Sony has confirmed plans to introduce an online pass system, which will see new copies of select firstparty games ship with a single-use code required to access their full online feature set.
After rumours of a PSN Pass surfaced earlier this week, the company said in a statement released today: “We are always evaluating new programs for our online offering, and starting with Resistance 3 this September, we will be instituting a network pass program for PS3 games with online capabilities.
Microsoft Japan today outlined its business strategy for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, which includes changes to the way it will run its Xbox business.
Its console operations will now be handled by the newly formed Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB). Previously, the Xbox business was part of the company’s Home & Entertainment division, headed up by Takashi Sensui, who will remain in charge of games as general manager of the IEB.
When we saw that name, we certainly did a winci. Fortunately daWindci is far superior to its punning: this is a balloon-em-up from the highest level of the atmosphere, casting you as a wind-controlling god guiding a hot air balloon through gorgeous landscapes.
Kami Retro's a smart and stylish platformer that belies its retro bells and whistles. The aesthetic is the familiar brightly coloured blocks n' bloops so popular on the App Store, with all the obligatory cap-doffing to the Mushroom Kingdom, but Kami Retro's style of bouncing 3D pixels is all its own.
It would be a gross exaggeration to call Sumo Digital the new Sega. Yet its devoted curatorship of Sega's icons and history has captured some of the stardust: these days, Sonic And Sega All-Stars Racing is the closest thing we'll get to old Sega.
And that's no faint praise: anyone who looks sniffily at this because of its obvious inspiration is missing a gem. Players of the console versions will find little new in terms of content (indeed, there are notable omissions like Ulala), but, squeezed-down, the racing doesn't miss a beat.
A new gaming crowdfunding website has launched, which the firm behind it says helps developers and fans "challenge the traditional games industry".
GamesPlant, launched last month by German firm Galahad Capital Management, lets supporters donate between €1 and €1500 using PayPal to a project that catches their eye, with rewards ranging from "creative bonuses" to a cut of the final game's revenues.
Among the predictions to emerge and bashfully dissipate during the last two decades was that games would be dominated by procedural generation. That their entire worlds, characters, creatures, nemeses, plots and quests could be conjured into existence through a unique weave of ones and zeros spun by carefully crafted algorithms.
Nintendo is adopting “a much more flexible” online system for Wii U that will allow “the best approaches by independent publishers to come to bear”.
That's according to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, who told Forbes the upcoming console will offer “an extremely robust online experience”.
Consumers will spend around $74 billion on gaming in 2011, up ten per cent from the $67 billion spent last year, according to technology analyst firm Gartner.
Software sales are expected to account for $44.7 billion of 2011’s total, while hardware will account for $17.8 billion and online gaming for $11.9 billion.
By 2015, the total spend on gaming worldwide is forecast to have swollen to $112 billion, with software accounting for $56.5 billion of the total, hardware for $27.4 billion, and the fastest growing sector, online gaming, for $28.3 billion.