Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Bono Buys Eidos?07:01 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News(0 comments)
A catchy headline, but not exactly the case. Regardless, speculation ends today about who would be buying the once giant publisher, as an investment group called Elevation Partners purchased Eidos for $135.1 million dollars. Where does U2's Bono come into all of this? He's on the board of directors.
This demo features a Team Deathmatch map, an Assault level titled
Sector 2, and a Capture the Core map called Crash Site, with a choice of
four mechs on either side.
The addon contains a new Vietcong cooperative campaign, new
multiplayer maps, one new single player mission, AI bots for the
multiplayer mode, and completely new theme music.
This brings the multiplayer addon to v2.60 and optimizes netcode,
fixes various server crashes, the server can redirect clients to other
servers when full, adds a mods menu, and plenty more.
EA Stock Plummets01:35 pm
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News(16 comments)
Following EA warning that its profits aren't up to snuff for its fiscal year 2005 estimates, the stock fell $8.33 a share or a little over 12%. "These results are clearly disappointing," said Larry Probst, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "While our new releases are performing reasonably well, they have not been able to offset a significant falloff in catalog sales." The bloodletting continues in after-hour trading.
E3 Sells Out11:46 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News(6 comments)
Word from E3 is that the 2005 expo has already sold out all of its floorspace making it the largest show since 2000 (that's over 540,000 net square feet and five massive display halls booked). Why such a huge crowd this year? The big three are showing off their next-generation console systems of course.
"E3Expo 2005 brings us to the threshold of a new era of creative and technological innovation for the global computer and video game business, providing first looks at the next generation of hardware and previews of the advanced titles and technologies that consumers will be bringing home this holiday season," said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA, the trade association that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers and owns E3Expo. "With a show floor the size of 2,700 city blocks, an unparalleled business conference program, and more than 400 exhibitors from 87 countries, E3Expo is truly the best place on the planet to get down to the business of fun."
E3 is the largest game show in the world hosted at the LA Convention Center May 17-20th.
The Matrix Online Pre-Launch Event Report
As Monolith's intriguing persistent state game nears launch, we join members of the team for a look at their creation. - Includes six exclusive 1280x1024 screenshots
World of Warcraft Tips of the Week #16
We offer help in deciding whether the Warrior class would be fun for you, and look at some weapon considerations.
Guild Wars Media #21
As ArenaNet's characters level up and acquire new items, they can take on a considerable range of diverse looks. - Eight exclusive 1600x1200 screenshots
According to a new report released by the company, online games revenue is forecast to reach $2.0 billion by 2009. Additionally, China had 28.8 million gamers in 2004 and Niko Partners projects that number to grow to 55.5 million gamers by 2009.
"Online games are emerging as the preferred platform for gamers and publishers," said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner, Niko Partners. "The online game platform is an excellent solution for the Chinese market, meeting the consumer demands for social interaction, entertainment, and intellectual stimulation. It also meets the needs of publishers because revenue is earned from fees gamers pay to play games, rather than from purchases of game software units that have long been the victim of piracy in China."
Niko Partners projects that the online games market will rise at a compound annual growth rate of 33.8% from $467.8 million in 2004, to $2.0 billion in 2009.
Currently, all online games are played on a PC, and half of all gameplay takes place in the 350,000 Internet cafes across China. Internet cafes provide online access at a low price point while also offering a social venue that drives much of the demand for games in the Chinese market, Niko Partners reports. The firm also reported that the next generation of consoles will offer increased online functionality which will augment the existing online infrastructure. Niko Partners predicts that by 2009, 91% of console games will be online games.
Getting into the Chinese market as a foreign videogame company can be a challenge. The government in China welcomes international investment in the growth of a domestic games market, yet regulations governing the videogame industry are difficult to navigate. "Foreign videogame companies need to adapt their business models to make them appropriate for the demand of the Chinese market and the restrictions on content by the Chinese government," says Ms. Hanson.
With China projected to have 55.5 million gamers by 2009, it is important for videogame companies to prioritize understanding in order to capitalize on this growing market.
Based on the best-selling Top Cow comic book, The Darkness casts players as Jackie Estacado, a fearless Mafia hitman for the Franchetti crime family who is suddenly possessed by the terrifying and spectacular powers of The Darkness. Throughout the game, players must learn to control and harness The Darkness power in order to overthrow the vicious mob boss and fulfill their destiny.
The Darkness features a seamless and unique blend of modern crime drama and supernatural horror through first and third-person, non-linear gameplay. Utilizing the Starbreeze engine for next generation consoles, The Darkness features single and online multi-player action across highly realistic environments.
Union Entertainment, a feature film and video game production company, packaged the deal which includes Paul Jenkins, a seminal writer in The Darkness comic book series, who will provide game story and dialogue.
XG: What is it like developing for next-generation consoles?
Chris Swan: Highly challenging and very good fun! For one thing you have to remain very flexible and keep your options open, as new technologies and shader tricks are appearing nearly every week! Certainly the increase in polygons (and the actual materials that you can now have on these polygons), does greatly help a game such as Possession; from a technical point of view the game really would not have been feasible on the current generation of consoles without seriously hampering the quality of the product.
If you like the sound of Possession, I'm sad to say you'll be waiting 'til mid-2007 to play it.
Q: In terms of the lawsuit, are there any foundations to what Yahoo! is claiming in Xfire's opinion?
A: No, we're definitely not infringing. Once we got sued we immediately offered them a number of ways to prove we weren't infringing including showing our source code to Jerry Yang or David Filo, submitting to binding arbitration by some third party, or entering into mediation. It's disappointing that they didn't even respond to any of these options.
