Monthly Archives: June 2009

The ESA handed out its annual handbook of Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry at E3 this year.

It’s a nice little book that details the demographics, facts, figures, and what customers purchased in 2008.

Here are just some of the numbers. Parenting and content data is posted after the break courtesy of GamePolitics.

Who Plays:

• 68  percent of Americans play computer or video games
• The average game player age is 35 (again, how is this defined?)
• 25 percent of game players are under 18
• 25 percent of game players are over 50
• 60 percent are male, 40% female
• on average, adult gamers have been playing for 12 years
• 42  percent of U.S. homes have a game console

Who Buys:

• Average age of most frequent purchaser is 39
• 52  percent of purchasers are male, 48 percent  female
• 92 percent of time a parent is present during purchase
• 83 percent of time kids receive parental permission before purchasing
• 43 percent of Americans have purchased or plan to buy one or more games in 2009

More »

America’s Army 3 has landed on Steam. Well, sort of. You can preload it now.

It actually releases on June 17, but at least this way you will have the main files already in place.

There’s a lovely press release posted after the break with all the information.

More »

Forza 3′s almost as good as it possibly can be, franchise director Dan Greenawalt has told VideoGamer.

“Basically we’ve proven ourselves, that we can deliver a simulator no-one else can touch. For this version we made improvements but we’re actually running out of improvements to make because no-one else is doing the stuff we’re doing.

“I’ve made my job much, much, much harder. And that was the goal, right? In this version we’re saying we’ll perfect the racing game and start taking it beyond. What other racing game features do I want to do? Yeah there are a couple of little things, very small. They’re not easy, but they’re small.”

It’s out later this year. More through there.

The second CoD: World at War Map Pack will release tomorrow, Treyarch community manager Josh Olin has confirmed via Twitter.

The DLC will cost 800 MS Points/$9.99, and includes three new general maps and one new zombie map.

Via CVG. There’s no link to the tweet, so you’ll just have to have faith.

Could this look any better? We think not. Check out the latest screens of The Last Guardian on GameWatch to see why.

We can only pray this isn’t going to take too long. Look look look.

The PS3 version of the Overlord II demo will release tomorrow, according to this EU PS Blog post.

You can ask questions for the dev team over there, to be answered next week.

The 360 demo released last week.

The game’s due for PC, 360 and PS3 release in June 26.

Ubi’s put out the first proper shots of the PSP version of Assassin’s Creed, subtitled Bloodlines. Get them from Kotaku.

It’s a fully new game, bridging events between the first title and its spectacular-looking sequel.

More through there.

According to the Major Live will be down “from 7:01AM UTC (12:01 AM PST) for up to 24 hours” for scheduled maintenance.

Live itself and the My Xbox section of Xbox.com will be completely offline while the work’s being done, and the official Xbox forums will go into read-only mode.

More details through there.

EA’s claimed that The Sims 3′s sold over 1.4 million units in its first week on sale.

The figure includes both Mac and PC SKUs. The company also said it had seen more than 7 million downloads of user-created content in the same period.

More on GI.

HMV-sponsored GameOn! London has been postponed to November 14-15.

The show was originally planned to run this weekend.

The event has been moved so it can be “bigger and better,” explained a HMV spokesperson, and will now be held at the London Earls Court Arena, a far bigger venue than the originally intended Olympia National Hall.

More from MCV.

“Web 2.0″ and not “noob” has been made the millionth official English word, as you can see from this Reuters report.

Which is rubbish. Linguists have branded the announcement a publicity stunt.

Really? Hit the link for more.

Xbox super-boss Shane Kim’s told GI that Project Natal, the camera-based 360 control system aired for the first time at E3 last week, is going to change games completely. And possibly save the world.

“If we’d just come out with something that looks and feels like the Nintendo Wiimote, I think you could have fairly criticised us and said it was derivative. That’s not the path we wanted to go down,” he said, speaking in LA.

“We could have done that, but we wanted to reinvent the industry and revolutionise home entertainment. That’s what we will achieve with Project Natal.”

There’s a full interview here.

EA boss John Riccitiello has stated that the firm’s development team almost invested in motion control similar to Natal, but Microsoft were the first out of the gate with it.

“We almost invested to create a platform extension like that for some of the games we’re working on,” Riccitiello told Kotaku. “We’re very pleased, frankly, that it showed up at Microsoft, because I’d rather them pay for that. They can leverage it better, and we can build software. But I felt the market wanted that technology and I’m glad it’s coming.

“We were looking at a camera system. In fact we were looking at the camera system they ended up going with. That technology’s pretty compelling. I don’t think it applies to all genres of games. We thought packing it with some things we’re working on in our studios, maybe sports and music, made a lot of sense.”

