Monthly Archives: December 2009

A new Insight Media study has claimed 40 million 3D-capable displays are expected to be installed worldwide by 2014.

The 2009 Stereoscopic 3D Gaming Report drew its conclusion after speaking to developers, publishers and gamers.

“We have spent considerable time on our forecasting methodology and believe we have created something that is truly new, innovative and ground breaking,” said Insight Media boss Chris Chinnock.

“We have played Stereoscopic 3D games for hundreds of hours and can report that the latest technology does not result in eye strain or fatigue,” added Dale H Maunu, the report’s lead analyst.

More on GI.

Lance Henriksen’s in Aliens Vs Predator! He’s spoken to IGN about it! Game, movie, he doesn’t care! He’s just a freakin’ glue-filled android voice for hire!

“It doesn’t matter what the medium is for me, because it’s all the same thing,” he said.

“I have to participate kind of truthfully in some way, and be responsible to what they’re doing, whether it’s a movie or a game, or whatever it is.”

He wants to move things along, but it sounds as though his VO involvement was only brought in right at the end.

“Can you add something, can you help, can they help you? I got helped a lot today, because I arrived when the party’s almost over,” he added. “They’ve been working for a couple of years on this thing, and I have to sort of catch up.”

It’s out for PC, 360 and PS3 early next year.

Famitsu’s dated Yakuza 4, the PS3 title now confirmed as having a March 18 release. See a scan on Livedoor (thanks Kotaku).

In addition, Gamikaze’s posted up 40 new screens of the tiger-punching, hair-slicking, sweary hostessing adventure (thanks, TomisH). Don’t hold back.

Sledgehammer Games now has a website and a logo. Amazing scenes.

The new Activision studio was formed when Visceral’s Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey jumped ship from EA.

There’s little on there aside from a picture of a man with a sledgehammer for a head. Beggars can’t be choosers, remember.

No Sledgehammer products have been announced as yet.

Director John Woo’s told Cinematical that a Stanglehold film is still on the cards.

“We are going to make that into a movie,” he said.

More games? Maybe.

“I don’t have that much time, even though I want to make one again,” he said.

“But for the moment, I also am producing two movies. One is shooting in Taiwan. One is shooting in Shanghai. So I am quite busy these days.”

Thanks, Joystiq.

EA Sports has hosted more than 1 billion online games this year, EA boss John Riccitiello’s told NBR.

“This year alone, in just the package goods business of EA Sports, one part of our company, we’ve hosted over a billion online games. A billion online games. That’s a staggering number,” he said.

Riccitiello added, ominously, that this amount of activity could be equated with that of a country.

“These are where people playing an hour, two hours, three hours: it’s the productivity of a small nation, just wrapped up in EA Sports online,” he said.

Ten years hence:

“Good morning, human. Why have you turned your planet into a greenhouse, destroyed all your vital resources and locked yourself in endless war? Now you have nowhere to live. Why did you not act?”

“Too busy playing FIFA. Fuck off. This is a ranked match.”

Watch the full thing through the link.

JR’s called it. The EA boss has claimed in an NBR interview that the global gaming audience is now greater than 1 billion.

“Conservatively, if I add up mobile users that play games, social network people that play games, people that play PC games online in Asia, all this stuff, this new audience: there’s at least a billion people gaming today, compared to a couple of hundred million just five years ago.

“So we have five times the audience we’ve ever had and it’s growing in leaps and bounds. And it’s no longer a niche.”

The advent of digital had brought a “torrent of new consumers” into games.

The exec went on to reiterate his view that digital gaming now accounts for around 40 percent of all games business.

That’s a good interview. Well worth a watch.

More than 1 million pieces of Dragon Age: Origins DLC have now been sold, EA boss John Riccitiello’s told NBR.

“We said that Dragon Age… sold really, really well, and actually did a million pieces of downloadable content already, which is an astonishing outcome,” said the exec.

Dragon Age, BioWare’s latest fantasy RPG, shipped globally in early November.

Following yesterday’s announcement that Yakuza 3′s coming to the West in March, IGN’s posted up impressions of the English version.

There’s not much in there relevant to the localised PS3 game, to be honest, aside from the fact “loan shark’s” been misspelled as “lone shark” at one point.

The author’s very excited, at least. As if all his dreams had been made real, or something. Hit it and see.

Famitsu’s given Final Fantasy XIII 39/40, as you can see in this scan on FinalFantasy-XIII.net.

Not as good as Bayonetta, then.

The RPG’s out later this month in Japan. Europe and the US get it in March.

Thanks, Galathor.

Activison has released a demo for Guitar Hero: Van Halen on Xbox Live.

Here are the tracks you can try out:

• “Dope Nose” – Weezer
• “The End of Heartache” – Killswitch Engage
• “Eruption” – Van Halen
• “Panama” – Van Halen

Game’s out on December 22 for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2 and Wii.

We got it free with Guitar Hero 5, just so you know.

Time Magazine has gone “Top 10″ mental and has issed loads of lists on its website – but only one should be near and dear to your heart.

That would be the list of the top 10 videogames of 2009. Whether or not you agree with the list is entirely a matter of opinion, but here it is anyway:

Top 10 Video Games

1. Modern Warfare 2
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum
3. DJ Hero
4. Borderlands
5. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
6. Geo-Defense Swarm
7. Scribblenauts
8. Halo: ODST
9. Assassin’s Creed 2
10. Uncharted 2

If you thought anything else would be listed as number one, you are in denial and we pity you.

