It was just a few short years ago that many, if not all of the gaming industry, were accustomed to the post-holiday game lull that would accompany the spring and summer seasons — during the months of January all the way through roughly July or August there were very few big name titles landing on store shelves. The powers that be decided that nobody was going to buy games in the spring or summer so there was simply no reason to push a title’s release date into that window. I mean, who wants to play games when the sun is out, right? Oh how naive we can be sometimes…

It would now appear that those feelings were completely unwarranted, and this past month of April may be looked back on for years to come as proof that if a game is marketed and anticipated already, there’s no reason why a title can’t do extremely, extremely well. Last month saw the release of Mario Kart Wii, as well as a little game called Grand Theft Auto IV for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. These three titles accounted for over 4 million sales in just one month’s time. Check out the sales breakdown below: Continue reading this story..

What does the draft of the Queen’s speech and the UK games industry have in common? Nothing, according to Tiga, the national trade association that represents games developers in the UK and in Europe.

The CEO of Tiga, Richard Wilson, said today that the Queen’s speech, which is drafted by the Government and outlines their broad policy decisions for the coming year, would not enhance competitiveness of the games industry. Wilson complains that the business rates supplementary bill has the potential to disincentivise publishers from hiring and training young talent, “Giving employees the right to request training should be manageable provided that the legislation is sensibly framed. Games developers need a workforce that is typically educated to degree level. If the UK is to become the best place in the world to do games business, then the Government must make the tax environment more conducive to investment and increase the supply of highly skilled labour.”

The dates for the 3rd annual London Games Festival have just been announced. This year, the week-long festival will begin on October 25, promising many events that should appeal to everyone from casual to hardcore gamers, as well as anyone looking to get a glimpse at some upcoming titles. Details are non-existent at the moment but if last year’s event is anything to go by then it’s going to be pretty huge.

In 2007, over a hundred thousand people got to take part in such diverse attractions as the Royal Philharmonia Orchestra playing some game tunes (Mario, MGS, Halo, BioShock), a celebrity-packed EA-sponsored ‘Be The One’ event that lasted two days, and a packed out Trafalgar Square, and there were even events in the Science Museum.

Organizer Keith Ramsdale said they have plenty in store and have a whole host of major partners lined up with full support from the industry, “Last year’s London Games Festival was a huge success and we were thrilled with the feedback from many of those who attended and the publishers who took part,” Ramsdale said. “We’re really looking forward to bringing the gaming industry to life in the capital again.”

Despite having Wii hot on its tail ever since it launched, the Xbox 360 still managed to reach the 10 million sold mark in the U.S. before any other current-gen console. This figure is ahead of Nintendo’s 8.8 million Wii sales as well as the 4.1 million PS3’s in consumers’ homes. Microsoft announced that their white box of dreams has paved the way for this generation of games consoles and also saw fit to remind us that the first console to 10 million “always” wins, “History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle,” boasts Don Mattrick, senior VP of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business division, “We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry.”

Microsoft credited a couple factors in their ability to continually sell their system at a steady rate. Factors like Xbox LIVE, which according to Microsoft has seen its membership list double in the span of just one year. There was no word on whether that figure is in relation to the number of Gold members or just memberships in general, but we have to assume the latter at this point. Either way, it’s a pretty impressive number when you consider the fact that games like Gears 2 are still on the horizon. Continue reading this story..

What was going through James Christopher Stitt’s head when he murdered two of his roommates three years ago? One can only imagine, but what we do know is that he was allegedly playing Grand Theft Auto until the wee hours of the morning. The defense hopes this will get Stitt sentenced to life imprisonment in lieu of the death sentence. His psychiatrist Dr. Moira Artigues testified in court, “He went in and killed George and Jenna in a state where he was like an automaton, not in control of his actions at the time.”

Other court testimony presented facts of Stitt had frequent behavior problems as a young child. He was without his parents for a time, and eventually dropped out of school in the eighth grade. Around that same time Stitt was kicked out of his home for stealing from his family. It seems like all this is a more likely reason to contribute to a person’s violent actions than playing a videogame. So blaming these acts of a disturbed individual on Grand Theft Auto is a stretch to say the least.

Anyway, I have doubts on whether this defense will hold up. Especially since earlier testimony made no mention to Grand Theft Auto at all. Seems like the desperate last effort to save the man’s life.

