TechWeb - Activision is riding high on the success of games such as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and Tony Hawk, but has lacked an offering such as World of Warcraft.
USATODAY.com - The latest release of Gran Turismo is missing quite a bit under the hood. Instead of waiting to unveil a full version of the hit racing series for PlayStation 3, developers roll out the scaled-back Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The options are slim, but the experience is powerful.
Reuters - MTV said on Friday it will start selling full albums that can be downloaded and played in its “Rock Band” video game, with the first title coming next week from classic metal act Judas Priest.
AP - Led by stellar sales of Nintendo’s games and systems, U.S. retail sales of video games jumped 57 percent to $1.7 billion in March, market researcher NPD Group reported Thursday.
NewsFactor - The sluggish economy doesn’t seem to be hurting the video-game market. U.S. sales of game hardware and software skyrocketed 57 percent in March compared to the year-ago period, according to the NPD Group.
Reuters - U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 57 percent in March from a year earlier, industry data showed on Thursday, evidence that the industry has so far been immune to wider economic woes.
AP - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., publisher of the popular “Grand Theft Auto” video game series, wanted more time to consider a $2 billion buyout by larger rival Electronic Arts Inc., and it wanted more money. On Friday, half its wish came true.
Investor’s Business Daily - The much-awaited release of the “Grand Theft Auto IV” video game is just around the corner — April 29.
High Voltage Software has created a futuristic first-person shooter designed from the ground up called Conduit for Wii. The game uses an advanced 3D engine to make the most of the Wii\’s hardware, however the game is badly in need of a publisher if it is ever to get past the demo stage. The company says they the game currently runs at 30 fps but they are aiming for 60 fps, they say they want to make the game that looks like a 360 game on the Wii.
Capcom Japan has announced that Biohazard 0 will be released in Japan on July 10 for 4,190 yen. The price of 4,190 yen is a third less than most new Wii titles cost there. IGN say the price is fair considering that its a \”bare-bones\” GameCube port.
Xbox 360 group product manager Aaron Greenberg has said that the he feels MS have secured the core user and that this gives them 2quite a bit of an advantage versus PS3, which is late to the game and still at a price disadvantage relative to the Xbox.\” He says that Sony are targeting a consumer that has already bought an Xbox 360 with games like MGS 4/LittleBigPlanet/Gran Turismo 5.
Konami are distributing a large patch for the Metal Gear Online Beta via peer-to-peer connections like BitTorrent. The lengthy download (which apparently takes hours) cannot be performed in the background.
A Japanese trailer has been released for the PS3 exclusive \”Siren - New Translation\”. The game is 90 percent complete and is a remake of the first Siren game. The game is set for release in Japan on July 24, 2008 and a demo is expected to be released on April 24.
The KONAMI ID portal site will be taken down and be inaccessible later today. Konami have said that they carrying out emergency maintenance work on the Metal gear Online site from 04/18/2008 at 20:00 (GMT+9h). The maintenance is needed because \”extraordinary levels of traffic levels are causing great difficulty for our customers in accessing the page.\”
British magazine, Edge, has published an interview with Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima in which he expresses his disappointment with the graphics in Metal Gear Solid 4 and the limitations of the PS3\’s CPU. He says that they visioned MGS 4 going \”ten steps further\” but due to a lot of PS3 restrictions \”the reality was just one step.\” \”I remember saying three years ago that we wanted to create something revolutionary, but in reality we couldn\’t really do that because of the CPU. We\’re using the Cell engine to its limit., actually.\” said Kojima.