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March 21st, 2014, 18:11 Posted By: wraggster
BioWare Montreal's gameplay designer Manveer Heir received a standing ovation for his rousing "Misogyny, Racism and Homophobia: Where Do Video Games Stand?" talk at GDC yesterday.He challenged the industry to demolish the many stereotypes that exist in video games and accept "a social responsibility to mankind"."These negative stereotypes affect the identity of individuals in these groups. They affect the way people think and treat others in the real world, and perpetuate the social injustices that occur in these different groups," he said, according to Polygon."We should use the ability of our medium to show players the issues first-hand, or give them a unique understanding of the issues and complexities by crafting game mechanics along with narrative components that result in dynamics of play that create meaning for the player in ways that other media isn't capable of."FemShep, interpreted here by Deviantartist Kaeriah, became a symbolic champion of female lead characters in video games.
He says it's "very cynical" to assume the audience isn't capable of embracing a gay hero or heroine, or "more exclusive women protagonists in games that aren't glorified sex objects and actually have personalities beyond supporting the men in the game",GamesIndustry International's report added.Realism arguments - ie that women weren't soldiers in medieval times, for example - are "laughable" excuses, he said. Dragons didn't exist either.'But the audience doesn't respond as well to heroes who aren't white males!' - ie those games sell fewer copies. Hogwash, he argued. Those untypical games simply don't have the investment the typical blockbusters do. "Let's do all of this because what we are currently doing is absolutely not working"
Manveer Heir
"I want us as an industry to stop being so scared... Let's create a game that changes the core experience for the player... Let's find a way to challenge the majority and the minority perception of how we deal with race, gender, sexual orientation and all other sources of social injustices we have in our world," he said."Let's not be scared to ruffle feathers and let's be open and honest about our intentions. Let's push and engage in a new discourse as a result of these dynamics. And let's do all of this because what we are currently doing is absolutely not working."But this problem isn't solved with words, it's solved with action," he continued, building to a climax. "It's solved not only with intent but convictions and a little bit of courage. It's solved by fighting, by challenging your team to do something a little deeper and making something that's important to you. It's solved by you here in this room. And that is our ability to change and impact the world. This is the way to push the art form. This is our way to challenge ourselves and others."Wherever we stand today as an industry, I am confident that we will stand somewhere far better tomorrow as long as you right here are willing to be an agent of change. I sincerely hope you are ready for that challenge because I sure as hell am!"
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...eo-games-stand
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March 21st, 2014, 01:56 Posted By: wraggster
Five months ago, Technical Illusions gained over a million dollars in funding thanks to a highly successful Kickstarter campaign for castAR, a projected augmented reality project that company founders Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson brought over from Valve when they were laid off almost two years ago. Ever since the campaign's success, the company has been ramping up prototyping on a rapid scale so that the final unit can be sent off for mass production. Along the way, the company has grown from two employees to 11, and Ellsworth has since moved from Portland to Seattle to be with the team (dragging her collection of 80-plus pinball machines along with her). Ellsworth has also just hired the services of a Japanese company (she won't name which) to provide her with improved optics and thinner circuitry, which she admits is better than the homemade solutions she and her partners have cobbled together so far. This all means, sadly, that castAR is still very much in progress, which is why even though Technical Illusions is here atGDC 2014, we were unable to look at the final castAR hardware. We were, however, able to take a look at castAR's latest prototype that has never before been seen outside of Technical Illusion's office until this week.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/20/castar-update-gdc/
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March 21st, 2014, 00:36 Posted By: wraggster
GDC 2014: Ubisoft VP doesn’t see the publisher supporting VR hardware if consumer interest is poor
Ubisoft wants to see sales of VR hardware exceed one million units before it green lights projects for devices such as Oculus Rift and Sony’s newly announced Project Morpheus.
"VR would need to sell at least one million units to be viable for development,” Ubisoft vice president of creative Lionel Raynaud toldGameSpot during a roundtable interview at GDC in San Francisco.
