Tag: Business - Page 7
News May NPD: L.A. Noire Tops The Class, Video Game Sales Drop
L
A. Noire</a> managed to top the sales charts in North America last month, despite video game spending being down 13% year-over-year. New entries Brink and LEGO Pirates Of The Caribbean rounded out the top-three. Unfortunately revenue for the industry as a whole dropped from $829.4 million to $718.8 million, though hardware was only down by...
News THQ Closes Homefront Developer, Confirms Plans For Homefront Sequel
No, that's not a mistake in the headline
THQ really has been busy this afternoon, both closing Homefront developer Kaos Studios and, errr, announcing the franchise's sequel. THQ also closed down its Digital Warrington studio, in a "strategic" move designed to "realign its internal studio structure". THQ confirmed today that it...
News Patrice Desilets Begins Work At THQ Today
Former Assassin's Creed gaffer, Patrice Desilets, begins work for THQ today the publisher has announced
Desilets revealed he was joining THQ to head up the publisher's new Montreal studio last summer, but was forced to take a year out from the industry per his contract with Ubisoft. Desilets was a pivotal figure in the success of the Assassin's...
Feature Why PlayStation Vita Changed Perceptions At E3 2011 -- 'Twiggy' The Push Square Opinionator
Nintendo might have announced a new platform at E3, but if you listen to the buzz bubbling beneath the Wii U, you'll notice the perception of Sony's PlayStation Vita has changed dramatically
The spiritual successor to the PlayStation Portable already convinced some when it was announced earlier in the year. With dual analogue sticks, a gorgeous...
E3 2011 So That Was E3... See You June 5th-7th 2012
E3 2011 is pretty much over, with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) announcing that E3 2011 welcomed 46,800 attendees over the past couple of days
Of course, now's the time to start building hype for next year's event, which kicks off June 5th-7th 2012. According to Joystiq the event will stay in L.A. for the next couple of years, with...
Feature Opinion: Quit Dallying And Put The PlayStation Vita On Store Shelves Already
Like many others, we came away from Sony's press conference grinning from ear-to-ear
Not only had Sony demonstrated a substantially more capable handheld platform than its peers, it also seemed to show a reasonable understanding of the current market-place. Handheld platforms need to both accompany the home-console experience, and differentiate from...
News Woah, Sony Confirms It's Selling PlayStation Vita At A Loss
Look, let's get things straight: PlayStation Vita is an amazing platform at an outrageous price
There was always going to be a catch. It seems that catch lies with Sony's bottom-line, as the company has confirmed it will be selling the Vita at a loss. We suppose that would be stomachable if it was just six months or so, but no, Sony doesn't expect...
News UK Retailers List PlayStation Vita From ?230
GAME and Play
com</a> are amongst the first UK retailers to open pre-orders for Sony's new PlayStation Vita. Both are currently listing the Wi-Fi version of the handheld for £229.99 and the 3G version for £279.99. Sony announced during its E3 press conference last night that the PlayStation Vita would cost $249.99 (Wi-Fi) and $299.99 (3G)...
News Yoshida: Sony 'Comfortable' With Internal NGP Price-Point
If there's anything to dread at Sony's press conference this evening, it's going to be the NGP's price point
There's a definite sense that the company can't win no matter how they tackle the pricing situation. If Sony don't announce a price then people will assume the new handheld really expensive. But if the company announce a price now and don't...
News Sony: NGP Development Budgets To Be Closer To PSP Than PlayStation 3
One of the arguments lofted against the NGP by critics is that the system's bigger and better graphics will likely result in higher development costs for publishers
While this criticism ignores the NGP's ability to run smaller games (PlayStation Suite, Minis, etc), Sony's Worldwide Studios Europe president, Michael Denny, believes development costs...
News Rumour Of A Rumour: NGP's RAM Revealed, Then Slashed (Kinda?)
There's two rumours here if you read between the lines
Sony has always been cagey about the amount of RAM in the NGP. In fact, to our knowledge the platform holder has yet to confirm anything regarding that particular aspect of the system's specifications. Yet, French site 01Net is convinced Sony has cut the total RAM of the system from 512mb to...
News Sony Acknowledges 'Future Platform' For The First Time
We all know Sony's working on a new PlayStation
It's as obvious as the sun-setting. But up until now, Sony has not acknowledged a new home console in any way. That changed this morning, when Sony mentioned a "future platform" at its financial meeting for investors. Sonys VP and CFO, Masaru Kato, mentioned the "future platform"...
