Video Games

PlayStation 4: What we expect, what it needs, and why

CNET's live coverage of Sony's event on Wednesday

Sony's February 20 event in New York City will likely mark the announcement of the PlayStation 4 and simultaneously usher in the next generation of console gaming. (Sorry, Wii U, but you're more last-gen than next-gen.)

Rumors mills are also churning out details confidently declaring that the Xbox 360 successor will also see the light of day before June's big E3 gaming show in Los Angeles.

Perhaps the biggest news? Both consoles could make their debuts -- gasp -- this year. That's a hyperspeed acceleration in … Read more

Khronos updates OpenGL high-performance graphics

The nonprofit Khronos Group standards organization announced a new specification this week for OpenGL 4.2, which brings new graphics functionality to the what's considered to be the most widely adopted cross-platform 2D and 3D graphics API.

OpenGL 4.2 includes specs for enhancing pixel rendering, geometry and efficiency in memory storage and bandwidth, as well as a lot of other very technical specs. In short, OpenGL 4.2 makes graphics looks better across multiple platforms and gives developers a consistent set of APIs to work with.

Neil Trevett, vice president of mobile content for Nvidia, said there were … Read more

North Korea's army of online game hackers

From the "I guess this makes sense" files, the New York Times reports that North Korea has unleashed a squad of hackers to infiltrate South Korean gaming sites. The two countries have technically been at war for almost 60 years, and cyber-attacks are the modern-day equivalent to a slap in the face.

The police in Seoul said Thursday that four South Koreans and a Korean-Chinese had been arrested on charges of drawing on that army to organize a hacking squad of 30 young video gaming experts.

Working from Northern China, the police said, the squad created software that … Read more

Report: Women driving virtual good sales

Set to be released later today, the latest Digital Goods Spending Report by analyst firm VG Market and in-game monetization provider Playspan, shows that the burgeoning market for virtual goods is still just scratching the surface of the enormous opportunity ahead.

July's report reveals that 75 percent of the respondents (a sample size of 2,221 respondents was polled) have used real-world money to pay for virtual goods, and that roughly half expect to continue to spend about the same amount of real-world cash over the next 12 months.

Additionally, women over the age of 25 are stepping up … Read more

Nintendo chief on gaming and the cloud

I was in Japan last week for a number of meetings related to brand development and disruptive software and found myself less intrigued by the overwhelming array of Japanese mobile phones and more interested in the handheld game consoles from Nintendo and others.

It's not that there aren't a plethora of mobile phones that have all kinds of cool features, but that since generally those phones can't be used in the U.S. (and most don't offer English interfaces) the game consoles became a lot more interesting.

One of the news items I was late to … Read more

Virtual goods revenue continues to climb

New survey data from research firm Magid and Associates and in-game commerce provider PlaySpan shows that virtual goods sales continue to grow, with games leading the way to monetization.

Virtual goods remain a promising alternative to advertising, and even to subscription revenue for many games and social networks. As mobile games continue to play an important role in gaming revenue, I would expect to see the sales of virtual goods continue to skew toward mobile devices as users seek instant gratification and bite-sized chunks of high-quality gameplay.

The follow-up to last year's survey reveals that buying habits aren't … Read more

Mobile-gaming revenue to hit $11.4 billion in 2014

Gaming on cell phones has long promised to be an important revenue generator for mobile carriers and game developers, but it took quite awhile for it to drive real revenue in the U.S. But worldwide, especially in Asia, mobile gaming has been emerging as an important revenue generator for a number of years.

Last week, research firm Gartner predicted that worldwide mobile-game revenue will grow 19 percent, reaching $5.6 billion in 2010 with an expectation to more than double to $11.4 billion in 2014.

Mobile gaming is a very broad classification which also includes new and interesting … Read more

Features, not game titles driving console adoption

New research from Nielsen Games shows that the purchase of a specific game title actually ranks lowest in a list of purchase motivators and that consumers are driven by a myriad of factors that relate more toward a longer-term usage pattern than an impulse purchase for a specific title.

In the study of God of War III--a PlayStation 3 (PS3) exclusive--Nielsen found that the new game title had some influence in the sale of the console, but far less than would have been expected. In fact, buying a specific game was at the bottom of the list of purchase motivators.… Read more

Measuring the sales of virtual goods

New data from PlaySpan, a provider of payment and monetization solutions for online games and virtual worlds, shows that digital and virtual goods purchases are going global, and that revenues can be tracked to better ascertain the size of the market.

It's estimated that virtual goods will generate $1.6 billion in the U.S. in 2010. Some predict that sales of digital goods will account for 20 percent of gaming revenue by 2011.

As part of analyzing which players and geographies drive the most revenue, PlaySpan has settled on a metric of average revenue per paying user (ARPPU), … Read more