Raynaud’s comments don’t quite fit with Ubisoft’s pattern of being one of the first third-party companies to support new hardware, as evident from its launch-day support for PS4, Xbox One and Wii U, and even the motion sensing peripherals Kinect and PlayStation Move.
The interest around VR right now is evident from the waves its been making in game development, with studios large and small signing up to take advantage of the new tech.
Rekindled interest in VR started with the crowdfunded Oculus Rift headset, which is already in the hands of studios such as Frontier. Gearing up to compete, Valve discussed plans for its own VR device at its developer conference in January. Sony has begun to lift the lid on its hardware, while talk is that Microsoft is to follow with an announcement of its own in the coming months.
However, despite all the acclaim from the dev community, reports about VR technology causing motion sickness mean that the technology’s success in the consumer market is far from assured.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/u...eed-1m/0190722
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March 20th, 2014, 23:38 Posted By: wraggster
Crytek may be known for its Crysis and Far Cry series, but the developer also makes a pretty penny by licensing out its proprietary tech for game development, CryEngine. Crytek will now offer a subscription-based model for the latest version of its engine, charging $9.90 USD/euros per month for each CryEngine licensee. The "Engine as a Service" plan starts in May and won't affect the free, non-commercial software development kit offered by Crytek.
Epic Games announced its own subscription model for Unreal Engine 4yesterday, a plan that amounts to $19 per month plus 5 percent of gross revenue from any commercial product developed with the engine. While Crytek will unveil more details about its subscription plan in the future, its announcement noted that the Engine as a Service version of CryEngine will be "royalty-free." The latest version of CryEngine features Linux support as well as "Physically Based Shading," a Geometry Cache feature to calculate cache-based animations for elements like cloth and fluid dynamics and an image-based lighting system.
An alternative to these subscriptions for some independent developers are middleware development tools like GameMaker: Studio and MonoGame. Sony announced PS4 exporting solutions for those pieces of development software yesterday in addition to PS3, Vita and upcoming PS4 solutions for Unity users.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/20/cr...bscription-pl/
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March 19th, 2014, 22:45 Posted By: wraggster
The PS3 version of Dark Souls 2 sold 255,000 copies to debut at No.1 on the Japanese software chart during the week ended March 16.
The only other new release to make the weekly top 20 was the Xbox 360 edition of From Software's game, which sold 5,950 copies to enter at No.14, according to data from retail monitor Media Create, which was republished on NeoGAF.
<figure style='background: rgb(255, 255, 255); font: 14px/23.79px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; outline: 0px; border: 0px currentColor; width: 460px; color: rgb(38, 38, 38); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; word-spacing: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; white-space: normal; position: relative; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;' class="responsive single-article__canvas single-article__canvas--full zoomhover" title="" data-media992="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3167/image_316740_460.jpg" data-media768="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3167/image_316740_700.jpg" data-media480="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3167/image_316740_480.jpg" data-media="http://cdn.medialib.computerandvideogames.com/screens/dir_3167/image_316740_320.jpg"></figure>[h=3]Weekly software sales / lifetime[/h] - Dark Souls II (PS3, From Software) - 255.197 / New
- Yo-kai Watch (3DS, Level 5) - 37.247 / 569.72003
- Dragon Quest Monsters 2 (3DS, Square Enix) - 18.728 / 737.593
- Soul Sacrifice (Vita, Sony) - 17.357 / 66.143
- Harvest Moon: Linking The New World (3DS, Marvelous) - 15.883 / 176.180
- Fossil Fighters: Infinite Gear (3DS, Nintendo) - 13.362 / 93.900
- Kirby Triple Deluxe (3DS, Nintendo) - 12.225 / 501.835
- Pokemon X / Y (3DS, Pokemon Co.) - 10.106 / 3.994.938
- Yakuza: Ishin (PS3, Sega) - 10.034 / 222.147
- Grand Theft Auto V (PS3, Take-Two) - 7.910 / 736.810
3DS and Vita ended PS4's three-week run atop the hardware chart, although Sony's system was comfortably the best-selling home console.[h=3]Weekly hardware sales (previous week)[/h] - 3DS - 34.144 (35.068)
- PSV - 29.717 (33.287)
- PS4 - 29.677 (35.294)
- PS3 - 14.128 (12.102)
- Wii U - 7.654 (7.773)
- PSP - 3.461 (3.425)
- Xbox 360 - 278 (300)
- Total - 111.280 (152.090)
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...apanese-chart/
