Author: Christopher Bowen
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Microsoft Possibly Readying Television Service For Xbox
Two sources with knowledge of the situation have told Rueters that Microsoft has been in early talks with television providers to provide cable programming to Xbox, presumably to the LIVE platform. The plans – which are still in early days, and might not be seen for a year according to the sources – would involve…
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Riot Games Hiring For 100 Positions
Via Industry Gamers, Riot Games, a Los Angeles based developer responsible for the popular RTS game League of Legends, are hiring for 100 new positions. The listings are available at the company’s website, and range from internships to a European marketing director. If all positions are filled, it would almost double Riot’s current 140 man…
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Pachter: Microsoft, Sony Fibbing On Kinect/Move Shortages
Both Microsoft and Sony have been applying pressure on consumers in a simple, yet historically effective manner: by letting them know if they didn’t get their devices right now, that they would not get them for Christmas, which could lead to crying children who would be scarred for life. Frankly, I didn’t buy it, and…
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Diehard GameFAN Hall of Shame: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
We did this one out of the landfill to determine if it’s bad enough to earn our lowest distinction. Get it!? Landfill!? HA! I’m so witty and clever!
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Microsoft Will Not Sue Kinect Hackers, Says Kinect Isn’t Hacked Anyway
Microsoft usually likes to play a bit of jujitsu when it comes to the security of their products – as someone who’s had massive, critical, exploitable bugs in Windows in a corporate system who’s been told “a patch will come out next Tuesday” and it’s Thursday, I know that all too well – and they’re…
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Review: Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 (Microsoft Xbox 360)
One of our two resident soccer/football experts, Chris Bowen, takes a look at an old favorite franchise in Pro Evolution Soccer 2011. How did he like it? Find out inside.
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Disney Interactive’s Graham Hopper Resigns
VentureBeat reports that Graham Hopper, General Manager of Disney Interactive, put in his resignation on Monday, signalling an end to his almost nine years in charge of that branch of the company. Mr. Hopper’s responsibilities will be taken over by John Pleasants, who was put over Mr. Hopper when the previous president of Disney Interactive…
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Sony Ericsson Boss All But Confirms PlayStation Phone
Sony Ericsson’s Bret Nordberg gave very strong weight to rumours that Sony is working with Ericsson to develop a new Playstation Phone. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Nordberg stated simply that they would like very much to tap Sony’s expertise in the video games market. “There’s a lot of smoke, and I tell…
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Diehard GameFAN Hall of Fame Nominee: Super Mario Bros.
Every week, we will present a new game to be nominated for the Diehard GameFAN Hall of Fame and Hall of Shame. These nominations will occur every Monday and Friday, respectively. Our standards are just like the Baseball Hall of Fame: every game will be voted on by members of the staff, and any game…
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Viacom Discontinues, Looks To Sell Harmonix
Massive media conglomerate Viacom issued a financial statement where they announced that Rock Band and Dance Central developer Harmonix Music Systems will be sold, and as a result, the company has been listed as “discontinued” in that report (below), and a Viacom representative told Wired that they are exiting the video games business, because of…
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EA Sports Restructuring Costs Jobs, Changes Development Standards
The fallout from Electronic Arts cancelling NBA Elite ’11 continues. 1UP reports that the GMs positions for EA Canada and EA Tiburon have been eliminated, and that former EA Canada GM Moira Dang is no longer with the company (1UP later updated their report to state that former Tiburon head Phillip Holt is still with…
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Pachter Backtracks On Previous Black Ops Predictions, Still Wants Paid Online
I need to get a job as a stock speculator. These guys get more predictions wrong than weathermen, and yet they still get paid large amounts of money to make said predictions, so long as they readjust their wrong predictions to make more predictions. Such is the case with the latest from Wedbush Securities analyst…
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EA Sports Patch News: NHL ’11, FIFA ’11, EA MMA
There’s a lot of news about patches for EA’s latest games. Let’s go over them in one big happy post: * NHL ’11’s patch went up early Tuesday morning for PS3 users, and will go live on Nov. 12th for 360 users. A full list of changes can be found here. I have played with…
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Warner Brothers Montreal To Focus On Casual Titles
Back in March, when Warner Brothers founded a studio in Montreal, they announced that the studio would be focusing on games relating to the DC Comics franchise. Today, those intentions have been made more clear, and it doesn’t seem to be what the employees of the growing studio had in mind. Talking to Quebec based…
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Namco Bandai Six Month Figures Improve, Company Still Loses Money
The good news for Namco Bandai is that they lost less money for the first six months of their fiscal year than they did at this point last year, when they lost an astounding Â¥6b ($74m). The bad news: they still lost money this time around, to the tune of Â¥1.93b ($24m). The losses were…
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Tecmo-Koei Takes Financial Beating, Replaces CEO
Tecmo-Koei’s six month financial results are in, and they are a disaster. For the period ending September 30, the company lost Â¥1.09b ($13.5m), on sales of Â¥11.07b ($136.2b). The losses are more than the Â¥349m ($4.3m) the company lost for the same period of time last year. Even more notable is that the video game…
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Activision: Black Ops Expected To Sell 20% Less Than Modern Warfare
Activision has released guidance on what to expect for sales of Call of Duty: Black Ops when it releases later tonight via midnight launches, and they are keeping things conservative: they are telling investors to expect 20% fewer sales than what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold, according to Cowen and Company analyst Doug…
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THQ Loses Money, Focuses On Future
THQ, publishers of the UFC: Undisputed and Red Faction franchises, has reported a loss of $47m for Q2 of their fiscal year, on sales of $77.1m. Those numbers from the same period in FY 09 were losses of $5.6m and sales of $101.3m, respectively. Despite the numbers, THQ said the numbers were within their guidance.…
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Microsoft Increases Kinect Sales Forecast
Microsoft has increased their forecast of how many of their Kinect devices they look to sell in this quarter, upping the number to five million units, up from three million previously. The number is based around pre-sales, retail orders and consumer interest, and would be Microsoft’s most successful launch ever of an Xbox product. The…
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Bejeweled 3 Announced By Popcap
Popcap Games has announced that Bejeweled 3, the first “direct” sequel in the franchise since 2004 (Bejeweled Twist was not a direct sequel), will be forthcoming on December 7th via their website, retailers, and “other major portals” which likely include Steam. The biggest change appears to be a Quest Mode, which will incorporate the standard…