Troubled publisher THQ has announced that its key RTS series – Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – has topped the PC charts in significant markets across the world.
According to data compiled by both NPD and GfK, Relic’s acclaimed title has taken to the top of the PC charts in the UK, North America, Australia, Germany, France and Spain.
“We have built Dawn of War into a premier PC gaming franchise based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe,” says Brian Farrell, THQ CEO.
Gamestop shares fell over 13 percent on Thursday following Amazon’s announcement that it will enter the games trade market.
The North American retail giant saw trading end the day prior at $27.3, yet on Thursday its shares fell as low as $22.42 while rival retail outlet Amazon announced it was going to compete in the pre-owned market.
The lure of the lucrative used games business was too strong for leading online retailer Amazon to ignore, as the company unveiled this week a program that will have customers exchanging their old games for Amazon.com store credit, a business model that that can result in fat margins if executed precisely.
GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo isn't concerned about online retailer Amazon's venture into the used videogame trade-in business--not in the least.
"I give the probability of this working at zero," DeMatteo told Edge in a Thursday phone interview.
Amazon this week introduced a program in which consumers can ship, for free, games in good condition and receive an Amazon gift card in an amount dependent on predetermined trade-in values.
Ex-Midway Games majority shareholder Sumner Redstone and his daughter, former Midway chair Shari Redstone, have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Massachusetts amidst questions regarding the sale of the Chicago-based games publisher to investor Mark Thomas.
The PS3 and PSP have passed a new sales milestone in the U.K.
Sony Computer Entertainment U.K. head Ray Maguire tells trade paper MCV that the home and handheld consoles have sold over 2 million and 3 million units in the region, respectively.
The announcement comes after the late February release of the highly-anticipated PS3 exclusive first-person shooter, Killzone 2.
Apple Corps, MTV Games and Harmonix have announced release details for their upcoming Beatles-based music game.
The title is officially titled The Beatles: Rock Band, and will release simultaneously on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other territories on September 9 this year. It's the first time that music from The Beatles will be in a videogame.
Publishers and developers irked with the secondhand market will have another outlet to contend with, and it's not some mom and pop store.
Online retailer Amazon.com is now selling used games, and accepting trade-ins from customers. The company launched a beta for the service this week.
The online casual games market is growing rapidly, as anyone involved with the industry will attest.
Opportunities for advertising and cross-promotion with correlated media products are emerging as the bulk of the communications industry is consolidated on the Internet. There is such a high volume of entertainment choices on the Internet that, for a casual games portal, it takes a lot of careful planning and execution to stand out from the crowd.
A new study claims that 69 percent of children want parents to be more involved in checking the games they play.
The survey, carried out as part of Microsoft’s second annual Play Smart, Play Safe study, shows that half of young gamers believe their parents are not concerned enough with the games they play.
Of the young people surveyed, 47 percent said that their parents “never” get involved in their gaming pursuits, or do not do so enough.
The following article is an abridged version taken from the latest issue of Edge. A more thorough report on the game can be found in issue 199, which is on sale now. Subscribe (America).
Dark Void
PC/PS3/XBox 360
Capcom
Airtight Studios
US Release: TBA
UK Release: TBA
Origin: US
American electronics retail specialist Best Buy has delayed the launch of its first UK Store until next year.
Last year the Carphone Warehouse sold 50 percent of its retail business to Best Buy for some £1.1 billion, as both groups embarked on a joint venture to spread the American retailer’s presence into the UK.
UK MP Keith Vaz spoke out against violent videogame content yesterday during Prime Minister’s Questions.
Opening the session, the Labour MP submitted his question to his party’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, citing the recent BBFC-funded survey on violent game content.
Hello, I’m Kim Aplin. I’ve been working in the Consolarium with Derek Robertson since January. I was interested to read in The Times today that Scottish children are falling behind in science because they see science as ‘uncool’. Well this certainly was not the case at Meldrum School last week where children had been investigating friction and gravity and excited by their learning!…..
Kororinpa at Meldrum School: The project is now in full swing in P5. I was very pleased to see how enthusiastic and excited the children and their teacher, Hazel Sim, were about their whole learning experience. The work that had been done with the game involved the investigation of friction and the designing of the class marble run. The game had been used to analyze what they could incorporate into their designs for their marble runs. The class have worked together to create a wall mounted run that they are immensely proud of.
There had been a thorough investigation into friction with a consideration of where friction is helpful and unhelpful. One of the children suggested that making rubbings of the soles of shoes would allow them to study the patterns closely and then they could work out how the patterns related to friction and whether a shoe was ‘fit for purpose’ – an investigation suggested by the children with a real objective!
Hazel reported that the project has resulted in an excellent ethos in the classroom. The children are hooked into the learning and some in particular have displayed a real progress in developing their practical problem solving skills that they are now transferring into other curricular areas.The children are also planning and writing stories about their own marble characters and they are creating animated PowerPoint presentations of their stories so that they can be shared easily with younger children. The characters are displayed on the wall and the children are incorporating each other’s characters into their stories.The quality of the descriptive language in their stories is fantastic. The children also suggested writing poetry about the feelings and emotions you might feel if you were travelling down the marble run. The poems are tremendous with a rich and varied vocabulary that captures the imagined journey eloquently. Have a look at this example by Holly in P.5:
The Marble Run
Gradually, little by little
The marble starts to race
It’s very cold just now
Until it builds up its pace
Swerving, hopping, spiralling
It’s crashing quite a lot
So much friction going on
The marble’s getting hot
Wee! It made a jump
Lifting off happily on its back
Soaring over treetops high
Until its back on track
Very gently the marble
Skids daintily to a halt
It was dizzily racing down the run
Though it’s not the marble’s fault
The class described in detail how they worked together as a team to solve problems and listened to everyone’s ideas. They had also discussed their learning and thinking and this has been recorded in their big talking book and clearly illustrates the problem solving process that they have gone through.The class have designed and made their own games. They used Kororinpa to discuss what they liked about a game and incorporated these things into their own ideas for designs. They all agreed that playing Kororinpa gave them a really good starting point for the design process.They have even re-enacted being in a marble run with equipment in the gym!This is the first GBL project that Hazel has been involved in. She is delighted and excited by the learning that is taking place and how engaged and motivated the children are. It has resulted in quality discussion, quality work, confident children and a fun, active way to learn. The children summed it all up: “It has been a fun way of learning that made learning easier and gave us lots of ideas”. Kororinpa in Meldrum School has definitely facilitated the creation of a rich context for quality, active, challenging and enjoyable cross curricular learning!
