Tag: Industry - Page 45
News THQ See Motion Control Games As A "Cheap Alternative" To Core Games
THQ's been talking about the "benefits" of developing games for the PlayStation Move (and XBOX Kinect)
The company's CEO, Brian Farrell, sees motion control games as a cheap alternative to traditional core titles. He said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York: They are more mass-market type games. The cost of games for Kinect...
News TGS 10: Oh Hey, Capcom Just Bought Blue Castle Games
Wow
Capcom must have enjoyed working with Dead Rising 2 developer, Canadian studio Blue Castle Games. The publisher's just announced that they've bought the studio out right. The team will be renamed Capcom Games Studio Vancouver. We wonder if that's the name that will pop-up at the start of Dead Rising 2. Still, this cements Capcom's ambitions to...
Report Sony To Debut iTunes-esque Media Service For PlayStation, Erm, Today
According to a report in the Financial Times, Sony is set to debut an iTunes-esque digital store today that's set to compete directly with Apple's platform
The new service will apparently demand some kind of subscription fee in exchange for both music and videos, and is set to debut at the IFA technology show in Berlin today. The report notes that...
News Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square -- What Does It All Mean?
For years people have pondered the meaning of Sony's brand-defining controller face buttons
The Cross (or X) and Circle buttons are simple enough to decipher — the Circle represents "go" or "ok" (as is its use in Japan) and the Cross represents "no" or "cancel". Comically, Western games have managed to...
News Sony Expecting Modest Day One For Move, Longevity
One thing we've always defended about the PlayStation Move is how it's going to fare commercially this Christmas
While we expect the device to do fine (particularly on the back of all the recent software announcements), we've never been convinced that the device will do gang-busters out of the gates. PlayStation Move has a lot of potential to be...
News Hirai: PlayStation 3's Aim Is To Emulate & Surpass The PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 3 is doing fine
The system's in good-shape, the content's fantastic, the marketing's decent and the PlayStation Move looks set to be a fantastic extension to the experience. Still, it has big shoes to fill. When you look at the PlayStation 3's 38million sales, it's hard to envisage the system ever catching up to the PlayStation 2's...
News Keita Takahashi's Taking A Break From Gaming, Misses The PS2 Era
Keita Takahashi is responsible for some bold, bold games
Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy are two examples. But after seeing the output at this year's E3, Takahashi reckons it might be time to take a break from the games industry. He told OPM that he's "not thinking about a future in video games," and added: At E3 I saw people putting...
News Jade Raymond Aims To Turn Ubisoft Toronto Into A "Triple-A" Powerhouse
Most studios can barely manage the development of one single big budget game at a time
Jade Raymond's not aiming small with the newly opened Ubisoft Toronto - she's told Develop that the studio aims to produce five "tripe-A" projects at the same time. The new outfit's currently known to be working on two big-budget titles — one of which...
News Pachter: PlayStation Plus Needs 2-3 Million Subscribers Before PSN Starts Turning A Profit
Industry analyst Michael Pachter has weighed in with his impressions on Sony's PlayStation Plus service, predicting that the company will need 2-3 million subscribers before they start turning a profit
Comparing the service to XBOX Live on his GameTrailers show Pach Attack, the Wedbush Morgan man said that the Microsoft service had a slow start...
News SEGA Posts Impressive Quarterly Profits, Sales Increase By 51%
What the hell? If there was any company we'd have bet on losing money this quarter, it'd be SEGA
Not that we have anything against the company - heck no, we love them - but a lot of their releases this quarter were weak. At least, that's what we thought. Turns out we were wrong. Very wrong. SEGA actually managed profits of 7 billion yen ($80.8...
News Slow Sales Hurt Capcom For Another Quarter
Capcom's been hit by another hard quarter in which major releases did not perform to expectations
In their latest quarterly financial report - dating April through June - Capcom blamed the slow growth of Lost Planet 2 which put their net sales down 2.4% year over year. Net income dropped an astounding 90% from last year to around 213 million yen...
News Back In Black: PlayStation 3 Hardware Jumps 118%, Reaches Touching Distance Of XBOX 360
Sony's finally back in the black
The company's first quarter earnings (ending June 30th) were fuelled by improved sales of computers, televisions and, yes, the PlayStation 3. Overall revenue increased by 3.8%, giving the company a ¥25.7 billion ($295 million US) net profit. Gloabal PlayStation 3 sales reached 2.4 million for the quarter, with the...
Report Capcom Upping The Output Of Major IPs
With about a billion new Street Fighter titles in the works, a report from Nikkei suggesting that Capcom are to increase their major IP output comes as no surprise
The report notes that Capcom are to reduce the development cycle on their major IPs, allowing them to release more entries in popular series' such as Resident Evil and Monster Hunter. In...
