Monthly Archives: July 2009

PSP and PSP Go are to get an App Store, as previously rumoured, Sony confirmed at Develop today.

“We’re introducing new initiatives for the PSP which take it beyond traditional gaming, but still includes elements from gaming, and also includes new developers,” SCEE’s head of developer relations, Zeno Colaço, told Develop.

He said Sony has over 50 studios already working on games and apps for the new initiative.

These are to be sold via a new, “specially branded” area of the PS Store.

“It is still a professional environment, you still need a development kit and you still need to have investment and a team,” he told the site. “But it can be a small team. We don’t see any of the restrictions on the disc-based space being in this space.”

Via CVG.

Sony’s Peter Edwards said at Develop today that as little as 25-30 percent of the 7 million people that have downloaded Home ever return after the first visit.

Edwards, European director for the service, said that the total amount of users includes 3 million Europeans.

There’s more on GI.

Speaking to VG247 at Develop today, Endwar dev boss Michael de Plater has suggested that Natal could breathe new life into the difficult world of console RTS.

“Natal doesn’t only have the camera, but the microphone as well,” he said. “The combination of voice and gesture could be really powerful and immersive.

“You could definitely drag selection boxes, and you could definitely point with enough precision to tell people where to go.”

He added: “You’d absolutely have that Minority Report-type feeling.”

The Ubisoft chief – now moved from heading up the company’s Shanghai studio to Montpelier in France – cited the appearance of upcoming RTS RUSE working on Microsoft’s touch-screen Surface table at E3 this year as an example of how Natal may affect console strategy.

“One of the coolest things I saw at E3 this year was RUSE being played on a Surface table,” he said.

“Obviously, not everyone’s going to have a Surface table, but on the Surface you’re playing with gestures. You’re moving your hands to select, and you’re pointing. They’re really intuitive natural gestures.

“If the technology works, so you could translate the interface they’ve already got working really well on RUSE into Natal, it could work very, very well.”

There’s no date on Natal’s release as yet.

Eidos is inviting lucky winners of a competition over at Videogamer the chance to play Arkham Asylum in London this Saturday, July 18th.

All you have to do is post in the comments section to enter. If you’re chosen, all the venue details will be sent to you.

Winners will also receive what we’re told is a very special goody bag full of Batman-related loveliness.

Arkham Asylum is set for release on August 28th for PS3 and Xbox 360 but you could be playing it this weekend.

What are you waiting for?

Nintendo Europe has announced that the sequel to the seminal Professor Layton and the Curious Village dubbed, ‘Pandora’s Box’ will be released for DS and DSi on September 25 in Europe.

There’ll be over 150 new puzzles to scratch your forehead to, plus the weekly downloadable ones as with the first game.

The US gets the game on August 24 and Japan…well, it got The Diabolical Box (as the adventure puzzler’s known as over there) back in November 2007: so move along, nothing to see here.

Realtime Worlds boss Dave Jones has just delivered a bunch of new information on MMO APB in his Develop keynote, confirming the game will have up to 100 players per server and will automatically match enforcers with the bad guys on a dynamic basis.

Jones showed extensive customisation options for both characters and cars in this morning’s speech, as well as a long new trailer detailing the game’s ideals.

Music tools were shown, including a creation system on the lines of CuBase. You can attach music jingles to your deaths – including a Mario theme Jone demoed.

No release date, though.

Get the full liveblog transcript here.

We’re coming to you live from Realtime Worlds boss Dave Jones’ keynote at Develop in Brighton. Hit the break for all the updates, pics included. The event kicks off at 9.30am BST.

Watch carefully for news on APB, and hopefully a first look at gameplay. If it happens, we’ll snap it.

We’re interviewing Dave later this morning, so we should have plenty more news on the upcoming MMO later.

Let’s do this thing, sucka.

More »

Team 17 boss Martyn Brown’s told VG247 that downloadable actioner Alien Breed Evolution should appeal to Xbox 360 fans’ traditional loves in Halo and Gears of War.

The UK studio manager said the title, the first of a trilogy that’s cost $2.5 million to develop so far, could replicate the company’s significant online console success with Worms.

“It’s a very different game,” he said. “What Worms has allowed us to do is make Evolution in the first place. To be able to do that and remind people where we’re from has been a fantastic opportunity.

“I’d like to think it’s going to appeal to the Gears of War crowd, the Halo crowd, and all the rest of it.

“It’s a very casual, pick-up-and-play title, but it’s shit-hot, really.”

Brown said the game was a significant venture for the developer.

“It’s a big risk for us. We’ve piled a lot of cash into it, but we’ve made a game that we believe in [for the] first time in a few years.”

