Super Street Fighter IV debuts in fighting form while shooters rule the most popular games chart. But it's EA's FIFA World Cup 2010, another debut in the UK's top 10 selling games this week, that's commanding the greatest amount of praise, with it comprising 57 per cent of its total.
UK Sales Chart May 4
Sony says it’s working to solve wallet funding and DLC issues being experienced by European PlayStation Network users.
Numerous PS3 owners are reporting an inability to top up their accounts with funds via credit/debit cards in order to purchase content.
4mm Games has opened a new London office and appointed industry veteran Geoff Heath to its advisory board.
Established last year by Rockstar co-founders Jamie King and Gary Foreman, the New York-based company is currently co-developing Def Jam Rapstar for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, which it bills as "the first true interactive Hip Hop music game experience for consoles".
I’m at the start of Alan Wake, and I have a problem to solve. The wife and I have arrived at an island in the middle of a lake. It looks idyllic – although I know, thanks to the forehead-slapping foreshadowing, that it ain’t – but when we get there, we find that the power’s out. It falls on me to figure out how to get it running and as I’m strolling around the island, checking out the scenery, and maybe poking around for collectible thermoses, the game gets impatient.
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| Kodu Game Lab |
Brian Clark and I have just returned from two days of training Primary and Secondary teachers in Ayrshire in the use of this software. The Consolarium training was also supported by Andrew Sithers, Academic Evangelist for Microsoft and the lead person for Kodu Game Lab in the UK.
This training is stage one in the first UK pilot of Kodu in the classroom. Our pilot is aimed at the transition between P7 and S1. Learners will gain an experience of Kodu in the primary and then transfer these skills to their first year in secondary. The rich collection of tools in Kodu will empower learners to create any world, play any game style and tell any story.
You can try Kodu yourself by downloading it from http://fuse.microsoft.com/kodu.html (click the Try Kodu Now button).
Australian ratings board OFLC has posted a rating for a mystery 'Project Red' title from EA.
As Joystiq notes, the Project Red title could be linked to EA and Starbreeze's yet-to-be-revealed game, codenamed Project Redlime, which is widely speculated to be a new Syndicate game.
Bungie has said that it will continue to support Halo Reach post-release, despite the developer shifting focus on to developing a new multiplatform IP in partnership with Activision.
SCEA's vice president of operations, Glenn Nash, has said that PlayStation consoles are built to last, and it's their reliability which has allowed Sony to offer the new extended warrantee 'Protection Plan' service announced today.
Sony has launched a new PlayStation Protection Plan service, allowing PSP and PS3 owners to pay for extended warrantee coverage for their consoles.
Extensions of either one or two years are offered for both consoles, and for the PSP Sony's offering an additional accidental damage plan that covers things like users dropping their handhelds.
Nintendo has officially confirmed that black Wii consoles will go on sale in US on May 9 for $199.99.
It has also boosted the baseline package for Wii (both white and black bundles) with the addition of one Wii MotionPlus peripheral and Wii Sports Resort. These come in addition to the Wii Remote and Nunchuk expansion, and original Wii Sports game that previously came with the console.
Toy Story 3 on PS3 will be one of the first games to feature compatiblity with the PS3 motion controller, Move, producer John Day has confirmed via the PS Blog.
The game, launching on June 15, will receive downloadable mini games later this year that will be played using Sony's fancy glowing motion control device on PS3.
Day didn't reveal any further details, but he did confirm that the PS3 version will also exclusively contain Zurg, Buzz Lightyear's purple nemesis, as a playable character.
Xbox Live Arcade is to get a new 2D Castlevania game titled Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, according a JoyStiq "source".
The title 'Harmony of Despair' first turned up in otherwise detail-lacking European trademark documents, but apparently it's a Castlevania game on its way to XBLA, and will feature six-player gameplay.
Michael Pachter has given his verdict on the Xbox 360 Slim rumours - it's coming, it'll probably include Natal but it's base price won't be any less than the current model.
Four more Infinity Ward designers have left the Activision studio to join new EA-backed developer Respawn, according to the latest reports.
According to their Linkedin profiles (via G4), IW designers Preston Glenn, Zied Rieke, Chad Genier and Sean Slayback have all skipped over to the new developer, Respawn, which was set up by the former IW bosses Vince Zampella and Jason West after their sacking from the Activision studio.
Creative Director for Red Steel 2, Jason Vandenberghe has confirmed that the team has launched straight into development on its next game, among rumours of Red Steel 3 being on the way.
Vandenberghe posted on his Facebook feed: "What an incredibly overloaded couple of weeks. You know what happens when you finish a video game? You start working on another one, that's what," according to The Lost Gamer. He didn't give any clues as to what the new project could be.
MTV and Harmonix parent company Viacom has blamed a decline in worldwide ancillary revenues on slow Rock Band sales during the quarter ended March 31, 2010.
“Worldwide ancillary revenues declined seven per cent, reflecting lower sales of Rock Band music videogames,” said Thomas Dooley, the firm’s chief financial officer.
Format: DS
Release: Out now
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Hit nail! Poke dog! Stomp badger! In WarioWare you’re never more than a verb away from a finished concept, making it the perfect candidate for a user-generated outing. Only a few seconds long, the microgame is an ideal entry point for budding developers. An idea is formed, the art assets drawn and the code written in under an hour. A quick chuckle as you play, and on to the next.
Don Foster, Liberal Democrat shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport, has said that his party is fully supportive of tax breaks for the UK games industry.
"Liberal Democrats support the introduction of a games tax relief,” he told games industry trade body Tiga. “Following consultation on the details, we would implement the relief as soon as possible."
Capcom shipped one million copies of Super Street Fighter IV to retail for the game’s launch this week.
Essentially a director’s cut of last year’s excellent Street Fighter IV, SSFIV features new characters, combos and online modes, among other features. The game launched ealier this week in Japan and America, and today in Europe.
Activision has revealed the name and launch date of the next entry in its blockbuster Call Of Duty series.
Releasing worldwide on November 9, the seventh core entry in the franchise will be called Call Of Duty: Black Ops. It’s being built by COD 3 and COD: World At War developer Treyarch.
Sales of the PSP and DS platforms were evenly matched in Japan during the week ended April 25.
PSP-3000 and PSPgo sold 30,302 units combined, narrowly edging total DS sales of 30,105 units.
PSP-3000 and PS3 were the only consoles to record a - small - rise in weekly sales, and they again took the top two spots on the individual sales chart.
Weekly hardware sales totals (previous week):
PSP - 28,758 (28,635)
PS3 – 25,629 (25,590)
Wii - 23,691 (24,344)
DSi LL - 16,676 (17,146)
New retail copies of Remedy’s psychological action thriller Alan Wake will include a code to download the game’s first add-on pack.
Publisher Microsoft’s move to add digital value to the package has likely been designed to deter piracy and second hand game sales. EA and Sony have adopted a similar approach with a number of recent releases.
All Points Bulletin (APB) has been given a July 2 UK launch date.
The cops and robbers PC MMO, which Dundee-based developer Realtime Worlds describes as a persistent online action game, will release on June 29 in the US and on July 1 in Europe.
Available from traditional retail outlets or as a digital download for £34.99, it will include 50 hours of gameplay and unlimited time in APB's social districts customising, socialising and trading on the marketplace.
Valve has confirmed that the Mac version of digital distribution platform Steam will launch on May 12.
The company revealed last month that it would be bringing the service and its Source gaming engine to the platform, later calling the move “the biggest event in Steam's history”.