This week the Guinness Book of World Records gave out two videogame awards. The first went to Renos Georgiou, 16, and Lyndon Jones, 15, who got to rock out with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock in front of 9,600 fans at the Give It A Name Festival Sunday May 11, in Earls Court London. They were awarded certificates for “Largest Audience For A Videogame Performance.”

The previous title holder was set at the Download Festival, Donington, in 2007, when Guitar Hero III was played in front of 3,000 people. Renos and Lyndon’s performance of Guns ‘n Roses’ “Welcome To The Jungle” in cooperative mode on Expert difficulty more than tripled that, and will go down as the largest performance of a videogame to date.

The second record breaker was Grand Theft Auto IV, which sold 3.6 million units and earned $310 million in its first day of release. GTA4 is now hailed by Guinness Word Records as the “Highest Grossing Video Game in 24 Hours” and the “Highest Revenue Generated by an Entertainment Product in 24 Hours.” Continue reading this story..

After the whole internet recently claimed that Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima was dissatisfied with the oh-so-soon to be released Metal Gear Solid 4, the man himself has gone on record to shine the bright light of perspective onto what he said.

If you cast your mind back, Kojima was quoted earlier in the year saying that the team had huge ambitions for the game but, when they sat down with the Sony’s hardware, they couldn’t quite get what they initially expected out of the PS3. The big quote of the time was that MGS4 was “One Step” out of the “Ten” they hoped to make. This news was taken as meaning that Kojima was ultimately unhappy with the game.

Now Kojima has, in his podcast, made a concerted effort to put the whole affair into context, blaming cultural and linguistic differences for the miscommunication. This isn’t the first time Kojima has attempted to sort this out, in a recent interview with Spanish website Meristation he did allude to the fact that what he said may have been lost in translation.

In his most recent statement Kojima speaks of modesty and how western journalists failed to appreciate that his comment was meant to understated and slight, rather than a proclamation at the failings of Sony’s hardware. Continue reading this story..

BioWare caused a bit of an uproar with fans when they announced how they were going to use online verification for PC copies of Mass Effect. Initially, the company planned an online authentication process that would take place every ten days. Gamers waiting for the title’s release thought that would be a tad bit excessive and voiced their dissatisfaction with BioWare’s decision. And just as we saw with Battlefield: Bad Company’s pay-for-weapons program, the ten day authenticity check is no more.

Speaking on BioWare’s forums, community manager Jay Watamaniuk wrote, “BioWare has always listened very closely to its fans and we made this decision to ensure we are delivering the best possible experience to them. To all the fans including our many friends in the armed services and internationally who expressed concerns that they would not be able re-authenticate as often as required, EA and BioWare want you to know that your feedback is important to us.” Continue reading this story..

For awhile now, Sony has boasted quite a bit about the recent success of the PS3 over its number one competitor, the Xbox 360. From sales figures, games line-up, to the success of Blu-ray over HD DVD in the format war, Sony seems to be pretty happy with where its black behemoth is at. All the while, for the most part Microsoft has kept pretty quiet not returning many of the PR jabs, instead focusing solely on the success the Xbox 360 has had.

But looks like Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg has decided it was time to go on the offensive again. In an interview with Destructoid, Greenberg targeted the PS3’s 1080p support, Blu-ray, PlayStation Home, PS3’s supposed lead in Europe, and Killzone 2.

“We have been fighting Sony’s promises from the day we entered the market. Three years ago at E3 they showed what PS3 games would supposedly look like with the Killzone 2 video, that we are now learning will ship four years later. That means that we will have shipped Gears of War and Gears of War 2 before they can even get Killzone out the door,” Greenberg stated.

“Think back to GDC 2007 when Sony promised to leap ahead in online with the Sony Home unveil. Here we are two years later and multiple delays for a product that appears to have little to no buzz. Where are the achievements? The friends list integration across all games? Where is the long-promised video store? Continue reading this story..

Two politicians, Democrat Jim Matheson and Republican Lee Terry, have teamed up to introduce a bill to the US House of Representatives that would require all videogame retailers to check ID’s before they sell any mature or adult rated game. The penalty for not adhering to this law carries a penalty of $5000. Retailers will also have to post clear explanations of the ESRB rating system in plain sight of customers.

