Items tagged with videogames
It's official -- Nintendo's upcoming Wii U console will ship in time of the holiday shopping season, a fact that will undoubtedly land it on holiday wishlists. During a press event today, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said the Wii U will be released on November 18 starting at $299.99. The $300 version comes with the console itself, a single Wii U GamePad controller, AC adapters, HDMI cable, and a sensor bar. It has 8GB of memory and will be available in white-only, at least at launch. There will also be a deluxe version for $349.99 that includes everything just stated, plus more memory (32GB), a GamePad charging pad, stands for the controller, and the "Nintendo Land" set of minigames....
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Sony isn't going to like this one bit, but the PS Vita is well on its way to being able to run homebrewed software. Yifan Lu, the developer-slash-reverse engineer guru responsible for jailbreaking Amazon's Kindle device and the PS Xperia (running PSX games on Xperia Play), is cooking up a homebrew loader for Sony's flagship handheld game console. The project is based on a PS Vita exploit Lu discovered, one in which he's not sharing with the public because then Sony would just plug the hole. It's also worth mentioning that the source code is still very much a work in progress, so there's nothing to share with PS Vita owners just yet. That's not going to give Sony warm fuzzies. If you recall, Sony...
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It may have taken Ubisoft a hundred million years to figure out that honest-to-goodness consumers really, really despise always-on Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes, but bless the publisher's heart for finally caving. Actually, Ubisoft did away with always-on DRM over a year ago, but is just now making it official. "We have listened to feedback, and since June last year our policy for all of PC games is that we only require a one-time activation when you first install the game, and from then you are free to play the game offline," Ubisoft's Worldwide Director for Online Games, Stephanie Perotti, stated in an interview. Perotti and Corporate Communications Director, Michael Burk, spoke at...
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In a little less than two weeks from now, Half Life fans will have an opportunity to relive (or play for the first time, as it were) Valve's original 1998 title Half Life, albeit reborn and modified using the company's Source engine. The ambitious third-party project is called Black Mesa (previously known as Black Mesa: Source) and it's been in development for eight years. "On September 14th you will see the first release of Black Mesa!," Black Mesa project leader, Carlos Montero, stated in a forum post. "This will include our re-envisioning of Half-Life all the way up to Lambda Core. We believe this is a great way to provide a complete-feeling 8-10 hour experience with a solid ending, make our...
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Microsoft is hoping a $40 price cut to its Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox 360 console will encourage more people to shake and gyrate to a growing catalog of supported games. The reduced price represents a 27 percent savings over the previous MSRP, and according to Microsoft, this isn't a temporary promotion. "The new permanently reduced price will be $109.99 in the U.S.," Microsoft stated in a blog post. "There will be also a permanently reduced price in North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific regions where Kinect is sold. Additionally, on October 4, the Kinect sensor will be available for a permanently reduced price in Australia and New Zealand." Microsoft didn't say why it lowered...
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In case you missed it over the weekend, Nintendo on Sunday semi-quietly launched its large size 3DS XL handheld console in the U.S. We say "semi-quietly" because it's long been known that the U.S. launch would take place on August 19th, though the day came and went without much fanfare. Regardless, you can get your hands on the 3DS XL at GameStop, Target, or Toys R Us. The $200 console is $20 more expensive than the regular 3DS, but packs larger displays. The top screen is 90 percent bigger at 4.88 inches, while the bottom display is 4.18 inches, which is also 90 percent bigger than the original. Note that the screen resolutions are the same on both models, so you're not getting more pixels,...
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New and used game retailer GameStop has been eager to jump into the streaming space ever since it acquired Spawn Labs and Impulse in 2011, and come next summer, the company's own cloud-based service will go live. At that time, it will not support consoles, even though that was originally the plan. "Based on consumer feedback, our success in selling mobile devices, and the imminent launch of new consoles, we have decided to move our technology to a PC-based model," GameStop president Tony Bartel said during a conference call." Details are still being hammered and more changes could be made between now and next summer, but the current plan is for GameStop's upcoming Spawn service to also support...