There’s a seven-minute video interview with Martyn after the break, shot at Develop in Brighton yesterday. You can see first footage of the game – the first part of which releases later this year as a timed 360 exclusive before heading to PS3 and PC – here.

More »

IGN’s posted the first proper gameplay footage of Epic XBLA platformer Shadow Complex, and it’s looking fine.

It’s all about fighting in a power-suit, as you’re see after the break, using hands, guns and rockets.

The game was announced in Microsoft’s E3 press conference this year. It’s out on XBLA later this year.

More »

id Software and Raven have delayed Wolfenstein a few days.

The initial release date was August 4, now it has been pushed to the “week of” August 17.

“In order to facilitate a simultaneous global release window for id Software’s Wolfenstein, Activision has realigned the game’s release date for the week beginning August 17th,” the publisher said in a statement.

Good to know.

Thanks, D’toid.

Looks like Xbox Live players were the first to open the Coral Sea Map Pack for Battlefield 1943 by reaching 43 million kills.

The Air Superiority game mode was also unlocked.

So far, PS3 users have clocked in at 22,868,004 kills.

Looks like it didn’t take as long as we thought it would, folks. Grats.

Luc Bernard’s Mecho Wars on iPhone got a massive free update to the game yesterday.

The patch for the real-time strategy game adds info tiles for each piece that can be brought up by tapping on a character, which in turn tells gamers the movements, attack range, strengths, and weaknesses of other unit classes.

Two maps were also included for the story-free challenge mode, which you can only access once the game has been beaten, along with a new single-player campaign played from the Landian point of view.

Via Kotaku.

Wolfe Games has finished GLSL-based normal maps and depth maps, and P.U.R.E. (Purify Unify Reclaim Exterminate) will be utilizing them in the next release of the game, dubbed version 1.3.

“This is a feature that we’ve been working on for nearly six months, with the coders from the Spring Engine. Normal maps and other shaders are a big part of what makes modern games look and feel modern,” according to Greg Wolfe. “We are very proud to have achieved this technical breakthrough, which will allow the game’s visual quality to become modern almost overnight.

“Best of all, we’ve distributed the source code for our shader, which is GLSL 1.1-specification compliant and runs on both nVidia and ATi hardware that meets OpenGL 2.0 standards (anything from a GeForce 6800 upwards, basically- even very old hardware) under the GPL, so that anybody willing to use GPL source may use it.

“The shader, which I co-wrote and debugged for ATi along with Kloot (a Spring Engine lead developer) performs alpha transparency, glowmaps, normalmaps, specularity control and reflectivity in a single, low-impact shader. This is about as sophisticated as any shader for current-generation graphics gets, and we intend to add an additional set of alternative shaders to perform alpha transparency with depth sorting and Fresnel effects, as well as shaders that use the “texture2″ specification of the Spring S3O model format in novel ways.

“This is just the tip of a very big iceberg.”

Two new races will be added to the game as well, one called Space Chickens will be feature-complete, and a new race, tentatively named the Wolfoids. Sea combat with Resistance and Overmind warships dueling it out with giant guns and explosions can be expected as well.

No word yet on a release.

Thanks, GamersHell.

David Edery, former worldwide games portfolio manager for Xbox Live Arcade, has said that “digital distribution is neither as big nor as significant [to game consoles] as it’s been cracked up to be,” and it does not have such a “long tail” as backers claim.

This means that popular titles keep getting more money, while others fade away. This is called “long-tail sales”, which is implied for games that start big, but not one with little exposure from launch.

“The hits get bigger, but the pool of money remains the same,” he said while speaking about the remake of Worms on XBLA being one of the highest selling games on the service.

Admitting that the game would not have sold as well through a retailer like Amazon, Edery stated that without an “Amazon-like recommendation engine, user ratings, ease of search and more dynamic pricing functionality allowing selective discounts and bundling, the long tail on digital download services will struggle to grow”, according to Gamasutra, and the “long tail” is incompatible with many multiplayer titles.

During his keynote speech at Develop, Edery cited NPD numbers stating that 18 percent of Xbox Live Gold members download content regularly, and only 10 percent of PSN users download free or paid content.

“The number of players in an ecosystem is crucial to a real-time multiplayer game’s success,” he said. “There are too many multiplayer games and too few players populating them. Why would a user buy a real-time multiplayer game from the long tail if they won’t have anyone else to play it with?”

Edery suggested that a viral invitation scheme would help with longevity, allowing players to invite friends to play a game for free, implementing a better matchmaking system with information, or to schedule playtimes for games like Microsoft is doing with 1vs. 100.

