Archive for the 'News' Category

GTA4 continues its record quest; encounters speed bumps

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

There seems to be no stopping Rockstar games’ Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA4) fro claiming the best-selling game of all time title, with record-braking sales in UK with over 600,000 units sold in one day. The game is expected to sell about 6 million units in the first week, smashing the 3M-unit mark set by [...]

Sony PSP kicks Nintendo DS’s butt in Japan! But…

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

 According to game publisher Enterbrain, the number of Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) units sold last April in Japan was more than twice that of rival Nintendo’s DS. However, the picture turned around when it came to full-fledged gaming consoles. In the same month, Nintendo’s Wii outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3)  five to one.  The Wii [...]

Eu wants an “Industry Code of Conduct” vs. violence

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

The European Union’s executive body has given game publishers and vendors  two years to adopt a widely accepted code of conduct to better protect kids from violent video games. Two things: I’m all for protecting kids from violent games, but not for the same reasons as the EU. I don’t think to should be up [...]

CNN Money covers gaming

Monday, April 21st, 2008

 CNN Money recently posted a trend story about the opening-up of the gaming market. It asks, “Who’s rewriting the rules of gaming?” Discussed is the merger news involving giant publishers Electronic Arts and Take Two, and the possible ginat-slayers lurking around the corners: startups and small, energetic companies establishing a new business model. Instead of [...]

Performance ehancement for gamers

Friday, April 18th, 2008

FIle this one under “Only in Japan…” A Toyama-based pharmecutical company has developed a line of vitamin supplement targeted specifically at the gaming community, and long-haul gamers in particular. These “Game Suppli”capsules are taken twice a day and reatil for about 880 yen for a pack of 30 capsules. There are currently two varieties: a [...]

Nintendo Wii gets physical, physical

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Wii have seen the future, and the future is fit. Nintendo’s latest accessory for its Wii gaming console is a white plastic slab of gaming technology that you stand on, and it detects subtle shifts in weight and balance of the player and transmits those to the game. The balance board is designed to be [...]

It’s a game console! It’s a laptop!

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

This modder named Ben Heckendorn (a.k.a. ‘Heck’) took apart a Sony Playstation 3, took the bits and used them to make a working, portable PS3 laptop, pictured above. Pretty cool, no? Features: 60GB PS3 17″ HDTV 720p screen with HDMI connection built-in keyboard stereo amplifier weight: 7.26kg dimensions: 431.8mm x 349.3mm x 76.2mm The unit [...]

Gunmetal gray PS3s to hit store shelves

Monday, April 14th, 2008

A limited number of special-edition Playstation 3s featuring gunmetal-gray colorway consoles  are set to be released, according to Sony Entertainment. The special release is part of the big  hoohah over Konami’s new Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, bestowed by gaming aficionados with the surprising moniker of MGS4. The special edition PS3 will [...]

Gaming, parents, Newsweek

Sunday, April 13th, 2008

Newsweek’s videogame pundit N’gai Croal had a nice thoughtpiece on on parents, kids’ gaming, ratings and Grand Theft Auto 4. Not being a parent himself, Croal just forwards concerned parents (“Should I let my kids play GT4?”) to websites like whattheyplay.com, which, instead of telling parents whether or not to let their kids play the [...]

1 Million concurrent players: WoW!

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

So according to Blizzard Entertainment, the number of its Chinese concurrent users for the massively mulitplayer role-playing game World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusades have passed the one milion mark–the highest ever rate since they launched the game there in 2005. Be prepared for a tidal wave of web-jokes about everyone in China doing something [...]

Hulk smash! Will game be a smash too?

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Edward Norton, Liv Tyler and William Hurt are set to star in the second Hollywood movie based on the Marvel comic character The Incredible Hulk. But the big gaming news here is, they’re also starring in the video game. All of them. No gaming console info or release dates as of yet from game developer [...]

Stephen King wants to keep your games nice and bloody

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Not that he’s a gamer. Not that he even likes video games. But when the horrormeister learned of a bill in Massachusetts state seeking to ban violent video game sales to kids under the age of 18, his eyes went white and his head started spinning around and… oh wait that wasn’t his. via Yahoo [...]