Verizon has announced a new feature and related promotion that suggests it is “taking a much more active interest in video games for both distribution and new customers,” reports Mashable.
“FiOS customers who subscribe to both FiOS TV and FiOS Internet and are Xbox LIVE Gold members can use their Xbox consoles to watch select live FiOS TV channels. No extra hardware,” explains a post in the Verizon Forum. “Plus, for the first time, Kinect for Xbox 360 will be integrated into the TV experience, allowing customers to use voice and gesture commands to control their TV viewing.”
Initially, only 26 channels will be available starting in December.
For $89.99, you can get triple-play service, a limited Xbox LIVE Gold membership and a sponsor spot for Machinima’s Gamers’ Choice Award.
Sony PlayStation 3 users will be able to stream movies and TV shows and enjoy them with friends from multiple locations with an updated version of Crackle.
Instead of accessing Crackle via the console’s Internet browser, users can enter a virtual movie theater with custom PS3 controller navigation. “Fire up PlayStation Home — if you’re a free member, that is — and navigate over to the LOOT EOD Theater, the Hollywood Hills House, or the Sunset Yacht areas,” reports PCMag.com.
The streaming service allows users to create avatars and use them to interact with up to 11 friends (or 60 strangers) in a virtual movie theater with access to hundreds of movies and more than 1,000 TV episodes. “Think of it as an opportunity to have a giant recreation of ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ with strangers,” suggests the post.
“We are very excited to bring familiar social experiences from the real world into a virtual environment, so people around the globe can connect and communicate with each other while sharing their favorite movie, show, music, or event,” said Sony DADC VP David Sterling. “This is the next big step in social networking and it will transform the way people consume media.”
Sony is also planning PlayStation Home support for Ustream content and streaming radio service RadioIO later this year.
After phasing out console games relating to the “Mission: Impossible” series, Paramount Pictures has created a social game on Facebook to promote the franchise.
The game, which introduces an entirely new storyline, awards players with real prizes and new content. Paramount is using the game to give out premiere tickets in addition to other promotional material.
The studio is working with Funtactix, a social game developer, on the project.
According to a related article from TheNextWeb, Paramount is also hoping to generate buzz by making it possible to rent all previous iterations of the franchise directly from the movie’s Facebook Fan Page. Each movie costs 30 Facebook credits ($2.99) to rent for 48 hours.
“Utilizing the sharing capabilities and Facebook ticker, which will alert your friends to the fact that you’re watching one of the movies, could help build excitement for an opening weekend that will destroy the last,” suggests TNW.
Miramax launched a similar Facebook rental model a few months ago. TNW wonders if Facebook rental services will take off in the face of customer comfort and loyalty to Netflix and other streaming services.
The Walt Disney Company is working to replicate the success of “Angry Birds” with its new “Where’s My Water?” iPhone and iPad game.
Since its September 22 release, the game has proven rather successful, even taking the top spot from “Angry Birds” for three weeks.
“The logic is pretty simple; games are a cost-effective way of not only testing new characters, but also building a fan base for a potential movie,” reports Market Intelligence Center. “Developing the game cost a couple of hundred thousand dollars and about seven people. The time to build the game was less than eight months.”
The article points out that the financial risk is minimal when compared to a feature animation project: “Animated movies can easily run in excess of $100 million to produce, so each one is big gamble. If the game continues to find success, Disney can start to plan an animated movie around the game knowing they already have a fan-base for the movie’s characters. Disney will also be able to use its merchandising muscle to create and sell all kinds of toys and clothes around the game’s characters before it ever gets a movie into theaters.”
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld adds: “Entertainment technology must now be defined VERY broadly. The ‘Halo II’ launch incorporated thousands of calls to pay phones into a coordinated transmedia market development campaign.”
“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” has set a new entertainment launch record, selling 6.5 million units within 24 hours after its release last week. The first-person shooter raised $400 million in sales revenues in the Unites States and United Kingdom.
This marks the third consecutive sales record for game publisher Activision Blizzard with the “Call of Duty” series. “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” sold 4.7 million copies during its first day of availability in 2009, and last year’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops” hit 5.6 million in its first 24 hours.
“We believe the launch of ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3’ is the biggest entertainment launch of all time in any medium, and we achieved this record with sales from only two territories,” said Activision Blizzard chief exec Bobby Kotick.
