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This continues to be a slow news week, but the release of Sony's sales numbers for the Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and the Playstation Portable prompted some interesting console war news stories. This wouldn't be of note normally, but one such story spawned from a Microsoft press release. The Xbox 360 manufacturer said that its 19 million units sold is "more than any other current-generation console." At this point it's worth pointing out that the Nintendo Wii has an install base of 24.45 million. Microsoft later clarified that it meant that the 360 has the "largest global install base of any current gen, high definition gaming console" (emphasis mine and GameDaily's). Sony can safely claim, then, that the Playstation...
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Silicon Knights President Dennis Dyack wants to be deknighted and have someone else take over the position so that he can focus more on the creative portion of the company's development. "I've been involved in a lot of IP creation within Silicon Knights and as the company grows, I have to look at whether I want to continue to be president and director, and I'm leaning towards staying creative," Dyack said in an interview with GameDaily. This doesn't strike me as being a bad thing as Silicon Knights' past games, specifically Eternal Darkness and Blood Omen: The Legacy of Kain, have been absolutely spectacular. In your daily Electronic Arts news comes news that the ginormous gaming entity's Q4 revenues...
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As I'm sure all of you are aware, we experienced a little bit of downtime yesterday but, fear not, because the site is better now. I instantly posted yesterday's daily to ensure that no one would suffer a withdrawal (that and I'm going for a full year without missing a single day). So, hopefully, no one had the shakes too bad. VideoGamer.com ran a particularly detailed interview with Cameron Suey, producer of the Xbox 360 and PS3 version so of Lucasarts' upcoming game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Interviews with developers before a game's release date aren't typically anything but bad jokes interspersed with PR speech snippets but, in this particular interview, Cameron answers the oft-asked question about why...
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Rik Ede is considered to be the world's leading authority on surround sound in games having spent 5 years working for Dolby as 5.1 evangelist, 2 years as a consultant to DTS and more recently he just finished a 2 year stint as the PLAYSTATION 3 surround consultant to Sony's R&D group. Source
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In a manner that is best described as Neo-EA (I plan to continue championing them), the company listened to the nerdrage that surrounded the news regarding SecuRom's copy protection measures for the upcoming Mass Effect (PC port) and Spore and responded by removing the every-ten-days legitimacy check. As far as I understood the situation, this check was going to be used as a means to "allow" gamers to play the aforementioned titles without a CD/DVD and whether or not people will be able to play the game without a CD still is unknown. The new and "improved" copy protection method for the two games will check the authenticity of the install whenever a player wants to download new content or,...
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This week from Journal Land we have 16 notable updates from various developers on all sorts of topics: programming, business, project updates, freebies, DRM, and more!
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The world's most popular video games industry website in partnership with the Nordic Game conference launches the new Gamesindustry.biz Network community and meeting planner at this year's event.
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Games Convention Asia Conference (GCAC) today opened its call for papers. From now until June 15th, experts from the international game community can submit speaking proposals for the upcoming Games Convention Asia Conference, taking place at Suntec International Convention & Exhibition Centre Singapore, September 18-19, 2008.
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High-level networking and knowledge-sharing between online game industry professionals starts on May 13th, at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel for those attending the 2008 ION Game Conference. Over 500 attendees representing 260 globally diverse companies have already signed on to participate in the ION experience. Only one day, Friday, May 9th, is left to register online for ION. Online registration ends on May 10th at 12 AM Pacific Standard Time.
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In its 13th annual appearance, the fmx/08 has once more lived up to its reputation. For four full days, the conference on all things relevant to digital entertainment drew the international cg community to Stuttgart's Haus der Wirtschaft to inform themselves about the latest developments and more importantly to exchange ideas and experiences. The comprehensive and first-rate program is decisive in making this event the best of its kind in Europe, but other factors also play a role. Under the Animation Institute's lead, the FMX has been able to garner an atmosphere in which students, companies and world- class speakers engage in heartfelt discussion. The spirit of FMX is entrenched in the participation that the visitors bring with...
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The agenda is now finalized and this is one Game Summit you don't want to miss! The Vancouver International Game Summit and its Advisory Board are pleased to announce that this year's closing keynote event will feature the key leaders behind the 2007 Game of the Year: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
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So, Activision had a good year with its total revenue for the fiscal year at $2.9 billion USD (up from $1.5 billion the prior year) largely do, no doubt, the the massive success of Call of Duty 4 with its nine million-plus sales. The publisher says that about 82.8% of its earnings came from consoles, 10.8% from mobile gaming, and a mere 6.4% from PC games. In an analyst conference call, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick made statements on how the Guitar Hero franchise has sold more than 19 million units to-date and adds: "versus only three million from our only competitor" (Rock Band). So, just so we're clear, the franchise started and made popular by the Rock Band developer (and...
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Sciencedaily.com reported UC San Diego computer scientists have created a fog and smoke machine for computer graphics that cuts the computational cost of making realistic smoky and foggy 3-D images.
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Sciencedaily.com reported UC San Diego computer scientists have created a fog and smoke machine for computer graphics that cuts the computational cost of making realistic smoky and foggy 3-D images.
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David Lakritz, President & CEO, Language Automation, Inc., previews his "Top Global Markets for Online Games (and How to Speak to the Gamers)" lecture at the 2008 ION Game Conference. Additionally, in this interview he tackles what has often proven to be a tricky subject for online game developers localizing game titles to match the language and culture of an international market.
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