Recession Hit Gaming World Too!!!

The current economic climate has apparently delayed the relaunch of the Gizmondo.

The relaunch of the Gizmondo handheld gaming platform has been delayed by company head Carl Freer because of adverse economic conditions apparently.

The Gizmondo originally launched back in 2005 but the company was forced to bankruptcy by poor sales and an association with organised crime through certain members of the company. After the release of Stefan Ericksson from jail in early 2008 though the company was rapidly relaunched.

The credit crunch however has impacted on that relaunch and prevented the Gizmondo from hitting a Q4 2008 launch deadline.

"Unfortunately, we've had to reschedule the launch of Gizmondo. It's due to the economic climate in the US, as well as in the rest of the world. It has affected us in our ability to fund and get funded in regards to the manufacturing of components," Carl Freer told The Nordic Link.

"We've had some very, very touch and go moments here for three months. It has affected everyone. I was at one point thinking of abandoning the whole project, because I didn't see a way out of it; a way to fund it.

"I don't have half a billion dollars or 300 million dollars. You can only try and do your best," he said.

The company apparently ran into problems with manufacturers too, prompting Freer to rethink the entire design. The Gizmondo will now apparently relaunch as an open platformed, 3D enabled smartphone - but we'll believe it when we see it.

XboX 360 finally outsold original XboX

Microsoft has confirmed that the the Xbox 360 has now outsold the original Xbox, meaning that it has sold over 25 million units worldwide since its 2005 launch. “We’ve already surpassed the installed base of the original Xbox–which is a really significant milestone,” Microsoft entertainment VP Chris Lewis told MCV. “We’re at a price point that is uniquely placed–not least of which because we’re in somewhat of a challenging economic time,” he added. ” Ever since we dropped the price seven weeks ago, we’ve outstripped PS3 on a weekly run rate in all the territories we care about in EMEA–specifically the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Russia.”

Lewis did not provide an exact figure as to how many Xbox 360s have been sold worldwide thus far. As of September 30, Nintendo had sold 34.55 million units of the Wii hardware, with Sony’s PlayStation 3 sitting at 16.84 million units worldwide. Another survey discovered the three major video-game consoles needlessly add a significant amount to consumers’ electric bills each year, with much of the unnecessary energy use caused by people keeping their machines on when not in use. On average, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 use 150 watts and 119 watts of electricity, respectively, more than prior generations of the consoles.

Source: Shacknews

Only 20 percent of games make a profit

According to analyst research only 20 percent of released games will ever turn a significant profit.

Granted, this bit of rather shocking news only caught our attention thanks to Forbes magazine making a mistake, but it's still worth reporting that apparently only 20 percent of games ever turn a significant profit.

The information, which is based on data gathered by the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst firm (EEDAR, originally showed that only 4 percent of games ever make a profit but EEDAR has now issued a correction to those figures.

According to the correction as posted on Kotaku the research actually shows that a full 20 percent of released games are able to turn a significant profit. The confusion stems from the fact that only 4 percent of all games that enter into production ever make a profit; but most games that begin production are never released.

According to EEDAR, a major problem for game developers and publishers is that often more than 60 percent of a games allotted budget will be spent on redesigning fundamental aspects of a game.

It has to be said of course that 20 percent would still seem to be a shockingly low figure, but given the amount of awful games out there and the endless Wii cash-ins that flood the market we'd say that only 20 percent of games ever really deserve to make a profit.

Midway stock faces de-listing

Midway faces de-listing from the New York Stock Exchange, with all hope now resting on Mortal Kombat vs. DC.

Midway has revealed that the New York Stock Exchange has warned the company that its stock may soon be de-listed if the situation doesn't change for the company. Currently the company is failing to meet the minimum requirements for listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Most critically, Midway was told that it may soon be de-listed as the publisher and developer had failed to achieve a minimum closing price of $1.00 USD per share for the last 30 consecutive days, claims GamesIndustry.biz.

The warning comes with a prohibition period which allots a six month for the company to correct the situation and ensure it re-qualifies for listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Throughout the six month period Midway will continue to be listed and available for trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The warning isn't entirely unexpected either as the company has endured some hard times lately, with losses doubling this year up to $76 million USD. Recent titles such as Unreal Tournament 3 and Blacksite have underperformed for the publisher as well and now the company is pinning its hopes almost solely on Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Within the company things haven't been great either, with Midway firing 20-30 staff and the company chairman stepping down.

