Category Archives: The Netherlands

A March 2011 study conducted by Distimo and Newzoo, surveyed iOS users living in the US and six countries in Europe, and found that 63 million iOS users are downloading 5 million games on a daily basis.

More »

Dutch police have reportedly seized tens of thousands of PlayStation 3 consoles from warehouses as part of Sony and LG’s ongoing patent dispute.

More »

A Dutch magazine has provided another info dump on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, touching on graphical upgrades, the size of the game world, and the ever-fascinating dragons.

More »

According to a Microsoft fact sheet, ten more countries will be getting the Xbox Live Video Marketplace this fall.

More »

According to a Today’s Gamers’ survey of 13,000 people from Holland, France, Germany, Britain, Belgium and the US, more Americans play games as a percentage than all the rest.

Of those questioned, 87 percent of American males said they play games, versus 74 percent in the UK, 67 percent in Germany, and 66 percent in France.

Hit Joystiq for a précis.

Looks as though the Forza 3 demo’s gone live on the Dutch Marketplace.

We’ve just checked the UK version and there’s nothing there as yet, but you can download it from this link provided you’re signed into the UK Marketplace (thanks, evilashchris).

Thanks, TheDutchSlayer.

Large Dutch retailer Nedgame won’t be stocking PSP go this October, the chain’s told EG.nl.

Why? Two reasons. Firstly, it sees the €249.99 price tag – €80 more than the current PSP-3000 – as too steep. Secondly, the fact the console doesn’t use physical media means it won’t be able to sell any games for it. And selling games is how games shops make money.

A similar story relating to French retailers did the rounds recently, but SCEE poo-pooed it.

PSP go releases on October 1. Thanks, EG.

Microsoft’s confirmed to VG247 that Inside Xbox went live in eight extra European countries yesterday.

The online 360 magazine is now available in Denmark, Finland, Holland, Norway and Sweden, and in multiple languages in Austria, Belgium and Switzerland.

Up to yesterday, the service was viewable in America, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Taiwan.

To take a look, just boot up your 360 and navigate to the Inside Xbox channel.

Following news this morning that Sony was to release the Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Italian version of inFamous without English language support, SCEE has just told VG247 that the firm has u-turned on the decision – English is to be patched in at a later date.

“Following feedback from the community, we realise that there is a strong demand for English language on the Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Italian version of InFamous,” said the company in a statement.

“To remedy this situation, we will be providing a patch shortly, which will add English language to the game. As soon as the patch is ready, we will ensure that everyone is informed.”

The PS3 exclusive releases at the end of May.

Sucker Punch has apparently confirmed on its forum that the French, Italian, German, Spanish and Dutch versions of inFamous will feature no English language option.

The English version will only have Portuguese and Russian language settings.

This is unlikely to go down well, as you can see from the responses to the mod post, especially with the Dutch. English is spoken very widely in the Netherlands, a factor the drives a highly buoyant games market in the nation.

The decision to split out languages in this way was made after a Sony request, according to that note.

Asking SCEE for comment on this now. The game’s out at the end of May.

Thanks, TheDutchSlayer.

Keith Bakker of the Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam – a unit that treats videogaming addiction in young people – has told the BBC that he’s changing his methods as 90 percent of those that come to the clinic are wanting nothing more than a bit of a hug.

“These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies,” he said.

“But the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers – this is a social problem.”

Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rates treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug-taking and heavy drinking.

But Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10 percent of gamers.

More through there.

According to this Perfect-Rare story – translated from the Dutch by Gamer.tm – the Dutch (and Belgian) versions of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise are to cost more than elsewhere as they’ve been fully localised.

The rest of Europe ill pay €39 for the games, while if you want to play in Dutch it’ll cost you €59.

“We decided to fully translate both titles, which drove up costs,” a spokesperson said.

“If you look at the Dutch speaking market, then it’s hard to spread the costs across a limited number of consumers.

“A French or a German version, for instance, would be subject to the same costs, but the costs would fall due to there being a larger number of users.”

Don’t moan. If you want to play it in English, buy it in English. At least you have the option of buying it in Dutch. If you go and buy the Dutch version, maybe more companies will translate games into Dutch instead of just assuming you can speak English so you don’t want to play in your local language, right? Alstublieft? Dank u wel.

According to data from Media Control GfK International, European software sales are on the up.

Sales have risen by 25.6 percent for the first half of 2008 compared with last year’s tally.

Our Dutch brothers have been buying games like crazy, as sales for the region have risen by a massive 46 percent.

Compared with the same period in 2007, sales in Germany and Italy are up 39 percent whilst the Spanish have spent 25 percent more than they did this time last year.

Thanks, GI.

By Mike Bowden

Eurogamer’s launched the latest of its European language sites, Eurogamer Benelux.

The venture’s being headed up by Steven De Leeuw, who has previously worked for Official PlayStation Magazine Benelux, and other previous staffers from Gamer.nl. These include Eurogamer Benelux editors in chief Yarno Ritzen and Michiel de Vries, and contributors Philip Cremers, Erwin Vogelaar, Rutger Luiten and Frans Coehoorn.

“We have very high hopes for Eurogamer Benelux and expect it to be a leading site in the region before long. We’ve partnered with a great team and we all can’t wait to get the new site established,” said Eurogamer MD Rupert Loman.

Press release after the link.

More »

According to this Next-Gen report, the Dutch games industry is now worth €1 billion per year in revenue and is growing 50 percent faster than any other games market in the region.

From the site:

“The remarkable success of the Dutch game industry can be attributed to the significant interest in game-related research, education and science in the Netherlands,” said Seth van der Meer, chairman of the NLGD Foundation.

van der Meer expects Dutch games industry revenues to grow to €1.2 billion in 2008 and the number of jobs to increase to 1,800, a 20 percent increase in both revenue and workers. He also expects ten Dutch-created games for Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to be released worldwide.

More through the link.

A chap on this forum thread‘s been banned by Sony from playing on PSN after he was caught playing GTA IV before release.

He won’t be able to play online for a week, apparently.

He wasn’t playing a pirated version, he reckons, and instead bought the game from a shop.

“I got it from a store called Futurzone in Rotterdam, the Netherlands,” he said. “If I turn my PS3 on it wont let me log in. They send a email to me with the ban crap.”

This does appear to be an isolated incident, and many have been spotted playing the game online before the title hits at midnight tonight.

Dutch show the NLGD Festival of Games is to be held on June 14-22 in Utrecht, the organisers confirmed today.

Omnipresent former Edge editor Margaret Robertson will open and close the show, which is to feature keynotes from PONG creator Ralph Baer and Spore designer Chaim Gingold, who is to talk on creating games involving user-generated content elements.

“I’m excited to visit Utrecht, one of my favourite places in the world, and talk with like minded folks about games, one of my favourite subjects,” said Gingold. “My keynote, Magic Crayons: Spore & Beyond, will be an even better version of my GDC talk from last year.”