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Is codenamed Zeus, reports say.
The PlayStation Phone that was called “definitely fake” yesterday is actually “definitely real”, new reports suggest.
Leaping to its defence was – no surprise here – publisher of the original gallery and report, Endgadget. What’s interesting this time is that blog VG247 backed the news with a “watertight” source.
Endgadget argued that the PS Phone story had been verified by “multiple, trusted sources”, and that more loose-lippers had come forward since the original story was published. Fresh information revealed the internal codename for the device as Zeus.
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Plus Custom Games Editor and other tweaks.
Call of Duty: Black Ops will include split-screen options for online multiplayer, a custom game mode editor and sharing facility, and a range of other interface tweaks to make your time being shot in the face by teenagers in Utah more agreeable, Treyarch has revealed.
Writing on the official US PlayStation Blog, Treyarch’s Josh Olin explained that a second player can plug in another controller to join your online battle and that guests can even rank up and earn unlocks, although guest progress is forgotten when they sign out again.
The Custom Games Editor, meanwhile, will allow players to “structure their games at all new levels of granularity”. You can set variables like time limit and score limit, but also specify which weapons, perks and gear can be used, among other things, so in theory you can do whatever you want. “You want a Pistols Only match? Make one!” wrote Olin. “No longer do custom game modes rely on the honour system.”
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“Seasonal” job losses strike EA Canada.
EA’s laying off a number of staff at NBA Elite and Skate 3 developer EA Canada, according to reports.
Shacknews heard that EA Black Box has also been hit with redundancies. Both studios are based in Vancouver.
The news first emerged when 3D Realm’s George Broussard said last night on Twitter that over 100 employees were laid off at EA Canada.
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Slowing console sales, strong yen send game giant’s bottom line south; DS sales approach 136 million.
Today, Nintendo reported its earnings for the six months ending September 30, and the results would not make corporate mascot Mario jump for joy. For the April-September period, the Kyoto, Japan-based company reported a rare loss of ¥2.01 billion ($24.7 million) versus a profit of ¥69.5 billion ($854.6 million) during the same period the year prior.
Nintendo’s six-month revenue was also down year-over-year, falling 33.7 percent from ¥363.2 billion ($4.5 billion) from ¥548.1 billion ($6.7 billion). Today’s report came a month after Nintendo revised its annual earnings estimate downward by 21.4 percent.
One factor for the decline was the continuing strength of the yen against the dollar. Another was slowing hardware sales. For the six months ending September 30, the company only sold 4.97 million Wiis worldwide, down from 5.75 million during the same period the year prior. To date, some 75.9 million units of the console have been sold, with an installed base of 10.8 million in Japan, 35.9 million in the Americas, and 29.2 million in other territories. Wii software sales to date total 610 million units.
The DS’s sales decline was more precipitous. April-September sales of all versions of the handheld went from 11.7 million units in 2009 to 6.7 million units in 2010. As of September 30, 135.6 million units of the handheld have been sold, including 31.6 million in Japan, 49.3 million in the US, and 54.8 million in other territories. Life-to-date DS software sales total 773.3 million units.
Looking ahead, Nintendo predicts it will sell 4 million 3DSs the first quarter of next year, along with 15 million software units for the handheld. The portable, which does not require 3D glasses, goes on sale February 26 in Japan and sometime in March in North America and Europe. It will cost ¥25,000 ($300) in Japan, with pricing in other territories not yet announced.
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“Nintendo posts six-month loss, Wii sales near 76 million” was posted by Tor Thorsen on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:21:24 -0700 -
Pixel perfect.
Yesterday’s release of Criterion’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit demo serves to remind us that when it comes to cross-platform development, the Guildford-based studio is in a class of its own. Everything about the demo suggests that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the new racer are almost totally identical.
In our Face-Off features we often talk about the social gaming network you have being more important than often minor technical differences, and Hot Pursuit is probably the most dramatic example of how important your friends list is in terms of which version of the game you should purchase.
