Monthly Archives: November 2011

If you happen to glance at the Steam Game Stat tracker, you’ll notice that as of this post, 223,174 people are playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim at the moment. From this, we can pretty much deduce that the game has at least sold close to 250,000 copies on PC already. In second is Modern Warfare 3′s multiplayer, with 68,397, down from 78,161 earlier today. Thanks, Kotaku.

Bethesda has said to hold off on installing Skyrim on Xbox 360 due to the way dynamic streaming of the game’s textures is handled by the console.

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Little did you know, that all those times you looked at the clock and it was 11:11, the cosmos was preparing itself for the Dragonborn. Because the day of reckoning is now upon us, little else is happening. Regardless, there’s still enough to warrant a shorts post.

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PlayStation 3 is five today in Japan, where it released on November 11, 2006. The system will turn five in North American on November 17, and it will celebrate its birthday in Europe on March 23, 2012. Now, go have some cake to celebrate. Thanks, Gematsu. [pic]

“As game creators, we put up too much front in our creations and we don’t make ourselves nearly vulnerable enough. I think our audience senses this, and they emotionally withdraw from our games. I’m not calling for us to get soppy and overwrought. We human beings are also fascinated and impressed by nuance and restraint. We have to get in better touch with our emotions and become more adept at portraying them in detail… with restraint, clarity and above all, vulnerability. I think that we owe it to our audience of players to really dig deep, and tell some stories worth playing.” – Naughty Dog’s Richard Lemarchand at an NYU lecture attended by Gamasutra.

ArenaNet has updated the Guild Wars 2 blog with information pertaining to the game’s updated cinematic conversations. In the game, these conversations take place via cutscene between player characters and NPCs during significant parts of the story. According to the blog post, some headway has been made in the lip-synching during these segments and a couple of videos have been posted showing how these conversations will work. Each is posted below. Guild Wars 2 is expected next year sometime. Thanks, Massively.

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EA released a rather large patch for FIFA 12 yesterday, and it seems to be causing the game to crash. According to the firm, the culprit is mismatched data in Creation Centre content when downloaded before installing the patch. The firm said in order to stop the crashing, delete said content from your system and re-download it. If you are unfamiliar with how to do this, CVG has you covered.

Funcom has announced that since going free-to-play in July, Age of Conan: Unchained has been tried out by 600,000 players. In celebration, everyone who logs in before Monday, November 21, will be able to claim The King’s Reward pack from the item store on one character on their account. The reward pack, which can be found in the special offer tab in the store, contains a selection of potions for the price of free. The pack is limited to one per account.

Research firm Envisional has issued a study which cites a rise in UK game piracy of 20% over the last five years. According to the study, which fails to mention any titles, the “five top games of 2010″ were illegally downloaded through bittorrent clients almost one million times. Meanwhile, illegal downloading of music decreased, while illegal downloading of film and television programming since 2006 was up 30%. Thanks, Develop.

Sony has posted information on the US PS Blog pertaining to two new PlayStation Move bundles coming out.

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In its press release detailing the banner sales of Modern Warfare 3, Activision also announced that it had donated $3 million to the Call of Duty Endowment which supports American servicemen and women, by providing job placement and training services for veterans. The monetary amount was added to the $2 million already donated by the firm to the Endowment, which has provided “more than $1.5 million in grants and scholarships to veterans’ organizations across the country” since CEO Bobby Kotick started the non-profit in November 2009.

Nvidia’s financial results for Q3 saw an increase in revenue of $1.1 billion compared to $843.9 million yoy and in profits with $178.3 million compared to $84.9 million yoy, thanks in part to increased interest in “highly anticipated blockbuster PC games.” The firm noted growth in desktop GPU sales, naming Battlefield 3 as a major factor, along with Modern Warfare 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

“We believe this surge of PC gaming demand will drive increased demand for NVIDIA’s GeForce products despite the soft consumer PC market,” said Nvidia’s Rob Csongor. “We expect a multiyear PC gaming cycle, as the PC becomes increasingly more powerful than 5 to 6-year-old gaming consoles.” Thanks, Gamasutra.

The flooding in Thailand will cause a decline in PC shipments, according to analysts. The disaster has caused operations to cease at more than a dozen HDD factories in the country which, as of 2011, holds a 40 to 45 percent worldwide marketshare of HDD production. While most of 2011 production occurred before the flooding, PC production is still expected to decline during the quarter and decline even further in 2012. “PC shipments will decline between 2.2% and 3.4% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, down from a prior forecast for 5.1% growth,” according to Bloomberg, citing IDC numbers. “In the first quarter, shipments may drop by 1.8 percent to 13.4 percent. IDC had projected a gain of 8.2 percent.”

So if you are planning on purchasing a new PC for gaming, or building one from scratch, now is the time to do it. Thanks, ArsTechnica.

Insomniac has posted an update regarding patch 1.05, and along with a pending release date of next week, it will also come with two new multiplayer maps at no cost to you. The maps are Creek (16 players) and The Granary (four players). The patch will contain: network lag fixes; improved team balancing; purchasable abilities and equipment at level 60; fewer leaper spawns for Leaper Corpse, and better aiming with Move.

The entire list of fixes and updates included in the patch are below the break. Thanks, G4.

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British Labour Party politician for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Diane Abbott, believes Wii is better for children than PlayStation when it comes to nipping obesity.

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Sony has updated the US PS Movie store with a few goodies this week, mainly Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 in your choice of SD, 1080p HD, and 3D. To get you caught up on all things Harry Potter, the previous films in the series are all on sale until November 21.

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That was fast wasn’t it? Just Wednesday, Microsoft announced it would be updating Xbox.com with some feature changes in “the coming days.” Well, today is the day, and if you head on over you will see the changes have gone into effect. You can now set Beacons, the My Xbox section has been replaced with more streamlined Social section, Friend Activity is more organized and right there on your Home page – it’s all very snazzy, really. Something else – you can now cancel your Xbox Live subscription online instead of doing it over the phone. Hooray for ease and all that.

Activision’s announced Modern Warfare 3 made $400 million in its first 24 hours in the US and UK, selling 6.5 million units in the process.

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Think you know how to steal things in Skyrim? Watch this and be like a pro. Get it below the break. Game’s out worldwide today for PS3, 360 and PC.

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SCEJ’s announced this morning a brand new program, known as UMD Passport, where PSP owners will be able to bring most of their catalogue to Vita.

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