News Nikkei: Sony To Post Quarterly Profit, Stunning Year On Year Turnaround
Japanese business index, Nikkei, are reporting this morning that Sony are to post an operating profit of 10 to 30 billion yen over the period April through June
It's a dramatic turn-around for the company, who posted a loss of 25.7 billion yen over the same period last year. Nikkei cites strong sales in China, strong performance of new SLR camera...
News Kojima: "The Younger Generation Of Japan Is Losing"
Hideo Kojima has revealed that he believes Japan are in a "losing" battle due to the recent boom of Western games development
The Metal Gear man said that he feels the younger generation of Japanese game developers have lost their motivation. He came to conclusion after watching a TV documentary about foreign exchange students who were passionate...
News Sony: Apple Are The Arrogant Ones
Cue streams of comments about "pots and kettles"
Sony Computer Entertainment Australia's Michael Ephraim said that, well, Apple's become arrogant. To be fair Micky - they're kind of allowed. Didn't they just overtake Microsoft as the biggest computing based company in the world? That's no minor feat. Speaking about SCEE's advertising direction,...
Report Playstation 3 Price-Cuts Coming Later This Year
MCV's reporting from a "senior global publishing source" that the Playstation 3 will see its price drop again this year
The Playstation 3 was essentially relaunched in September of last year when Sony unleashed the new Slim system to much uproar. MCV's claiming that the Playstation 3 will be brought down to £200, and the move could be announced as...
News Sony Pushes Closer To Console Profitability With More Efficient, Cheaper Graphics Chip
According to PocketNews (translated by PSU), Sony's updated the Playstation 3's hardware once again with a new improved, cheaper RSX graphics chip that reduces the likelihood of the console being affected by the infamous YLOD (yellow light of death)
It also uses 15 percent less power. The 45nm version of the RSX chip replaces the older 65nm chip...
News Phil Harrison - Come Back To Sony, We Miss You Man!
Good news: Phil Harrison has left Atari
Bad news: Phil Harrison probably won't be returning to Sony. The former Sony worldwide studios man (now replaced by Shuhei Yoshida) left Sony in 2008 to join Atari. Phil was a key member of each of the Playstation hardware family's launches, even demonstrating the Playstation 3 hardware with the famous ducks...
News Insomniac Label Infinity Ward Sackings As "Horrifying"
Resistance: Fall Of Man's lead multiplayer designer Jake Biegel has labelled the saga which saw the breakdown of Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward as "horrifying"
</span> He went on to describe that the event "reiterates how good it is to be working at a wholly independent developer." "I have some friends at Infinity Ward...
News Kojima Being Kojima: "I'll Leave The Industry If I Mess Up Next Project"
We love Kojima, but sometimes he's a bit melodramatic
Then we suppose the man that dreamt up the Metal Gear Solid franchise would need to be a little big melodramatic, wouldn't they? Yeah, ok then. It makes sense. Still, with Kojima's attentions seemingly already turned to his next project, the legendary developer has Tweeted about the consequences...
News Modern Warfare 2 Developer Infinity Ward Continues To Bleed Employees
Infinity Ward is dead at this point
Seriously, if you're still clinging onto that Call Of Duty and Modern Warfare brand, you may aswell stop. That's not to undermine Treyarch's efforts. They're a good studio that make good games. It's just that Infinity Ward are were the life-blood of the franchise. But that's studio's now all but dead. With gaffers...
News British Retailer GAME Earmark DLC Games
What do Battlefield: Bad Company 2, SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3, and Dragon Age: Origins have in common? They all come with unique content that's freely available to those who buy the game new, but is restricted or premium if to those who buy the game used
A growing concern for retailers around the world dealing in the sale of used video games. But UK...
News Fired Call Of Duty Staffers Zampella & West Sign Up With EA, Form Respawn Entertainment
Remember those fired Infinity Ward staffers Vince Zampella and Jason West? Y'know, the ones who practically created the Call Of Duty franchise
Yeah, erm, they just signed a new publishing deal with EA. Their new studio's named Respawn Entertainment. The new studio will retain full control over the IPs they develop, while EA will handle worldwide...
News Japanese Hardware Sales Do The Ol' Sony One-Two
Sony's took the top two spots once more in Japan, with the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable topping the Japanese hardware charts
Sony's home console managed 38k sales, where their portable hit the 37k mark. The consoles were followed up by a bunch of Nintendo SKUs, with the PSPgo still floundering at the bottom of the charts. Hit the jump for...
