GamerNode: Latest Industry News

Mighty Microsoft is feeling the economic crunch

The stock of Microsoft went down 4.7 percent in value due to the continued credit problems facing the US economy.

Shares of Microsoft dropped from $26.32 to $25.09 in late trading today. Microsoft shares, in spite of the downturn, are still well above the previous 52 week low of $23.50 set on September 19.

Before the approval of the $700 billion bailout package to help Wall Street and failing banks, Microsoft urged Washington to pass the legislation. Steve Balmer, Chief Executive at Microsoft, said that the nation's economic woes would slow down spending in the country, and that no company is immune to the crisis. That apparently means Microsoft too.

The game industry has generally been resistant to low economic tides, but until the US financial crisis stabilizes, some consumers are being a ...

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Price wars in the UK: Wii and Xbox 360 cheaper

There's an old adage that says competition is good for business. This little bit of wisdom has proven itself true over in the UK. Price wars have evidently broken out among several store chains with the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade, Xbox 360 60GB, and Wii dropping to drum up more business.

It is reported by sources that Sainsbury's (one of the oldest supermarket chains in the UK) will be dropping the price of the Nintendo Wii from £179.97 (319.20 USD) to £149.97 (265.96 USD). The Xbox 360 Arcade will drop from £129.97 (230.47 USD) to £99.97 (177.32 USD). And last but not least, the Xbox 360 60GB will go from £169.97 (301.58 USD) to £139.97 (248.40 USD).

The price cuts are valid from October 3 to October 12. So for those of you who live across the pond from us Yanks, it looks like this is an ...

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Matt Hazard returns in Eat Lead

Remember Matt Hazard? The gaming icon who's been a staple name in the industry for over 25 years? Well, that shouldn't really come as a surprise, because his entire history has been fabricated by D3 Publisher over the last several weeks as part of a viral campaign promoting the upcoming game, Eat Lead.

The campaign itself was one of the few entertaining (and successful) "We're trying to be funny!" viral marketing campaigns recently. It featured a website built in traditional 1990s Angelfire fashion listing the Top Ten Matt Hazard titles of all time. From Fistful of Hazard to Choking Hazard: Candy Gramm the list is a nostalgic what's-what of our fictional childhood.

Eat Lead will be a parody game, utilizing this fake history. An old legendary hero coming out of retirement to face his past fo...

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Doug Lowenstein blames gaming media for Jack Thomp...

Doug Lowenstein, former head of the Entertainment Software Association, was no stranger to Jack Thompson. Often the focal point of Thompson's attacks (he's been linked to Goebbels, Hitler, the devil-you name it) Lowenstein never gave Thompson a response.

Doug's belief has always mirrored my own: ignore Jack and stop giving him free press (which is all he ever wanted) and eventually he'd go away. Other writers tended to have their own idea-which I have no problem with-and you all know how it ended up.

In a letter to Kotaku's Brian Crecente, Doug asks him to examine the gaming press and its role of creating Thompson, as well as question whether or not the incident has caused it to mature. He has some good points, but he also has some which are pretty much completely wrong and stupid. I'll le...

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Jack Thompson disbarred

The day many have been waiting for is here: Jack Thompson has been disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court. The controversial ex-lawyer first came into the public eye as a "defender" against videogame violence. It didn't take long for people to see through his act and realize that he was just trying to make a name for himself. (Unfortunately, it took most of the mainstream press until today to see through it...) Earlier this year, people began the process of a disbarrment trial, hoping to prevent Jack from practicing law for ten years. Until now, it was entertaining but long-winded.

In a four page final statement, the Court cited numerous examples from the past, drew from many past reports on Thompson, and ultimately listed out why he was being disbarred. For those of you unfamiliar with th...

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Quantum of Solace pre-order bonuses

Order. Pre-order. (Okay, that was awful and made no sense, I apologize.)

If you're looking forward to the upcoming Bond flick (and game tie-in) Quantum of Solace (which is competing with Infinite Undiscovery for most awkward name choice of the season) then the new pre-order bonus might be your thing. The game will hit stores on November 4 for the Xbox 360 and PS3, but between September 22 (today) and then, those pre-ordering the game at GameStop will receive a special in-game multiplayer map, and those pre-ordering the game at Best Buy will receive a $10 off coupon for any James Bond DVD.

You'll get the $10 off Bond gift in-store upon pre-ordering, so if you've been considering buying one of those big Bond packs or picking up an old classic, it might be worth your while to save a few bucks...

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Lawsuit says Jaffe and Sony stole God of War story...

David Jaffe, the lead designer for God of War, has been sued, along with Sony, for copyright infringement by Jonathan Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer Barrette-Herzog. In the lawsuit, they allege that Sony received "a series of related works of fiction, including Olympiad, a screenplay."

