Console Watcher

Air Force sponsors Xbox LIVE series

mayudahitman — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The U.S. Air Force has today announced a partnership with Microsoft to promote the Xbox LIVE “Horror Meets Comedy” original short film series that will premiere exclusively on Xbox LIVE this November 19th. In this cross-platform promotion, eight well-known horror directors — including James Wan & Leigh Whannel creators of the “Saw” franchise, James Gunn (”Slither”, “Dawn of the Dead”) Andrew Douglas (”The Amityville Horror”), David Slade (”30 Days of Night”) and Lucky McKee (”May”) — will bring their comedic visions to life through unique short films only available on Xbox LIVE.

Gamers can download Air Force videos, and Air Force-branded Xbox 360 theme packages if they click on the ads.

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Air Force sponsors Xbox LIVE series

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Sony Suffers Profit Loss

mayudahitman — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Despite PlayStation 3 sales up, Sony’s profit down 72%. Sony reported from Tokyo, a quarterly profit decreased of 72%. Even though PlayStation 3 sales doubled compare to last year this time. The company said it sold 2.43 million PlayStation 3 consoles during the quarter, an increase of 86% over the same period a year ago.

Sony said Wednesday it posted a net profit of 20.8 billion yen ($214 million) for the July-September period compared with 73.7 billion yen a year earlier. Sales in the fiscal second quarter slipped 0.5 percent to 2.072 trillion yen ($21.4 billion).

Sony makes about 80 percent of its sales overseas and is vulnerable to fluctuations in exchange rates. A rising yen erodes the overseas profits when converted into the Japanese currency.

“We already expect a poor performance for the Christmas shopping season,” Chief Financial Officer Nobuyuki Oneda told reporters. “On how things will fare after Christmas, I can only say we will continue to keep a careful look.”

Interesting news is PlayStation 2 out sold PlayStation 3 in the market. Still PlayStation 2 is much popular in countries like India, Russia. Many low budget titles are still released for PlayStation 2.

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Sony Suffers Profit Loss

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Belgium Outlaws Game Rental

mayudahitman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Belgium European nation has outlawed game rental. Many gamers call this move a ridiculous.

Kotaku reports that stockists in Belgium have been unable to buy new titles for rental purposes since June in preparation for the change. As of December 1st, however, it will become completely illegal to rent any games software.

Shops are unable to buy any new game for the purpose of rental since June. In December, the law will come in fully; meaning no Belgian gamer will be able to rent any games.

Gamers believe that this fever will not spread to other nations around the world.

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Belgium Outlaws Game Rental

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Company of Heroes Expansion

mayudahitman — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:07:14 +0000

Relic Entertainment has officially announced a new standalone expansion pack to their hit real-time strategy franchise Company of Heroes with Tales of Valor. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, the third stand-alone expansion to their critically acclaimed World War II real-time strategy game, will be hitting retail stores next spring.

It is said that new pack will feature there new campaigns, but we still don’t know which factions will be represented in multiplayer modes.

“Company of Heroes is one of the most critically acclaimed RTS series of all time,” said Peter Matiss, vice president of publisher THQ. “With Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, Relic Entertainment is delivering an all-new, standalone chapter in the franchise and continues to push the boundaries of innovation and quality in the genre.”

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Company of Heroes Expansion

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GTA IV PC Delayed To December 2008

mayudahitman — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Grand Theft Auto IV

Few moths back PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV was under development, and now we all about to get the PC version. Though the console version was released in Aprisl this year, GTA IV PC was delayed.

And now GTA IV PC version is being delayed once again. The delay puts the release of the game back by two whole weeks, though Rockstar haven’t explained what exactly the reason for the slip is.

This time officially the system requirements also released.

Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8Ghz, AMD Athlon X2 64 2.4Ghz
* Memory: 1.5GB, 16GB Free Hard Drive Space
* Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA 7900 / 256MB ATI X1900

Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 / XP - Service Pack 3
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, AMD Phenom X3 2.1Ghz
* Memory: 2 GB (Windows XP) 2.5 GB (Windows Vista)
* 18 GB Free Hard Drive Space
* Video Card: 512MB NVIDIA 8600 / 512MB ATI 3870

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GTA IV PC Delayed To December 2008

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Aussie Radio Becomes 2UE-Wii

mayudahitman — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

2U-Wii

Australian radio station 2UE has joined hands with Wii to promote their product. In order to help out Wii, the radio station has changed their logo as shown in the image. They have changed their logos in each and every possible. For next two weeks the radio will be named after Wii and will be called as “2UE-Wii”.