Unreal Engine 3 Early on Favorite03:15 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- Games: General News(22 comments)
Thanks to GryphonKlaw who suggested this week's poll (which you can vote for on the right hand side of the page) topic of "How much are you willing to pay for a premium game?" Keep in mind we're using US Dollars, so vote accordingly.
I guess "premium" can be taken in different ways; we're not talking about collector's editions with all the fancy extras, but rather solid AAA games and even next-generation titles. Some publishers are starting to salivate at the prospect of raising prices even higher, although developers like Epic have spoken out against it.
Speaking of Epic, the results of last week's poll which asked for your take on the best game engine are in, with Epic's Unreal Engine 3 taking home the honors, clearly beating out Valve's Half-Life 2 Source engine, id's Doom 3 and Crytek's Far Cry. It wasn't too long ago when id had the engine market cornered. How things have changed...
In Other News...12:30 am
- Robert 'Apache' Howarth
- In-House: In Other News...(30 comments)
Woot for Mondays! I hope you guys had a nice weekend; I mostly watched bad movies on the dish including "The Core", which stars Hillary Swank and some dude who looks like Highlander that was about a team of scientists who drill to the center of the Earth in order to detonate a nuclear bomb because the inner core of the planet "stalled out". Basically, think of the Earth like a giant construct. The inner core is the power supply which generates the magnetic field which keeps a shield around the planet protecting us from cosmic winds, radiation and other crap. The mantle is the filler that insolates us from the energy the core generates, and the crust is what we live on. So, aside from getting a nice Geology refresher, their task was to get the core moving again. Some fun science fiction as far as theories and gadgets go, but overall kind of a stinker.
Anyways, this week's release list is pretty hot. We have a new gaming system, the PSP, almost 20 games for said system (both old and new), plus The Matrix Online. Word is Monolith didn't show very much of the game in the beta, and it's actually a lot better than most people think. They're supposed to be sending me a copy here shortly, so we shall see. There's a stupidly huge fanbase for The Matrix series, so the upside is pretty high if the game is any good. Today's question: Do you plan on getting a PSP?
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (Full Screen)
Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace (Widescreen)
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones (Full Screen)
Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones (Widescreen)
The Best of the New Scooby-Doo Movies
The Dust Factory
The Final Cut
The Flintstones: The Complete Third Season
The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season One
The Man Called Flintstone
The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Best of Season 1
The Pretender: Season 1
Volcano High
Movies - Now Showing:
Ice Princess
Melinda and Melinda
Milk and Honey
Steamboy
The Ring Two
Movies - Opening Friday March 25th:
A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
D.E.B.S.
Guess Who
Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
The PSP enters the North American market this week, and boy the hype train has come to town - advertisements, general press reviews (most saying it's a great gaming system presuming you avoid light sources - would it really have been that hard to implement a transreflective screen, as enjoyed on PDAs for years, especially considering your Clie experience Sony? - or UMD movies), and grey market imports are everywhere to be found as the March 24th release rapidly approaches. Most online retailers are sold out, so your only hope of picking up a system is to queue outside your local games retailer, early.
Sony is also backing the Playstation 2 strongly this week with the release of God of War, a game so good that you should apparently buy the console just to play it. IGN awarded it a 9.8, with the GameRankings average agreeing on such a lofty score. EA releases TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, a 9.0 rated game by IGN, which appears to excel in multiplayer, but not single player. John Romero played a part in the development of NARC, but as of yet there's no reviews, so be careful before splashing out money blindly.
PC software is mostly re-releases and compilations (chance of MXO bombing > high), while t'other console publishers avoid releasing anything of quality that might be lost by the PSP hype tsunami… Star Wars DVDs are probably the highlight of the week there, while the March 25th movie A League of Ordinary Gentlemen might be interesting, seeing how it's the brainchild of two former Microsoft executives.
What will you be spending your money on in the week ahead?
[Boomtown] The Middle Eastern faction in the game - would you call that a liberation army or a terror-organization, and what have your thoughts been on this sensitive subject?
[DICE] The Middle Easter Coalition is a regular army organization. It is just like the Chinese or US armies in Battlefield 2. We are sensitive to the current climate. BF is not about making a political statement, it's about providing an enjoyable experience.
[Boomtown] Will there be per pixel hit detection? It was mentioned very early in development, and I have not heard anything since. It would suck if we had the old hit boxes, where you can't even shoot through someone's legs...
[DICE] You can shoot through people's legs. We have spent considerable cycles on improving the 'thru the gun' experience, e.g. shooting a rifle in-game.
T. One thing I got mixed feedback from was the economic system you discussed involving micro transactions. Some of our readers wanted to know if content will be tradable between users as in games like The Sims, "oh he's got a couch that I like," or RPG items like body armor?
J. Great idea! Right now we're in a kind of a "play it by ear" phase. Step 1, let's create the channels where the game creators can offer... Well, Let's talk about Halo - who would have known what a hit it became? We launched it on the Xbox, most people were skeptical and some did not think it was going to do really well. Six months after we shipped Halo, it was impossible for us to take the community feedback that said, "wow, those warthogs were really fun. We would like to go and have more vehicles like that," and go create more vehicles like warthogs and sell them online. So let's break down that barrier; let's create the opportunity for the developer to have an ongoing dialogue with the customer.
Better be cheap though J., or CliffyB is gonna come after you!
In Other News...06:34 am
- Andrew Burnes
- In-House: In Other News...(2 comments)
Yeah so Rob was kinda right. It's also finally warm after months of snow, so I needed to get out and have some fun - you can all understand that, can't you?
So as I'm a rambling idiot who'd like to get back out in the sun, refer to yesterday's ION for your question related stuff.
