Gamasutra News

Game Boy, The Ball Admitted To National Toy Hall Of Fame

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:15:00 -0500

Nintendo's Game Boy portable console has been added into the Strong National Museum of Play's National Toy Hall of Fame, alongside the ball. The gaming device, primarily designed by Nintendo engineer Gunpei Yokoi and introduced in 1989, "transformed the electronic-games market by popularizing handheld gaming," according to the museum's announcement of the induction. The ball has been used in innumerable activities across the entirety of known human history, with pictorial evidence dating back at least ...

iPhone Dev Storm8 Sued Over User Data Harvesting Allegations

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 13:24:00 -0500

iPhone developer Storm8 has been served with a class action lawsuit accusing the company of collecting and transmitting its users' phone numbers without prior consent or notification. Storm8 publishers a lineup of popular multiplayer online role-playing games for the iPhone and iPod Touch, including World War, iMobsters, and Vampires Live. The suit, filed by Washington resident Michael Turner and reported by technology blog Boing Boing, alleges that Storm8 engaged in the practice of "accessing, collecting, ...

Namco Bandai Swings To Loss In First-Half, Posts Lower Sales

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 10:50:00 -0500

Tokyo, Japan-based Tekken house Namco Bandai this week posted a net loss and lower sales for its fiscal first-half ended September 30, despite a software lineup led by subsidiary D3 Publisher's Ben 10 Alien Force. Sales for the period were ¥172.73 billion ($1.92 billion), a decrease of 9.5 percent year-on-year. The company swung to a net loss for the half, posting a loss ¥6.04 billion ($67.22 million), down from a profit last year of ¥1.28 ...

Infinity Ward's Emslie: Animation 'First And Foremost' Key To Visual Realism

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 07:53:00 -0500

A game that looks realistic may not be as overtly "artistic" as more stylized titles, but in order to portray convincingly authentic visuals, game artists need to have an innate sense of nuance -- and an arsenal of technology -- in order to translate realism into interactive gameplay. Joel Emslie, lead artist on Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 tells Gamasutra that high polygon counts aren't the most important aspect of creating a ...

Japanese Hardware: PS3 Closes In On Leader DSi

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 07:12:00 -0500

PlayStation 3 sales appear to have stabilized in Japan following the early September launch of the new slimmer form factor -- and this week, Sony's console outsold worldwide unit sales frontrunner Nintendo Wii for the ninth week in a row in Japan. PS3 sales for the week ended November 1 were 36,061 units, just behind the typical weekly leader, Nintendo's handheld DSi, which sold 37,517, according to Japanese tracking firm Media Create. The UMD-less PSP ...

Analyst: CoD: MW2 Could Sell $500 Million Week One, Music Genre Still Challenged

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 05:52:00 -0500

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 could top $500 million in sales in its first week, and can "easily" sell 10 million units in its launch quarter, says Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. The analyst is just one of many predicting a massive, possibly unprecedented launch for the game, and joins retailer GameStop and Activision itself in preparing for a windfall. The publisher will benefit from such big numbers, says the analyst, who believes ...

Iwata: 35% Japanese Connectivity Ratio For Wii, 20% For DS

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 05:44:00 -0500

Approximately 35 percent of Wii consoles and 20 percent of Nintendo DS consoles in Japan are connected to the internet, according to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who says those figures will drop unless the company takes ongoing aggressive action. Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, the online service for Wii and Nintendo DS, sees connectivity spikes when new online functionality is announced and when games with online multiplayer support are released, Iwata said in comments following Nintendo's recent ...

Iwata: Nintendo Is Not 'Losing Its Edge' To iPhone, Rival Tech

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 05:43:00 -0500

As Nintendo gets ready to report its first profit decline in years, analysts are getting demanding about the future of the Wii and DS creator. Facing questions about the company losing its edge as its competitors adopt motion-sensing tech and the iPhone proliferates as a mobile gaming platform in the West, president Satoru Iwata fired back in a Japanese investor briefing. "I cannot understand at all why some people come to think that Nintendo has ...

RedLynx Intentionally Leaked Trials To Torrent Sites

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 05:41:00 -0500

Piracy is a rampant problem in particular for small PC developers, but Trials HD developer RedLynx says it's looking at ways to leverage the issue to its benefit -- like leaking its PC game Trials 2 to torrent sites alongside its commercial release. "Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that?" posed RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala, speaking at a Develop Liverpool panel reported on by GamesIndustry.biz. "What we did actually, on day ...

Top-Grossing iPhone Apps: Doom, Red Alert Challenge Rock Band

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 06:19:00 -0500

Every week, sister iPhone site FingerGaming rounds up the top-grossing iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as current that day in the iTunes App Store, and this chart is now available on Gamasutra. This week's U.S. iPhone revenue charts see EA's mobile version of Rock Band leading over Command & Conquer: Red Alert and a recently released port of id Software's classic FPS Doom. This relatively recently-added chart allows end users to see who is making ...