Some positive PlayStation news at last
Perhaps slightly soured by the PlayStation Network situation, but not to be sniffed at in the slightest. Sony has recorded a whopping ¥35 billion profit for the PlayStation division through its March 2010 fiscal year (ending March 31st, 2011). Operating profit was at ¥35.6 billion (£266.9 million/$435.3...
News Japanese Sales Charts: PSP Still On Top, But Hardware Slumps
The PlayStation Portable was on top of the Japanese sales charts again last week, but hardware was down overall
The usually dominant PSP only scooped up 34k sales, while both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii slumped to record lows. The PlayStation 3 didn't do much better either, managing just 13k sales. As for software, Dragon Quest continued to top the...
News THQ Insists It's 'One Of The Big' Publishers
We love THQ, but we wish they'd shut up trying to remind us how relevent they are
You earn relevence through good content, something THQ has in abundance. You don't earn it by telling people to take notice every five minutes. That's exactly what CEO Brian Farrell has done in an interview with IndustryGamers though. We certainly think of ourselves...
News Sony Adds Third Security Team To PlayStation Network Investigation
It's on like Donkey Kong, and you can't really blame Sony for wanting to get to the bottom of the data breach that will probably end up costing the company millions of dollars
A Reuters report published this morning suggests Sony has thrown a third security team at the PlayStation Network investigation. They will join the FBI and Homeland Security...
News Sony Stock Bumped Up In Wake Of PSN Breach Public Apology
After taking a beating last week, Sony's stocks have started to bounce back in the wake of a public apology from SCE president Kazuo Hirai regarding the PlayStation Network data breach
Reuters reports that Sony stocks rose two-percent to ¥2,304 early this morning. Alongside the apology, Hirai detailed a series of compensation packages designed to...
Sony Computer Entertainment president Kazuo Hirai has apologised to PlayStation Network users regarding the data breach which compromised approximately 75 million accounts
At a refreshingly personal press briefing in Tokyo this morning, Hirai said that Sony had "learned" its lesson, before detailing a number of plans aimed at trying to win...
Have you heard, the PlayStation brand is in decline
That's according to an opinion piece crafted by Gamasutra's Colin Campbell. Does it sound familiar? It sure as hell does to me. In fact listening to podcasts and reading editorials this week has made me question whether I took a ride in a tripped out DeLorean against my will: it's 2007 all over...
News Major Credit Card Companies Note No Indication Of PlayStation Network Hack Fraud
Sony has reiterated multiple times that there is "no evidence" of any PlayStation Network credit card theft in the wake of a recent hacking attempt on the service
That line has now been corroborated by a number of leading US banking outfits. Speaking with Bloomberg , spokesmen for Wells Fargo, American Express and MasterCard said they "were...
News Ubisoft Earns Publisher Rights To WRC, SBK Games
Ubisoft has announced that it has secured rights to publish Black Bean's games in the UK
According to MCV, the move means that Ubisoft will now publish games such as WRC and SBK, as well as other titles like Let's Dance With Mel B. The first game under the new deal is set to be SBK 2011 which is due out on May 13th.
News UK Fraud Organisation Calms PlayStation Network Identity Theft Concerns
An organisation familiar with fraud prevention in the UK, Financial Fraud Action UK (or FFA UK), has moved to calm gamers amidst a massive potential data breach of the PlayStation Network
The organisation has warned against an overreaction amongst consumers, offering Eurogamer the following statement: "FFA UK has been made aware that out of the...
Report Sony Urged To 'Invest A Lot' In Order To Rebuild Business
Having spent the morning re-securing our personal finances, our attention has slowly turned to the commercial fallout of Sony's breached security
As die-hard PlayStation fans we're obviously concerned about the near-term impact this story is going to have on Sony's platforms and games. Furthermore, as a website that deals solely in PlayStation...
Feature Don't Kill The 'Mid-Tier' Game -- 'Twiggy' The Push Square Opinionator Returns
Jeff Cannata coined a phrase on the Weekend Confirmed podcast that will probably stick with me for as long as I write about entertainment products
Desperately struggling to balance his positive opinion of Square Enix's Nier against the game's catalogue of flaws, Cannata concluded that the title is "more fun than it is good". It's a...
