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.
Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima says that the MotionScan performance capture technology used in LA Noire is "a huge element that from now on will change the direction of adventure games" - but says he will not be using it in his next game.
Young men tend to behave in a fairly predictable fashion. It’s easy to imagine what will happen if you take a group of 30 or 40 men in their teens and twenties, give them axes and beer, and make them row a longship out to sea for a few weeks in order to make a living. There will be a lot of pent-up aggression. There will be a lot of fart jokes. When they finally reach land, they will cut loose – and if there’s no strict rule of enforceable law where they come ashore, watch out.
OnLive CEO Steve Perlman has unveiled new wireless technology capable of sub-millisecond latency and ranges which reach beyond the curvature of the Earth. The potential ramifications of such technology are huge, not least for cloud gaming.
OnLive CEO Steve Perlman has unveiled new wireless technology capable of sub-millisecond latency and ranges which reach beyond the curvature of the Earth. The potential ramifications of such technology are huge, not least for cloud gaming.