A new study conducted by EEDAR and the Southern Methodist University (SMU) has found that there’s a causal link between professional review scores and game sales.
Contrary to rumours, PS3 users hoping to sign up to new paid TV service Hulu Plus won’t require a PlayStation Plus subscription.
“With the launch of Hulu Plus there have been many rumours started and we are trying our best to remedy the situation,” read an email from a Hulu customer support agent.
Microsoft will launch a new Xbox Live Arcade interface in the US on July 14 in an attempt to make it easier to browse through the 250 games available on the service.
The Destination Arcade browser will allow users to sort titles by price, community rating and other unspecified criteria. Described as “another way to browse content on Xbox live Arcade”, it appears set to be made available alongside the existing XBLA interface, rather than replacing it.
SCE is hard at work on “future platform related activities”, and Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has said that first-party game makes will play an important role in the development of new PlayStation consoles.
“When Ken Kutaragi moved on and Kaz Harai became the president of SCE, the first thing Kaz said was, ‘get World Wide Studios in on hardware development’,” the executive told Develop.
Highlights from our community-written blogs, including the App Store's lack of quality control, 'hardcore' Peggle and the results of bedroom coding.
64 per cent of consumers prefer buying games on physical discs over digital copies, according to a survey of over 1,000 people by research firm Ipsos MediaCT.
63 per cent said they preferred physical newspapers to digital ones, but the numbers were lower for music and film, with 55 per cent and 49 per cent of those polled preferring to buy digitally, MCV reports.
Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada believes game companies’ globalisation efforts have been a failure to date.
Format: 360
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Ruffian Games
Release: Out now
Screenshot gallery
The first part of NASA’s space MMOG, Astronaut: Moon, Mars And Beyond will be launched today on Steam for free.
Moonbase Alpha has been created by Virtual Heroes, the team responsible for America’s Army, and sets out to provide a “persistent, synthetic environment supporting education as a laboratory, a massive visualization tool and collaborative workspace while simultaneously drawing users into a challenging, game-play immersion”. In short, learning through play.
Leading games industry figures are concerned that the US Supreme Court has chosen to review a California law proposing restrictions on the sale or rental of violent games.
The Supreme Court said in April that it will review the law during its next term beginning this October, despite the motion being struck down as unconstitutional in a lower court ruling.
Steam, and the burgeoning online presence of consoles, has proven that there is a strong market for games distributed only as digital media. Now companies like OnLive are offering a way to play games which circumvents even the download - streaming the title directly from their own servers, to subscribers. But where does the ownership of a game lie if it can only be played in conjunction with a subscription? Moreover, will players continue to invest time in a game that they must keep paying to play?
Sony Japan has revealed the PS3 Move launch line-up, including software, bundles and pricing.
Sony will launch a “Classic White” PS3 and increase storage capacity on a number of PS3 models later this month in Japan.
The black PS3 will be available with 160GB and 320GB hard drives, with the 160GB version also available in white. The higher capacity consoles and new colour will launch on July 29 at recommended retail prices of 29,980 yen (£225) and 34,980 yen (£262) respectively, alongside white versions of the DualShock 3 controller and vertical stand for PS3.
Since at least Final Fantasy VII, an argument has been abroad that ‘emotional’ content is what signals (or will signal) videogames’ ‘maturity’. But this idea, lately rampant in the mainstream coverage of Chubby Drizzle, often conflates two very different processes – depicting emotion (in the game’s ‘characters’) versus evoking emotion (in the player).
News Corporation has hired digital media veteran Sean Ryan to set up and manage the company’s new games unit.
A former CEO of social network service Meez and blogging platform LiveJournal, Ryan is now News Corp. Digital’s executive vice president and general manager, according to PaidContent.
Rock Band 3 lead designer Dan Teasdale has left Harmonix to do more hands on work at The Maw and 'Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel.
Mythic Entertainment, also previously named EA Mythic, is now called Bioware Mythic.
The news was revealed by Warhammer Online producer Carrie Gouskos in a letter to the game's community, in which she said that the company is to take over management of the title in Europe from publisher GOA, as it did with Dark Age Of Camelot in February.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick would like to break the walled gardens of online console services like Xbox Live.
The executive told the Financial Times he’s frustrated by existing business models that see companies like Microsoft benefiting most from the success of online third party content, such as that released for Activision’s Call of Duty series.
Format: 360, PC, PS3
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Raven Software
Release: Out now
Screenshot gallery
Independent pressure group Gamers’ Voice is working with TIGA on the trade association’s efforts to persuade the UK’s coalition government to introduce games tax relief.
Formed by Tom Watson MP in November 2009 , Gamers’ Voice is a Facebook group with over 17,000 members. It’s currently emailing MPs asking them to show support for games tax relief by signing a new Early Day Motion (EDM) tabled by Stewart Hosie MP.
Lionhead Studios boss Peter Molyneux will demo Fable III at next week’s Develop conference in Brighton.
He’ll discuss how the game’s development team has married story, cast and simulation. His talk will culminate in the exclusive UK demo of the game, showing how his theory works in practice.
The NPD Group has released a top 20 software sales chart for May, following the publication of the top ten last Friday.
The chart shows that the Xbox 360 version of Capcom's Lost Planet 2 debuted at 11, while Sony's PS3-exclusive ModNation Racers ranked at 18, Gamasutra reports.
While software sales have fallen during 2010, the quality of games released is up year-on-year, according to a new report from review aggregator Metacritic.
US software sales to the end of May were down six per cent year-on-year, but Metacritic says the average game Metascore has been higher in 2010 than during the first six months of 2009, meaning titles have been receiving better reviews.
Warner’s Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 held the top spot on the UK all formats chart during the week ended July 3, according to data from GfK Chart-Track.
Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were non-movers in second and third respectively, ahead of the week’s highest new entry, EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 in fourth.
Ubisoft’s Dance On Broadway was new at six, while City Interactive’s Sniper: Ghost Warrior debuted in tenth place.
UK games industry trade association TIGA has picked up two awards at the annual Trade Association Forum Best Practice Awards in London.
TIGA was awarded ‘The Member Recruitment Award’ and the top award ‘Trade Association of the Year 2010’. It also received a commendation for its ‘Sector Representation’ work.