Microsoft spending more than $1.5 billion on Windows 8 rollout

October 13th, 2012, 21:37 Posted By: wraggster

This October, Microsoft is going big with the launch of an entirely new ecosystem that includes Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, and the Microsoft Surface tablet. It's Microsoft's chance to succeed in a market increasingly dominated by Apple and Google's mobile operating systems. According to analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, the huge launch is a "big risk" for the Redmond giant.
"Windows is one of their pillars and pretty much the foundation for everything," Enderle told Forbes.
Microsoft is spending between $1.5 and $1.8 billion for the launch, a far cry from the $200 million spent on the Windows 95 launch.
"The marketing effort is on a scale you don't see outside presidential elections," Enderle added.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...dows-8-rollout

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Windows 8: Do I Really Need a Single OS?

October 13th, 2012, 21:32 Posted By: wraggster

If you skip Windows 8, you lose the appealing opportunity to synchronize all of your devices on a single platform — or so goes the argument. If you're skeptical, you're not alone. OS monogamy may be in Apple's interest, and Microsoft's, but ask why it's in your interest. Can Microsoft convince the skeptics? 'If the hardware and software are the same at home and at work, one can't be "better" than the other. It would help if Microsoft convinced users like me that their platform is so good, we'd be fools to go anywhere else,' writes Kevin Casey.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/10...ed-a-single-os

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Hawken gets closed beta date

October 13th, 2012, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster

Free-to-play FPS mech title Hawken has had its beta dated by new publisher Meteor Entertainment.
Hawken is marketing itself as the first in a new generation of free-to-play titles boasting triple-A production quality. The Adhesive-developed title will enter closed beta on October 26^th. It will run until October 29^th.
“The team has worked tirelessly to launch closed beta,” Adhesive’s creative director and co-founder Khang Le explains. “Thanks to the awesome community, we learned a great deal from the Alpha 2 feedback.
”We’re super excited about opening the gate and having a larger fan base playing Hawken for the very first time! I can’t wait to see how the general audience receives the game and all the crazy tactics they come up to dominate on the Hawken battlefield”
Meteor CEO Mark Long added: “Hawken’s alpha 2 testing was great. We broke a lot of things and that’s good. The more that we find wrong now; the smoother open beta will go.
“We scaled up an order of magnitude in daily players and the server ping was so good we had players on the West Coast of the United States joining the United Kingdom servers. We cannot wait to see what happens as more players join in on closed beta.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/hawke...a-date/0104446

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League of Legends is "the most played video game in the world"

October 12th, 2012, 23:42 Posted By: wraggster

Riot Games has released an infographic claiming that its free-to-play online RPG is “the most played video game in the world”.
It has a total of 70m registered Summoner names, 32m active monthly users and 12m daily active users. Over 1bn game hours are logged every month.
To put that into perspective, World of Warcraft has a total player base of 12m and Xbox Live has 40m subscribers. With regard to DAUs, Instagram has 12m while Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has “only” 3.3m.
League of Legends’ peak concurrent players stand at 3m. This compares to 1.4m for Modern Warfare 3 (on Xbox 360) and 650k on Steam.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/leagu...-world/0104455

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Rockstar Games Collection Episode 1 listed by retail

October 12th, 2012, 00:21 Posted By: wraggster

A new Rockstar collection seems bound for retail.
As reported by CVG, a SKU called Rockstar Games Collection Episode 1 has appeared on at least two retailer’s websites.
The boxart points to the inclusion of four titles – Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, Red Dead Redemption, LA Noire and Midnight Club: LA Complete Edition.
If that retails around the standard price then that will certainly represent fantastic value, with easily 100+ hours of gameplay in the box. It is not known if any DLC released for the titles will be included on the disc
One retailer gave the title a November 13^th release date. Nothing has been confirmed officially as of yet.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/rocks...retail/0104359

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Jagex unveils Carnage Racing, a Facebook racer from Midnight Club veterans

October 12th, 2012, 00:18 Posted By: wraggster

Created by former Rockstar staff who previously worked on the Midnight Club series, Carnage Racing aims to bring core, weapons-based racing gameplay to the social network. The game will be free-to-play, with players earning experience points and game currency through races which can be exchanged for new vehicles, weaponry and other perks.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/jage...club-veterans/

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18-rated games banned from Windows 8 marketplace

October 12th, 2012, 00:13 Posted By: wraggster

Europe to be hit hardest by Microsoft’s veto on mature games

Microsoft’s guidelines for the Windows 8 Marketplace will prevent the sale of any games rated above PEGI 16 in Europe or Mature in the US.
As a result, games rated PEGI 18 will not appear on the app store at all. Europe will be hit hardest by these guidelines as a significant number of titles are rated PEGI 18.