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If the only thing preventing you from purchasing a PS Vita is the price, Sony has some bad news. There will not be any price cuts in 2012. However, Sony did say that its engineers are working on certain cost reduction measures that will allow it to slash the price in 2013. "People like cheap or free," Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida said at Gamescon. "Of course, cost reduction is one area our engineering team is working on. But we just launched the platform earlier this year. It takes time to do so." In lieu of a price cut in 2012, Yoshida said he's hoping to increase the PS Vita's value proposition by "creating different types of bundles," such as the LittleBigPlanet PS Vita bundle pack. He also wants...
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If you've been around computer games for awhile, you may remember building sprawling cities on an Apple system way back in the day (when you weren't crossing the Oregon Trail, that is). Well, SimCity is heading back to the Mac platform six months from now, Electronics Arts announced today. "Whether you owned a Macintosh or a DOS PC, we all have memories of laying down zones and reticulating splines from our youth," said Lucy Bradshaw, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA’s Maxis Label. :To the millions of SimCity fans out there, we’ve been listening and can proudly say that your calls have been answered. SimCity has a long legacy on the Mac and the team at Maxis is ensuring...
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Years ago, you could walk into a computer store like Software Etc. and browse aisles and aisles of computer games and software. And today? Well, if you're a fan of boxed PC games, then taking trips to your local GameStop is a quick way to end up depressed, as the PC titles in most locations have been demoted to a single rack. Digital distribution is the wave of the future, and as far as Electronic Arts is concerned, that's where the focus should be. EA has said before that it believes digital downloads will overtake boxed game sales in the future, and lest anyone forgot, company COO Peter Moore recently reiterated that belief in an interview. According to Moore, that time is fast approaching....
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There have been all kinds of rumors and speculation surrounding Microsoft's next generation Xbox game console (codenamed Durango), and one of them is that it will ship with an improved Kinect motion camera device. How much improved? The answer to that question may have been revealed in a sample image purportedly taken from a Kinect 2 device running on an Xbox 720. The image was uploaded to Twitter (see below) and there's a question as to its legitimacy. However, some reports indicate its the real deal, plucked straight from Microsoft's Durango Xbox Development Kit (XDK). Image Source: Twitter (@superDaE) If the picture is genuine, then it bodes well for the next generation Kinect. Compared to...
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Activision Blizzard's mega popular MMORPG isn't called World of Warcrack for no reason, folks. The correct title, of course, is World of Warcraft (WoW), and it's been the leading cause for neglected hygiene for going on eight years. At last count, WoW was home to 9.1 million subscribers, Activision Blizzard revealed in its second quarter financial report. That's a heck of a lot of subscribers -- enough to maintain the game's rank as the most popular subscription-based MMORPG around -- but it's also 1.1 million lower than the 10.2 million paying players that were roaming Azeroth back in February of this year. Is WoW's run coming to an end? Probably not anytime soon, even if the drop in subscribers...
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Valve's Gabe Newell is one of at least two talking heads in the game developer arena that believes Microsoft's Windows 8 platform is bad for PC gaming (Blizzard is the other), and so he's put into motion a strategy to port the Steam platform over to Linux. Regardless of whether or not his reasons are sound, the Linux community has to be stoked, right? You would think so, but not everyone sees Valve's venture into open-source territory as a good thing. Richard Stallman, software freedom activist and creator of the GNU Project, believes there's an ethical dilemma with having non-free DRM'd games on GNU/Linux. "I suppose that availability of popular non-free programs on GNU/Linux can boost adoption...
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GameStop makes a killing selling used videogames, but what happens to that business model when digital distribution platforms run physical media out of town? That's not anything to worry about today, tomorrow, next week, or even next year, but at some point, GameStop will have to deal with the direction the games industry is headed, and it may already have a solution. GameStop CEO Paul Raines recently brought up the possibility of reselling used digital downloads. The idea is that GameStop could buy back your digital copy of any given game and then reissue the key to someone else. Obviously there are plenty of challenges involved, most of which relate to piracy, but GameStop sounds determined...
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Ouya (pronounced ooh-yah) is one of the more fascinating projects to hit Kickstarter. What started off as a plea to raise $950,000 for an open-source Android console has now brought in nearly $5.5 million in pledges, with a little over two weeks still to go. Clearly there's a ton of excitement surrounding the project, as well as skepticism from those who believe Ouya has exactly a zero percent chance of launching, which means over 40,000 backers would have flushed millions of dollars down the drain. It's too early to tell what will become of Ouya, but in the meantime, Fuseproject's Yves Béhar took some time out of his schedule to answer user generated questions. If his name looks familiar,...
