Games

EA lists free games as apology for SimCity launch mess

EA has detailed the list of Origin games it will offer to customers affected by the disastrous launch of SimCity.

All copies of SimCity registered on Origin before March 25 will give applicable customers a chance to pick one free game from the following list: Battlefield 3; Bejeweled 3; Dead Space 3; Mass Effect 3; Medal of Honor: Warfighter; Need for Speed: Most Wanted; Plants vs. Zombies; and SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition. … Read more

EA CEO John Riccitiello resigns

Electronic Arts Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello will resign from his position at the FIFA and Battlefield publisher after six years effective March 30, the company announced today. In addition, he will no longer be a member of the game publisher's board of directors.

The EA board of directors has appointed longtime EA executive Larry Probst as executive chairman of the company while a search is conducted for Riccitiello's permanent replacement. Probst has been in a leadership position at EA since 1991 and was CEO from 1991 to 2007. The board will consider internal and external candidates, the … Read more

Battlefield 4 reveal set for March 26

According to an official invitation sent to GameSpot, Electronic Arts and DICE plan to "celebrate a new era of Battlefield" at an upcoming Battlefield 4 event in San Francisco on March 26 at 7 p.m. PT. The event occurs during the 2013 Game Developers Conference that takes place from March 25-29.

For those craving more information about the upcoming shooter, well, there isn't much to work with at the moment.… Read more

Wii U unit sales jump 40 percent -- and still disappoint

The video game industry once again had a down month as console and software sales slipped.

Total industry sales hit $810 million in February, representing a 25 percent drop compared with the same period last year, market researcher NPD said yesterday. Hardware sales were down 36 percent to $244.2 million, and console and portable software sales across the physical retail channel could only reach $352 million -- a 27 percent drop compared with February 2012.

The Xbox 360 once again led the hardware market, earning the top spot in console sales for the 26th month in a row. According … Read more

SimCity could easily work offline, claims anonymous developer

An anonymous developer who worked on the new SimCity has revealed that the game does not do most of its calculations "in the cloud," directly contradicting what developer Maxis and publisher EA have repeatedly claimed.

In defending the troubled game's always-online requirement, the game's makers have said an offline mode would not be possible, due to "a significant amount of calculations" being done in their servers. Not true, the source told respected PC blog RockPaperShotgun.

"The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing," … Read more

Razer Edge Pro tablet pre-orders shut down due to high demand

Demand for the Razer Edge Pro has already managed to exceed supply, forcing its manufacturer to curtail its pre-order program.

Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan broke the news this week via the company's Facebook page:

We've had to stop taking pre-orders for the Razer Edge Pro as the pre-orders have gone beyond our forseeable manufacturing capacity (i.e. all stock is sold out for the months to come). We're doing all we can to get manufacturing lines up and running so please bear with us.

We're doing everything we can to get more units out in the … Read more

Preorders start for $1,000 Piston console

You can now preorder the first Steam Box, a PC-based gaming console built around Valve's digital game distribution platform. Prices start at $1,000, though there's a $100 discount if you order now.

Manufacturer Xi3 announced the Piston earlier this year at CES. The "grapefruit-size" Piston uses Steam's Big Picture feature to bring console-style PC games to TV screens.

Xi3 is a modular PC vendor that has received funding from Valve, and its Piston console is among a handful of such console-style PCs expected to arrive in 2013. The Piston console is slated to ship in the holiday season at the end of 2013, which also happens to be the estimated launch period for Sony's next-generation PlayStation 4. … Read more

Wii U in February: 80,000 sold, analyst says

Nintendo's Wii U might be in deep trouble in the U.S.

In a research note to investors today, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said that he believes Nintendo sold just 80,000 Wii U units in February -- the same number of original Wii units that sold. What's worse, the Wii U's sales were about half of the 165,000 PlayStation 3 units sold last month and far behind the Xbox 360's 225,000 unit sales, according to Pachter.

Although Pachter is not the final word on game industry sales -- NPD, which plans to release … Read more

So, what is the PlayStation Vita's real price?

Sony's PlayStation Vita portable has price tags that can't quite get in line.

The 3G-connected model, which originally launched for $299.99, is currently on sale at several Sony retail stores around the country for $199.97, gaming blog Joystiq reported last night. The blog called a host of Sony stores around the country, and a large majority were selling them at that discounted rate.

But there's perhaps more to this than meets the eye. Although some Sony stores are selling the device for less, Sony's own online marketplace is selling the portable for $249.99. … Read more