Regarding Sony’s motion controller, Riccitiello said that EA noticed the same technology a couple of years ago, and claims the company introduced Sony to it.

“I’ve been playing with that and it is cool,” he said. “We saw that two years ago. In fact, I think we introduced Sony to it.”

He goes on to talk about how not all games, like FIFA, would benefit from Natal because a “75-minute session would be frigging tiring.”

More through the link.

Sucker Punch’s Nate Fox has said that the reason electricity was chosen as Cole’s super power for inFamous is because it worked well for both ranged and close combat.

“We wanted to give you powers that worked well in a video game context, and video games are really good for shooting things, ranged combat,” he told Joystiq. “So we figured we’d have a lot of that in the game, and electricity was a good marriage to that because shooting a lightning bolt into somebody’s face is something that everybody understands.

“But what really, really sealed the deal was that… It was a superhero game, it has to take place in a city, and by making electricity, we could actually have him interact with the city’s power grid in a very meaningful way so that he had a real relationship with the city. It was his food, it was the source of his power. So the city he was fighting for also nourished him, so that seemed really good.”

There ya have it.

More through the link.

Looks like the cover of Game Informer featuring Max Payne 3 is legitimate. We’ll keep it chalked as rumor for now, just to be safe.

Supposed details have already started surfacing from the July issue of the magazine.

Apparently, our hero is living in the skids of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and is addicted to pain pills which effect how the game is played.

Graphically the game is being compared to Uncharted 2 with “vibrant colors and fully destructible environments,” all thanks to Rockstar’s animation system and RAGE engine.

Urban battles in bad Latin American neighborhoods is expected, with plenty of weaponry and the return of Bullet Time.

Game will feature multiplayer, in addition.

Loads more over on Deeko. You should go have a look.

If the image we’ve just been directed to is to be believed, the next issue of Game Informer has Max Payne 3 on the cover, and to say that Max has changed is an understatement.

Bald, dirty, a bit fat: wow. Here’s the link for the full picture.

Game’s been confirmed for winter release on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Thanks, Pokalapoket and TheDutchSlayer.

Pandora’s senior vice president has stated that the internet radio service would love to be integrated into Xbox 360 just like Last.fm.

“We’d love to include game consoles like the Xbox 360 as part of this story at Pandora,” Jessica Steel told Joystiq. “It is technically possible, and we’re glad that our listeners are helping us with that effort by making their preferences known.”

Diversity is always a good thing.

Hit the link.

Splinter Cell: Conviction’s producer, Alexandre Parizeau, has assured Joystiq that the game will have multiplayer, DLC, and both are being developed by Ubisoft Montreal.

“We’re going to have a multiplayer, but I can’t talk about it anymore than that,” he told the site. “It’s part of the things we’re going to announce during the summer.

“DLC, it’s always part of our strategies,” he continued. “We always want to keep the content fresh, so as soon as the team is done with the game we can move on and continue expanding the experience.

“It’s going to be part of our plans, for sure.”

The game is out this fall for PC and Xbox 360.

More through the link.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata gave the folks over at TimesOnline a demo of Wii Vitality, and asked the company head what he thought about Microsoft and Sony’s new motion controllers, and the pressure to compete.

“To tell the truth,” said Iwata, “I expected them to come up with stuff like this last year. So in my mind they’re later than expected.

“We are happy that it is now becoming an industry standard. However, we still have no idea about when their products will be available, or how much they will cost, or what sort of software they will be used with.

“So, I am not in a position to judge whether they are a threat or not. And they should bear in mind that over the next year Nintendo will not be standing still. We’re always at work on something new. I am actually looking forward to engaging in that sort of competition, because it gives our whole industry the chance to expand the gaming population.

“I cannot deny the existence of pressure after all these years when we were selling more and more of our products, because we were in effect raising a bar that we then have to keep clearing. But there are two types of pressure. One is desperate pressure, the other is a healthier pressure. This is a challenge. This is something I can enjoy. This pressure can’t bring me down, or make me unhappy to go to work every day.”

Full thing through the link.

Thanks, GoNintendo.

GameStop has an exclusive limited edition Forza 3 package up for grabs.

For $79.99 you’ll get a Forza Motorsport 2GB USB keychain, VIP Membership, five-car exclusive VIP car pack, another five-car “collector’s edition” pack, and a Forza 3 dashboard theme for your Xbox 360.

A pre-order bonus is also in place and if you lay down $5 you’ll get the 2010 Audi R8 V10 as downloadable content.

Game ships October 12.

Via D’toid.