“Other than ‘Call of Duty,’ there has never been another entertainment franchise that has set opening day records three years in a row,” he added. “Life-to-date sales for the ‘Call of Duty’ franchise exceed worldwide theatrical box office for ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Lord of the Rings,’ two of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time.”
Stockholm-based Tobii Technology is introducing a one-off arcade machine called EyeAsteroids, a game that recognizes eye movement as its control mechanism, dismissing “the idea of using joypads, joysticks or flailing your arms around like a whirligig in order to play games,” reports Pocket-lint.
“EyeAsteroids is similar to the classic arcade unit from 1979, but with no physical control mechanism.”
The company, known for its eye-tracking communication aids for those with special needs, claims the technology is faster than gesture recognition. According to its website, the company provides related technology for research fields and computer controls in areas including hospitals, diagnostics, vehicle safety, gaming and computer manufacturing.
“We believe the addition of eye control to computer games is the most significant evolution point in the gaming industry since the introduction of motion control systems, such as the Nintendo Wii,” said Henrik Eskilsson, Tobii’s CEO. “Gaze interaction is fast and intuitive, adding an entirely new dimension to video game interaction.”
The Tobii EyeAsteroids prototype is starting its world tour in New York City today and will be on display at January’s CES in the South Hall.
Nintendo Wii is the most popular video game console with young Americans (ages 8-to-24), according to a new Harris Interactive survey.
Nearly 6,000 young consumers participated in the study conducted in August 2011.
The poll also lists Apple as the top brand among the 13-to-24 demographic for computers, mobile phones and tablets.
“It’s interesting that the Nintendo Wii rated so highly given that it’s been the lowest selling console for the last year,” reports IndustryGamers. “This shows that Nintendo still has plenty of brand equity among consumers, and with the right products and marketing there is no reason they can’t be the #1 selling console again. The dangers are also clear in this study, as Apple leads in mobile phones and tablets, where games are one of the top categories that seem to be having an effect on handheld console sales.”
Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell has reiterated his take on the issue of piracy. Valve is the creator of game platform Steam that distributes games to a global community of 35 million players.
Newell believes that DRM does not work and pirates are not necessarily always seeking free content.
“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” he says. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
“Most games available on Steam are easily found in pirated form on the torrent sites,” writes ETCentric contributor Nick Nero. “Even if you buy the game, many users download the torrent because most DRM requires the disc to be present which slows down the game startup and level load/access times.”
“What keeps me as a Steam customer is their cloud service,” adds Nick. “I can download any of my games to another PC, I can backup my games to encrypted physical media, my game saves are stored in the cloud, and I can easily find my friends for mulitplayer. The service layer is what brings in the customers.”
By the end of the year, both the Wii and Nintendo 3DS will have access to TV shows and movies via the $7.99 per month Hulu Plus service (but only in 2D).
Hulu Plus joins Netflix in offering content on the Nintendo devices.
Also, the 3DS will get a software update at the end of November that allows 3D recording for up to ten minutes, and the ability to “stitch together stereoscopic images for stop motion animation that jumps out of the tiny screen at you,” suggests Engadget.
“With both Hulu and Netflix in tow, as well as the ability to create your own content, the 3DS is actually turning into quite a powerful little portable.”
Adobe announced this week Adobe Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 software to enable “console quality” 2D and 3D games and scientific visualizations for multiple platforms including Android, Apple iOS (via AIR), BlackBerry Tablet OS, Mac OS, Windows, connected TVs and others.
Adobe touts 1,000 times faster rendering performance over Flash 10 and AIR 2 enabling 60 frames per second rendering and console-quality games on Mac OS, Windows and connected TVs. A production release for mobile is coming.
Content protection is available using Adobe Flash Access 3 on supported platforms — “including support for mobile platforms,” explains the press release — with support for rental and subscription options “to more than 80 percent of the U.S. pay TV subscribers.”
HD full frame video quality can be displayed on iOS devices using H.264 hardware decoding to deliver 7.1 channel surround sound.
Microsoft confirmed it will launch Xbox TV this holiday season. CNNMoney reports that the service will be similar to services offered in other countries which allow Xbox users to stream Sky TV in the UK, Canal Plus in France, and FoxTel in Australia.
At Microsoft’s recent financial analyst meeting in Anaheim, CEO Steve Balmer confirmed the company is working with “dozens or hundreds of additional content suppliers.”
Xbox TV will use Bing to search for content and use Kinect for voice or motion commands. Microsoft will also seek to create a social experience for TV shows and movies around its 35 million Xbox Live community.