EA has announced that a public Madden NFL 10 demo will land on PSN and Xbox live July 30 featuring a night game in heavy snow with the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants.

Those that pre-ordered Madden NFL 10 through GameStop will get to play a special demo July 23, which is a reenactment of Super Bowl XLIII between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals with 5 minute quarters.

The game is out on August 14.

According to a Cisco Systems mid-year security report, the weak IT job market could lead to an increase in online crime as those with computer skills turn to scams to supplement smaller incomes.

It was even suggested that some “disgruntled employees” could target former employers, and insiders fired or laid-off with pertinent information “can be especially damaging for an organization because insiders know security weaknesses.”

Cisco issued a warning to firms that use temporary or contract IT consultants to “be particularly vigilant about the level and term of their access to sensitive data.”

The report cited a conversation with a botmaster who revealed that an acquaintance had earned $5-10K per week from phising bank accounts.

Yikes. Remember to always be vigilant just in case a pissed off employee at your favorite gaming company goes through customer records. Otherwise, they could be living it up in the Bahamas with a hot chicky on your dime.

Via Reuters.

It looks as though the Chinese government has rightly put a stop to a video game addiction clinic’s practice of using electric shock treatments on teens supposedly addicted to gaming.

The Ministry of Health issued the order yesterday to the clinic in Linyi, Shandong province, according to China Daily:

More than 3,000 young people were tricked or forced into in to the four-month long course. To enroll their children, parents or guardians had to sign a contract acknowledging that they would be given electric shocks of up to 200 milliamperes. The treatment cost 6,000 yuan ($878) per month…

Shocks were given if patients broke any of the center’s 86 rules, which included prohibitions on eating chocolate, locking the bathroom door, taking pills before a meal, and sitting in Dr. Yang’s chair without permission.

Details of the treatment first became public when former patients wrote about their experiences online.

Jesus.

More through GamePolitics.

The fourth annual London Games Festival has been dated for October 24th, according to organizer ELSPA.

“The 2008 London Games Festival was a major success,” stated director general Michael Rowlinson. “With the rise in popularity of videogames in the UK I’m sure this year’s Festival will be a great draw and fun for everyone.

“The festival is already taking shape well. The Government, media and the public took great interest last year and we look forward to welcoming them all back.”

Loads of panels are expected, along with GI.biz career fair.

Here’s what we know so far:

• London MCM Expo – October 24 and 25, Excel, East London
• London Games Conference – October 27, Bafta, Central London
• Golden Joysticks Awards – October 30
• Eurogamer Expo, GamesIndustry.biz Career Fair – October 30 and 31, Old Billingsgate

More over on the official site.

Over on the official forums, Creative Assembly has announced that 1.4 patch for Empire: Total War will make improvements to naval battles when its released.

“There has been a re-balancing of ships to create greater diversity between different ship types along with improving the overall game play of the battles,” reads the post. “The balance that now exists for naval battles is like this: Ships of the Line beat Frigates who beat Small Ships who beat Ships of the Line who beat Ships of the Line.”

Basically, rock-paper-scissors element to naval battles.

“Ships of the Line are still the best at taking on other Ships of the Line. Special ships such as rocket ships, bomb ketches and galleys fill special niches on the battlefield. This new balance has been achieved by adjusting the hull strength, marksmanship (accuracy), reload rate, ranges, morale and damage of various ships.

No word yet on when to expect the latest patch, but there are loads more details about the upcoming changes through the link.

Via BigDownload.

Command & Conquer 4 will require an always-on Internet connection to allow single-player campaigns to function properly, according to a post over on the Command & Conquer Den by community manager APOC.

“As of right now, you need to be online all the time to play C&C 4. This is primarily due to our “player progression” feature so everything can be tracked,” he wrote. “C&C 4 is not an MMO in the sense of World of Warcraft, but conceptually it has similar principles for being online all the time. While some may be taken aback by this, we’ve been testing this feature internally with all of our world-wide markets.

“We wanted to make sure it wouldn’t take away any significant market or territory from playing the game. We have not found or seen any results that have made us think otherwise. You won’t need a fast connection, in fact, you could be on age-old dial-up, and have the same single player experience as everyone else. Online all the time won’t cause lag for single-player. We’ve also heavily worked on the online infrastructure such that people with slower connections will not lag other players with faster connections in Multiplayer.

“What we are doing for multiplayer for the game and with our infrastructure for this game is unlike any we’ve produced before and I think you will finally see the culmination of a lot of key leanings from past projects in C&C 4, in this respect.”

More through the links.

Thanks, VoodooExtreme.