News Ubisoft Out For Blood, Wants To Beat EA And Activision
Ubisoft's gaffer Yves Guillemot reckons his company has the oomph to overturn Activision and EA as the world's largest third-party publisher
Fighting talk, yo. Chatting with MCV, the executive said that Electronic Arts' decision to sell off its 20 percent stake in the publisher "changed lots of things for us. We had a competitor owning a share...
News Jack Tretton Says Sony's In 'Growth Mode, Not Cruise Control'
SCEA's gaffer Jack Tretton has said that the platform holder has not peaked yet with PlayStation 3, and that it is still in "growth mode"
The exec told Fast Company that the platform was just getting going with regards to line-up, accessories and new features such as 3D. When you look at all the games Sony still has left to release this year, it's...
This week the PSP reclaimed its crown at the top of the domestic hardware sales charts in Japan, despite Nintendo's 3DS releasing just a month ago
Numbers for Nintendo's systm were also disappointing across Europe, with exact figures in North America seemingly hush-hush. It's worth stressing that the 3DS represents Nintendo's best ever launch, but...
News Former Capcom Gaffer Keiji Inafune Starts Up Two New Companies
The former Capcom cheif, Keiji Inafune, has announced that he's starting up two new companies: Intercept and Comcept
Intercept will deal with game development, while Comcept handles other areas of media such as books and video. We imagine both companies will work together on similar properties to strengthen brands across different forms of media...
News Sony Conquers Japanese Video Game Market In 2010
It's been a while since Sony was the dominant force in the video game industry, but numbers coming out of Japan show that the platform holder is back on top in its home region as of 2010
The fiscal year — which ended, like, overnight — has concluded with PlayStation 3 on top of the Wii, and the PSP on top of the DS. Enterbrain notes that this is...
The closet fanboys came out of the woodwork last night
The console war literally erupted after months of quiet acceptance from all sides. According to a report filed by data firm Strategy Analytics, the PlayStation 3 has now surpassed the XBOX 360 in "active install base", pushing the Microsoft system down into last place in the console...
News Sony Wins Court Injunction Against LG, Held PS3 Stock Released
The little patent disagreement between Sony and LG has been lifted, freeing some 300,000 PlayStation 3s that had previously been seized in Holland
You may remember LG was granted a preliminary injunction against Sony over an infringement on Blu-ray technology, but reports coming out of InsideGamer state that has now been lifted. Latest reports...
News Kaz Hirai Takes One Step Closer To The Ultimate Job At Sony
PlayStation's boss, Kazuo Hirai, has been promoted to executive deputy president at Sony, and is reportedly inches away from taking the top role at the company
A report on Reuters notes that the current head of Sony's network products and services division (which includes the PlayStation business) will take up his new position on April 1st. The new...
It's GDC week so there's always time for boring slides about console sales and things you'd see on a spread sheet
Sony's PlayStation Network Analysis panel for example was filled with comments and research that you'd expect business men to talk about. Sony's pinned console sales at over 41.6 million worldwide, which is a pretty solid number for the...
News Sony Chats PlayStation 3 Pricing, Won't Make The Same Mistakes With NGP
Considering the amount of technology Sony packed into the PlayStation 3, its famous $599 launch-price wasn't quite as bad as people claim
Sure it was an absurd price to launch a console, but it was actually cheap considering what the box was capable of. The problem was more to do with the console simply being too expensive to manufacture, than...
News Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Sells A Colosseum Full Of Copies
Probably the most interesting tid-bit from Ubisoft's financial call today -- aside from the publisher's 'dancing game' business being a success of 'hammertime' proportions -- was the news that Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has surpassed 6
5 million units shipped. That's a helluva lot of back-stabbing. We always thought it was mankind's guilty...
News Fight The Tears: Bizarre Creations Closes On Friday
Despite releasing the brilliant Blur last year, Develop's reporting that British studio, Bizarre Creations, will close their doors on Friday
The Merseyside team has been behind some of our favourite games over the years, including Metropolis Street Racer and Project Gotham Racing. Despite releasing two good games last year — James Bond 007: Blood...
News Sony's Now Shipped A Whopping 150 Million PlayStation 2 Consoles Worldwide
.. And last generation's leading console continues to see strong sales. Sony's just announced that they've now shipped 150 million PlayStation 2 consoles worldwide, with no signs of the platform slowing down. The console has now exceeded its ten-year lifespan, with Sony anticipating continued demand for the platform in Eastern Europe, South...