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March 19th, 2014, 21:45 Posted By: wraggster
Oculus has opened up pre-orders for its new improved dev kit, DK2, with a price-tag of $350 and with units expected to ship in July.As with the last Oculus release, it's not the final commercial build, although it's a significant step towards that. "We've had some huge breakthroughs in the last year, trying to find what VR needs to be for consumers to accept as something that's really good. DK2 isn't quite that, but it has all the core features that the core product has," Oculus' Palmer Luckey told Eurogamer.DK2 features a 1080p display, as well as the Crystal Cove camera that improves the quality of head-tracking. At 440g, it's also significantly lighter than the units that have already shipped."The resolution will go up, the weight will go down, latency will go down. But the important thing is we need to ship now, because of things like low persistence, we're confident in what we need to ship, and we're able to start moving towards actually making it."How close exactly is DK2 to being the final product? "Internally we already have things that are very, very close, so it's just a matter of taking what's in the lab and making it into something real. We've had a pretty good track record of that so far - taking prototypes, making them into developer kits. Now we just need to take our prototypes and make them into a consumer product. I'd say that DK1, that was the zero per cent mark, and DK2 is probably around the 70 per cent mark."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...proved-dev-kit
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March 19th, 2014, 01:24 Posted By: wraggster
Just five days ago we told you about the Immersive Technology Alliance, a group of companies that are working on virtual reality coming together to support the burgeoning medium. At the time, we told you that Oculus VR -- the company behind the Oculus Rift -- was part of the group. That said, the announcement was notoriously missing any official statement from the Oculus folks. As it turns out, that's because Oculus VR isn't actually part of the group. Oculus offered Engadget this statement:"There was confusion on March 13 about whether Oculus was a member of the Immersive Technology Alliance. We've spoken with the ITA's leadership and clarified that we are not, and have not been, a member of the group. We appreciate the ITA moving so quickly to correct their website and media to reflect this."
We've checked with the other members of the group, many of which responded to confirm their participation in the ITA, including EA and Technical Illusions. During the group's first meeting today at GDC 2014, ITA Executive Director Neil Schneider kicked things off with a lengthy response to Oculus dropping support, heavily tinged with passive-aggressive criticism.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/18/oculus-vr-ita/
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March 19th, 2014, 00:48 Posted By: wraggster
Ashly Burch and Rosalind Wiseman on how games can play into school-age popularity and reinforce negative behavior among boys
There's been a lot of attention paid to the portrayal of women in games of late, but one session in the GDC Advocacy Track today focused on the portrayal of men, and the influence that might have on school-age boys and how they deal with conflict. Ashly Burch (star of the "Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin" video series) and Rosalind Wiseman (bullying expert and author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, the book that begat the film Mean Girls) have been talking about the subject between themselves for over a year, and took that discussion public in their presentation today.
When Burch helped bring Wiseman up to speed in gaming, two things stood out to the author. First was a curiosity about how it's possible that people develop racist, homophobic, or sexist responses to conflict, and then attempt to justify it when people call them out on it. Secondly, she was curious about how a boy's preference for this game or that game could impact his social status.
When Wiseman asked boys around the country what gives them high social status (not necessarily respect), the responses includes being strong, tall, detached, attractive to girls, having money, style, being smart but not stressed, and being good at video games, but not obsessed. As for low social status signifiers, those included backing down, being short, poor, doing things "like a girl," being awkward, fat, easily upset, or trying too hard.
It's human to want to be part of a group, Wiseman said, so our culture is always teaching us about what qualities are valued. It's a mechanism that creates bigotry, Wiseman said, as people within the box of desired qualities are popular, while those outside that box are associated with at one's own peril. So even if someone thinks the treatment an outsider is receiving is unjust, they're less likely to stand up for that person because they fear becoming more of an outsider themselves.
