With their June 17 US launch date announced and deals in place with major publishers, staffers from the OnLive service gave a talk at the Game Developers Conference, to walk game developers through the process of adding a game to the service.
With their June 17 US launch date announced and deals in place with major publishers, staffers from the OnLive service gave a talk at the Game Developers Conference, to walk game developers through the process of adding a game to the service.
Though the lead designer of Disney’s Toontown Online and author of The Art of Game Design: A Book of lenses, Jesse Schell only recently caught the attention of the wider games industry with a talk at DICE 2010 on the increasing influence of game design on reality—but he caught the attention of his audience at the Social and Online Game Summit at GDC 2010 by playing a harmonica.
MSN's Video Player has come out of a successful beta and find the Xbox 360 a natual place to expland to.
Speaking with TechRadar, MSN's Rob Crossen talked about targeting TV audiences next.
"What we're doing here is taking MSN beyond what it has typically been known for," explained Crossen.
Sony has registered “PlayStation Move” in Europe, and is potentially the name of the upcoming motion controller – previously thought to be Arc.
The filing for the name was made in Europe yesterday and could signal that the name “Arc” has been dropped. The company also registered the image as shown above.
Game streaming service OnLive is set launch in the US this June on PC and Mac for a subscription of US$14.95.
When the service launches on June 17 it will have support from Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, THQ and Warner Bros. OnLive's launch titles include Assassin's Creed II, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and Metro 2033.
Jason Scott told me a story that brought back everything I used to love about interactive fiction. In all of his interviews with designers and especially veterans of Infocom – the company that for many, still stands as the pinnacle of text adventures – he learned that people were happy to play the games without beating them. “Mike Dornbrook told me they would get letters from people talking about how much they loved the games, and they realized that with Zork, [the players] never went in the house.
Electronic Arts has announced that it is developing a new EA Sports Active game for multiple platforms, but not Xbox 360.
“Powered by new leg and arm straps with motion sensors, a heart rate monitor to capture intensity, and a new online hub to track and share workout data,” EA Sports Active 2.0 will launch for PS3, Wii, iPhone and iPod touch.
A new report from the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA) states that PC gaming software revenues hit $13.1 billion in 2009, up three per cent year-on-year.
Conducted by market research firm DFC Intelligence on behalf of the PCGA, the report took into account global software sales in all forms, including traditional retail and digital distribution.
Rebellion is said to have axed 20 staff from its Oxford headquarters, while the company appears resigned to closing its Derby studio.
That’s according to a Develop source, although Rebellion has yet to confirm the details of the report.
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has said that the company’s not yet “thinking seriously” about a Wii successor.
“… When the software developer comes forward with an idea that can't be executed on the current platform, that's when we start thinking seriously about the next system,” the executive told Forbes. “We're not there yet, from a Wii perspective.”
A supposed Netflix survey suggests that the US firm is entertaining the possibility of bringing its movie and TV streaming service to Nintendo’s DS handheld.
“How likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies and TV episodes on your Nintendo DS via a Wi-Fi network?” the survey asks (via Kotaku).
Infinity Ward has confirmed that the first downloadable content for Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is set for release on March 30.
The content will be a timed exclusive on Xbox 360, releasing on PS3 and PC “at a -- yet to be announced -- later date”, according to the developer’s community manager, Robert Bowling.
Square Enix has announced that it’s shipped five million copies of Final Fantasy XIII worldwide.
The highly anticipated RPG released on PS3 only in Japan last December. It went on to become the country’s fifth bestselling game of 2009, shifting 1,698,256 copies.
It launched in the west for Xbox 360 and PS3 on March 9, with the first European and North American shipment topping the three million mark.
Worldwide shipments for the series have now topped 96 million, according to Square.
An award-winning interactive fiction designer (Everybody Dies, Roofed) movie director, novelist and activist, Jim Munroe opened his segment of a session on nurturing indie communities by explaining the unusual path he took into game development and the realisations that accompanied it.
Social games on sites like Facebook are gaming’s newest success story. But a panel at GDC argued that veteran designers, whose experience dates back to the birth of personal computers, are some of the most qualified people to design them – and they appreciate the challenge, even though hits like Farmville offer little of the depth they’re used to.
Civilization and Spore designer Soren Johnson explores the separation between the rules of a game and the skin that's applied to them, and argues that a game's meaning always lies in the rules.
As social gaming and the virtual goods market continue to explode, Facebook remains its leader. Just what can possibly challenge it?
With the explosion in social gaming that’s occurred over the past couple of years, The State Of Social Gaming, social games specialist Justin Smith’s overview of the social gaming landscape, could do little but recognise Facebook’s dominance over it, with a userbase of 400 million and counting.
