Sony clarifies PlayStation Move UK prices

Posted by Chris Holmes at 4:33pm on July 29th, 2010

Sony has come out to clarify the prices for the PlayStation Move in the UK. One normal Move controller will cost £34.99, one PlayStation Eye camera costs £24.99 and one navigation controller costs £24.99. You can use the DualShock 3 instead of the navigation controller for most games apparently, but we don’t know how you’re supposed to hold it whilst still clinging on to the cumbersome Move controller.

Regardless, there will be a PlayStation Move Pack for £49.99, which contains a Move controller and the Eye, as well as a starter disc with some videos and playable demos. The demos are: Sports Champions, Start the Party!, The Shoot, EyePet: Move Edition, TV Superstars, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, echochrome II, Tumble and Beat Sketchers.

News | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Move | Sony

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Nintendo DS sales down 44% in Q1

Posted by Chris Holmes at 4:12pm on July 29th, 2010

Nintendo has confirmed that worldwide DS sales are down 44.7% year on year to 3.15 million for Q1 of this financial year, which ended 30th June 2010. DS software sales have gone down by 22.9% to 22.42 million. On the flip side, Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii has sold 4.06 million copies worldwide since its May/June release. That helped Wii hardware sales to go up 36.6% to 3.04 million in Q1. Despite this, Wii software dropped 9.3% to 28.17 million.

The company admitted a net loss of 25.2 billion yen (£183 million), with net sales down 25.6% to 188.6 billion yen. 86.6% of that is thanks to overseas markets, with a mind bending foreign exchange loss of 70.5 billion yen (£517 million).

Industry News | News | Nintendo | Nintendo DS | Nintendo Wii

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Left 4 Dead 2 PC update released

Posted by Chris Holmes at 1:35pm on July 29th, 2010

Valve has released an update for the PC version of Left 4 Dead 2. The update aims to stop players rage quitting, something which we never deemed fixable. Valve is starting to respond to what players what fixing, after the company requested them to give them feedback.

Chargers and Tanks have been tweaked in Versus mode, with the scoring being changed for the Charger to encourage them to play properly. Tanks get an invisible stasis when they spawn, so they can’t be set on fire instantly by trolling human players.

Valve has also tweaked friendly fire in both Versus and Co-op. Bullets that go through an infected before hitting a Survivor do not count as friendly fire anymore apparently.

News | PC | Steam | Valve

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PS3 has sold 38.1m units worldwide so far

Posted by Chris Holmes at 1:02pm on July 29th, 2010

Sony has unveiled that the PlayStation 3 has sold 38.1 million units worldwide in their latest financial results. The company sold 2.4 million of the consoles in their first quarter, which ended on 30th June this year. That’s a rise of 118% from last year’s 1.1 million sales. PSP sales in the same time period declined to 1.2 million, falling from 1.3 million in Q1 2009. The PS2 is still trucking along, having sold 1.6 million units.

News | PSP | PlayStation 3 | Sony

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Dragon Age Awakening DLC announced

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:10pm on July 29th, 2010

BioWare has announced Golems of Amgarrak for Dragon Age: Origins. The DLC will be released on 10th August, and it tasks players with tracking down a missing Dwarven expedition indo an underground ruin. Apparently an army of golems was made down there, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the dwarves were probably axed to a bloody death. You will be able to import Wardens from Dragon Age: Origins or you can just make a new high-level character. Golems of Amgarrak will be released on the PC, PS3 and 360, costing $5 or 400 Allards/BioWare Points.

BioWare | News | PC | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Nintendo announcing 3DS date and price in September

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:00pm on July 29th, 2010

Apologies for reporting on an announcement of an announcement, but Nintendo has come out and said that they will announce the date and price of the 3DS in Japan on 29th September. We played with the handheld earlier in the week and it officially comes hot girl approved, according to Nintendo.

Announcement of an announcement | News | Nintendo | Nintendo 3DS

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R4 cartridges now illegal in the UK

Posted by Chris Holmes at 2:46pm on July 28th, 2010

A judge has ruled against companies making the R4, Playables Limited and Wai Dat Chan. The judge has made it illegal to import, advertise and sell the R4 carts in Britain. Strangely though, they didn’t mention whether owning one is illegal or not. The R4 cartridges allow people to play pirated games on their Nintendo DS, but also allowed future gaming programmers and designers to create homebrew projects.

Regardless, the R4 is one device out of many available on the market and in all honesty, the new R4 cartridges aren’t as dominant as they originally were. The judge claims that the R4 is illegal because they bypass the DS’s security measures in order to run games.