The bill in question is called the Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act. The main focus of this bill is to protect children from purchasing games that are too mature for them. Many retailers try to implement their own set of rules to prevent the selling of mature games to underage persons but if the Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act passes, it would become a national law to check identification. Bills similar to this have been introduced before but have all been shot down due to the videogame industry’s First Amendment rights. One of the reasons Lee Terry gives for bringing this bill to the House is a bit exaggerated however. Continue reading this story..

Take-Two has put out a press release announcing that, in the first week since its release, GTA4 has sold approximately 6 million copies globally, with a retail value in the order of $500 million. In the first day alone it sold 3.6 million copies and took in a whopping $310 million.

Big numbers, but let’s put them into some sort of perspective by comparing them to the movie industry. The best opening for a movie is that of Spider-Man 3. This (woeful, imo) sequel took $382 million globally in its opening weekend. I think is it fair to say that GTA4 performed better in a similar time frame. Chairman of publisher Take-Two’s Strauss Zelnick agrees, “Grand Theft Auto IV’s first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date.”

So not only does the games industry as a whole outperform Hollywood, but individual game sales can also outperform movie box office sales. I’m sure that this comparison is not entirely fair and analysts could break the figures down to support both sides of the argument, but I think we can all agree that the games industry is as big as any other form of entertainment on the planet. And rapidly growing.

[See also: Grand Theft Auto IV gallery]

At Sony Europe’s PlayStation Day event, the company is reportedly taking plenty of time to inform the European gaming public of all the wonderful casual social gaming aspects of the PS3. In case you weren’t sure, ’social games’ are games where players of all ages socialise through gaming. Supposedly wanting to further push the platform as a wonderful mecca for all sorts of gaming and entertainment, Sony gave plenty of attention to a wide variety of easy to access and play games and features. It looks like they want to show off the PS3’s appeal to all ages via its social style games and features where anyone from 5 - 500 can play in a fun and safe environment. Sound like any other systems out there to you? Yea, me too.

Still, a press release shows that the PS3 is actually offering up some really interesting features and gaming in order to appeal to this wide array of gamers. They really want you to know all about more casual games, like those which make use of the EyeToy, but they’d also like your attention drawn to echochrome, showing off the diversity of their “social gaming” line up. Sony also wants to remind us all that the PS3 is more than just a gaming machine with features like Skype, Go!Messenger, PlayTV (which allows you to turn your PS3 into a TiVo) and that victorious Blu-ray player, making it a true entertainment center.

Continue reading this story..

Mark these words, computer graphics processors in the not too distant horizon are poised to make a big leap in technology, much more than we’ve grown used to seeing over the last several years. Oh yes, good days are ahead for PC gamers. Perhaps the leap will be enough to put some distance between PC and console games so that it’ll actually worthwhile again to purchase the PC version instead for those who own both.

Over the last month, tensions between NVIDIA and Intel have been steadily escalating as verbal mortal shells have been lobbed back and forth between the two camps. Judging by some of the press statements being made, the two sides have all but unofficially declared war upon one another in the graphics processing arena.

In the process of Intel’s hype machine going into overdrive in an attempt to promote their upcoming integrated processor-graphics chip, Larrabee, the company seemingly opened Pandora’s Box with some statements regarding the demise of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) during the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. The most interesting statement came from Intel senior vice president Pat Gelsinger that read, in part, “graphics that we have all come to know and love today, I have news for you. It’s coming to an end.” Continue reading this story..

Just recently Activision announced that they would not be attending E3 this year but would be holding their own side event to show off their own games. Strange actions, but understandable since the very idea of E3 is stuck somewhere in limbo with no one knowing what the shows exact direction is. Still, there wasn’t much of a clue as to why Activision had decided to do it. That is until now. After the announcement, it was discovered that Activision and Vivendi, who will soon be merging to create Activision Blizzard, were no longer listed on the Entertainment Software Association’s website as members. The ESA is the industry’s trade association and runs E3, not to mention plenty of other huge industry events and the ESRB.

But this news holds far greater ramifications than just Activision being a no show at E3. The ESA is the representative of almost all the major gaming companies and having Activision, one of the biggest gaming companies out there, leave is a pretty big blow to a group that has been hearing murmurs of dissension for a while now over ESRB ratings and the public face of gaming. The actual reasons for Activision’s departure are unknown at the moment as is whether or not any other companies will be departing with them. With or without other companies leaving this must be a big setback for the ESA, both monetarily and in terms of their reputation. We could be looking at a major industry shake up here.

Continue reading this story..