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Diablo III proved deadly for an 18-year-old gamer who died at an Internet cafe in Taiwan after playing the hack-and-slash title for 40 straight hours without taking a break. Local media reports he didn't eat for nearly two days until he ultimately collapsed and died. Police are currently investigating the official cause of death with the help of an autopsy, but it's expected he died of cardiovascular problems resulting from spending hours and hours in a sedentary position. This is actually the second time someone in Taiwan has died this year from playing videogames. Videogame related deaths aren't as infrequent or rare as one might think. They're usually associated with marathon game sessions...
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If you need to beef up your games collection, now is the time to do it. Steam's annual summer sale is in full effect, and that means big savings on some top-notch titles from now through July 22, 2012. We're not talking minor reductions here either, but major discounts that include 75 percent off Portal 2 ($4.99), 50 percent off Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 ($29.99), and 88 percent off the Sega Hit Collection ($49.99), to name just a few. There's something for everyone, from indie titles to blockbuster hits, and everything in between. New deals are highlighted every day, and you can vote on a 'Community Choice' discount every 8 hours. Today's Community Choice pick is Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon...
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According to date compiled by the NPD Group, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes was the best selling game in the U.S. in the month of June, but game sames overall were down -- way down. Total game sales dropped by 29 percent year-over-year to $699.8 million in June, while software sales tumbled 27 percent to $362.8 million. Hardware sales took the biggest hit, dropping 45 percent to $201 million. Interestingly, game accessory sales climbed by 4 percent to $169.8 million. It was the only category to see an increase. NPD's figures don't tell the whole story, as they only include figures for new physical hardware, software, and accessories. The numbers completely ignore digital sales, as well as used...
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Rockstar's Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto series are typically a blast to play, provided you're into the developer's brand of gritty violence. As a result, both franchises are also huge successes, but that doesn't mean their respective fans are always happy, In fact, some of them are downright angry that it takes Rockstar so long to develop sequels. Why does it sometimes take years for Rockstar to come out with a sequel when its games rake in so much cash? It just happens that's one of the many questions Rockstar answered on its website as part of its 'Asked & Answered' series, in which it tackles sometimes tough questions extracted from Social Club member Newswire comments, tweets, and Mouthoff...
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Wouldn't it be great if game consoles didn't cost several hundred dollars, and if the games were free to play, at least to try them out? Well, that's the central idea behind Ouya, a new game console for the TV and powered by Android. Ouya's open-source foundation is the key cog in what the developers hope will be a game changing machine, one that revolutionizes the gaming landscape and turns the industry upside down on its head. In less than three days, Ouya has raised roughly $4 million on Kickstarter from more than 30,000 excited backers. A discounted reward tier of $95 in exchange for a finished console and controller was capped at 1,000 donations and sold out on day 1. Over 25,000 backers...
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You can quit sulking about your baseball card collection or boxes of comic books your mother tossed in the garbage bin after you moved out. Sure, they might have been worth a pretty penny, but apparently the real money when it comes to vintage items is in videogames. To wit, a French game collector sold off his collection of Nintendo and Sega console games for a cool $1.2 million and change on Ebay. The games aren't just a random collection of cartridges. Much cooler than that, the seller claims his wares include 22 full sets of games, including every single title every released on each Nintendo console, from Famicom to Gamecube, along with all games ever released on Sega systems. Many of them...
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There are two sides to every story, and if you ever felt yourself sympathizing with those egg thieving pigs in Angry Birds, developer Rovio has some good news. You'll be able to play a brand new Angry Birds game later this year from the point of view of the pigs. The goal will be to keep the eggs you snatched safe from those winged menaces that have gotten quite adept at destroying elaborate structures, and who have even learned to fly in space. It's not entirely clear how the mechanics of the game will work, though Rovio is planning to keep the catapult in play along with wooden and stone structures. The most likely scenario is that gamers will fling pigs at birds this time around, perhaps as...
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