The more people you’re connected to playing the game, the better it gets. The demo craftily introduces you to this by locking out one of the two events, only making it available when someone else on your friends list has downloaded and played the sampler. With times logged, the competition begins in earnest and the ingenuity of Autolog system begins to manifest itself.
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EA Canada, Black Box reportedly see NBA Elite, Skate development teams cut; up to 100 may have been pink-slipped; EA admits “season roll-offs” of payroll.
Today was apparently a dark day at Electronic Arts’ two Vancouver-based studios. According to a Shacknews report, both EA Canada and EA Black Box have been hit by layoffs. Specifically, the teams behind the Skate franchise and the long-delayed NBA Elite 11, were both hit, with sources saying “as many as 100 employees” were sent packing.
When contacted by GameSpot, an EA spokesperson would only confirm there had been layoffs today, but would not say at which studios or give a number of staff reductions.
“As you know, seasonal roll-offs that follow game launches are common and vital to maintaining a healthy business,” the rep said. “Because so many of our games ship in the holiday quarter, the team size adjustments tend to follow in the same timeframe. However EA is growing and several of our studios are looking to hire talented people.”
If Black Box was involved, the layoffs would be just the latest in a round of cuts at the developer. In December 2008, the studio was “consolidated” into EA Canada after EA shut down the studio’s satellite campus. It was hit again by layoffs just a month later in January 2009 as part of a series of wider payroll cuts across the EA internal studio structure.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“EA’s Canadian studios hit by layoffs – Report” was posted by Tor Thorsen on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:38:36 -0700 -
New controllers, better stories are key.
THQ does not see the need for more powerful videogame consoles and would rather focus on innovative inputs and richer stories.
CEO Brian Farrell told IGN, “Frankly, the last thing I think the industry needs now is new hardware. You look at the games coming out on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 now and they look stunning.”
“If we were to have another $1000 box that the hardware guys have to subsidise and that software developers have to spend even more money developing, that model just doesn’t work.”
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Zynga’s estimated worth placed at $5.51 billion, putting it over the Medal of Honor publisher’s $5.22 billion.
Anyone doubting the popularity of social gaming should read a recent report in Bloomberg Businessweek. The magazine is citing a report from SharesPost Inc., an exchange for shares of privately held companies, as saying that Zynga is now worth more than the second-biggest mainstream game publisher on the planet–Electronic Arts.
According to SharesPost, privately held Zynga is currently worth $5.51 billion. That’s nearly $300 million more than the $5.22 billion market capitalization of EA on the NASDAQ stock exchange. SharesPost based its valuation figure on data from trades of private shares, research estimates, and venture-financing valuations.
Zynga’s massive worth can be explained in two words: Facebook and FarmVille. Of the former’s 210 million users, some 57.6 million play FarmVille, which charges users small amounts of money to buy in-game currency and items. Zynga’s other games, which include Café World, Mafia Wars, and Vampire Wars, operate on a similar model.
Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
“Farmville-maker worth more than EA – Report” was posted by Tor Thorsen on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:01:02 -0700 -
News
Fallout: New Vegas – Become a master criminal using just a magic bucket and a loophole (Fallout: New Vegas)
Exploring New Vegas? Short on cash and low on ammo? Resigned yourself to thieving for supplies, but can’t be bothered with all the aggro that goes with it? Don’t want to waste your last valuable Stealth Boy on a simple case of common robbery? Well have we got the exploit for you.
All you’ll need is a common-or-garden bucket. Because buckets in Fallout: New Vegas, it seems, have mystical properties. They turn your crime invisible allowing you to get away with the most blatent and surreally amusing crime in all of Nevada. …
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Resident Evil and Vanquish creator Shinji Mikami’s studio, Tango Gameworks, announced today that it has been acquired by Bethesda parent company ZeniMax, and will now develop games published under the Bethesda label… …
