 | Ouya coming to Amazon, Gamestop, Best Buy, and Target from June Feb 5th 2013, 16:41 US retailers pledge to stock $99 Android-powered Kickstarter console. 
Ouya, the Android-based console that smashed its funding target with $8.5 million in Kickstarter donations, will be available from plenty of US retailers when it officially launches in June. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman said the machine will be available from Amazon, Gamestop, Target, and Best Buy. Ouya will see a phased launch, with Kickstarter backers receiving the machine in March and those who pre-order now getting hold of the machine in April. The official launch, when the retailers will start stocking the device, is in June. The Ouya is priced at $99.99, with the touchscreen controllers going for $49.99. "It’s a premium price for a controller," said Uhrman, "but with the inclusion of the touchpad really makes it a premium in the marketplace." GameSpot has asked Ouya about whether the machine will be stocked by retailers internationally. Right now Ouya is charging $25 to ship to the UK. When asked if Ouya felt threatened by the imminent announcement of new next-gen hardware from Sony and Microsoft, Uhrman asserted that Ouya will occupy a unique space in the market. "We don’t need to beat Xbox or Sony or any console that enters the marketplace," said Uhrman, "we need to carve out our own niche." "Ouya offers a very different value proposition to the gaming you can currently experience. It’s a box designed specifically for the television that leverages the screen, we support 3D gaming, HD, we support the controller, we added a touchpad to the controller. The kind of content you’ll see on Ouya, it’ll be inventive and creative and has never been on the television." Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Dead Space 3 Awakened DLC revealed Feb 5th 2013, 16:19 First expansion for action game coming to Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in March for $10; will be "disturbing." 
Dead Space 3 launched today in North America, and publisher Electronic Arts is already readying the game's first expansion. EA today announced Dead Space 3 Awakened, a "disturbing" piece of downloadable content due out on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in March for $10. The Awakened expansion for Dead Space 3 introduces players to the franchise's "darkest chapters," EA said. Visceral Games general manager Steve Papoutsis said Awakened will represent some of the "most disturbing content [players] have ever seen in a Dead Space game." GameSpot's Dead Space 3 review praised the game's weapon crafting system, sense of atmosphere, environmental variety, and its new co-op option, but lamented its story and certain gameplay sequences. For more, check out GameSpot's full review. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Dead Island sells 5 million Feb 5th 2013, 15:57 2011 zombie-action game reaches new sales milestone, publisher criticizes others for focusing on marketing and big budgets. 
Dead Island has sold through over 5 million copies since launch in September 2011, publisher Deep Silver announced today. The game shipped 1 million copies in its first week and 3 million in 90 days. In a statement, Deep Silver parent company Koch Media CEO Klemens Kundratitz criticized other publishers for focusing too heavily on things other than gameplay. ’While others focus on ever-increasing development budgets and driving brand messages via ballooning marketing expenditures, Deep Silver stands for hitting the zeitgeist, innovation and fresh gameplay," he said. Deep Silver recently caught flak for its Dead Island: Riptide Zombie Bait Edition, which features a bloodied and bikini-clad female torso. The company said it is "deeply sorry" for any offense caused by the premium bundle, but did not say if it plans to cancel the offering or not. Dead Island: Riptide is due out for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on April 23 in the USA and Canada and April 26 in Europe. The game takes place after a monsoon has ravaged the fictional city of Henderson and jungle settings on the island of Palanai. For more, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Dead Island: Riptide. A Dead Island film is also in the works at Lionsgate (The Hunger Games, Dogma). Development of the movie will be led by The Mummy producer Sean Daniel and his Sean Daniel Company. Accompanying Daniel on the project will be post production leader Stefan Sonnenfeld (Pirates of the Caribbean, X-Men: The Last Stand). Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Cloud-gaming not the future, says Nintendo Feb 5th 2013, 14:56 Satoru Iwata says there are "many things" cloud-gaming cannot do by design, dedicated gaming platforms will not die. 