The Consolarium’s approach to the use of games is somewhat exemplified by the Nintendogs project we carried out last year. Nintendogs is a game that was made for commercial sale and one that is very much for entertainment. Look a little closer though and you can see how powerful this game/learning environment is and with a little bit of imagination and a big bit of belief that it is appropriate to use this you can do tremendous things with it.
I met a probationer teacher during my time at Fraserburgh PS called Jo Barcus Buchan. A P.2 teacher, Jo recently graduated and was lucky enough to get a chance to try out the Nintendogs project with her class. She replicated a lot of what has been established as a good practice with this resource. Have a look at some of the photos .
She has though extended the learning that may be achieved through the context of Nintendogs by moving into the world of art & design and to engage her P.2 children in dialogue about artists craft and what paintings make you feel or think. She introduced four paintings about dogs to her class and these were observed and discussed. These observation’s and discussions were then taken into the children’s own work where they had to think about what choices they were making in the creation of their pieces of art based on what they had seen.
Have a listen to the latest Consolarium podcast to hear our more detailed discussion, some perspective from the children and the view of the Headteacher.
Thanks go out to all Fraserburgh South Park PS for allowing us to come and see and record the excellent work that is happening up there. Well done to you all.
Earlier last week LTS was contacted by BBC Newsround and asked if we’d be able to accommodate a visit by them to a school that has been using Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training. Apparently they had picked up on an article in The Scotsman that was questioning the costs of such a venture and the suggestion that schools were being ‘urged to spend’ on games consoles. At short notice Fraserburgh South Park PS were able to offer a venue for the ‘shoot’ and it was all systems go and up to the Broch everyone headed!
The BBC crew arrive and duly made their way to the P.6 class who were to play the starring role. Fraserburgh South Park was one of the primary schools involved in our extended Kawashima trial that we carried out last summer. The school was, however, one of the control groups and after their go with the consoles and games they decided to allocate some of their own funds to purchase their own set of consoles and some games.
The BBC engagement was interesting. They spent a bit of time interviewing me and asked me to remember that I was speaking to a young audience, Now, I thought I would manage that quite well but it became quite difficult to distil what we have been trying to do into a quick soundbite for children’s TV. I was directed in some way to saying that using the game was fun and better than boring maths but I don’t believe that that’s what it is about. There’s so much more to this than having fun with a computer game. They eventually got something that they were happy with and then made their way to the class.
The eager Newsround stars of P.6 were very excited by the arrival of the BBC Newsround people and it must be said that each and every one of them conducted themselves in a manner that must have delighted their Headteacher. They were polite, friendly and very willing to talk openly about what they thought the use of games in the classroom meant for them. If the story about costs is what the BBC Newsround team were more focused on then I think they really missed the point. If you have a look at the clips on the Newsround website where the children are interviewed you can hear how much they think the intervention has helped them. Each response from the children was better then the previous one with one boy in particular talking about how the game has really helped him with his maths because he now feels much more confident and doesn’t feel that it’s such a struggle any more. Every time I hear comments such as this I smile. I have to ask Newsround a question though and it is was the decision to go on the costs issue the right one in terms of presenting this idea as an issue for debate to their audience? Shouldn’t they have been debating the efficacy of such an undertaking? I can’t help feeling that they may have missed an opportunity here to present the real issue to their audience.
Irrespective of whether the children were asked to look glum by the BBC people as they constructed their piece that talked about moving from old school pencil and paper (look glum please) to new school (games consoles and now smile) or if I was slightly disappointed about the focus of the piece the visit and subsequent coverage turned out to be another positive experience for Scottish children and further positive exposure of the work we are doing.
One last thing, the Campaign for Real Education person they rolled out this time talked about schools having money to burn, this being a crazy idea and that children need to do maths - well have a look at this. On my arrival at the school I was told about a boy who was able to do the x20 game in Dr Kawashima in 9 seconds! Yes 9 seconds!!! I had to see this for myself so they went and brought this ridiculously talented lad to me as I couldn’t believe he had bettered my best time of 10 seconds! Who did he think he was! 
I watched him do it in 13 seconds but saw his profile and look for yourself…9 seconds:
Brilliant stuff young man! This is why we feel games have a place in school. We believe that our work in this paricular context has helped make it an aspiration for children to be as good as they can possibly be at mental maths,. How can anyone suggest, with such fundamental zeal, that this is a crazy idea?
Thanks to all in Aberdeenshire, Fraserburgh South Park and the BBC for a great day and for showcasing the innovative, yet informed, work with games and learning that we are willing to explore in Scotland.
cloudberrynine posted a photo:
looking at user trials - in this case a tent :-)