In related news, Comcast and Verizon are reportedly in talks with Microsoft to enable cable subscriptions through the Xbox 360. “The tech giant’s gaming console, which already streams content from sources like Netflix, Hulu Plus and others, could in effect become a cable box if Microsoft manages to strike a deal ahead of its upcoming release of Xbox TV,” suggests ReadWriteWeb.
“Mega Man” co-creator and former Capcom head of production Keiji Inafune says, “You don’t use a smartphone camera for an interview, and you don’t use a really professional camera to take some small pictures when you’re going to work.”
Similarly, Inafune suggests smartphones are good for a quick game away from home, but dedicated gaming portables and home consoles offer a more complete gaming experience.
Still, game developers cannot ignore the smartphone market, which is currently the target for one of his company’s announced games. Inafune started two companies since leaving Capcom — Intercept and Comcept.
Inafune believes that developers cannot ignore the growing smartphone market: “We have to think about that when we’re making new games, because it’s kind of becoming very easy to let people play games now,” he says. “They don’t have to buy big consoles to play simple games. So that’s what we should think about for the future.”
Digital Trends is among the sites currently featuring a 10-minute video shot from the audience (courtesy of Joystiq) during Microsoft’s recent Build developer’s conference.
The video shows what the upcoming Metro-inspired dashboard for Xbox 360 running in Windows 8 will look like.
“Microsoft confirmed last week that the upcoming Metro-styled update for the Xbox 360 dashboard will appear in Windows 8 as the user interface you’ll use to access Xbox Live from your PC,” reports Digital Trends.
From an earlier article on the same site: “Based on the ‘Metro’ design of WP7, ‘Immersive’ will be the name of a secondary User Interface (UI) you’ll be able to select when you boot up Windows 8.”
This video was first brought to our attention via Engadget, submitted by ETCentric staffer Dennis Kuba who commented: “The focus at Build 2011 was on the social and gaming aspects. They also mentioned that they will be talking in the future about content services such as video and music.”
“We get the feeling that Microsoft’s thinking this one through; rather than just shoehorning a gaming element in, things like ‘cloud saves’ and dedicated Music/Video panes will be around to enjoy,” reports Engadget. “Moreover, participation in the Xbox Live development program will purportedly be free, and if [Microsoft’s Avi] Ben-Menahem has his way, this will bring ‘everything you know and love on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live to Windows.'”
Experienced game developers are increasingly leaving the security of big publishers to work for small independent companies that offer greater creative freedom and the possibilities of making their fortunes through digital distribution.
Easy-to-use and inexpensive game creation tools also make it easier. Still, success stories are hard to find.
“Working for a major publisher can be rewarding, very quickly: you get to work on known IPs, you have job security, you get a good paycheck every month, you have the business card with the big name on it to show off to your friends,” explains Audrey Leprince of The Game Bakers, an independent developer of mobile games.
But there are downsides, she says. “You don’t really know how much you will be listened to or if your ideas will be taken into account, how much freedom you’ll have in your work, or if you’ll end up crunching on a B project after the perfect project you joined for gets cancelled.”
Developers also seek smaller independent companies when the company they are working for is acquired by a larger name and the environment changes. For example, Ars Technica cites a happy employee of Black Box who later felt like “a cog in the machine” when his company was bought out by EA, so he left for a position at Radical Entertainment. “It was a large but independent company with talented industry vets, free food, beer on tap… I was happy again,” he said.
Sports bars have become venues for live Internet videogame matches between professional gamers.
The events attract a large numbers of gaming fans that have already been watching alone at home, but are attracted to the energy and screams of other fans. One tournament in July attracted some 85,000 online viewers via Twitch.tv.
“This summer, ‘Starcraft II’ has become the newest barroom spectator sport,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “Fans organize so-called Barcraft events, taking over pubs and bistros from Honolulu to Florida and switching big-screen TV sets to Internet broadcasts of professional game matches happening often thousands of miles away.”
The “Starcraft” franchise is very popular in Korea, where two cable stations provide dedicated coverage of “Starcraft II” (in addition to “Halo,” “Counter-Strike” and “Call of Duty”). Fervor for public viewings is spilling into the U.S. for the first time.
“This feels like the World Cup,” said one Barcraft attendee recently in San Francisco. “You experience the energy and screams of everyone around you when a player makes an amazing play.”
Verizon has announced a new feature and related promotion that suggests it is “taking a much more active interest in video games for both distribution and new customers,” reports Mashable.