“Nintendo promotes and fosters game development and creativity, and strongly supports the game developers who legitimately create new and innovative applications,” Nintendo said in a statement. “Nintendo initiates these actions not only on its own behalf, but also on behalf of over 1,400 video game-development companies that depend on legitimate sales of games for their survival.”

Industry News | News | Nintendo | Nintendo DS

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EverQuest II going free to play

Posted by Chris Holmes at 2:35pm on July 28th, 2010

Sony Online Entertainment has announced EverQuest II Extended, a free to play service coming later this year. Sony will be beta testing Extended on 17th August. The pre-existing subscription offering will carry on alongside Extended. The catch with Extended is that it will restrict access to EverQuest II’s content through both free and optional paid membership levels. All content is free apart from the last expansion pack (Sentinel’s Fate), but some of the game’s features are restricted by level.

There will be four levels of membership: Bronze (free), Silver (one time $10 purchase), Gold ($15 a month) and Platinum ($200 a year). Platinum users will be able to access the latest expansion and everything else. Bronze and Silver can access eight classes for free, whereas Gold and Platinum will have access to all of them. Everyone apart from Platinum members will have to pay to take the level cap from 80 to 90.

Read the rest of this story »

Industry News | News | PC | Sony

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Madden NFL 11 demo released

Posted by Chris Holmes at 2:18pm on July 28th, 2010

EA has released a demo for Madden NFL 11 on the Xbox Live Marketplace. It’s available for all Xbox Live regions and clocks in at 1.47GB. We’re not exactly sure what the demo contains, but expect to see new game features like a new playcall system, quicker games, dual stick control and the ability to create custom game plans.

EA | EA Sports | News | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Faery: Legends of Avalon announced

Posted by Chris Holmes at 2:06pm on July 28th, 2010

Focus Home Interactive has announced Faery: Legends of Avalon for the PC, PSN and XBLA. It’s currently in development over at Spiders. It’s an RPG where you play as either an elf or fairy that will change in appearance and ability after completing quests and killing monsters. RPG staples such as a World Tree and Ghost Ship make an appearance, as well as the ability to recruit companions. A release date hasn’t been confirmed yet.

News | PC | PlayStation 3 | PlayStation Network | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live Arcade

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Lord of the Rings: Conquest, Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 and 2009 come to Xbox 360 Games on Demand

Posted by Chris Holmes at 1:56pm on July 28th, 2010

Microsoft has confirmed that Lord of the Rings: Conquest, Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 and 2009 have joined the Xbox 360 Games on Demand service. All three games are available in all Xbox Live regions apart from Japan.

Microsoft | News | Xbox 360 | Xbox Live | Xbox Live Marketplace

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Disney purchases Playdom

Posted by Chris Holmes at 1:48pm on July 28th, 2010

Disney has purchased social game developer Playdom for $563.2 million. That figure could rise to $763.2 million based on future performance. Playdom is responsible for Facebook games Sorority Life and Social City. Disney thinks they have around 42 million players a month. That’s considerably behind FarmVille (200 million players), but still a great deal of people that Disney wants to get their hands on.

Disney | Industry News | News

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Star Trek Online goes to Season Two

Posted by Chris Holmes at 1:00pm on July 28th, 2010

Atari and Cryptic have released Season Two of space MMO Star Trek Online. They’ve also cut the price of the game to $19.99. The Season Two update raises the level cap to 51 and adds new ranks for both the Klingons and the Federation. Apparently there are also some new Tier 5 ships, new gear rewards and high level versions of every Special Task Force mission and Fleet Action.

Klingons will be able to play through eight new episodes. Federation players have a new Diplomatic Corps system that allows them to interact with new civilisations peacefully. A casino mini-game called Dabo is coming soon, and weekly feature episodes will begin in August.

Atari | MMO | News | PC

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GameStop purchases Kongregate

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:51pm on July 28th, 2010

US videogaming retail chain GameStop has purchased Kongregate, a flash gaming website. Kongregate attracts about 10 million users apparently, and GameStop plans to use them to strengthen its digital platform. We’re not sure what else the company has planned as of yet.

Industry News | News | North America

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Nintendo Europe downloads for the week of 28/7/10

Posted by Chris Holmes at 12:31pm on July 28th, 2010

Nintendo has confirmed this week’s European downloads:

WiiWare

Dive: The Medes Islands Secret (1000 Miyamotos)

Family Pirate Party (500 Miyamotos)

DSiWare

Crystal Monsters (500 Miyamotos)

Mega Words (500 Miyamotos)

Puffins: Let’s Race! (500 Miyamotos)

DSiWare | News | Nintendo | Nintendo DSi | Nintendo Download | Nintendo Wii | Virtual Console | WiiWare

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