Tech Culture

For the first time in months, video game industry executives can exhale.

That's because, according to industry analyst The NPD Group, the video games business as a whole saw a 6 percent year-over-year increase in March, and turned in the third-best nonholiday period month on record. Industry sales had been down 14 percent and 13 percent, year-over-year, in February and January, respectively.

But not all the news was good. While revenues for video game software and accessories were up significantly in March, hardware revenues took a hit.

For the month, the industry posted total sales of $1.52 billion, … Read more

It's been pretty much one great thing after another for Steven Holcomb since winning the bobsled gold at the Vancouver Olympics. Well, at least until this week.

Holcomb, who is a big-time computer nerd and video gamer, discovered that his prized Xbox 360 and games had been stolen out of his car. And while the $4,000 worth of gear and games has him a little queasy, what really makes him sick are the hundreds of hours of saved games that he had on the console.

"It's like a death in the family," Holcomb said in … Read more

As the United States continues to struggle with its deficit, a task force created by President Obama to address the situation may be turning to Microsoft to inform the public about the difficulties of balancing a federal budget.

According to USA Today, Erskine Bowles, head of the Obama administration's budget-balancing task force, has contacted Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to see whether the company could build a video game designed to allow gamers "to take a stab at balancing the budget."

Details on the title are few and far between. Although it sounds like it will be Web-based, … Read more

commentary Although Nintendo has said little about its plans for the Nintendo 3DS, its upcoming 3D-capable portable gaming device, company exec Reggie Fils-Aime recently said in an interview with BusinessWeek that the 3DS isn't just another version of the DS. Instead, the device will replace Nintendo's DS line.

"We have ideas of what we want to bring to the consumer that we can't do with the current DS model," Fils-Aime, who is president of Nintendo of America, told BusinessWeek in the interview. "The Nintendo 3DS for us is our next handheld platform." He … Read more

When I first heard about this, I wanted to believe it was about teeth.

Mine were still chattering from a piece of research performed by the University of Iowa that suggested that young gamers enjoyed more cavities. I experienced a severe attack of lockjaw, however, at the news that Korea--that's the nice Korea without the strange leader with dead Elvis' hair-- has imposed a nighttime ban on certain online games.

It seems, though, that the Korean government is less concerned about young gamers' molars and more concerned about their deep-seated obsession with being deep seated in their bedrooms into … Read more

The ongoing drama between ousted Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella and ex-employer Activision has taken another twist. Monday morning, Electronic Arts announced a deal with the pair to be the sole distributor for their newly formed studio, Respawn Entertainment. According to Zampella, the new studio will be based in the same part of Los Angeles as Infinity Ward, which created the $3 billion Call of Duty series, including last year's $1 billion hit, Modern Warfare 2.

While some studios search for years for a publishing partner, Respawn already has one lined up. Electronic Arts will be … Read more

Instant-streaming discs are on their way to all Netflix subscribers who requested one for their Nintendo Wii, the online video rental service said in a blog post Monday.

Wii owners who have been waiting for the ability to view movies and television shows on their Wii consoles via Netflix can expect to receive the discs within the next few days. After getting the disc, they need only to insert it into the Wii to access all the content on Neflix's streaming service.

Netflix streaming for the Wii was originally announced in January. The company officially brought streaming to the Wii last month … Read more

All smokers smell. All buses are late. All politicians are mendacious narcissists.

Some things in life are so truly self-evident that they require no discussion. Which is why I was thrust into prehistoric hysteria by a piece of research that declared only 20 percent of the world's population believes that green people are already in our midst and enjoying our Corn Flakes.

According to Ipsos, the fine researchers of markets terrestrial and celestial, the majority of the world is still unwilling to accept that aliens are already here and disguised as us.

And by "disguised as us", … Read more

Gamers who use Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and now the iPad are likely to be looking forward to Apple's "Game Center" network, which was announced among the other updates as part of iPhone OS 4.0. But what about the companies that are running existing social networks for the platform?

It's not the end of the world, apparently.

Ngmoco, maker of popular game titles such as Rolando, We Rule, and Touch Pets, also created the Plus+ social network. It's built in to all of its own titles, as well as a select group of games from other developers. Ngmoco's chief publishing officer, Simon Jeffrey, told CNET that the company "has anticipated this move from Apple for some time," and that it should bring a "cleaner developer and consumer experience."

But what does that mean for the Plus+ implementation that has been built into more than 75 titles? "Plus+ took a strategic shift in direction a few months ago toward being a service, and less about being a set of social-gaming features," Jeffery said in a statement. "Plus+ is all about empowering monetization and discoverability mechanisms for the development community, and we have clearly demonstrated with games like We Rule that these mechanisms work."

Discoverability was, in fact, one of the biggest benefits of using services like Plus+, but it's also something Apple plans to offer within its Game Center. Plus+'s implementation was to show you what your friends were playing, as well as show off games that had just been launched. According to the very few details mentioned by Scott Forstall, Apple's senior vice president of iPhone software, during Thursday's press event, both of these things will be a part of the Game Center framework.

So does that mean that Plus+ is going to be more focused on advertising and the metrics of what users are doing within apps? If so, that's another area where Apple has delved into with its iAds platform.… Read more