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GAME listing says top SKU to include Casino Night Pinball Stage, Super Sonic Costume, and theme for Xbox 360; PS3 gets stage only; no word on North American debut.
Get the full article at GameSpot
“Sonic Generations UK special edition spotted – Retail Radar” was posted by Eddie Makuch on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 11:28:44 -0700 -
inFamous 2 also makes strong debut.
It’s been a good week for Western developers on the notoriously parochial Japanese software chart, with LA Noire and inFamous 2 taking the top two spots.
As detailed by Andriasang, the PlayStation 3 version of Rockstar’s detective epic was number one, selling 58,436 in its first week, while Sucker Punch’s inFamous 2 sold 33,474 in second.
Bug-blasting sequel Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon followed in third and fourth on PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively.
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3 year cash boost for digital games.
Sony is investing $20 million in PSN exclusives over the next three years, the platform holder has announced.
The cash injection will support both first-party studios as well as Sony’s Pub Fund indie outreach scheme.
Minimalist RTS Eufloria, cartoony puzzler Okabu and quirky adventure Papo & Yo are among the first fruits of the programme (the latter two trailered below), with more titles to be announced in due course.
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Publisher’s stock price virtually unchanged after possible billion-dollar pickup; industry watchers approving of deal, with some reservation.
After the end of trading yesterday, Electronic Arts made a big splash with the acquisition of PopCap Games, picking up the developer of Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies in a deal worth between $750 million and $1.3 billion. Despite the significance of the pickup, the reaction to it from analysts and Wall Street has been mild at best.
Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich told GameSpot the structure of the deal–with the payment changing depending on how much revenue PopCap brings in for EA over the coming years–helps temper concerns about EA paying too much.
“Over the last five years, most acquisitions in emerging markets go for a 10x to 20x multiple on revenues,” Divnich said. “The purchase price of PopCap will eventually fall in between the 10x to 20x range, making PopCap’s acquisition typical and in-line with current market standards.”
In a note to investors, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter was more positive on the deal, saying it “has the potential to be transformative.”
“In our view, PopCap is a great strategic fit, and we acknowledge that there are limited acquisition opportunities for EA that have the potential to add as much to EA’s top and bottom lines,” Pachter said. “However, EA’s acquisition history has been uneven, and investors are generally skeptical about large-scale acquisitions. We think that the deal’s structure offers some protection, and note that at the low end, the deal would be merely expensive, but would not be a disaster.”
As of press time, EA stock was trading at $24.15, down less than 1 percent from its pre-announcement closing price. The last time the publisher announced an acquisition of this scope–2007’s $860 million deal to pick up BioWare-Pandemic–shares of the company jumped more than 4 percent to hit a 52-week high despite mixed reaction from analysts. After launching Mercenaries 2 and Saboteur, Pandemic was gutted two years later and folded into EA’s Los Angeles studio.
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“Investors, analysts reserved on EA-PopCap union” was posted by Brendan Sinclair on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:11:26 -0700 -
Truly, nothing sets a long-time fan’s heart alight more than two of their favourite franchises slamming recklessly into one another. Comics, TV and movies have taken incestuous delight in cameos and crossovers for decades, and the games are no stranger to the phenomenon either. Whether it’s in the form of a fleeting feel-good wink to the audience or a grand-standing cross-franchise love-in, everybody loves a cameo and none more so than Nintendo…
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Japanese game company expands its Pub Fund program with new three-year deal aimed at bulking up PSN lineup.
Sony has a strong track record of supporting some of the more out-there independent game projects through the PlayStation 3’s PlayStation Network, having hosted such titles as Flow, Everyday Shooter, and Flower. Today, the Japanese game company revealed plans to continue that support, announcing a three-year plan to channel $20 million into the indie developer scene.
The new multimillion dollar investment is a continuation of Sony’s Pub Fund program, which the publisher first announced at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. The program provides indie developers with game design and marketing aid, but the creators can set the price and maintain control of the intellectual property. Notably, these games must remain exclusive to the PSN.
The first game published under Sony’s Pub Fund program was Burn, Zombie, Burn!, which arrived to a positive critical reception in 2009. A number of in-development projects are making use of the Pub Fund program, including Omni Labs’ Eufloria, Handcircus’ Okabu, Overkill Software’s Payday: The Heist, and Minority’s Papo & Yo.
Sony expects to have more announcements involving the Pub Fund program soon.
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“Sony commits $20 million to indie devs” was posted by Tom Magrino on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 09:53:02 -0700 -
Have Zuma that.
Angry Birds creator Rovio has told Eurogamer it values itself “north” of the $1.3 billion figure that EA will spend acquiring PopCap Games.
Interested companies have come sniffing, Rovio VP franchise development Ville Heijari revealed, but a “pretty high” bar has meant no “really relevant discussions” have yet taken place.
“I wouldn’t say [EA] has approached us with any offer – obviously we’ve discussed with many different companies,” Heijari informed Eurogamer.
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But “it might take a while”.
Double Fine, creator of delayed downloadable warfare title Trenched, has promised the game will eventually see release in Europe.
Last month Eurogamer broke the news that Xbox Live Arcade game Trenched was blocked from European release by a trademark held by obscure Portuguese board game Trench.
Apart from the similarity in their names, both focus on military strategy and army ranks and are set in the World War I era.
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LA Noire: Reefer! Free MotorStorm DLC!
It’s a quiet week for the PlayStation Store. Sony’s Welcome Back offer has ended and the company has now caught up with the backlog left by the PSN downtime.
There are no new PS3 or PSP games to download, but a few decent dollops of DLC.
A day after its launch on Xbox 360, PS3 owners can now investigate Rockstar’s final L.A. Noire episode. The Reefer Madness vice case pits Cole Phelps against a city-wide dope ring and is free for those who own the Rockstar Pass.
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Update: Blu-ray movie playback affected.
Update:Ars Technica has a comment from Sony, explaining that while adhering to the AACS guidelines is the reason behind the new move, it only affects Blu-ray movies, not video game output.
“The new CECH-3000 series PS3 requires HDMI only for BD movie output in HD, in compliance with AACS standards,” Sony says. “PS3 continues to support component output for HD gaming and streaming content.”
Original story:
High definition video output via analogue component output is being phased out on new model PlayStation 3s, according to a report from Kotaku.
