Connected consoles might be the theme this year, but as the Wii and PS3 go on sale, their promised online services, including web browsing, aren’t fully up and running yet. Because the Xbox has been out a good long year, Xbox Live has the … Read More »
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Wagner James Au
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Now come the days when gamers unleash their inner Cartman, lining up outside department stores and murmuring “Kehm-ON!” every few seconds through gritted teeth as they wait to buy the Nintendo Wii (in US stores on the 19th) or the Sony PS3 (hitting US shelves … Read More »
Not to get overly political, but Sony Computer Entertainment’s management is starting to remind me of the Bush administration. Despite constant dire warnings from so many experts (including an editor with the official Playstation magazine) that the PS3 is careening toward a disastrous launch, … Read More »
So now we pretty much know why Microsoft is doggedly pushing ahead with plans to make a Halo movie, even after two studios balked at the budget, and the unlikelihood of such a movie making any money at the box office. It will almost … Read More »
The latest New Yorker has a nice long profile of game designer Will Wright and his upcoming game, Spore; coupled with last month’s Wright/Spore profile from New York Times Magazine, it’s the strongest possible cultural affirmation of Wright as one of the world’s … Read More »
Kermitt Quirk, consult your accountant quick! Online world entrepeneurs and gold farmers dodged the tax bullet only a couple weeks ago, when an American policymaker announced there’d be no taxing of income earned by activity in virtual worlds and MMOs. (At least any time … Read More »
If you want to see how the game industry regularly acts as its own worst enemy, try and download the demo of a game that interests you. After getting several enthusiastic word-of-mouth recommendations for THQ’s Company of Heroes, a new WWII-themed real time strategy game, … Read More »
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Unless you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ve probably never heard of Guild Wars, and that would be strange, because after World of Warcraft, it’s arguably the biggest success story in MMORPG gaming. Its 2.5 million player base makes it second only to Warcraft, but it’s … Read More »
So it looks like Master Chief will have to keep waiting in the lobby a bit longer. The gruff cyborg hero of the Halo series (the crown jewel of Microsoft’s Xbox consoles) was set to star in a film adaptation produced by Lord of the … Read More »
The other chainmail shoe finally dropped. After years of wondering when this moment would come, the United States government has officially turned its giant head toward the cottage industry of “real money trading”, the exchange of virtual goods and services in online worlds like World … Read More »
When I first wrote about Steam, the broadband distribution and gaming network of Valve Software, I described it as an alternate approach to traditional game publishing, avoiding as it did the war for retail store shelf space, and the painfully outdated approach of burning … Read More »
Gamasutra just published a nice round-up of answers from three industry experts on two burning questions: “Are Microsoft and Sony emphasizing HDTV too much, not enough, or just enough? Has Nintendo made a mistake by not providing HDTV resolution for the Wii?” Both the … Read More »
Nielsen Interactive just released a study on gamers in the US. There’s a lot of interesting tidbits, nicely summarized by Next Generation here, and quite a few surprises. Who knew “active gamers” spent on average $16 a week on games, or that … Read More »
The last time we saw Marvel Comics and game developer Cryptic Studios in the same sentence, the former was suing the latter, on the fairly dubious grounds that Cryptic’s popular, caped crimefighter-themed City of Heroes MMO supposedly encouraged copyright infringement. (Since its subscribers … Read More »
As blogged a couple weeks ago, the Nintendo Wii will support Web browsing via Opera, with Nintendo’s Perrin Kaplan suggesting that users would “download an Opera browser using Wii points and surf the web”; since then, the story’s gotten even sweeter. The … Read More »
Wii serves a million in its first month; Sony admits defeat and sells its game division to… Microsoft? I’m writing this from the old town square of Warsaw, Poland, where the cobblestone courtyard puts you in mind of a World War II movie — and … Read More »
If three instances of a phenomenon equals a trend, then the unstoppable trend of the PC game business today is broadband distribution — from Valve’s Steam and distribution of episodic gaming, to niche/indy game downloads through Manifesto, to the recent entrance of telecom colossus … Read More »
You say you want a revolution, well you know, we’d all love to see the business plan. When widely admired veteran designer Greg Costikyan set the game industry on a roar with a sustained (and furiously blogged) rant at the 2005 Game … Read More »
So this week’s huge news in the console wars comes once again from Nintendo, during yesterday’s press conference in New York: the Wii will let you browse the web. “You can download an Opera browser using Wii points and surf the web,” Nintendo’s … Read More »
I’ve been decidedly downbeat about the prospects of Sony in the console wars (here, and even more jaundiced, here), not from any personal animus– after all, I still fire up my PS2 for a few quick rounds of DDR often– but frankly, because … Read More »
So what comes after World of Warcraft, the massively multiplayer online game (or MMO) that became so, well, massive, that it turned into a category killer that rumbled the industry? That was the subject of much discussion last week at the Austin … Read More »
You are looking at a screenshot of a game which, in all its shabby glory, sold more copies than Doom III. Never heard of Backyard Basketball? Neither did I, until game industry site Next Generation recently published a list of the top … Read More »
Why did World of Warcraft from Blizzard Studios become such a monster success, and how can other online game companies replicate it? Industry analyst DFC Intelligence just published a great report that explains the former while tossing ice water on the latter. … Read More »
By Wagner James Au
Aug. 29, 2006, 10:40am PT
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As we march ever closer to the opening rounds in this holiday season’s battle for console supremacy, I’ve blogged about the financial prospects for Nintendo (quite good) and Sony’s Playstation 3 (not so good), but I’ve yet to put Microsoft’s Xbox 360 under any … Read More »
The biggest business news from the Second Life Community Convention here in San Francisco this weekend comes in the form of two reputed brands entering the 3D online world as immersive, interactive objects. First out the gate was an announcement from UK branding agency Rivers … Read More »
Whatever happens at the second Second Life Community Convention this weekend, I’m fairly sure the highlight won’t be Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale appearing onstage in a sequined codpiece. That was last year, when the inaugural convention (the brainchild of several fans of the … Read More »
Is a single game so popular that it’s dominating its space like a 800lbs. Tauren? That was the premise of “World of Warcraft Crushing PC Game Industry?” a frenetic Slashdot discussion launched by a recent interview with Age of Empires co-creator Brian … Read More »
Former Dreamcast executive Peter Moore gave a great talk at Ziff-Davis Electronic Gaming Summit, advising the game industry on what they must do to expand their audience. As documented by Gamerscore, Moore’s speech, “The Elite 8: Eight Ways to Confront Elitism and Open … Read More »
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, the simulation-infused game industry showcase that’s turned downtown Los Angeles into a digital supernova almost every May since 1995 is done. Following Friday rumblings about shows pending demise, E3 owner, the Entertainment Software Association, announced through spokesman … Read More »
Nintendo just boosted their profit estimates for the coming year by $150 million from over half a billion dollars, indicating that the company might be one of the unlikely winners in the console wars. I would have laughed at that thought even a year ago, … Read More »
A glimpse into the quiet success story of broadband-based game distribution If you haven’t heard much about Steam, maybe it’s because of a lot folks on the business side of the game industry would rather it just went away. The brainchild of Valve Software, the … Read More »
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