Just kidding. We still love you, just know we’re laughing at you secretly behind your back.

Dust 514 creative director Atli Mar Sveinsson has explained to Edge how the game will intersect with Eve Online, with Eve’s corporations “ordering battles in Dust to claim control of planets”.

This bit of interplay and interaction will emerge over time, as CCP plans on updating the game with add-ons a couple times per year and keeping things regulated a bit.

“We have aspirations to add on to Dust twice a year – we have plans for expansions like we have with Eve, and we’ve already drafted out a wishlist of things,” says Sveinsson. “These will involve more involvement for Eve players with Dust, but we’re being very careful.

“Take the economy: this needs to be regulated at first, as the exchange rate of ISK [Eve’s in-game currency] cannot be affected by one game or the other too much at the start. Eve is a player-driven economy, Dust will use a hybrid model and then, as we learn more, we’ll deregulate in stages.

“The players of Eve have always been the greatest source of awesomeness. We tend to facilitate the things they invent for themselves, helping them to make their ideas work.

“Dust will be that sort of thing all over again.”

More through the link.

EA’s John Riccitiello has told Kotaku that he sees game pirates as a way to sell more games to people, reasoning that pirates can “steal the disc, but they can’t steal the DLC”.

“The consumer seems to really like this idea that there is extra stuff,” said Riccitiello. “The consumer wants more, and when you give them more or sell them more it seems to be extremely well received. There’s a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace.

“I don’t think anybody should pirate anything. I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that, and when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there’s a lot of people who do.”

Instead of “demonizing” consumers for pirating like the music industry does, he feels EA has an “obligation” to create games and communities that make it “increasingly less likely that people will pirate because there is so much value on the other side of the door.”

Riccitiello hopes some pirates will eventually purchase the game that was pirated or at the very least the DLC associated with it.

More through the link.

Research firm Analysys International has predicted that online game revenues in China will hit around ¥73.1 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) within three years time.

Growth is expected due to internet penetration which is currently at 27 percent, and revenues for the game industry are predicted hit close to ¥26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) this year and grow 41.2 percent each year for three years.

By 2012, China’s online game sector will have 230 million online gamers compared with the current 69 million, said the firm.

That’s a load of online gamers.

More through Edge.

Modern Warfare 2 has taken over the top spot on the Steam sales chart.

You’ll notice a bit of variety in the list for last week, as the digital download service has a myriad of deals that has people coming out of the woodwork to buy games.

1. Modern Warfare 2
2. Left 4 Dead 2
3. THQ Complete Pack
4. Mirror’s Edge
5. Borderlands
6. Battlefield 2: Complete Collection
7. Dragon Age: Origins
8. Left 4 Dead
9. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
10. Dragon Age: Origins Deluxe Edition

Via BigDownload.

Looks like Spike TV’s annual VGAs will be without a host for the first time this year.

According to a rep for the network, going without a host will be on par with what it did for this year’s Scream Awards.

However, the lack of a celebrity host doesn’t mean some will not take the stage. Presenters announced include:

• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Kristen Bell
• Felicia Day
• Tony Hawk
• Tricia Helfer
• Alyssa Milano
• Zachary Quinto
• Mike Tyson
• Olivia Wilde
• Snoop Dog (performing)

Hosts from years past consisted of Samuel L. Jackson, Jack Black and David Spade.

Via BigDownload.

Common Sense Media has released its annual list of 10 games parents should avoid purchasing, wrapping, and setting under the tree this year.

Titled “10 Cool Games That Are Uncool for Kids”, the list offers “safe alternatives” for each title that is currently popular and not safe for children.

Here it is:

• Assassin’s Creed (Mirror’s Edge)
• Borderlands (Infamous)
• Brutal Legend (Ghostbusters)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Battlefield: Bad Company)
• Dead Space: Extraction (Deadly Creatures)
• Dragon Age: Origins (Braid)
• Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Batman: Arkham Asylum)
• Demon’s Souls (Uncharted 2: Among Thieves)
• Left 4 Dead 2 (Overlord II)
• Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (C.O.P.: The Recruit)

We wonder at the compilers’ choice of Overlord II with all the baby seal bashing that goes on, but opinions are opinions, we reckon.

Via GamePolitics.

Looks like naughty hackers struck the Modern Warfare 2 leaderboards on PS3, apparently, and implanted cheaters at the top of the lists with massive play time figures ranging in the tens of thousands of days.

That’s unpossible!

While Activision or Infinity Ward has yet to comment on whether the boards will be reset, it is unlikely a ban will go into effect by Sony, as it has already said that Javelin Glitch cheaters would not be banned.

Whether this particular offense warrants a ban in Sony’s eyes or not remains to be seen, but we’d dosomething akin to NCsoft if left up to us.

More through CVG.

Update: Aaron Greenberg has tweeted the following additional stats: “$18.7 billion was spent LTD on Storefront, there’s been over 4 million auction bids, and 1.5 million items for sale”. Nifty.

Original: Microsoft has announced that Forza Motorsport 3 moved one million units worldwide with only a month at retail.

Also, the Forza community on Xbox Live has logged over 6.6 million hours of online play with more than 64 million sessions, and has driven over 590 million miles (952 million kilometers) in-game.

“That’s equal to more than three trips from the Earth to the Sun and back,” said MS.

To help these numbers grow, kiddos, you should totally get the Hot Holidays Car Pack which is available today on XBL for 400 MS Points.

It has the Ferrari 458 Italia, ya know.

Via IndustryGamers.