Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced a number of new content partners for its PS3 and PSP video on demand service.
Lucasfilm, Cinetic FilmBuff, ContentFilm International, Image Entertainment, MPI Media Group and New Video have all signed up to provide content.
New offerings include films The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Powder Blue and Management, and TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Leverage.
The 8bit era is usually viewed with dewy-eyed affection, but as EvilRedEye discusses, it also produced some games that are probably best left there. Reacting to Arkedo’s Jump, made for Xbox Indie Games, he questions its lack of a save system – for if you run out of lives, you have to start over from level one. Making a game hard as a nod to nostalgia doesn’t seem to be the right approach.
China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has terminated NetEase's application seeking approval to operate Blizzard’s World Of Warcraft.
The government agency said that NetEase should suspend charging users to play the game and not allow new account registrations.
The UK’s first rehab centre for gaming addiction has opened in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
Broadway Lodge treats around 400 patients annually for issues including, drink, drug and gambling addiction, and has adapted its Minnesota Method Twelve-Step abstinence programme for gamers.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has voiced his interest in the business model Amazon has adopted for its Kindle electronic reader, which offers consumers a free connection to a 3G mobile phone network to download new books.
The service doesn't have a monthly fee as it’s included in the device's upfront cost.
While the UK games industry trade body TIGA continues to lobby hard for videogame tax relief, a government-backed organisation is actively courting the development community. Originally established in 2004 and funded by the Department of Business Innovation and Skills, the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) has a remit to promote innovation within UK industry.
SCE Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has said that it is a challenge trying to balance software support for multiple platforms, acknowledging that Sony’s previously PS3-heavy focus lead to a dearth of PSP software.
Italian developer Twelve Interactive has announced that it has reached “an amicable compromise” with UK distribution firm OG International over the rights to the CID The Dummy franchise.
PSPgo sold 28,275 units during its first day of availability in Japan, according to data from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain.
The new Sony handheld went on sale in the country yesterday, a month after launching in Europe and the US.
Nintendo has revealed global lifetime sales figures for first party Wii and DS titles that shifted over a million copies between April and September.
Topping the list is Wii Sports with over 50 million copies sold, including those bundled with hardware.
Wii Play stands at 24.4 million lifetime sales, Wii Fit at 22.5 million and Mario Kart Wii at 18.4 million.
Football Manager 2010 has debuted atop the UK all formats chart during the week ended October 31.
The latest edition to the football franchise held off competition from Nintendo’s Wii Fit Plus, which entered in second place.
Sony’s games division has reportedly suffered almost $5 billion in losses since the company launched the PS3 in November 2006.
According to VG247, figures from Sony’s investor relations website show that total PlayStation division losses since the console’s release stand at $4.7 billion.
Nokia has announced plans to phase out the N-Gage platform as it moves its mobile games services under the Ovi umbrella.
“We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform," the company said. "N-Gage games can be purchased until the end of September 2010… The Ovi Store will be the new central place for all the mobile games that Nokia and other publishers offer from this point forward.”
US movie streaming service Netflix will be made available on Wii in the near future, according to StreamingMedia’s Dan Rayburn.
The analyst said in a blog post that he recently received a series of photos showing that the service is in the “testing stages” for Nintendo’s console. Rayburn added that he had confirmed the legitimacy of the images with “someone involved in the project”.
Sky's director of On Demand has said that the company would be interested in bringing Sky Player, its online TV offering, to PS3.
"I can talk generally about our desire to extend to any device that supports a good quality experience to project the content,” Griff Parry told VideoGamer. “The PS3 is clearly a device where that is possible. And so it may very well happen in the future.”
Format: 360, PS2, PS3 (version tested), Wii
Release: Out now
Publisher: Activision
Developer: FreeStyleGames
DSi comfortably topped Japanese software sales during the week ended October 25.
Weekly sales of Nintendo’s latest handheld fell by around 7,000 units, but it still managed to outsell Sony’s PSP by over 9,000.
PSP and PS3 sales were roughly flat, while Wii slipped further behind the pair as sales declined by 4,000 units.
DS Lite leaped ahead of Xbox 360 with a 4,000 unit jump in sales. Microsoft’s console also saw a rise in weekly sales, while PS2 recorded a marginal decline.
DSi comfortably topped Japanese software sales during the week ended October 25.
Weekly sales of Nintendo’s latest handheld fell by around 7,000 units, but it still managed to outsell Sony’s PSP by over 9,000.
PSP and PS3 sales were roughly flat, while Wii slipped further behind the pair as sales declined by 4,000 units.
DS Lite leaped ahead of Xbox 360 with a 4,000 unit jump in sales. Microsoft’s console also saw a rise in weekly sales, while PS2 recorded a marginal decline.
Capcom has reported impressive year-on-year sales and profit growth for the first half of the business year ended September 30, 2009.
Net sales increased 24.5 per cent to 38.9 billion yen ($426.5m/£258.2m), while profits jumped 58.4 per cent to 2.97 billion yen ($32.6m/£19.7m).
Format: PC
Developer: ?
"The strangest part about this game is that no-one is really sure where it came from," says Jaybird, on his Crazygame.exe fan-page. "It just seems to circle through people by word of mouth and sending it from friend to friends via AIM."
Fallout 3 and developer Jagex have taken home two of the most prized awards at the 27th Annual Golden Joystick Awards, with help from a massive 1,223,646 votes cast by the public.
Bethesda's Fallout 3 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC was named Ultimate Game Of The Year ahead of Call Of Duty World At War, Left 4 Dead, Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Scotland’s development community backed trade association TIGA’s demand for government tax relief during a forum held at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said that a lack of strong software was behind stalling Wii sales in the first half of the company's business year, but that he sees the console’s “momentum returning” following September’s price cut.
The patform holder sold 5.75 million Wii units in the six months ended September 30, down from ten million during the same period last year.
Sony's Networked Services Division, which houses the company’s PlayStation and VAIO businesses, recorded falling sales and increased losses in the second quarter ended September 30.
Sales decreased 24.2 per cent year-on-year to 352.6 billion yen ($3.9b/£2.3b), while the division made an operating loss of 58.8 billion yen ($646m/£390m), a deterioration of 18.2 billion ($200m/£121m) compared to the second quarter of the previous fiscal year.
Held during the 80th anniversary of the stock market crash —ironically, in the Toronto stock exchange building, one of the worldwide markets that weathered the crash — this year’s edition of the GameOn Finance conference concentrated heavily on the topic of funding game production in a similarly uncertain economic climate. Most commentators dwelt on the changes sweeping the industry, speculating that new business models fuelled by the success of Facebook games, iPhone and episodic content are likely to change the face of it entirely.