4.7 Million copies of Fallout 3 shipped

Bethesda’s crowing this morning about record sales of its post-apocalyptic role-playing games Fallout 3. Probably justified. UK sales checker Chart-Track says Fallout 3 has already outsold every prior game in the franchise combined. That sounds slightly more illustrious than it is, because of course all those older Fallout games (except for what-was-Interplay-smoking spinoff Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel) were strictly computer-based. Console sales routinely trump PC sales nowadays, and of course there’s that thing about the market exploding since Fallout and Fallout 2 arrived in the late 1990s. But at least 90 percent illustrious, with Chart-Track stating the game has already outsold Bethesda’s Oblivion by 57%, pulling in sales of 55% on Xbox 360, 28% on PS3, and 17% on PC.

Bethesda dropped a note this morning stating it’s shipped approximately 4.7 million units of Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, “representing retail sales in excess of $300 million.” The game went on sale at midnight on October 28 in North America, as some 2,000 retailers held special late night launch parties. I’m not sure if that’s a record midnight opening for a video game, but if it’s not, it’s got to be close. Also: That’s 4.7 million units shipped to stores, not necessarily sold-through. We’ll see best-guesses at the sell-through numbers shortly from NPD. More info about Fallout 3 in our post.

Source: PC World

Alienware unleashes M17 gaming notebook

Alienware’s new M17 features a Core 2 Extreme processor, ATI CrossFireX graphics, dual hard drives…and prices starting at $1,399. Dell subsidiary Alienware has announced its new M17 gaming notebook, marking the first time an Alienware notebook has offered ATI CrossFireX technology, offering dual ATI mobility Radeon HD 3870 graphics controllers to push those pixels around. The system also sports a Intel Core 2 Duo or Intel Core 2 Extreme QX93000 processors, DDR memory, and a 17-inch 1,920 by 1,200 pixel display. The M17 is available in a wide range configurations to satisfy gamer cravings, but the highlights are either Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme quad-core processors, up to 4 GB of DDR3 memory, single and dual-graphics options using ATi Mobility Radeon HD 3870 controllers, single and dual hard drive options, ATSC TV in with an optional TV tuner, HDMI and VGA video output.

There’s also support for 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth wireless networking, gigabit Ethernet, and a 17-inch display sporting either a 1,920 by 1,200-pixel resolution, or 1,440 by 900 pixels. The M17 features Alienware’s stealth black matte finish, along with Alienware’s Skullcap case design. The unit is available with a dual layer DVD burner (with or without LightScribe), or a burner that can also read Blu-ray media. Prices for the M17 start at $1,399, although, of course, prices go up as you add components. Still, a Core 2 Extreme config with 3 GB of RAM, CrossFireX, and that 1,920 by 1,200-pixel screen is (barely) under $2,000.

Source: Digital Trends

Nintendo: Wii production might not meet demand

Nintendo has again been forced to admit that demand for the Nintendo Wii might exceed the supply.

Nintendo has again been forced to confess demand for the Nintendo Wii might exceed the supply this Christmas as families seek to buy a console of their very own.

In an interview with the LA Times (via Joystiq), Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that though the production has been increased in anticipation for the holiday season, it's still very likely that the Wii will sell out.

Nintendo is now making a staggering 2.4 million consoles a month, which is a production increase of 33 percent and up from last years 1.6 million consoles a month, but demand is still emptying shelves faster than Nintendo can fill them.

Reggie was keen to put those figures in perspective too, telling the LA Times how those sales figures compare to Sony.

"They will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year," said Reggie. "For us, that's three months of production."

The Wii has currently been on sale for 708 days and the sales are still showing no signs of slumping thanks to the huge appeal the Wii has with families and casual gamers. Contrary to popular opinion it also has a fair few decent games coming out too from Sega's Madworld to Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox.

GTA IV PC delayed, system requirements

Grand Theft Auto 4 has been delayed on the PC until the second of December.

Rockstar has confirmed the rumoured delay of GTA IV PC that puts the release of the game all the way back until December 2nd. The announcement confirms the change in retailer dates that were first spotted on retailers websites.

The delay puts the release of the game back by two whole weeks, though Rockstar haven't explained what exactly the reason for the slip is.

The good news though is that Rockstar has at least released the minimum and recommended system requirements for the game, which appear similar to those which had previously been leaked by Microsoft's Games for Windows website before they were removed, Check them out below.

Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
* Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
* Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
* Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
* 18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
* Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

StarCraft II will have casual appeal

StarCraft 2 will have an increased casual focus according to Blizzard, who want to open up the appeal of the game.