The two writers claim that in 2002, their work was sent to Sony, and that certain elements, such as the character relationships, dialogue, themes, settings and mood of the storyline were suspicously similar to the God of War plot and game elements.

Some of the claims in the lawsuit state:

* Plaintiff's works tell the original story of how a champion saves Athens from destruction by the invading Spartan army that has been sent by Ares... [GoW]... is the story of how a champion chosen by Zeus and Athen...

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Microsoft will get rid of the Seinfeld ads

Microsoft is getting rid of Seinfeld. The commercials recently seen on television, starring none other than Billy Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, were met with yawns and the scratching of heads. What are the commercials about, anyway?

Microsoft decided to spend about $300 million on television ads to try to get people to give Vista another chance. The commercials tried to mimic the feel of a Seinfeld show. The ads were, in short, about nothing.

Microsoft sounds as if it is trying to put their own spin on why they are dropping Seinfeld. Is it because the ads didn't connect with the public? Not according to Microsoft. It says that it was only "phase one" of their strategy and that they were always planning on moving away from the Seinfeld based commercials.

Sure, sure. It probably also has to do with...

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Nintendo's not so hard to figure out new game

Well, we're going to take a wild guess and say that Nintendo is planning on announcing a new game that has something to do with a pink character, according to the press release below.

MEDIA ALERT: ONE-OF-A-KIND CELESTIAL EVENT EXPECTED IN SEPTEMBER

Spectacular, Star-Filled Display Will Be Visible From Earth at Select Locations

WHAT: Authorities at Nintendo are forecasting an extraordinary celestial event this season. Expected to be visible on Sept. 18, this eye-popping occurrence will be best viewed from a handful of specific U.S. locations (see below). Experts are still deliberating over the scientific significance of this rare phenomenon, but evidence points clearly to the reemergence of a luminous entity that citizens from all walks of life will appreciate.

WHO: Fun-seeking families and a...

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Age of Empires continue. Three Halo games coming

Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Game Studios, said in an interview with GamesIndustry.com that there are at least three games in the Halo universe being developed. Good news for Halo fans.

He didn't go into details on what those games were, but Halo junkies can breathe a sigh of relief for now.

Spencer said, "Well, there's more than one team building Halo games right now. There are more than two or three teams building Halo things right now. Some of them we will own, some of them we won't. It's never been, for me, about who you own or don't own - it's about working with the best creative talent in the industry."

Spencer also talked a bit about the Age of Empires strategy-action game franchise. Microsoft recently decided to close down the doors of Ensemble Studios, the developers behind the Ag...

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Electronic Arts exits.Take Two tanks

Since February of 2008, EA has set its sights on Take Two as a possible addition to the EA brand.

Electronic Arts offered a cool $2 billion for the company, but since then, Take Two has been playing it cagey and said the price wasn't right. T2 was concerned that EA would be getting a "bargain" because the price didn't account for the success of GTA IV.

After many extensions, EA has finally said, hasta la vista, baby, and walked out the door. Shares of Take Two, which have been hovering around $24-$26 per share, plummeted to $17 on word that EA had given up its chase of purchasing the company.

Although the management of Take Two refused the previous offers from EA, the majority of shareholders were in favor of the original deal. With the sudden downturn of Take Two shares, and the loss of EA...

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Whodunnit? Peter Moore killed the Dreamcast

Those of us who still own our Dreamcast machines still regret the day when Sega pulled the plug on making any more of them. And now, we know who was behind the smoking gun--none other than Peter Moore, who was chief operating officer and president of Sega at the time.

Moore is now the head of EA Sports, but he recounted how he made his decision to kill the Dreamcast in 2001.

"We had a tremendous 18 months. Dreamcast was on fire - we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said we had to make x hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift x millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business. "So on January 31st 2001 we said Sega is leaving hardware. We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,0

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Konami buys UEFA Champions League license

Yet another untouchable sports juggernaut has purchased exclusive rights for one of the world's biggest leagues, ensuring that (for several years) they'll now be the only REAL dog show in town.

But it's okay, because this time it wasn't EA, and EA was the one who got the short end of the stick! Hah! Irony!

Today, Konami announced a four year exclusive deal with the UEFA Champions League, one of Europe's greatest soccer (football, whatever) club competitions. Previously held by EA and used in the UEFA series (which was actually a very solid title this year), the UEFA license now belongs exclusively to Pro Evolution Soccer and will debut in the upcoming 2009 iteration.

"The Pro Evolution Soccer series is synonymous with football being played at the highest level, which makes it perfect for h...

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Will you be ready for Google Games?

