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July 26, 2011

Evo fighting tournament streamed live in PlayStation Home

This weekend's Evo fighting game world championship, which takes place at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, will be streamed live in PlayStation Home. The action begins on Friday with Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, continues on Saturday with Marvel Vs Capcom 3, and Sunday sees grand finals for those two games as well as Blazblue Continuum Shift, Tekken 6 and Mortal Kombat. Several streaming sites will be covering the event, but Home viewers will be rewarded with virtual items, including a replica Evo trophy for their personal spaces, as Japan's Daigo Umehara tries to take the Super Street Fighter IV title for a third year in succession. The smart money's certainly on Umehara, but our heart is with Korean player Poongko and his terrifying Seth.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/07/25/watch-the-2011-evo-world-finals-live-in-playstation-home/
PlayStation Blog


July 25, 2011

PlayStation Store launches in Brazil

Sony has launched the PlayStation Store in Brazil, which becomes only the second country in Latin America to receive access to digital content from the PlayStation Network on PS3. Users are able to purchase and download almost 200 pieces of content including PS3, PSP and PSone games. The PlayStation Store currently only supports payments made using credit cards, although Sony says PlayStation Network pre-paid cards “will soon be available at a variety of local retail stores”. Users can view the PlayStation Store in English or fully localised Brazilian Portuguese, with content prices displayed in local currency, Brazilian Real. New content will be added to the digital store on a weekly basis commencing on August 2. In addition, Sony has launched the PlayStation Brazil Blog, which features official news, and the PlayStation Brazil Website, offering product information from the platform holder.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/07/21/playstation-store-playstation-blog-officially-launched-in-brazil/
PlayStation Blog


Unity expands into South Korea

Unity Technologies, provider of the increasingly popular Unity game development platform, has announced plans to launch a subsidiary in South Korea. Led by country manager William Hugo Yang, a former analyst and consultant in the Korean gaming industry, Unity Korea will serve as a localisation and support centre for future Unity expansion in the country. Yang said: "As the Korean development community continues to grow, we will provide our expanding Korean user base fully localised tools and documentation, as well as dedicated technical support." Unity CEO David Helgason added: "Our strong following in the Korean developer community tells us that Unity is the perfect solution for Korea's dynamic games industry, which requires a cross platform solution enabling casual, MMORPG, mobile, PC and console games development on current and emerging platforms." Earlier this month Unity secured $12 million in a Series B financing round, part of which the firm said would be used to help it push into the Asian market.
http://unity3d.com/
Unity Technologies


Avatar Kinect launches today

The Kinect-powered video chat application using Xbox 360 Avatars is available from the Kinect Fun Labs application today. While it will always be a free download for Gold Xbox Live members, Microsoft is giving it away to Silver members as well until September 8. Also coming this week is Kinect Sparkler, which was shown off during Microsoft's E3 presentation last month and will cost 240 Microsoft Points when it is released through Fun Labs on Thursday.
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Kinect-Fun-Labs/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258480811
Microsoft


Cthulhu dev: "It's no wonder Xbox Indie Games sell poorly"

Zeboyd Games calls on Microsoft to better promote quality titles on Xbox 360's indie download service.

A prominent independent developer has told us that Microsoft must do more to promote the best games on Xbox Live Indie Games or risk losing the service's most talented developers to other platforms.

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LA Noire credit cuts "were Rockstar's decision"

While fingers have been pointed at Team Bondi head Brendan McNamara for the omission of over 100 developers from LA Noire's credits, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has been told that the controversial studio boss was not behind the decision. "My understanding is that this isn't a Brendan McNamara / Team Bondi issue; it's a Rockstar issue," he said. "What happened was, a couple of hundred Rockstar employees worked on the game too, and I don't think they wanted 45 minutes of credits at the end of the game. So someone made an executive decision - and I understand it wasn't Brendan's decision - that they had to scale down the number of people who got credits, and he did not have control over that…If your complaint is you got left off the credits, blame Rockstar."
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-222-pach-attack/717740
Gametrailers


Find your future with Edge Jobs

Get your dream job by signing up to Edge Jobs, the game industry's premier recruitment board.