Blizzard has said that although it is trying to ensure that StarCraft II will have some hardcore appeal, it'll also strive to have a strong appeal in the casual market - or as the games producer puts it, 'mom-friendly'.

Speaking to MTV, Blizzard's Chris Sigaty confirmed that although Blizzard recognises the importance of StarCraft II as a hardcore and e-sport title, the casual market also can't be ignored.

“We’ve trying to make sure that it’s perfectly balanced for e-sport," said Sigaty, "but look — I’m going to try to get my mom to play this game."

"I know she can’t [micromanage] at the level that these pro gamers can, so we’re actually experimenting back in the opposite direction… so that even the layman can come in and get a grasp of these cool things in the game.”

That's something that might not sit too well with fans of the game though, who have been feverishly praying for the game for a long, long time.

Blizzard has also angered fans a little with the announcement that StarCraft II as a whole is going to be split into three separate games, each with only one campaign and multiplayer portion included.

Sony PS3 browser faster than IE7 !!! lol

Sony has just updated the official PlayStation 3 firmware to include a faster browser and Flash 9 support.

Sony has just updated the official PlayStation 3 firmware to include a faster browser and Flash 9 support.
Sony has just updated the official PlayStation 3 firmware to include a faster browser and Flash 9 support and is now boasting that the console's internet browser is now faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, despite only have being in development for a short time.

Sony apparently began work on the new version of the PlayStation 3 browser last year and had to re-code many features in order to get Flash 9 support included, but it is adamant the work has paid off.

Discussing the new 2.5 firmware update with IGN, Sony claimed that the system is now faster than Internet Explorer 7 - though still not as fast as Google's new kid, Chrome.

The new browser update apparently also improves Javascript support, more than doubling the speed that Javascript can run at on the PlayStation 3.

The bad news though is that the PSP platform probably won't be benefiting from these advances in the future as Sony isn't sure that the PSP's limited resources will be able to run Flash 9 at all - apparently it was a stretch even getting the full screen keyboard to work.

The latest PSP update, version 5.0 of the firmware, has definitely added in some decent features though. PSP users on the move can now directly download the latest demos, trailers and games from the online PlayStation store.

custom made Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 an eBay offer

Konami and Sony’s limited edition Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 may have been enough to satisfy a few fans of the game willing to pay a premium for their console of choice but, for sheer excess, it has nothing on this custom-made system built by the folks at Morpheon Mods, which is now up for auction on eBay. Among the many details adorning this shiny creation is a laser-cut, stainless steel MGS4 marquee, a laser-etched image of Solid Snake, a carbon fiber Fox Hound logo on the rear, and 14 white micro LEDs to light everything up just right.

They even got Hideo Kojima himself to autograph the console and, perhaps best of all, they wrapped everything around a fully backwards compatible 60GB PS3. Just don’t expect any of that to come cheap, as bidding is already topping the $1,500 mark with six days left, though you do also get pretty impressive collection of Metal Gear swag with it, and 15% of the proceeds will go to help the Child’s Play charity.

Source: Engadget

EA rumoured to be making new Syndicat

It's just a rumour for now, but the word on the grapevine is that Electronic Arts is creating a new Syndicate game, with Starbreeze developing.

The original Syndicate game is definitely considered an all-time PC classic and is one of the great strategy games to come from Peter Molyneux and Bullfrog in the nineties. Starbreeze meanwhile is a relatively small studio who have mainly focused on dark, broody FPS games such as The Darkness and the fantastic Chronicles of Riddick.

The word on the street is that EA currently has Starbreeze studios working on a new Syndicate game.

The rumour comes from CVG.com, who are claiming an anonymous source who has connected the dots between a recent deal between EA and Starbreeze and EA's intention to win credibility by reviving a classic franchise.

The original game, which was released back in 1993, put players in control of a corporation with militant leanings that used a cybernetic assault squad to assassinate and capture rival executives.

There's currently no official confirmation from EA and no listing or announcement from within Starbreeze that the team is working on a Syndicate title - but CVG seem confident, so we'll have to wait and see.

Wii, Xbox 360 SMOKES PS3 behind

Microsoft Nintendo hardware sales benefitted once more from successful game titles in September. The best selling title for the month was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (610,000 units), which helped lift Xbox 360 sales by more than 75% from 195,200 in August to 347,200 units in September, according to NPD. The Wii climbed from a weak 453,000 units in August to 687,000 units on strong sales of its Wii Fit game and accessory, which sold 518,000 times during the month.

