Courtesy of marketwire via YouTube, below is a video and related Press Release as the ESRB announces rating summaries, a new source of information for parents about video game content.
Press Release: ESRB Announces New Video Game Rating Summaries
New Resource Provides Parents With More Detailed Information on Game Content Just in Time for the Holiday Shopping Season
The ESRB announces rating summaries, a new source of information for parents about video game content.
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - November 12, 2008) - The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which assigns age and content ratings for computer and video games, today announced the availability of "rating summaries," a new, supplementary source of information about game content that parents can use when considering which games to purchase for their children this holiday season and beyond.
Wal-Mart Stores is rapidly downsizing shelf space for music CDs while increasing availability of Blu-ray and consumer electronics in select locations, according to a new report.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail behemoth, citing a 23% drop in CD sales during the first four weeks of the fourth quarter, continues to scale back inventories of music packaged media; supplanting it with electronics and movies.
“We believe Wal-Mart is increasing its exposure to consumer electronics, video games and Blu-ray, and reducing floor space devoted to CDs and standard DVDs,” said Richard Greenfield, analyst with Pali Capital, in a note.
Greenfield said the chain’s floor space devoted to DVD, including Blu- ray, ranged from up modestly to down slightly.
Pali reported that an accelerated rate of sales decline for CDs combined with the slowing of digital unit sales had resulted in Q4 total unit sales declining 11.6%, compared to a 11.3% de... More »
Blizzard’s going large for the launch of Wrath of the Lich King, with its central UK event to take place at midnight on November 12 at HMV on London’s Oxford Street.
“We’ve been looking forward to these launch events all year,” said Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime.
“This is one of the few opportunities we get to meet with players in person, and we can’t wait to celebrate the release of Wrath of the Lich King with them.”
Attendees will have the opportunity to purchase the standard edition of the game as well as the limited Collector’s Edition, which contains The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King hardback book; Frosty, an exclusive in-game frost wyrm pet; a behind-the-scenes DVD; the official soundtrack containing 21 tracks; an exclusive mouse pad displaying a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend; and two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game starter decks with two exclusive cards available only in the Col... More »
Xbox Group product manager Aaron Greenberg has refuted reports that Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp will develop a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, claiming owners of the console would not be interested in such an add-on.
"We have no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience," he told Major Nelson. "We believe that we shouldn't force people to pay for things they don't want."
Following the commercial failure of the HD-DVD format Microsoft decided to invest in, Greenberg also stated that Microsoft's position on high-definition movie and TV content is currently centred around digital distribution.
"We've invested in a massive library of entertainment content. That's why we're bringing things like Netflix to members in the US, that's why we're growing our library in Europe, that's why we're adding all types of entertainment experiences around the world.
"And Blu-ray: who knows? I'll tell you one thing: if you look... More »
2K Games has announced BioShock for PlayStation 3 System has gone gold Gold. Additionally, a consumer demo will be available for download from the PlayStation Network starting Thursday, October 2, 2008.
Press Release: 2K Games announced today that BioShock for PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system has gone gold and will be available at retailers across North America on October 21 and internationally on October 17. Additionally, PlayStation 3 system owners will be able to experience their first foray into Rapture with the release of the playable demo, available for free download from the PlayStation Network starting Thursday, October 2.
Developed by 2K Marin, 2K Boston, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes, BioShock for the PlayStation 3 system contains all-new content that augments and extends the experience in exciting ways. BioShock for the PlayStation 3 system contains new features such as the inclusion of the Survivor difficulty mode, Trophy support a... More »
SCEA has announced that they are expanding the availability of the PlayStation Network cards. As of October, the cards will be available from popular retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, and select Sam's Club outlets.
To quote: Today, Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced they're "expanding the availability of the popular PlayStation Network Cards to additional major retailers nationwide this holiday season."
The cards allow you to bypass the Need for a credit card; you simply purchase the Network Card at the retailer (sure, use cash), bring it home, then dump the money into your virtual wallet for the Store.
And starting in October, these Cards will be available at Walmart, Best Buy, and select Sam's Club outlets. Sony will add Barnes & Noble College Bookstores in November, which should come as good news to all you university students out there.
When any totally new gaming platform reaches developers for the first time they are at the bottom of a learning curve. Not only that, they are usually in a big hurry to get a game out as soon as possible after the platform launches. So early games on a new platform are usually little better than the best games on the previous generation platform.
As time passes the developer climbs up the learning curve. How fast this happens depends a lot on the complexity of the platform’s architecture and the availability of good engines, tools and libraries. The Microsoft Xbox 360 has a relatively straightforward system architecture and has had very good development tools from very early in the availability of dev kits.
So we would expect developers to be getting close to optimum performance out of it fairly quickly. And this has been borne out by it delivering superior performance in virtually every cross platform game so far. But has the top of the learning curve been... More »
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