Burch said the pair conducted a survey of over 1,000 kids across the country. When asked what popular kids play, first-person shooters and sports games were high on the list, while MMOs were at the bottom. When they were asked if they'd ever played a game just because the popular kids were playing it, 28% of respondents said yes. There's a correlation between high social status kids and the games they play, Burch said. She added that most of the protagonists in popular games line up well with the traits above that were identified as making people popular in school. But even in games that were signified as unpopular, many of the characters still reflected those same traits.
"In games, in this medium that allows people to be whoever they want, we're still living in this exact same box," Burch said.
Burch suggested that developers consider designing their games around more positive interactions. She pointed to Journey as an example. By limiting the mechanics in that game, the developers essentially took away the ability to grief other players. Given the options of working with people or ignoring them, most players decided to cooperate, Burch said.
Going beyond gameplay, Burch said narratives are also important. Master Chief was the only character in the survey that the boys took the time to explain why they liked. And most of them liked Master Chief because he was "badass." Burch showed a clip of the stoic, gruff protagonist, emphasizing how he encapsulates many of the traits boys aspire to be. But, she suggested, there's no reason he can't be a badass and be self-aware, or emotionally nuanced.
When these characters (and the boys who might model themselves after them) have no range of emotion, the only expression left is essentially anger. And anger, Burch noted, leads to hate, and all of the unpleasant online interactions people associate with online gaming. If games can show boys that there are a range of acceptable responses to conflict, they can inspire boys to be the emotionally nuanced individuals they actually are, and not broken caricatures of the one-dimensional heroes they play in games.
Wiseman asked the developers in the crowd to think about their work and how it impacts the social dynamics of young people on a day-to-day basis.
"You do things that really matter to young people," she stressed.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...acts-of-gaming
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March 18th, 2014, 23:41 Posted By: wraggster
The used game market just grew immensely, as Walmart announced plans today to begin taking video game trade-ins across the United States, putting itself in direct competition with GameStop. Starting March 26, those trading their games in at more than 3,100 Walmart stores will receive a gift card usable at any Walmart or Sam's Club location in exchange. All exchanged products are then "sent to be refurbished and made available for purchase in like-new condition starting this summer."
The retailer will accept online trade-ins for all games, but will only allow in-store exchanges for hardware. Walmart provided an exchange rate calculatoron its website to give customers an idea of trade-in values. As for functional hardware, when including all the accompanying cables and one controller, the Xbox One has a current trade-in value of $390, the PS4 is $375, the Wii U Deluxe is $120, a 3G-enabled Vita is $95 and 3DS XL is $105. Working copies of Grand Theft Auto 5 currently exchange at $27.72, Dead Rising 3 is $38, the PS4 version of NBA 2K14 is $35.42 and Super Mario 3D World is $38.
http://walmart.cexchange.com/Online/Gaming/index.rails
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March 18th, 2014, 23:33 Posted By: wraggster
Microsoft may unveil its own 3D virtual reality device in the future, providing that sources close to The Wall Street Journal are accurate. "People familiar with the project" reportedly confirmed that the hardware manufacturer developed virtual reality devices and has already filed one patent for the project.
The technology has seemingly been developed concurrently with a project called "Fortaleza," which translates to "fortress" in Portuguese. The projects are expected to result in a "suite of experiences unique to Microsoft's Xbox products," the report reads. This follows another rumor from last week that indicated Sony might announce its own virtual reality headset, as well as news from today showing Valve's continued support of VR through Steam.
One version of Microsoft's apparent foray into virtual reality uses augmented reality technology, which projects computer-generated visuals onto real-world images. Augmented reality devices have gained some traction recently: Ex-Valve employees managed to earn over $1 million on Kickstarter in November for their Cast AR headset, $400,000 of which came from just two days of funding.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/18/ru...ality-devices/
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March 17th, 2014, 21:01 Posted By: wraggster
"Ninth biggest video games franchise in the world" says Warner Bros
[h=3]Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment[/h]
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment's sales and marketing director for the UK has revealed that the LEGO franchise of games has sold more than one million units since 2013.