Featuring roles at developers including Guerrilla Games, Crytek, DICE and Sony, and across the world, from Shanghai to San Francisco, Edge Jobs is the ideal place to

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XBLA revenue "up 41 per cent"

Full House Poker grosses $2.7 million as XBLA games sales in the first six months of 2011 total $66.2 million.

Revenue grossed from Xbox Live Arcade games rose 41 per cent in the first six months of the year, according to data released by market research firm Fade.

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Opinion: Waking up to game music

Steven Poole contemplates the challenges faced by today's videogame composers.

Most mornings these days, I am woken up by the main title theme from Metal Gear Solid 2. This has major benefits for a chronically reluctant riser. The beginning of the music, all blippy whooshes and mysterious cello stabs, evokes the feeling that today is going to be yet another exciting action-thriller adventure.

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Opinion: Waking up to game music

Steven Poole contemplates the challenges faced by today's videogame composers.

Most mornings these days, I am woken up by the main title theme from Metal Gear Solid 2. This has major benefits for a chronically reluctant riser. The beginning of the music, all blippy whooshes and mysterious cello stabs, evokes the feeling that today is going to be yet another exciting action-thriller adventure.

read more


Amazon suspends 3DS sales

The online retailer has temporarily removed Nintendo's glasses-free 3D handheld from sale, saying: "While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible." The system is still available from Amazon's UK site.
http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-3DS-Cosmo-Black/dp/B002I096AA
Amazon


Walmart to report game sales data

The US retail chain, the largest public company in the world in terms of revenue, has not reported its videogame sales data for ten years, leaving a gaping hole in the monthly figures provided by the NPD Group. Now Advertising Age reports that the retailer is to begin reporting sales figures for both Walmart and the Sam's Club chain in "a few months."
http://adage.com/article/news/wal-mart-lifts-decade-long-ban-data-sharing/228845/
Advertising Age


Major devs sign up for Mobage

The Japanese mobile social network was rebranded earlier this year ahead of a proposed western push, and now DeNa has enlisted the services of several high-profile developers. The company's Super Creators programme will see Keiji Inafune's Comcept studio release an action game called JJ Rockets; Suda51 of Grasshopper make a No More Heroes spin-off; and Yuji Naka's Prope release a game which, according to Andriasang, will "use positional information and has growth and adventure elements." Yoshifumi Hashimoto of Marvelous Entertainment will release a game based on Harvest Moon, and Noritaka Funamizu, who worked for Capcom on games in the Street Fighter series before setting up his own studio, Crafts & Meister, in 2004, will be working on a game called Nama-ge. The games will all be published by AQ Interactive, with Harvest Moon and No More Heroes the first to be released this winter.
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/07/25/mobage_super_creators/
Andriasang


Call Of Juarez: The Cartel review

Techland's modern day take on the Wild West could be a cult game, but not for the right reasons.

The Call Of Juarez series has always been inclined 
to the dramatic, casting players as tortured souls with unwelcome destinies: brothers torn apart by petty jealousies against the backdrop of the American Civil War, or a preacher hunting down a wrongly accused American Indian. Call Of Juarez: The Cartel is about three law-enforcement officials putting aside 
the inter-departmental bullshit to get the job done.

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The Art Of Computer Game Design now on Kindle

Chris Crawford's classic 1982 text is now available on Kindle. Even today, it's still a fantastic survey of the art, science and philosophy of game design - at $3.44 / £2.14 how can you say no? (OK, it's been freely available as a PDF for ages, but it's nice to have a chance to support the author.)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052QA5WU
Amazon


Zumba Fitness on top again

Workout title makes it six straight weeks at the top despite challenge from Call Of Juarez.

505 Games' Zumba Fitness is once again the UK all-formats number one - the sixth successive week, and the ninth since its release last November that the workout title has occupied top spot.

The game's success shows no signs of slowing: indeed, according to UKIE, its sales rose five per cent last week, ensuring it saw off the challenge of the newly released Call Of Juarez: The Cartel.