News Activision Scraps Guitar Hero Franchise & True Crime: Hong Kong
Activision's just set the Internet on fire by announcing that it has canned development on the almost-finished True Crime: Hong Kong and, perhaps more importantly, completely "disbanded" the Guitar Hero brand
The publisher stated during its 2011 financial report that due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband...
News PlayStation Network Sales Surge By 40%, PlayStation Plus Subscriptions Exceed 100k
Perhaps the most overlooked area of the PlayStation business is the ever-expanding PlayStation Network
Since the PS3 launched we've really watched Sony expand the digital-content service into a fundamental component of the platform, an area they lagged behind Microsoft going into this console generation. With that in mind, digital analysts conclude...
News LG Gets Pissy With Sony, Wants The PlayStation 3 Banned In The US
Korean company LG are not very happy with Sony
In fact, that's an understatement. They're pissed. Really pissed. So much so, they want Sony's PlayStation 3 and Bravia TVs banned in the US. Why? Something to do with Blu-ray patent infringements. According to Eurogamer, LG claims that Sony is infringing four of its patents that relates to...
News EEDAR Suspects NGP Will "Handsomely Surpass Sales Of" PSP
Now Sony's Next Generation Portable has been announced, the question on most people's lips is "price, price, price"
Analyst group EEDAR predicts that the system will cost "between $299 to $349" for the Wi-Fi only model, adding that it will "not exceed $399 in the United States". The firm furthers that some regions may not see the...
News Shame On You: Enslaved Sales Sit Below The 500,000 Unit Milestone
Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey To The West was not a perfect game, but it was still a very good one
Above all, it was refreshing to play something unique. While the game clearly took a lot of inspiration from the likes of Uncharted, it was well written and lovingly put together. In short: Enslaved deserved your money. Sadly consumers disagreed...
News PlayStation 3 Sales Rise To 47.9 Million, Within Touching Distance Of XBOX 360
Look, fanboys hat off, we've all known that unless Microsoft's Kinect was a global cultural phenomenon, PlayStation 3 was always going to overtake the XBOX 360 in worldwide sales at one point
While Kinect's success is constantly being rammed down our throats by the American press, we're just not seeing the same story in Britain. Has Kinect flopped?...
News SEGA's Riding High On Next Generation Portable Optimism
One of the challenges many people thought Sony would face with their Next Generation Portable is third-party software support
Despite selling an enormous amount of hardware, software always struggled on the platform outside of Japan. Therefore, t's been refreshing to see publishers — both Western and Eastern — extend words of encouragement about...
News Forget $599, Try $999 For Sony's NGP*
* Obviously Sony hasn't confirmed a price for the NGP yet, so Gamestop's pre-order listing is more a case of the company covering their asses than an indication of the device's actual price
Still, kinda funny.
News Shuhei Yoshida: "NGP Is Not Going To Be $599"
Our first hint at the NGP's pricing is a reference to Kaz Hirai's infamous E3 '05 meme
With Sony well known for their expensive products, many are wondering just how much the NGP will cost. You can rule out that famous "five-hundred-and-ninety-nine-US-dollars" price point for a start. Its not going to be $599, Worldwide Studios boss...
News Amazon Announces The Acquisition Of LOVEFiLM
Amazon's announced that they've acquired the European-based DVD-rental (and streaming) service LOVEFiLM for an undisclosed amount
LOVEFiLM launched an application on the PlayStation 3 late last year. According to VentureBeat, Amazon went ahead with the purpose because of the company's streaming solutions. Apparently, with 20 percent of the service's...
News Sadly, It Looks Like Bizarre Creations Are Kinda Done
Bizarre Creations might have delivered the brilliant Blur last year, but sadly it sounds like the studio's days are numbered
Last we heard Activision were looking to offload the developer to a potential buyer, but it sounds like talks have fallen through. Activision Worlwide Studios' COO Coddy Johnson told Develop that the publisher
News PlayStation To Expand Into China
A report in the China Daily suggests that Sony Computer Entertainment is to expand into the Asian mainland: China
The article notes that Sony recently signed a letter of intent detailing plans to implement training and R&D facilities in the Guangzhou province. It'll be Sony's first investment into the mainland. In addition to localisation, Sony...
News THQ Gets A New Set Of Squiggles They're Deeming A "Logo"
THQ's new logo signifies "change, innovation and creative growth" according to the company
The publisher's certainly grown exponentially over the past few years. We're not sure what these squiggles add though. Having said that, THQ's logo was already terrible. This isn't necessarily much worse.
