When pressed to find a disappointment in the gaming space this year, GameStop senior vice president of merchandising and marketing, Bob McKenzie, pointed to Sony's PSP.
"If I were to pick a disappointment, the only thing would be looking at the number of titles that launched on the PSP format compared to the prior year," McKenzie told video game publication Eurogamer in a recent interview. "I think Sony did a great job two years ago in terms of coming out with a pretty good lineup of PSP offerings, and I didn't see that breadth of … Read more
It only took a few days, but Microsoft's power adapter for the Kinect has become available at the company's online store.
The adapter powers the Kinect unit for users with older (read: not slim) Xbox 360s, and is unnecessary for users of the newer Xbox hardware, which has a special powered Kinect port on the back. The adapter is included for users who bought the standalone Kinect accessory, but not in either of the two Kinect Xbox 360 bundles, since they both feature the Kinect port.
Activision today launched Call of Duty: Black Ops for all three major consoles, the PC, and the Nintendo DS.
Call of Duty: Black Ops puts the player in various roles as soldiers "behind enemy lines." Players can also play co-op with zombies, Mark Lamia, head of Activision's Treyarch Studio, said in a statement. But as with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, many gamers will be picking up the title for its online multiplayer offering. And to that end, Lamia promises an "incredibly deep" experience for gamers.
Microsoft's Kinect platform will rule the 2010 holiday season in motion-control gaming, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told CNET in an interview today.
Pachter, who covers the video game industry, said he expects Kinect to hit the 5 million unit sales mark that Microsoft last week said it expects by the end of the year. But Sony won't be so lucky with the PlayStation Move, its new entrant in motion controllers.
"I think that Move will pick up to a respectable level, probably around 3 million by year end globally, so roughly 2 million in U.S. and Europe and 1 million rest of the world," Pachter said. "It's possible that Sony could see a tad more, but we will have to see a pickup in advertising, maybe 3.5 million."
Sony seems to be feeling that pressure.… Read more
So now you can get a Kinect for the Xbox 360. Or a Move package for the PlayStation 3. Or maybe you already have a Wii. The point is, this holiday season, gaming is going to be all about moving. There's a three-front motion-tracking war going on and it may be a while before there's a clear winner.
Nintendo's Wii has been around for a few years now, so movement-based gaming isn't as novel as it used to be. Sony's Move is fun, but along with Microsoft's Kinect, it may have to play catch-up. … Read more
It's apparently going to be a better year than expected for Activision Blizzard.
The World of Warcraft developer announced yesterday that its third-quarter revenue grew to $745 million, up from $703 million it posted during the same period in 2009.
The company also reported a $51 million profit, representing a gain over the $15 million it tallied in third quarter last year. Its adjusted earnings of 12 cents a share beat Wall Street expectations of 9 cents, according to the Associated Press.
In the first three quarters, Activision Blizzard's revenue stood at over $3 billion. Last year, it … Read more
Hulu is slowing ramping up the availability of its Hulu Plus platform.
Current owners of the 2010 models of Sony Bravia HDTVs started getting access to Hulu Plus yesterday. And next week, the company plans to make Hulu Plus available to PlayStation 3 owners who have a free PlayStation Network account.
Hulu Plus has been available on Sony's console since July. However, the service was only made available to select PlayStation Plus subscribers. With next week's launch, any PlayStation 3 owner (in the U.S.) will have access to the service.
Going forward, Hulu plans to expand the … Read more
Microsoft's Kinect motion-gaming peripheral, which launched yesterday, has already been torn apart by the folks over at iFixit, who have revealed some rather interesting components inside the device.
iFixit, a DIY repair site, was apparently quite surprised by what is packed into the relatively small Kinect. The site said the device boasts so many built-in sensors, that only the Pleo dinosaur robot comes close to matching it. And due to how "mechanically complex" the device is, iFixit believes it was "clearly designed by a team accustomed to designing large hardware, like the Xbox."
A group of Vermont college students has come up with a soccer-centric video game that teaches boys how to pass, dribble, tackle, score--and, hopefully, respect girls.
If that seems like an unlikely connection, students from the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College in Burlington would disagree. They've spent two years developing Breakaway, a free interactive online game that manages to impart lessons about violence to boys 8 to 15--while tossing them some lively gameplay.
"Breakaway is a game experience that offers youth the chance to discover how to become a champion both on and off the field," said Ann DeMarle, director of Champlain's Emergent Media Center.
The game--which debuted at the World Cup in South Africa this summer and today saw the release of its third and latest chapter--has attracted 1,000 registered users from 95 countries including Ghana, Mali, Tunisia, Indonesia, and Azerbaijan. In the early days of the game's creation, student developers journeyed to the townships of Cape Town, South Africa, as part of their research into social conditions that can lead to abuse.
The outgrowth of a United Nations-supported initiative aimed at using games to teach respect for girls and women, Breakaway has been endorsed by Cameroonian soccer star Samuel Eto'o, who also appears in the game as a virtual football mentor.
The title presents interactive storylines, each featuring new characters, that have players bouncing between skill-building mini-games focusing on speed, strength, agility, and timing, and narrative challenges that require collaborative decision making on social issues such as gender equality and racial stereotypes.
In one instance, a team captain who's talented and popular but tends to be a bully becomes progressively verbally abusive toward your sister as she stands on the field. In another, a member of your all-boys' team moves away with his family, and a girl replaces him.
Who you choose to side with during such situations--those team members who defend the girl being bullied or excluded or those who contribute to her ostracization--influences the caliber of soccer training you get, and thus, your chances of advancing as a player. … Read more
Note: This story was updated on Friday 11/5 with additional information added to the facial recognition feature item, as well as a clarification to the use of the Kinect unit with the older and newer Xbox 360 hardware configurations.
Microsoft's Kinect motion-camera accessory for the Xbox 360 has been out less than a day here in the U.S., and reports both good and bad continue to trickle in.
If you want to know what CNET thought of it, you can head over to our full review of the device. Below are some things, both positive and negative, that have cropped up in the peripheral's short existence on the market.
The good 1. You can still find one. Online retailers appear to have stock aplenty. In late October, that wasn't the case, with Amazon and Best Buy putting a halt on pre-orders of the peripheral. A look around all the big online retailers today shows it in stock and ready to ship out within 24 hours in most places. That may not be the case as we get closer to the holidays and shortly after the international releases in Europe, Japan, and Australia later this month, but it's certainly off to a better start than the Xbox 360 itself.… Read more
Manage updates with the Download App