News SEGA Confirms San Francisco Studio's Closure
SEGA's confirmed this morning that their San Francisco studio - responsible for the Iron Man and Golden Axe: Beast Rider games on the PS3 - has been shut down
SEGA issued a statement to IndustryGamers offering condolences to those employees whom are now unemployed. "Sega of America is sad to announce the closure of Sega Studios San Francisco...
News Blu-Ray Discs Are A-Getting Bigger
Blu-Ray discs are pretty huge
Traditionally they hold from 25-50GB on a single-layer, and 50-100GB on a dual-layer. Their size makes content such as God Of War III possible. But what if they were to get bigger? Well, they are. New 128GB BDXL discs are ready to go, but only for commercial usage. They won't work in your current PS3 because, well, the...
News Sony Account For 17% Of GameStop's New Product Puchased In Fiscal '09
Americans bought a lot of new games in 2009, but specifically, you guys over the pond bought a lot of new Sony products
According to an SEC filing for the past year, Sony products accounted for 17% of "new product purchases" from American games retail juggernaut GameStop in fiscal '09. Nintendo won the stakes with 23%, while Microsoft, EA...
News Japanese Game Market Shrinks By 0.6% In Fiscal '09
Today's date is March 31st
That means businesses everywhere stop talking about future endeavours, and start talking about... Past endeavours. That's right, the fiscal year has ended, specifically in Japan where publication Famitsu is reporting that the market in the East has shrunk by 0.6%. The publication reports that while software sales were up,...
News Former SCEE Executive David Reeves Joins Capcom Europe
Blimey - Capcom Europe's announced that they've appointed former SCEE exec of 15 years David Reeves as their COO
Reeves, who left Sony last year, starts his new position as of tomorrow. We don't think this is an April Fools joke.I established a close working relationship with Capcom during my time at Sony and have always admired its commitment to...
Rumour Insomniac Games To Go Multiplatform
It's never more than a few months before the Insomniac Games rumours jump to the forefront of the industry
The independently owned company have long maintained a strong partnership with Sony, but once again industry bumblings and anonymity are hinting that Insomniac will go multiplatform. Sony own both the Ratchet & Clank and Resistance...
News Square Enix Start Work On A Next-Gen Engine, Use Cloud Strife To Promote It
Square Enix has started work on a next-gen engine, and they've used an image of Cloud Strife to announce it
Take from that what you will. Check out Square Enix's recruit page to see the promotion. The company recruitment form reads:"At Square Enix, in anticipation of the appearance of next generation platforms, we've started development on a...
News GDC 10: Playstation Move Has A Very Low System Footprint
Perhaps opening the door for "optional" Playstation Move controls in a range of different content, and certainly suggesting that Playstation Move games can look as good as their DualShock counterparts, Sony has announced that Move takes just 1-2mb of the PS3's memory to run
The tiny amount of processing was announced as part of Sony's tech...
News GDC 2010: Sony Announce PhyreEngine Is Expanding To The PSP
Sony's today an announced an update concerning their free to use middleware application the PhyreEngine
The application, which was first announced in 2008, was originally designed to help smaller developers bring their games to the PS3, and has since found success with Critter Crunch, flower and Shatter. Today's update brings compatibility to the...
News Activision Practically Kill Call Of Duty In A Sweep Of Announcements
Remember Call Of Duty? Yeah it was a big deal for a little while
It'll continue to be a big deal for a while longer. But it kinda sounds like the franchise is done. In a whole pile of drama starting yesterday, Activision has fired the Infinity Ward bosses Vince Zampella and Jason West. Activision's also filed a document citing a human resources...
News Sony Strengthen European First-Party, Acquire Media Molecule
Media Molecule and SCE has today announced that they're getting hitched
That is — Sony has acquired Media Molecule making them an official first-part studio under the SCE Worldwide Studios banner. Obviously, if you didn't know, Media Molecule made the brilliantly innovative LittleBigPlanet.Since they burst onto the gaming scene, Media Molecule...
News Terrible News: Sony Computer Entertainment No Longer Called Sony Computer Entertainment
Update @ 11:18GMT: In light of further press releases and what-not we're actually really bloody confused
But what we understand is that Sony Computer Entertainment will become SNE, then the Playstation business will be separated back out into a new company called, erm, Sony Computer Entertainment. Ridiculous, right? That's what appears to be the...
News Playstation Portable Lineup To Be "Robust" In 2010
Remember the PSP? Yeah, there's not been so much great content on the system early this year, but it had a rip-roaring lineup in 2009
Sony's Rob Dyer reckons players shouldn't worry, as the PSP will be getting a pretty "robust" lineup in 2010. He told IndustryGamers:I think we had a great lineup last year, said Dyer. The biggest...
