gaming

It appears that the poor performance of the PlayStation 3 may have claimed another victim among Sony's top brass.

Sony announced early Monday that Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios--and therefore the head of the PlayStation group--would be stepping down February 29.

No specific reason was given for Harrison's departure. Kazuo Hirai, president and group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment International, plans to assume Harrison's position.

One can assume that Harrison may well be the latest head to roll in the wake of the poor performance of the PlayStation 3--the next-generation video game … Read more

It was a big night for Hollywood Sunday night, what with the biggest stars and best films being celebrated at the 80th Academy Awards.

But, unexpectedly, it also turned into a big night for Nintendo and its popular Wii video game console.

At one point in the show, as the broadcast came back from commercial, host Jon Stewart appeared on-stage playing tennis on the Wii, with the game displayed on the Oscars' giant screen.

It was a funny moment, and in keeping with Stewart's contemporary wit.

And while Nintendo must have known about it in advance--otherwise, how could the … Read more

In a startling bit of news, Electronic Arts announced Sunday morning that it has launched an uninvited bid to buy Grand Theft Auto video game franchise publisher Take-Two Interactive Software for $26 a share, or what could be a $2 billion deal.

And while EA, in its press release, did not make any reference to Vivendi's December agreement to purchase Activision, there can be no doubt that this is the response EA had to make to keep its spot as the undisputed heavyweight champion of the video games business.

The announcement comes on the heels of what appears to … Read more

Microsoft will end production of the external HD DVD drive for its Xbox 360 video game console, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The company said it would, however, continue to offer warranty support for the peripheral.

"HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own," Blair Westlake, a corporate vice president of Microsoft'… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Dennis Fong is someone who has a lot of street cred in the world of video games. A former world champion in games like Quake and Doom, he's also the founder of XFire, a company that enabled easy instant messaging among gamers that he later sold to Viacom for oodles of money.

Now, he's got a new start-up, known as Raptr, and it seems to have some very influential people rather excited.

I got my first introduction to Raptr Friday at the Startup Showcase at the Game Developers Conference. The session, which was organized by Charles River Ventures' Susan Wu, put five entrepreneurs on the spot to give short presentations about their company. Wu and several industry experts then got the chance to weigh in on each presentation.

Essentially, Raptr is a social network for gamers, but one filled with useful applications--at least for those for whom hard-core gaming is a way of life.

But since there are millions and millions of people like that, the company has an instant and wide market.

… Read more

We initially thought the attraction to Novint's "Falcon" controller might be mostly superficial, piquing the interest of hard-core gamers with a bizarre design tha resembled a complicated outdoor lightbulb fixture. But it turned out to be the real deal as it lived up to its hype in hands-on testing by fellow Craver Jeff Bakalar.

That opinion is apparently shared by others in the marketplace, because Novint is introducing a new model in black and silver with an interchangeable grip for both standard and pistol versions, according to Coolest-Gadgets. The grip is particularly important for the Falcon because, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--If you're a big Star Wars fan, you may find yourself salivating at the chance to play LucasArts' forthcoming game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

That's because the game will place players inside the films' narrative, in particular in between Episode III and the original film, now known as Episode IV.

LucasArts released a trailer for the film Thursday, and in it, you can see the benefits of two new technologies that should change video games forever: Euphoria, a bio-feedback artificial intelligence system, and digital molecular matter, which provides more realistic physics and physical reactions.

Check out … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Get ready for toxic microbes to come packaged in a video game SKU.

Longtime and much-revered designer Steve Meretzsky's Bac Attack, a game that pits man's strategic ingenuity against the march of armies of bacteria, was the winner of Thursday's Game Design Challenge at the Game Developers Conference here.

The challenge, an annual GDC event hosted by GameLab CEO Eric Zimmerman, and a session that always plays to an energized, standing-room-only audience, traditionally pits three well-known designers against each other to come up with a concept for a game that meets some unusual criteria.

In past … Read more

Gadget thrill-seekers have a choice: They can either subject themselves to electrode torture as our colleague Michael Kanellos gleefully does at every opportunity, or they can try something like the virtual-reality "FPS Vest" instead.

There's good news if you should choose the latter because TMgames, which was only taking pre-orders last fall, is now selling the vest as part of a package that includes Call of Duty and 3rd Space Incursion bundled with it, according to Gadget Review. The force-feedback game vest, which was initially developed by a physician for medical research, has eight zones that supposedly … Read more