Unlike other game consoles, Wii focusing on all age group of people for their product. This is a initiation from Nintendo to reach the market using mass media. Listeners are set to become the big winners during the 2U-Wii promotion with the station planning to give away over $20,000 worth of Wii products.

Check out the 2U-Wii’s website to see just some of the changes that have already been made - something that will immediately catch your attention is that all their radio personalities’ faces have been changed to their Miis.

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Aussie Radio Becomes 2UE-Wii

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Netflix Titles In HD

mayudahitman — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:27:37 +0000

Engadget HD is reporting that Xbox 360 owners will also be able to stream selected Netflix titles in HD. While a list of HD-ready movies is not immediately available, some 300 titles will be ready for HD streaming when the service launches–along with the new Xbox Live experience–November 19.

Engadget says:

The look is sophisticated and spacious, with soft gradients, smooth fades, and classy design touches throughout. From a visual standpoint, the NXE is roughly ten million times more pleasant and accessible than the previous version.

It helps accelerate Netflix into a leadership position among those offering digital movie and TV delivery as the combination of HD plus an all-you-can eat movie subscription is an offer that’s hard to refuse.

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Netflix Titles In HD

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Economy Crisis Hits Nintendo Too

mayudahitman — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

Nintendo Co. said Thursday that strong sales of its hit Wii and DS video game consoles enabled it to buck a slump in the Japanese electronics industry and stay on course for record profits.

The company downgraded its outlook slightly in light of the strong yen but still expects annual profits to rise by about one third, a more than respectable performance compared with many other Japanese manufacturers.

Nintendo Co. said Thursday it posted a 9.4 percent gain in first-half profit but cut its full-year outlook as a surging yen undercut brisk sales of its popular Wii console and DS handheld device.

The Kyoto-based company booked net profit of 144.8 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in the April-September period. The result was higher than last year’s 132.4 billion yen profit, though missed Nintendo’s own expectations for 165 billion yen in profit.

But Nintendo to cut its annual net profit forecast by nearly 16 percent because of the yen’s recent strength, which erodes overseas earnings.

Although the company saw brisk, Profits at Nintendo soared 34 per cent higher in the first half of the year, providing hope for the Japanese titan that its “cheap and cheerful” DS and Wii machines may prove the ultimate Christmas recession busters.

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Economy Crisis Hits Nintendo Too

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World of Warcraft reaches 11 million users

mayudahitman — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

World of WarCraft

Still there are arguments on which game is the best MMO ever. Many people still believes that World of Warcraft is the best among all. To celebrate/hype Lich King’s release publisher Blizzard has just announced that subscriptions have reached 11 million.

“It’s been very rewarding to see gamers around the world continue to show such strong support for World of Warcraft,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment®. “We remain fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality, constantly evolving game experience.”

World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees’ territories are defined along the same rules.

World of Warcraft continues to rules the over all MMORPG.

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World of Warcraft reaches 11 million users

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Avalanche Studios Layoff

mayudahitman — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Current economic crisis troubles almost ell the industries that exist in this world. Game industry is no exception. We hear stories about how game industry affected by the global economic crisis. Swedish video game developer Avalanche Studios has laid off 77 employees from their organization after loosing two publisher deals.

Avalanche Studios is founded in 2003. Avalanche employed 160 staffs before the layoffs.

“We have lost two publisher deals this year — those deals were worth around $34 million,” Avalanche CEO Christofer Sundberg told GamesIndustry.biz.

“We lost the first deal in February but we could survive that one because we had a shortage of staff in other projects and we decided to put together a team to work on a original IP that we had in development. But the team that was working on a project that was terminated last week — there were about 67 people on that team.”

Anyhow company has decided to continue with their current projects such as “Just Cause 2” and “The Hunter”.

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Avalanche Studios Layoff

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