sales record

The news that Eric Chahi's excellent god game has broken Ubisoft's day-one Xbox Live Arcade sales record by 45 per cent has to be put in context: it doesn't have an awful lot of games on the service, and the publisher declined to specify just how many copies had been sold or even what the previous record-holder was. Vice president of digital publishing Chris Early said: "From Dust is another great example of Ubisoft's ongoing commitment to bring original intellectual properties and brands to the digital space. Ubisoft is a creative company dedicated to delivering innovative and engaging content for all types of players." If you're still on the fence, follow the source link below for our review.

http://www.next-gen.biz/reviews/dust-review

From Dust review

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Bungie releases 20th anniversary video

The Halo developer has now been in business for 20 years, and has marked the occasion with the release of an hour-long documentary, O Brave New World. It charts the company's rise from relative obscurity to the Xbox's most prized asset, and also counts as a farewell of sorts to the Halo series as it moves onto its first project for new parent Activision. That project is codenamed Tiger, with co-founder Jason Jones saying: "One reason that Tiger is so intriguing to so many people is that it's reaching players in a way that we haven't before."

http://www.bungie.net/

Bungie

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

OpenFeint adds features to Android before iOS

It's perhaps no surprise given that OpenFeint faces more competition on iOS - specifically Apple's Game Center - but the company has added to 700 Android games some new social features that won't reach iOS until the autumn. The new additions are aimed at increasing player engagement, and include status updates and message walls. OpenFeint's Ethan Fassett said: "Free-to-play games require an engaged social graph to succeed. With new features like these going every couple of weeks, OpenFeint is rapidly activating its userbase for game developers."

http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/OpenFeint/news.asp?c=32088

Pocket Gamer

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Square Enix profits slump

The Japanese publisher's financial results for the three months ending June 30 show a fall in sales revenue of 24.6 per cent, to ¥24.5 billion (£188.7 million), but profits slumped 61.9 per cent year on year to just ¥690 million (£5.3 million). President Yoichi Wada said: "In a quarter without major title releases, profit and sales were lower compared to the previous year. We are focusing all our efforts on rebuilding the group businesses during the current fiscal year toward generating a substantial earnings recovery from the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013 and beyond."

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/12q1release.pdf

Square Enix

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Used 3DS sales double in Japan

Sales of Nintendo's glasses-free 3D handheld in Japan were halved last week, a predictable consequence of the system's imminent 40 per cent price cut. Andriasang reports that used sales, however, have doubled, as second-hand retailers slashed prices immediately following the announcement. It appears that gamers with an eye for a bargain have opted to purchase a 3DS used at a higher price than a new one will cost in a week's time, in order to get their hands on the 20 classic games offered to early adopters as part of the Ambassador programme.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/08/05/3ds_used_systems/

Andriasang

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Id to release Doom 3 source code

Back in April, Id's Tim Willits told us John Carmack was hoping to release Doom 3's source code when Rage is released, saying: "His philosophy of maintaining that type of connection with the community hasn't changed." Parent company Zenimax has since given its permission for the source code to be released, and Carmack said during his Quakecon keynote last night that, while it still needed a polish and the approval of Id's legal department, it will be made available some time after Rage is released in October.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-05-id-to-release-doom-3-source-code

Eurogamer

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

Moore promoted as EA restructures

The publisher has announced a new structure that will see Frank Gibeau, formerly EA Games president, become president of EA Labels, which contains EA Sports, EA Games, EA Play, and Mass Effect developer BioWare. Barry Cottle is to head up EA Interactive, but the biggest mover is Peter Moore, who has been promoted to chief operating officer. Writing on the company's website, CEO John Riccitiello said: "I think it's a great reflection on EA that we are able to tap so much world-class leadership from within our own ranks. The depth of talent and leadership in this company is inspiring."

http://www.ea.com/news/riccitiello-changing-and-growing

EA

via Edge Magazine - Main feed

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