Slowly but surely, Sony may be concerned about its PS3. In comparison to its rivals, sales have been weakening over the past three months. In September, the PS3 saw the smallest sales increase, from 185,400 units in August to 232,400 in September. The most successful game for the PS3 came in at the #5 spot: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sold 325,000 units. The PS3 had only one top 10 game in September, while the Xbox 360 had five and the Wii had four.

Let’s look at the current market shares in the game console market:

Nintendo has solidified its market share of more than 50% and stood at 54.2% in September. Microsoft increased its share to 27.4%, while Sony dropped to 18.3%.

In September 2007, the Xbox 360 led the market with 46.0% share, followed by the Wii with 43.6% and the PS3 with 10.4%.

US gaming industry in September: 7% drop

Final summer month’s $1.27 billion haul falls just short to Halo 3-boosted ‘07 sales. During September 2008, the game industry didn’t deliver quite the same punch as during the same period a year ago, bringing in $1.27 billion for the month. On the hardware front, Nintendo took home the gold and silver yet again, with the Wii placing first with 687,000 units sold and the DS second with 536,800 units sold. However, Microsoft’s dramatic price reduction of the Xbox 360–the cheapest model is now just $199–paid off in the form of a 78 percent jump in sales volume. The console sold 347,200 units during September, up from just 195,000 in August. That was enough to put it past the PlayStation 3 (234,000 units) and its smaller sibling, the PSP (238,100 units).

Top selling games in October 2008:

1 ) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360) / LucasArts / 610,000
2 ) Wii Fit w/ Balance Board (WII) / Nintendo / 518,000
3 ) Rock Band 2 (Xbox 360) / MTV Games/Electronic Arts / 363,000
4 ) Mario Kart Wii w/ Wheel (WII) / Nintendo / 353,000
5 ) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3) / LucasArts / 325,000
6 ) Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 297,000
7 ) Wii Play w/ Remote (WII) / Nintendo / 243,000
8 ) Madden NFL 09 (Xbox 360) / Electronic Arts / 224,000
9 ) Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (WII) / LucasArts / 223,000
10 ) Madden NFL 09 (PS2) / Electronic Arts / 158,000

As expected, the big software hit of the month was LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Three versions of the mildly praised game made it into the top 10, with a total of 1.16 million units. The only other top 10 newcomer was the 360 edition of Electronic Arts’ Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which came in sixth place with 297,000 copies sold. The rest of the September top 10 game chart belonged entirely to Nintendo.

Source: Gamespot

GTA: Chinatown Wars detailed

GTA: Chinatown Wars, the new Grand Theft Auto game for the Nintendo DS, has finally been properly unveiled according to Nintendo Power Magazine where the first screenshots and snippets have leaked out about Rockstar's latest ultra-violent sandboxer.

According to the developers, Chinatown Wars will use a cel-shaded art style similar to the promotional artwork for Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as a 3D isometric viewpoint half-way between the view used in the original and latest GTA games. These changes will allow Rockstar to make the most of the DS' rather limited hardware.

What's more amazing of all though is that Chinatown Wars is set to be as mature as any other Grand Theft Auto game apparently, despite Nintendo's reputation for blocking or censoring too-violent games on their platforms.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is set to be as mature as previous games in the series.

It's also been confirmed that Chinatown Wars will feature some cool new updates and tweaks such as a full day-night cycle, as well as having a PDA-like interface very similar to the way the mobile phone is used in Grand Theft Auto IV. Functions like GPS, e-mail, music and contacts will be constantly at your fingertips.

Importantly, Rockstar has redesigned the way the missions are handled too and re-focused the pace of the game to take shorter play-periods into account. Failed missions now no longer have to be restarted from the point the mission was accepted, instead you can jump back into the game where the action starts.

97% of today’s kids are video gamers

According to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project 97% of young people today play video games in one form or another–boys and girl alike. And when they play video games, they often play them with someone else, ether in person or online. Two-thirds play face-to-face, the survey found, while a quarter play online with other people. “It shows that gamers are social people,” says Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher at Pew. “They communicate just as much. They spend time face-to-face, just as much as other kids. They e-mail and text.”

The kids these days game fairly often, too, with 50% of them saying they had played a video game the previous day. And even though many underage respondents said they had played or owned several M- and AO-rated games, the Pew researchers were quick to distance themselves from making any proclamations about video games and real world violence. Instead, Joseph Kahne, a study co-author and dean of the education school at Mills College in California, said games like Halo–while violent–provided “more than average opportunities for players to help one another.”