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was asked by investors recently if he thinks traditional dedicated gaming platforms like the Wii U and 3DS will be replaced by other initiatives, like cloud-gaming. He squarely said no, downplaying the role of cloud gaming in the industry's future, and saying dedicated gaming consoles will not die out anytime soon. Iwata said there is always some latency involving cloud gaming. And while this may have little or no effect on some games, on other, more interactive games, this latency could be a major drawback. "For some highly interactive games, action games in particular, the time required to reflect the push of a button on the screen is critical and the frame rate determines the fluidity of the movements," he said. "This means that there are some types of games that can be put on the Internet and others that cannot." "There are many things that cloud gaming cannot do by design, but this fact has not been communicated well to the public, and I find it strange that many people claim that cloud gaming is the future." "There are many things that cloud gaming cannot do by design, but this fact has not been communicated well to the public, and I find it strange that many people claim that cloud gaming is the future." Iwata added that the discussion should then shift to whether dedicated gaming platforms will die out and whether home console and portable gaming devices will one day be unified. "Naturally, our stance is that dedicated gaming platforms will not die out and we are determined to create a future where they will not," he said. As for platform integration, Iwata echoed comments from last month, saying Nintendo has no plans to integrate its home console and portable devices into one. Instead, Iwata said Nintendo is focusing its efforts on unifying its development methods, operating systems, and built-in software for each platform so that each may be used across devices in a simplified manner. "This means that if we manage to integrate our platforms successfully, we may in fact be able to make more platforms. At the moment, we only have our current handheld devices and home consoles because if we tried to make more platforms, our development resources would be spread too thinly," he said. "The more we can share software across different platforms, the more development resources will be left for something else. Platform integration does not mean creating one type of platform, but the point is that the united method of software development will enable us to share our most precious software assets across different hardware." Nintendo may not see a bright future for cloud-gaming, but that's not the case for Sony. The PlayStation maker last year acquired cloud-gaming company Gaikai for $380 million. Sony intends to use the acquisition to establish a new cloud service combining Gaikai's resources with its own, though it is not clear if this endeavor is for the PlayStation 3, the long-rumored PlayStation 4, or something else entirely. Iwata also addressed Near-Field Communication support for Wii U, which has been materially absent thus far. He said Nintendo is in talks with "several developers" and hopes to show and discuss some of the progress made in this area by the end of the year. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Square Enix stung by 'increasingly difficult' console market Feb 5th 2013, 14:50 Publisher blames the console market for its 5.7 billion yen loss for the nine months ending December 31 2012. 
Square Enix has called out the "increasingly difficult condition of the world-wide console game market" as a reason for the under-performing sales of its console games. The company last night posted a 5.7 billion yen loss for the nine months ending December 31 2012. Despite an overall seven per cent increase of net sales, up to 102.8 billion yen, Square Enix said the tumultuous console market has left the publisher "struggling to achieve a fair expected return on its investment." "During the nine-month period ended December 31, 2012, the Company has not recovered the operating loss posted in the six-month period ended September 30, 2012, primarily due to the increasingly difficult condition of the world-wide console game market, under which the Group is struggling to achieve a fair expected return on its investment," said Square Enix. At no point did Square Enix's financial report mention its recent catalogue of Western-developed titles, such as Hitman: Absolution, Sleeping Dogs, Quantum Conundrum and Heroes of Ruin. The company did take time to say its portfolio of PC and social games were showing "acceptable profit." Gree-led Final Fantasy Artniks broke in its millionth user over the holiday, joining the likes of Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur, Sengoku Ixa and Final Fantasy Brigade. Square Enix also said upcoming MMORPG Dragon Quest X was showing "steady progress." Square Enix's latest big-budget console adventure, Crystal Dynamics' reboot of the Tomb Raider series, will be released in March. Square Enix's other titles destined to emerge before the end of its financial year in April include Final Fantasy 11: Seekers of Adoulin alongside Japanese-exclusives Kingdom Hearts - HD 1.5 ReMIX and Dragon Quest 7. Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
| | Nintendo: Industry must innovate Feb 5th 2013, 14:16 Satoru Iwata says future health of industry is dependent on creating experiences gamers can't anticipate. If the games industry wants to be prosperous and successful, it must create innovative experiences that catch gamers by surprise. That's according to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who told investors this week that the future of gaming is not about enhancing graphics or power, but rather creating all-new experiences for players. "It is natural that there will be more things that battery-run devices can do thanks to technological advances and game consoles will become more powerful," Iwata said. "However, if we try to linearly pursue this direction, software development will become so complicated that we will eventually face a situation where cost recovery becomes a serious issue." To this end, Iwata said it is not important for the industry to focus only on beefing up power and graphics, but rather on launching all-new initiatives. "Therefore, we feel that we are nearing a saturation point in terms of simply improving performance or enhancing graphics," he added. "What is far more important for the future of video games is whether we can make new propositions in other aspects and create games out of something that people never expected to see in the form of a game." Read and Post Comments | Get the full article at GameSpot
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