"Since the start of 2013, WBIE has sold 1.6 million LEGO games. LEGO is currently the second biggest game franchise in 2014 year-to-date, in terms of units sold, with 420,200 units. Another strong week could see the LEGO game franchise take the number one franchise spot," Spencer Crossley told MCV.
"LEGO is the second biggest toy company and the ninth biggest video games franchise in the world, so there is good room for more growth in our sector."
Last year the senior vice president for international games at Warner Bros, Olivier Wolff, promised GamesIndustry International there was plenty of life in the franchise yet.
"What has been interesting is that we were always concerned about is there a ceiling to that? And the reality is that there's absolutely no fatigue at all and there is actually a demand for different experiences."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...mes-since-2013
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March 17th, 2014, 20:57 Posted By: wraggster
There were three new entries in the UK software chart this week but Titanfall for Xbox One and PC was by far the biggest, boosting sales of the Xbox One by 96 per cent. A huge 70 per cent of Xbox Ones purchased this week were part of the Titanfall bundle.
Dark Souls II followed just behind Titanfall and entered at two, seeing a 20 per cent increase in week one sales over its predecessor, which entered the charts in third place back in 2011. Further down the top 20 Yoshi's New Island for 3DS debuted at 12.
UKIE Games Charts courtesy of GfK Chart-Track
Last Week |
This Week |
Title |
New entry |
1 |
Titanfall |
New entry |
2 |
Dark Souls II |
1 |
3 |
South Park: Stick Of Truth |
4 |
4 |
The LEGO Movie Videogame |
2 |
5 |
Thief |
5 |
6 |
FIFA 14 |
3 |
7 |
Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare |
6 |
8 |
Call Of Duty: Ghosts |
7 |
9 |
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition |
8 |
10 |
Battlefield 4 |
10 |
11 |
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag |
New entry |
12 |
Yoshi's New Island |
9 |
13 |
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes |
12 |
14 |
Grand Theft Auto V |
14 |
15 |
Aliens: Colonial Marines |
11 |
16 |
Rayman Legends |
16 |
17 |
Forza Motorsport 5 |
13 |
18 |
Need For Speed: Rivals |
Re-entry |
19 |
Pac-Man And The Ghostly Adventures |
Re-entry |
20 |
Killzone: Shadow Fall |
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...anfall-is-uk-1
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March 16th, 2014, 21:19 Posted By: wraggster
The appearance of Oculus Rift on the scene has done a great deal to increase the potential of VR, but new rumors indicate Sony is going to show off a headset of its own. Sony launched several head mounted displays (including the HMZ-T3Wshown above), but so far hasn't released units with VR capabilities despite years of interest in the technology. Edge-Online cites unnamed developer sources claiming Sony will bring "Oculus Rift-beating" hardware to the Game Developers Conference 2014 next week, along with software developed by one of its first party studios. President of SCE studios Shuhei Yoshida, senior software engineer Anton Mikhailov and senior director Richard Marks are all scheduled to participate in a "Driving the Future of Innovation" panel where, according to the rumors, the device will be shown off. We've seen impressive gaming demos from Oculus including EVE: Valkyrie, but Sony brings significantly more resources and potentially developer support -- whatever it shows, we will be on the ground in San Francisco to get our hands and if necessary, faces, on it.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/13/s...umor-gdc-2014/
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March 16th, 2014, 18:18 Posted By: wraggster
Does worrying about the viability of virtual-reality enhanced gaming keep you up at night? Of course it does! You're probably wasting your time fretting about it though, because several companies, including Oculus VR, Electronic Arts and ... printer manufacturer Epson, have formed the Immersive Technology Alliance. It's like a Justice League for VR, except they're focused on the technology's sustainability instead of trying to scrape together ways to justify Aquaman's involvement.
