Sorry for a lack of NewsVine the past week. It’s been a mixture of a busy schedule and my first illness in over 5 years that wasn’t directly caused by alcohol. It was indirectly caused by it this time. Now for the day today in the world of gaming.
Gordon Brown Boasts About Video Games
The UK’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has actually got something nice to say about video games, stating that “We’re leading the way in creative industries: by far the biggest producer of computer games in Europe. And we’re leading the way in digital communications. In a country with only one per cent of the world’s population, more than a third of all internet traffic is routed through UK servers.”
Oh god. Praise from Gordon Brown? The industry’s now cursed. Still any good news for a politician is still good news.
Recent Success of ‘Click Flicks’ Blamed on Video Games
Video games are being blamed for something yet again. Only this time not for the health and safety of your children but rather the success of chick flicks. People are calling it the ‘Xbox Factor.’ As the females partners are staying inside playing their wonderful games, more females are becoming bored and decide to go to the Movie’s. Males entering the cinema are diminishing leaving a larger audience for shit romantic comedies. That’s right video games aren’t just changing our kids or your television habits. No, it’s changing the cinema demographic. So expect less Ninja Killer 15 and more Puppy Island 7.
Sony Admit PSPGo Price is High
Sony’s Rob Dye has admitted that the PSPGo price may of been too high and that scared consumers. Also stating that “it was silly to charge more for a product that does less” something that stupidly didn’t cross my mind. I believe they focused too much on eliminating piracy, and are maybe a bit too early for an all downloadable based consoles, let along a hand-held console. A majority of gaming sales still come from retail at this point despite the industries heavy integration of it. Once DLC really hits the causal audience then maybe it might work. We’ve all seen how successful the iPhone is, in which the app system is effectively the same as DLC.
More Playstation Motion games than Natal?
Rob Dye also thinks that Sony’s motion controller will harvest more games than Natal, due to it’s ease of use on the production side of things “You can use the same code base that you currently use for PS3 or 360 or even the Wii in order to get a motion controller game out. You can’t do that with Natal.” I see their using the logic that worked for Microsoft with the 360 being easier to make for during the early days of the PS3’s life.
It’s all well and good saying that, but they need to get the damn thing publicised. Microsoft has been doing this for the past year, yet Sony has done nothing. Oddly enough Michael Patcher has recently predicted that Natal will outsell Sony’s Motion Controller 5 to 1. Interesting.
Warner Bros Acquires Rocksteady
Warner Bros has recently acquired a majority stake in Batman: Arkham Asylum developer Rocksteady Studios. Warner were impressed with how Arkham Asylum turned out that the company want a bigger relationship with the developers. This means we will see more DC Comic based titles from them. (DC are owned by Warner) Rocksteady seem to be more than happy to agree. So all is good. YAY.
Update – Capcom has announced that Mark Beaumont, their Chief Operating Officer died this morning. Everyone at MonsterVine give their regards to his family, friends and colleagues.
