Category: News
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Sony Announces “PlayStation Rewards” Programme
Apparently taking a cue from cereal companies in the 1960s, Sony has announced a PlayStation Rewards loyalty programme. The idea is just like collecting all of those boxtops from back when my mother was a child: the more money you spend on the PlayStation Network, the more rewards you get. The programme is set up…
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Playstation Phone Shown By Engadget, Denied By Sony, Defended By Engadget
Yesterday, technology site Engadget showed what can only count as a massive coup: pictures of a Sony Ericsson developed Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) phone that is being dubbed the Playstation Phone. The phone would resemble a PSPgo, in that it has buttons for gameplay sliding out from the touchscreen, a long analogue pad where the start…
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Electronic Arts Conducts “Seasonal Roll-Offs” On Canadian Employees
There are times when reporting the news makes me angry. This is one of those times. Joystiq has confirmed with Electronic Arts that the company has “rolled-off” – that’s “fired” in corporate whore-speak – jobs for the third year in a row, as part of what company spokesperson Jeff Brown terms “team size adjustments”. “As…
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Persona 2: Innocent Sin Headed To The PSP
This week’s Famitsu brings what will likely cause much rejoicing among Shin Megami Tensei fans: Persona 2: Innocent Sin will be ported to the PSP in the same way that Shin Megami Tensei: Persona was. This was confirmed through a scan of the magazine posted by a user on NeoGAF. Both Innocent Sin and Persona…
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God of War Dev: It “Doesn’t Make Sense” To Develop For Piracy-Ridden PSP
PSP releases don’t get much bigger than God of War: Ghost of Sparta. The next game in the famous series releases next week, and is sure to do gangbusters at retail. This fact makes it that much more startling that developer Ready at Dawn’s Ru Weerasuriya is talking about something completely unrelated to the game:…
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CSI: Fatal Conspiracy Announced
Ubisoft has announced the next adventure game in their CSI franchise. CSI: Fatal Conspiracy will feature five connected cases, which lead to one major culprit, and will feature the same style of forensic analysis that the show is known for. The game features the real actors from the show reading their lines, as you assist…
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Call of Duty: Black Ops Won’t Outperform Modern Warfare 2, Says Pachter
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has said that while Call of Duty: Black Ops will sell like gangbusters this holiday season, it won’t outperform Modern Warfare 2, nor will it set any records. His reasons: Treyarch’s reputation, and what he perceives to be negative reactions from games press that apparently have already been written. “The…
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Sony Stock Boosted By Idiotic Apple Rumours
Remember that load of bollocks I reported on yesterday about Apple being rumoured into buying large companies like Sony? The result of that speculation is a potential reason as to why we’re in a recession* right now: the markets reacted to it. According to Rueters (via Destructoid), at one point today, Sony stock was up…
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Michael Pachter: Apple Should Stick To What They Know
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has responded to the speculation that Apple should purchase a company like Sony or Electronic Arts by actually agreeing with my analysis for a change: Apple shouldn’t bother with videogame companies. “I don’t think a video game company acquisition makes sense… if they make an acquisition, they are far more…
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The Last Guardian Protagonist’s Gender Changed Due To Panties
CVG reports via PSM3 that The Last Guardian was actually going to have a smaller, adolescent female lead instead of the adolescent boy that the game is getting. One of the main reasons? Upskirt shots. No, really. Fumito Ueda of Team ICO said this. “The Trico is a very powerful creature… If we’d had a…
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Preorders Being Taken on Back To The Future Adventure Game
Telltale games has announced that they are taking preorders for Back to the Future, an episodic adventure game in the same spirit as other Telltale games Sam & Max and Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People. The new game takes place six months after the last movie, and features Christopher Lloyd returning to the…
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News: Zynga Valuation Placed (Wrongly) Above Electronic Arts
According to Industry Gamers, SharesPost has put social games company Zynga at a valuation of $5.51bn USD in a list of privately owned companies. This, combined with Electronic Arts’ recent devaluation of their publicly owned stock, shows a valuation of Zynga above Electronic Arts, the industry’s second largest publisher. Businessweek (link is a 404) adds…
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News: MySpace Apps Sending User Data
The Wall Street Journal reports that applications inside social networking website MySpace are directly linking user IDs (UIDs) to advertisers when their ads are clicked on by users. The UIDs link back to a user’s personal page which has as much personal information as the user has decided to put out. In the case of…
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News: Phil Spencer Denies Mandate For Kinect Titles
Responding to rumours that the company had put forth a mandate for first-party developers such as Lionhead Studios to shy away from controller based games in order to make Kinect games, Microsoft Game Studio corporate VP Phil Spencer had a very plain answer for Gamasutra: “No”. “Fable III ships [this] week, and it’s not a…
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News: Hot Pursuit Demo Drops On PS3, Xbox Live Tomorrow
According to a press release put out by Electronic Arts, a demo for Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit will drop tomorrow on both Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. The demo will only be for a limited time; after November 9th, the demo will no longer be available, but in the meantime, players will be…
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News: Xbox Live Gold Deals of the Week for 10/25
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News: Playstation Store Scheduled For Downtime On Oct. 28
Sony has confirmed to CVG that the Playstation Store will be down for nine hours on Thursday, going down from 0830 to 1730 PST. This seems to coincide with when the west coast – where Sony is based in America – is at work or school. I do not know if this is intentional or…
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News: California State Senator Leland Yee Defends Games Bill
The Supreme Court of the United States is about to hear arguments, starting in November, on the Cailfornia Games Law that restricts sales of certain video games to minors. The champion of the bill in California, Democratic State Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco, has defended the bill prior to the arguments. “Parents – not…
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News: PSPgo Prices Slashed Worldwide
Sony has announced that they are reducing the price of the PSPgo worldwide. The prices will be as follows: * $199 in the US, down from $249 * 16,800Â¥ ($207) in Japan, down from 26,800Â¥ ($331) * £160 in the UK, down from £225 So let’s analyse for American audiences. For $50 less, you can…
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News: Analyst Says Activision Should Reacquire Rock Band IP
Cowen and Company analyst Doug Creatz, in looking at poor reviews and poorer retail figures for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, has stated that the only prayer Activision has of saving the franchise is dealing with the enemy: talking to Viacom and either merging with or buying the Rock Band franchise. “We believe Activision’s best…