Through the rise of casual and then social gaming, the slow demise of the traditional retail model, and the explosion of the high-end smartphone market, the videogame industry is in a state of flux. Which company, then, is the dominant force right now? Is it Nintendo? Apple? Activision? Zynga? In fact, it might be none of them. Arguably, it is a company set up in 1990 in Cambridge, a company that many consumers have never heard of.
Is VVVVVV a good name for a game? It certainly was, suggests James Dilks for Kill Screen, saying that it captures a claim for uniqueness, standing out over a raft of other indie game names. We'd be inclined to agree, though we've also always slightly resented it, for fear we haven't typed the right number of Vs.
Apple has removed Phone Story, a game satirising the unethical processes in the manufacture of gadgets like the iPhone, from the App Store.
Codemasters has confirmed that it plans to close its internal Guildford Studio as part of a restructuring drive that will see headcount increased at its Warwickshire and Birmingham studios.
You wait ages for a novel narrative conceit and then two come along at once. Or, to be more precise, the same one comes along twice. Your progress through The Gunstringer, Twisted Pixel’s cowboy-themed Kinect shooter, is constantly accompanied by the laconic, timeworn tones of a storyteller who fulfils much the same role as Bastion’s narrator.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has again dismissed calls for the company to move into the smartphone market, saying that doing so would mean "Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo."
Sony's PSP successor, PlayStation Vita, will be released in Japan on December 17.
The company made the announcement at its Tokyo Game Show conference, and also confirmed pricing. The WiFi-only model will retail for ¥24,980 (£205.32), with the 3G model costing ¥29,980 (£246.42).
Microsoft has announced that Windows 8 will support Xbox Live, a move that presumably signals plans to phase out the failed Games for Windows Live initiative.
The news came out of the company’s developer-focused Build conference in California today, where attendees were given a detailed preview of Microsoft’s latest operating system.
Rise Of Nightmares is Sega’s test to see if there’s an audience for violent, subversive firstperson hacking and slashing using Kinect. There’s a haunted forest, a haunted castle and more walking dead than you can bludgeon with an iron pipe; it’s just a shame the act of bludgeoning is so tiresome.
On a mission to rescue a damsel in distress, you take on the role of everyman Josh – victim of a derailed train in the Romanian countryside and, fortunately, a dab hand with anything sharp and heavy.
Despite a number of high profile new game announcements and public unveiling of the controversial Slide Pad expansion which adds a second analogue stick, Nintendo's shares have dropped five per cent following its pre-TGS conference.