In the press release announcing the Alliance's formation, the group's goal is said to focus on building a "vibrant and diverse industry that content makers can support on a wide scale." The Alliance recognizes that in order to this, they'll need to gather "commercial success, industry diversity, great content, compatibility, and a growing consumer base through joint education and outreach."
The group will host a mixer on March 20 during GDC 2014, presumably in a secret cave under the depths of San Francisco. Except ... San Francisco is about 50 feet above sea level. Well, they could always check into renting out the Avengers' Helicarrier.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/15/oc...logy-alliance/
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March 16th, 2014, 18:16 Posted By: wraggster
The Oculus Rift headset is doing its best to draw players into the virtual realities it hosts, but traditional or motion-assisted controllers are typically used to interact with these virtual worlds. Thelmic Labs has a different vision for player interaction however - rather than tracking the positioning of a controller in 3D space, Thelmic's Myo armbands build virtual representations of a player's hands and forearms.
According to Thelmic's FAQ page, Myo works by measuring the "electrical activity from your muscles to detect what gesture your hand is making." The armbands use a Bluetooth 4.0 connection to communicate with Windows, Mac, Android or iOS devices. Thelmic lists the beginning shipments of Myo development kits for the "first half of 2014," with the consumer version shipping shortly after that. Both are priced at $149. Potential developers that don't want to wait around for Thelmic's wider distribution shipments can applyto join the Thelmic Alpha Developers, a group that will gain access to pre-production Myo hardware.
While a cool concept doesn't promise future developer support for the hardware, it's pretty neat to imagine casting in-game spells with nothing but hand gestures. Besides, whatever amount of gesture functionality the Myo achievescan't possibly dip below the bar that Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor set on the Kinect, right?
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/15/my...s-rift-gaming/
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March 15th, 2014, 00:27 Posted By: wraggster
Several UK supermarkets look set to enter a big price war after Morrisons announced discounts worth £1 billion over the next three years.
Asda has already responded with an advertising campaign claiming to undercut Morrisons, reports The Daily Mail, while Aldi last night promised to save shoppers 35 per cent on their weekly shop.
The cost of some everyday essentials could fall by up to a quarter as 'the big four' (Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons) take on growing budget chains Aldi and Lidl. And Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's all pledge to match Morrisons' prices.
Although the discounts are currently within the food category, it wouldn't be surprising to see some of the big supermarkets slashing the price of non-food items such as PC/technology products and consumer electronics.
Morrisons and Lidl don't currently stock tech products - but the other four major supermarkets do.
Shares dipped yesterday, with £2 billion wiped off the combined share value of Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons.
Morrisons CEO Dalton Philips said: "The biggest challenge that we face is that there has been a fundamental change in how consumers view discounters. They are no longer going to them out of necessity. The perception has changed and there is a new price norm.
"We are going to lower our prices on a permanent basis. The rules have changed and we must change too. It is absolutely critical that we begin winning again in our core supermarkets. To do that we must compete on price."
David Cumming of Standard Life added: "Aldi and Lidl are growing shares at double digit while the majors are losing market share and they have to do something about it. If they are relatively expensive – and the customers know it – they need a price reset, or price war, whatever you want to call it, before they can move forward in terms of sales."
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...r-looms/033540
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March 15th, 2014, 00:21 Posted By: wraggster
The PS4 outsold the Xbox One in the US during February, with the Xbox One selling 90 percent of what the PS4 did, consumer research group NPD reports. The Xbox One costs $100 more than the PS4, meaning it led sales by dollar amount in February.
The Xbox One sold 258,000 units in February, surpassing comparable Xbox 360 launch sales by 61 percent, Microsoft says. Xbox 360 sold 114,000 units in its 100th month on the market, "more than any other seventh generation console." Xbox One owners buy an average of 2.75 games per console, with a total of 772,000 sold in February. Xbox 360, meanwhile, sold 2.46 million games.
Sales of video game hardware in the US were $347 million in February, up 42 percent compared with the same month in 2013. Software sales dropped 9 percent to $318 million, while accessories were up 3 percent, to $221 million.