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Lodsys widens scope of app lawsuit

The US firm whose legal action against mobile developers prompted the intervention of Apple has widened the scope of its lawsuit over infringement of patents covering in-app purchasing. While one developer - Vietnamese studio Wulven Games - has been dropped from the lawsuit, five more, far-higher profile companies have been added. Rovio is named for Angry Birds, Electronic Arts for The Sims 3, Atari for Atari's Greatest Hits, Square Enix for Big Hit Baseball, and Take-Two for NHL 2K11. Lodsys is clearly not intimidated by big companies: it is also suing the likes of HP, Adidas and The New York Times.
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/lodsys-sues-rovio-over-angry-birds-for.html
Foss Patents


Microsoft: quality justifies XBLA price hike

Portfolio director pleased that Xbox 360's download service bucks "race to zero" trend; remains evasive on microtransaction support.

Microsoft has admitted that the average price of Xbox Live Arcade games is on the rise, with more new games costing 1200 Microsoft Points (MSP) than ever before, but believes the increase is justified by a rise in quality of games available on the service.

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Microsoft: quality justifies XBLA price hike

Portfolio director pleased that Xbox 360's download service bucks "race to zero" trend; remains evasive on microtransaction support.

Microsoft has admitted that the average price of Xbox Live Arcade games is on the rise, with more new games costing 1200 Microsoft Points (MSP) than ever before, but believes the increase is justified by a rise in quality of games available on the service.

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Report: Games coming to Google+

Google has been rumoured to be branching out into games for some time now, but Slash Gear spotted what appears to be the first official confirmation of the search giant's intent. Though it has since been removed, a line on a Google+ help page read: "If you're looking for updates shared from games, check out your Games stream."
http://www.slashgear.com/google-games-stream-confirmed-22166802/
Slash Gear


Epic admits Unreal neglect

Speaking to Industry Gamers, Epic Games president Mike Capps admitted the Unreal franchise had been ignored while the company focused its efforts on the Gears Of War series - and that he personally would like to see Unreal return. "It's been a long time since we shipped an Unreal game, and it's an awfully loved franchise that we hold pretty dear here," he said. "We haven't been giving it the attention it deserves because we've been focusing on Gears Of War and we're still a relatively small company. We've been sort of focused on making new properties, which you've seen with Shadow Complex, BulletStorm and Infinity Blade, but sometimes I think just as a businessman that maybe we should be spending some more time with our existing franchises."
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/unreal-hasnt-gotten-attention-it-deserves-admits-epic/
Industry Gamers


July 23, 2011

News round-up July 18-22

Apple’s unstoppable growth, the Develop conference and Yoshinori Ono in a dress - the key stories from a week in videogames.

Monday

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July 22, 2011

Microsoft sued over Kinect

Patent Arcade reports that Ohio firm Impulse Technology has brought action against Microsoft, alleging that Xbox 360 motion sensor Kinect is in violation of seven of its patents. Six of those cover a "system and method for tracking and assessing movement skills in multidimensional space," with the other describing an "education system challenging a subject's physiologic and kinesthetic systems to surgistically enhance cognitive function." Impulse claims it informed Microsoft in advance of the filing that its patents cover "a wide variety of games where the movement of a player is tracked in three dimensions ... and certain exercise games where the motion of the player is tracked to effect movement of a virtual avatar, and the exertion of the user is monitored, including where the tracking of the player is done by use of a camera." EA, Sega and Konami have also been named in the suit, with Impulse seeking damages, costs, interest and a permanent injunction.
http://www.patentarcade.com/2011/07/new-case-microsoft-sued-over-kinect-and.html
Patent Arcade


Gareth Wilson: the economics of new IP

The former Bizarre Creations design manager gives an economist's view of why new ideas fail to sell.

During his talk, Why Great Games Don't Always Sell, at the Develop conference in Brighton yesterday, Gareth Wilson drew on his time as design manager of Bizarre Creations and his background in economics to give a fascinating assessment of why new IPs are struggling at retail.

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Mick Hocking on 3D and virtual reality

The Worldwide Studios boss tells us why Sony is leading the 3D charge.

In his keynote at this year's Develop conference, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios senior director Mick Hocking looked back at a year in which the third place became the third dimension as 3D games arrived on PlayStation 3. We caught up with him at the event to discuss what 3D really adds to games, the importance of tuning it properly and why virtual reality really will take off this time.

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