Source: Gamepro

Team17 to remake Alien Breed

Team17 is stepping away from the Worms franchise for a little bit and will be remaking the original Alien Breed game and all we can say is thank you! Don't get us wrong, we love Worms, but the series has become a little bit repetitive and formulaic over the last few years.

Team17 is leaving Worms alone for a little bit in order to focus on remaking the Alien Breed game.

Team17 gave the announcement last night that it would be remaking Alien Breed, which was a top-down sci-fi shooter made for the single greatest computer system ever, the Amiga.

Not much is know about the game, which has no relation to the Aliens series, just yet and we aren't too sure on whether it'll be an all-out remake or an utterly fresh sequel.

Currently, the rumour is that Team17 is looking to maximise revenue on the game and that it will be a self-published, downloadable affair, so although platforms haven't yet been confirmed XBLA, PSN and PC all seem like viable choices, though WiiWare could also be on the cards.

Or, in other words, it could come to pretty much any platform and we just don't know for sure.

Brett Ratner wants to make Guitar Hero Movie

Hollywood director Brett Ratner is keen to make a Guitar Hero movie, but Activision are yet to surrender the rights.

It's a general rule of thumb that games and films do not mix, though some could arguably go better together than others. The Doom movie? Not too bad. Silent Hill? Pretty OK. Pirates of The Carribean? As close to a Monkey Island movie as we'll ever get, probably.

A Guitar Hero movie though? Frankly, we just don't see that working.

That hasn't stopped Brett Ratner, director of X3: The Last Stand pursuing the idea though and the Hollywood director has been pressurising Activision heavily to let him make a film recently. We bet his plan involves Jack Black, some school kids and a watered-down version of a real rock and roll lifestyle - are we too cynical?

"I'd really like to do it, but they [Activsion] are not letting me...I expressed my interest, but because it's such a success, it's like now there's no reason to make a movie about it," Ratner told EW.

Thank Zeus for that then that Activision doesn't want to go down that route just yet and is blocking any attempt to adapt the game into a film.

The bad news though is that Activision does have plans for the Guitar Hero series and is looking to expand the series massively. According to a recent Activision conference call, the games publisher is hoping to triple the number of Guitar Hero games released by 2010. Has nobody warned them about partying too hard?

Piracy softmod comes to the Wii

If you were one of the misguided games publishers who thought that games piracy was only a problem for the PC market then you might want to take a look at this and see the first example of a homebrew program that lets the Nintendo Wii play pirated games without a hardware modification.

The Wii Homebrew channel allows players to run a variety of community created software.

And considering the sheer number of Nintendo Wiis that have been sold and how easy the homebrew is to enable - the details of which we aren't going to go into here, but our understanding is that it's based around the same Twilight Princess exploit as most other Wii homebrew programs - this could be quite a problem for Nintendo.

Ostensibly called the Wii Back-up Loader, the program allows users to run pirated Wii games in .ISO format without any trouble whatsoever. Though the program claims it is made for people who want to back-up the games they already own, the primary market is obvious.

What's most interesting about all this is that the exploit that the program is based around isn't new at all, and members of the Wii homebrew community had actually already discovered this and tried to contact Nintendo about patching the problem before it became widely known. Nintendo however repeatedly ignored emails from the community and did not respond to attempts to enter into a dialogue with the community.

So, you can't help but feel that Nintendo has shot themselves in the foot here.

Declining sales in video games industry

Videogame sales were weaker than expected in August, suggesting that the slowing U.S. economy may have finally caught up with the sector. Late Thursday, the NPD Group reported that sales of videogame software for the U.S. rose 13% from the same period last year. On average, analysts covering the sector had been expecting a gain of 20% to 25%. It was the lowest year-over-year sales gain since January, according to NPD data. Sales of game software totaled just over $550 million for the month, according to NPD data. That was down from the $591 million reported for July. As expected, the biggest title for the month was EA’s “Madden NFL 09,” which typically releases in August ahead of the football season. Across the four major platforms, “Madden” sold more than 2.18 million units for the month.

Nintendo also has some strong sellers, with “Wii Fit,” “Mario Kart” and “Wii Play” ranking under “Madden” as the top-selling titles for the month. Sales of game consoles were another disappointment. With one exception, every major console saw its unit sales slip from July. Only the hand-held PSP from Sony Corp. notched a gain, moving from 221,700 units to 253,000 units following a redesign of the console. Nintendo sold 453,000 Wii units for the month, down 18% from July. The Xbox 360 from Microsoft Corp. slipped nearly 5% to 195,200 units while Sony’s PlayStation 3 fell nearly 18% to 185,400 units.

Source: WSJ