Aided by PowerPoint slides painted by David Hellman (artist of Braid) and backed up by the legacy of World of Goo’s success without a publisher, 2D Boy’s Ron Carmel opened GDC 2010’s Indie Games Summit by arguing that the developer/publisher relationship was a “system that never worked” and offering Indie Fund—a newly founded funding source founded by 2D Boy’s Carmel and Kyle Gabler, along with other independent development luminaries such as Capybara Games Nathan Vella and thatgamecompany’s Kellee Santiago—as a potential solution.
Sony has announced it has acquired high definition movies from six major studios for distribution over the PlayStation Network.
20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution will offer HD films for purchase and rental over the console in the US.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has confirmed that Harmonix is working on Rock Band 3, which is set for a worldwide release “this holiday season”.
The Viacom boss’ revelation came during a talk at the Credit Suisse Group Global Media and Communications Conference this morning. Since then Harmonix staff members have begun tweeting their confirmations of the upcoming release.
An Xbox 360 that served as evidence to impeach a Baltimore Mayor on embezzlement charges in 2008 is now on sale through Ebay.
The US sate’s prosecutor, Robert A. Rohrbaugh, confirmed that the item is indeed disgraced Mayor Sheila Dixon Xbox 360.
"We're hoping to get as much as we can for it," Rohrbaugh said, with the money set to go to a youth charity in the area,
Electronic Arts has announced that Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 will feature The Ryder Cup and will support Sony's new motion controller.
The title's set to come out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and iPhone, with Tiger Woods representing the US team and Rory McIlroy representing Europe.
Do you think Sonic is super?
Do you marvel at Mario?
Are you crazy about Crash?
Love Lara?
Fancy yourself as a games designer? Now is your chance to design, create and market your own computer game with great characters and compelling storylines. Your game only has to meet two criteria for your chance to win some great prizes.
If you are a pupil at a school in Scotland then you can enter your game in one of four categories:
Check out some examples and find out more by watching this video.
You can download the high quality mp4 here, or an iPod mp4 here.
When designing and creating your game, and think about
Use any game creation tool to build your game. For example 2DIY, Scratch, Kodu, Game Maker, SimsCarnival, Greenfoot, Flash, Net Radiant, Unreal Development Kit, Microsoft XNA or any other appropriate platform
Send us the complete game in an email, or a link or on CD/DVD. Make sure you let us know what software you used.
Need some help to get started?
Consolarium Development Officers, Charlie Love and Brian Clark, are available to offer you some assistance. They can be contacted via email (c.love@ltscotland.org.uk and b.clark@LTScotland.org.uk ).
The Final
Successful finalists will be invited to attend the Scottish Learning Festival on the 22nd/23rd September to present their game to a panel of Game Developers and Industry Specialists. A number of great prizes will also be on offer including a tour of the studio at game developers, Denki.
The closing date for all entries is Friday 3rd September 2010
The latest edition of the Consolarium podcast is now available. You can subscribe to the podcast from itunes via this link or listen to it via the embedded player.
Super samba inspired learning in schools!
This edition of the Consolarium podcast is solely dedicated to a project that came to an end just before Christmas 2009. Meldrum PS and Slains PS in Aberdeesnhire had been working with the game Samba de Amigo for the Nintendo Wii. When this game first came out the team at the Consolarium thought that this would have great potential in schools and so it was duly purchased. Here’s what it looks like:
OK, I think that after that clip you may be asking, “How on earth can a game that requires the player to shake out samba rhythms help children learn?” Well it most certainly has. What has been going on?
Samba de Amigo inspires ‘relevant and engaging learning’
The methodology that the Consolarium invariably employs in our approach to game based learning involves the computer game being used as the central ‘contextual hub’ about which learning can be situated. We have used this approach with many of our previous projects and it has proved to be a successful methodology. The teachers involved in this project worked together to create a collaborative story that focused on a rags to riches tale about a favela dwelling samba musician who made it to the big time. Accompanying this came the story of a plane, that was carrying the newly created Samba music superstar, crashing in the Amazon jungle and the associated learning about that. Here is some of the children’s work. Here is a news report of that event:
Some people may still be of the opinion that the idea of game based learning is something that does not sit with what school should be about but we would argue that game based learning, if used appropriately, can excite, challenge and create relevant and appealing contexts for learners. Just look at how writing has been developed here”
If you take the time to listen to the podcast about the Samba de Amigo project then you’ll here us talking to a pupil about his experience. If we could have written a script for a pupil to read out about the benefits of game based learning then what he said (without coaching or prompting we may add) would have been what we would have said. He talks about his learning connecting up, about it being exciting and active and how he will rmember this project. Great stuff from him. Here is a brief clip of some boys actively involved in the project and warming up for their Samba music creation lesson.
Hopefully the podcast and this brief blogpost will give you a flavour of just how good this GBL project was. A fuller account of what was done and how this GBL context impacted on learning will be released in the near future. In the meantime can we just say thanks to all at Meldrum PS and Slains PS for working with us on this project.