News Valve "Reconsidering" Playstation 3 Development At Long Last
We've been very vocal about Valve and their refusal to develop on Playstation 3
But thing have changed since Valve last shot their mouth off. Sony essentially re-marketed the Playstation 3 in the backend of last year, and the console has since emerged as a worthy contender in the console war, rather than a straddler. That's not totally changed...
News Playstation 3 To Bounce Back Strongly In 2010 Predict Industy Professionals
Industry boffins reckon that the Playstation 3 will have more success in 2010 than rival consoles the XBOX 360 and Nintendo Wii
It sounds like a bold claim, but a poll conducted by industry professionals on GamesIndustry.biz saw 34 per cent of boffins backing Sony's powerhouse, citing major releases such as Gran Turismo 5, Heavy Rain, God Of War...
News Ubisoft: Online Multiplayer Assassin's Creed Announced, New Driver On The Way
Ubisoft are finally set to put more resources into big budget Playstation 3 games, according to reports
They can start by announcing Splinter Cell: Conviction for PS3. With an operating loss predicted in the 2010 fiscal year, Ubisoft are to change their strategy for 2011's business year starting April 1st. They have a line-up of "major"...
News EA: "Innovative" Madden, Dead Space 2 & Need For Speed In The Coming Fiscal Year
EA's John Riccitiello was keen to offset further financial woes last night with news of a solid games line-up in the coming fiscal year
The boss said consumers could expect a great new version of Medal of Honor, a revitalized Need for Speed, Sims on console, FIFA in a World Cup year, an innovative and new take on Madden, Dead Space 2, Crysis an...
News Wives Of Rockstar Employees Accuse The Company Of Poor Working Conditions
Pissed off wives of Rockstar San Diego employees have formed a coalition to educate the public on the company's strenuous work hours and mistreatment of workers
"Initially, as work pressure in the office increases, so do the stress levels of employees. Recently, with the amount of stress that has been built up, there have been physical...
News Sony Are Increasing The Storage Capacity Of Blu-Ray Discs
If you're a developer planning on sticking more cut-scenes in your game, then rejoice
Sony and Panasonic have announced that they are planning to increase the storage capacity of the blu-ray disc from 25GB to 33.4GB. The report from Nikkei states the technology "assumes inter-symbol interference, which makes it difficult to base optical disc...
News Capcom Kinda Ditch The Wii, Claim "The Future Is Playstation & XBOX 360"
Capcom France's head-honcho - Antoine Seux - has declared a cull on the Wii after his company's light-gun shooter, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, did kinda rubbish at retail
The game only mustered 16,000 units in the three weeks since its launch back in November.This is the year of the emergence of so-called new console generation,...
News Jaffe Calls Out Sensationalist Headlines
Blah, blah, blah
To cut a long story short, we posted a story earlier this week about how David Jaffe had broken his long self-sanctioned silence in order to speak out against the ridiculous Australian ratings board. In that piece, we were keen to make note that it was good to see Jaffe back and to hear someone with some balls speak out against the...
News Traveler's Tales: PSPgo Will Die If Content Does Not Become Cheaper
According to Traveler's Tales founder John Burton, Sony's new PSPgo could die if the content does not get cheaper
"I own a PSP Go but don't want to buy LittleBigPlanet, for instance, as I can get it 20-percent cheaper on UMD from Amazon and could resell it once I'm finished with it," Burton explained. "But if I download it, I get no...
News EA Set To Cut Title Roster By 20% Next Year
EA release a lot of games
A lot of games. But with recent disruptions in the work-place, their output is set to change. EA's boss, John Riccitiello told Reuters that "quality" is increasingly the focus for EA, announcing plans to release just 40 games next year compared to the 60 in 2008. Furthermore, Riccitiello also predicted t
Can you Adam 'nd Eve it - Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 is still top of the UK sales charts
Blimey! Try to contain yourselves, won't you. In other Modern Warfare 2 sales news, ELSPA have offered the game their prestigious Diamond award for whopping sales throughout the UK region. As you should well be aware reader, Modern Warfare 2 has sold lots...
News Analyst: Wii Bubble "Deflating," PS3 Poised To Dominate The Holidays
In an interview with Gamasutra, Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz has placed his money firmly on Playstation 3 dominance this holiday season
According to Creutz, the "Wii bubble could be deflating," with the system's core audience holding off on video game purchases compared to last year.While we believe the Wii is likely to be a drag on...