Next-gen software sales in the consoles' first four months are up 80 percent compared with the combined sales of Xbox 360 and PS3 software in the same time period. The 9 percent decline in overall software sales is attributed to weakening sales for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii, which is expected, according to NPD. Call of Duty: Ghosts led software sales in February, followed by The Lego Movie Videogame, NBA 2K14, Thief and Grand Theft Auto 5. See the full list after the break.
http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/13/fe...dollar-amount/
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March 13th, 2014, 22:44 Posted By: wraggster
Format: PC/Oculus Rift Publisher/developer: CCP Release: 2014
CCP Games know about spaceships. The company has spent the past eleven years making Eve Online, an MMORPG in which players direct their hulking craft like vast units in a complex, social strategy game.Eve Valkyrie’s spaceships are very different, though. Not only are they small, one-man fighters designed for rapid, real-time multiplayer battles. They’re designed for virtual reality, having been built from their first polygon to work with the Oculus Rift headset. When you’re no longer making a game to be played on a flat screen, but building something players are going to sit inside, everything changes.“As we’ve been doing these tests at E3 and Eve Fanfest, we’re constantly saying to people: ‘move your head, look around,’” says CCP’s Andrew Robinson. As one of Valkyrie’s 3D artists, Robinson is partly responsible for modelling the avatars and spaceships players will climb inside.“Then the missile lock,” continues Robinson. “Once you’ve done it once, people get it and start to look around.” The missile lock mechanic sits at Valkyrie’s core: in order to target enemy ships, you fix your gaze on them for a few seconds while holding down a trigger button on a gamepad. After those few seconds pass, you’ve got a lock, and release the trigger to launch a volley of missiles.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/...ame-spaceship/
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March 13th, 2014, 22:21 Posted By: wraggster
Saturday, March 15, is Disney Infinity Day at GameStop, and the retailer plans to celebrate with a round of price drops accompanying the debut of the game's final two playable character figurines.
Disney Infinity's Phineas and Ferb Toy Box Set will be available exclusively at GameStop this Saturday, introducing Phineas and Agent P as playable characters and adding series-themed items, buildings, and backgrounds to the game's sandbox-style Toy Box component. A wider retail release for the set and individual figurines will follow on April 1.
Customers who purchase the Phineas and Ferb Toy Box Set at GameStop this weekend will receive a code for a downloadable Phineas and Ferb mini-comic, along with a free Disney Infinity poster, while supplies last. Disney Infinity fans will also get the chance to complete their collections for cheap, as GameStop is offering a buy two get one free sale on individual character packs, along with a 50 percent discount on all play sets and accessories.
http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/e...-infinity-day/
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March 12th, 2014, 23:37 Posted By: wraggster
Today marks the 25th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee's "Information Management: A Proposal," containing the ideas that led to the World Wide Web. From its humble beginnings as a way to store linked documents at CERN to... well, you're reading this now. To celebrate, the W3C is encouraging people to post their birthday greetings. Quoting Tim Berners-Lee:"In the following quarter-century, the Web has changed the world in ways that I never could have imagined. There have been many exciting advances. It has generated billions of dollars in economic growth, turned data into the gold of the 21st century, unleashed innovation in education and healthcare, whittled away geographic and social boundaries, revolutionised the media, and forced a reinvention of politics in many countries by enabling constant two-way dialogue between the rulers and the ruled."Martin S. and JestersGrind both wrote in to note that Tim Berners-Lee is calling for the creation of a Web Magna Carta. Again Quoting Tim Berners-Lee"It's time for us to make a big communal decision," he said. "In front of us are two roads - which way are we going to go? Are we going to continue on the road and just allow the governments to do more and more and more control - more and more surveillance? Or are we going to set up a bunch of values? Are we going to set up something like a Magna Carta for the world wide web and say, actually, now it's so important, so much part of our lives, that it becomes on a level with human rights?"How has the rise of the web affected your life? Also check out the CERN line mode browser simulation of the first web site.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/03...eb-magna-carta
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