Forbes magazine, a highly respected business publication, has speculated that Google may be entering the lucrative video game industry.

The editorial stated, "The paths Google could take to develop a bigger presence in the gaming industry are varied. With its financial war chest, the company could easily acquire one or several casual game development houses, using those to deliver in-game advertising via Adscape."

Imagine doing your surfing on Google only to notice that there were free games offered by the search engine. Forbes went on to say:

"For instance, visitors to Pogo.com and RealArcade tend to be women over 35, and they are already used to seeing advertising with their games--sometimes particularly intrusive advertising. If Google were to introduce a more subtle style--similar to the...

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Western games are better than Japanese ones

In a statement which will make many go "Well, duh!" former Capcom developer and current Game Republic big dog Yoshiki Okamoto has added another to his quickly growing list of controversial developer quotes. (The first being his gem about good developers not liking games in the first place.)

In an interview on the Japanese +D Games, Okamoto is asked about the disparity between Western and Eastern game development these days, and states:

"It's almost too late. During the Famicom (NES) era, Japanese video games comprised 70 percent of all video games. And currently, it's like 15 or 20 percent, isn't it? Now, Western games are more advanced. For games like GTAIV, those guys are spending something like 5 or 10 years to make them. Even if we thought about catching up with them now, they'd still ...

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FCC slaps Comcast for capping Internet usage

Comcast, an Internet service provider, announced recently that it was going to set a cap limit on home subscribers to 250GB a month starting on September 5.

That's a pretty good amount of downloadable content for most, but if you are a heavy duty gamer and like to download lots of movies and media, that 250GB cap starts to look a little small.

But never fear the FCC is here. The government agency determined that the Comcast policy was "legally inappropriate and its findings were not justified by the record."

The FCC went on to say that the new policies were "discriminatory and arbitrary" and that the Comcast move was to "contravene industry standards and have significantly impeded Internet users' ability to use applications and access content of their choice."

Comcast is fighting the decisi...

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The best gadget ever: The Pong wristwatch

This gadget has to be at the top of my list of "things I wish I had." The object of desire is a wristwatch. I am not talking about your multi-thousand dollar watches such as Rolex, or the $2.1 million Patek Philippe that someone bought this year.

No, what we're talking about here is even better IMO...a Pong wristwatch that shows the time via an ongoing game of Pong.

Now that's what I call class.

The idea was spawned originally by a large Pong wall clock by futuristic designer Buro Vormkrijger. That's when John Maushammer took the concept a step further and made a Pong wristwatch.

Maushammer made the unique device in his spare time using computer operated fabrication machines, a slew of electronic components to make a prototype of the watch, and finally, a working model. The whole project took...

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Peter Moore says he dropped the F-Bomb on Sega

Peter Moore is a real character in the game industry. He tells you what's on his mind, he is a true gamer, and he's been a major force in video games for years. He recently disclosed to Esquire magazine that when he was a top executive at Sega, he said to Yuji Naka, game developer and creator of Sonic, "F**k you."

We leave it to your imagination to fill in the blanks.

The F-Bomb came when Moore was in a boardroom meeting with Naka and other Sega brass. At the time, the Dreamcast was hemorrhaging heavily due to competition from Sony's PlayStation 2. Moore was trying to show the managers that Sega needed some major overhauls to stay alive.

He recounts what happened at the meeting year's back, and related how he formed and video taped the reactions of focus groups to evaluate what they though of...

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Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer beta in Oct...

Everyone seems to have loved Call of Duty 4, and despite some hesitance at the mention of Treyarch, the next installment in the CoD series should prove to be quite a hit financially. But how will it function as a game?

Well, you'll be able to find out this October, as the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War is opening up a multiplayer beta nearly a full month before its November 11 release date for both the Xbox 360 and PC.

Recently Call of Duty: World at War faced some controversy when Treyarch presented Olympic champion Michael Phelps with an early copy of the game (which later was found out [off camera] to be an empty box serving as a pre-order). Some criticized the move of making it look like they were handing out an early copy; some criticized the move of trying to gain popularity by ...

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Ubisoft: Europe > US

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview that Europe is now the company's biggest territory-not the US.

"First, our money - the pound or the euro - is very strong and because of that the turnover from those countries is heavier than they used to be," he explained during an interview at Games Convention. "So for Ubisoft turnover Europe is actually more important than the US now, and by more than 5 per cent. It's become a very strong market for us."

Guillemot gave credit to newer games being more inviting towards more casual gamers, and Ubisoft titles like EndWar which is "totally changing the industry."

Not mentioned in his spiel on how awesome Europe is for Ubisoft are how many copies of the Imagine series Euro gamers are inexplicably buying, what this mystery Ubiso...

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