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North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue has signed a new law offering companies economic incentives for interactive digital media productions.
From 2011, firms will receive a 15 per cent tax credit on compensation and wages for employees involved in digital media production, “or the creation of a platform or engine that runs such digital media”.
Media and entertainment conglomerate Disney is reportedly close to acquiring social games firm Playdom.
That’s according to TechCrunch, while VentureBeat claims the buyout price could be in the region of $600 million.
PSP-3000 was the bestselling system in Japan during the week ended July 18, according to data from Media Create.
Sales of the handheld were up 2,000 units week-over-week, while sales of the second and third placed DSi LL and Wii declined by a similar amount.
Combined DS sales made Nintendo’s platform the clear frontrunner overall, while PS3 narrowed the gap between itself and Wii.
Hardware sales week ended July 11 (previous week):
PSP - 26,786 (24,421)
DSi LL - 25,884 (28,916)
Microsoft has reported a giant leap in full year profits at is Entertainment and Devices (EED) division, which covers the Xbox 360 and Zune platforms as well as PC and online games.
While annual revenue remained flat at $8.058 billion, profit leapt 529 per cent to $679 million in the fiscal year ended June 30. That’s despite full-year Xbox 360 shipments falling eight per cent to 10.3 million units.
The TV lights come on, illuminating the faces of two warriors about to do battle. The excited chatter between fans dies away, and the hundreds in the audience hush spontaneously. At home, tens of thousands more are watching eagerly as their TV screens cut to a very familiar sight: a pixellated map of alien terrain, two small bases and a few worker units standing idle next to a stash of minerals. Yes, it’s StarCraft, Blizzard’s genre-defining realtime strategy game from 1998, but it’s no longer the game we knew.
Crackdown 2 remains at the top of the charts, whilst Dance On Broadway ascends to second.
Crackdown 2 has paralleled its vertiginous gameplay by remaining at the top of the UK all formats chart. It sees off Dance On Broadway which repeats last week's two place ascent putting it in second place. Toy Story 3, the only new top 40 entry, has entered the charts at number five.
UK Sales Chart July 19
Ubisoft has reported sales of €161 million (£136m / $208m) for its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, 2010.
The figure is in line with recently announced forecasts, and represents a 94 per cent increase (or 81 per cent at constant exchange rates) on the €83 million (£70.1m / $107m) generated during the same period in 2009.
Electronic Arts has formally opened its new development studio in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The company had operated a development studio in Bountiful, Utah since 2006. That has now closed, with all staff moving across to the new 20,000 square foot facility. EA Salt Lake Studio houses 100 employees across a range of disciplines, including the Nerf and Littlest Pet Shop development teams.
Fire Emblem: Mystery Of The Emblem and Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road Victory both sold around 136,000 copies in their first four days on sale in Japan to storm the software chart during the week ended July 18.
The former, a remake of the 1994 SNES title Fire Emblem: Monshou No Nazo, was listed atop the chart by both Enterbrain and Media Create, which rounds sales up to the nearest 1,000. The latter is a Wii port of the arcade card battle game Dragon Quest Monsters Battle Road II Legend.
UK chancellor George Osborne has said that the government will review the taxation of intellectual property and the support R&D tax credits provide for innovation later this year.
His comments were made in a letter of response to Dundee West MSP Joe FitzPatrick, who has expressed concern that a failure to implement tax breaks for the UK games industry could see city lose 200 jobs over the next five years.
Social networking site Facebook now has over 500 million active users, according to its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The site celebrated its sixth birthday in February, at which point it had 400 million users. Zuckerberg has said he thinks there’s a good chance that Facebook’s membership will exceed one billion users.
Autodesk has acquired game lighting technology maker Illuminate Labs, adding the Beast middleware solution and Turtle plug-in for Autodesk Maya to its tools line-up.
Autodesk said it plans to develop and sell Illuminate Labs’ technology and support Illuminate Labs customers, which include Sony, Nintendo EA, Square Enix and THQ.
It anticipates that Beast will continue to be licensed as a standalone product. Turtle won’t, but will be incorporated into future offerings.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Square Enix has appointed industry veteran Mike Fischer president and CEO of its US operations.
Fischer has worked in the industry for 20 years. He previously held positions at Namco, Sega and most recently Microsoft as consumer and online marketing officer in the UK. In his new role he’ll oversee operations such as publishing and distribution of Square Enix brands in the States.
Two Worlds publisher SouthPeak has taken legal action against Majesco in a bid to retain publishing rights to the successful My Baby franchise.
Cooking Mama publisher Majesco said in June that it is to publish My Baby 3 & Friends in the US this October. The IP is owned by series developer Nobilis and SouthPeak claims it has the rights to publish the franchise in the States.
EA has revealed a number of new titles at its annual studio showcase media event on its Redwood City campus.
Maxis is developing Darkspore, an online, science-fiction action RPG. Set for release in February 2011, the PC game “is inspired in part by the award-winning creature editor tech of Spore”, according to Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw.
The Hague District Court has convicted 11 retailers of acting unlawfully by trading in DS R4 cards and Wii mod chips.
The retailers unsuccessfully argued that Nintendo was attempting to stifle competition, MCV reports.
“Nintendo protects its intellectual property rights globally and takes action to prevent the distribution of pirated software and devices that allow illegally downloaded software to be played,” the platform holder said in a statement.
A new report from the NPD Group has found that digital downloads represented 48 per cent of total PC game sales in the US last year, accounting for 36 per cent of dollar sales.
According to the firm’s 'PC Games Digital Downloads: Analyst Report', 21.3 million full-games were purchased digitally in the US in 2009, compared to 23.5 million physical copies bought at retail.
Sean Murray Cliffski is a jerk. He’s not really. He’s lovely - the Barry Manilow of games, in fact. I just wanted to get your attention. Apparently, this is the only way to do so.
Microsoft has suggested that Kinect offers greater value for money than Sony’s Move or Nintendo’s Wii.
“We researched it heavily,” Chris Lewis, VP of Microsoft Europe’s Interactive Entertainment Business, told MCV. “As with most things, we do massive amounts of consumer research. Not only did we consult with people like yourselves, but also the analyst community. We think this is great value.
The NPD Group has distributed a list of the bestselling console games in the US marketplace during the first half of 2010.
Red Dead Redemption leads the combined platform sales chart with almost 2.5 million copies shifted, ahead of 2009 releases New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, IGN reports.
Apple has posted an impressive set of financial results for its third quarter ended June 26.
The company generated record third quarter revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, up 78 per cent year-over-year.
It sold 3.47 million Macs during the three month period, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 per cent jump over the third quarter of last year.
Microsoft has said that Xbox 360 sales rocketed 1000 per cent last weekend following the launch of the slim version and price discounts to older models.
The new Xbox 360 costs £199 in the UK, while the Elite now sells for £149 and the Arcade for £119.
Retailers have been offering comment on Microsoft’s and Sony’s upcoming motion control gaming solutions, Kinect and Move.
Martyn Gibbs, managing director at UK-based Game Group, expects Kinect to appeal to gamers across the board.
As the ninth entry in the fabled Dragon Quest series is finally released outside Japan, we talk to two of its principal originators, designer and writer Yuji Horii and composer Koichi Sugiyama (middle and right, above), and Square Enix's producer of Dragon Quest IX Ryutaro Ichimura (right, above).