Some developers will see this as another mark against Microsoft’s latest operating system, which has already been slated by Valve and the creator of Minecraft.
One such developer, Casey Muratori, has written a length piece about the guidelines.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...-8-marketplace

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Gaikai sued over alleged cloud gaming patent infringement

October 12th, 2012, 00:11 Posted By: wraggster

An unknown start-up is claiming to have invented cloud gaming

UPDATE: Sony has issued a no comment to Develop's sister title, MCV. In addition, it has emerged that T5 attempted to sue OnLive over a similar matter in early 2011.
T5 Labs is attempting to sue cloud gaming firm Gaikai in the Delware courts.

It alleges that the Sony-owned company “has committed and continues to commit acts of infringement” in the region. It is demanding a jury trial.
The complaint revolves around US Patent 8,203,568 called 'Sharing a Graphical Processing Unit Between a Plurality of Programs'. T5 alleges that Gaikai is infringing one or more of the patent’s claims.
“Gaikai actively, knowingly and intentionally induces infringement of the patent by making, using, offering for sale and selling use of Gaikai’s GPU cloud with the knowledge that its customers and end users will use the Gaikai GPU cloud and with the knowledge and the specific intent to encourage and facilitate the infringing sales and uses of Gaikai’s GPU cloud through the creation and dissemination of promotional and marketing materials, instruction manuals, product manuals and technical materials,” the court papers read.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...t-infringement

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Ultrabook sales 'will explode in the next 5 years'

October 11th, 2012, 23:49 Posted By: wraggster

GBI Research has predicted that ultrabooks will make up 47 per cent of annual notebook sales by 2016.
Although currently viewed as prohibitively expensive, GBI said ultrabook sales will explode in the next five years.
According to the research, 1.3 million ultrabooks were sold last year, but thanks to technological advances and a drop in component prices, this number is predicted to reach a massive 148.7 million by 2016, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 109 per cent.
The Americas are currently the biggest consumer of ultrabooks and are expected to purchase 1.55 million units this year alone, accounting for 42 per cent of 2012’s global market.
“Ultrabooks (defined by thinner, lighter bodies and with a shorter boot-up time than typical notebooks) are expected to explode in popularity in the near future as cloud-based systems, such as Apple’s iCloud and Google’s Cloud Storage, become more prevalent and defy the need for a traditional hard drive,” said GBI.
“The price reduction of microprocessors and flash memory, combined with an increase in production capacity for screens and casings, will also see a sizeable drop in the average selling price of ultrabooks, from $1050 last year to $510 by the end of 2016.”
Although this sounds like good news for firms like Intel, who has put considerable marketing promotion behind ultrabooks, it contradicts a prediction made last week by IHS iSuppli.
After previously predicting that 22 million ultrabooks would ship by the end of 2012, the analysts recently cut this forecast by over 50 per cent.
iSuppli’s estimates for next year have fallen from 61 to 44 million units.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...5-years/029367

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Rome 2: Total War releasing October 2013 - report

October 11th, 2012, 00:43 Posted By: wraggster

Rome 2: Total War is reportedly set for release in October 2013.
Book publisher Pan Macmillan has acquired the rights to four original stories set in the world of Creative Assembly's strategy title, and the first is set to be released in October 2013 to tie in with the global release of the PC game, according to The Bookseller.Pan Macmillan and Sega are set to cross-promote the novels in a drive that will include in-game marketing.
Macmillan publisher Jeremy Trevathan said: "We are delighted to be working with one of the most successful games franchises on the market.
"What is also particularly exciting is that they have an in-built, committed community of players who are emotionally engaged with the games and who have told their researchers that they are hungry for more 'story-telling' within the games and around the games."
The first book will follow the rise of Fabius Petronius Secundus, a fictional Roman legionary and centurion whose life closely shadows that of Scipio Africanus the Younger, conqueror of Carthage in 146 BC - from his first battle against the Macedonians, that seal the fate of Alexander's the Great's empire, to those in North Africa and the Siege of Carthage.
Last week publisher Sega sent over four new Rome 2: Total War screenshots. They followed the release of the debut Rome 2: Total War gameplay trailer late last month.
CVG visited Creative Assembly in June for an exclusive first look at the sequel, and you can read every detail in our Rome 2: Total War preview and our Rome 2: Total War interview with lead designer James Russell.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...r-2013-report/

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OnLive sold for just £4.8m

October 10th, 2012, 23:32 Posted By: wraggster

Creditors lose out, getting only a fraction of their investment in return

The remnants of OnLive, the games streaming service that recently dodged bankruptcy by a whisker, were sold to a venture capitalist for just $4.8 million, according to a letter obtained by theMercury News.
OnLive was sold to Grey Lauder of venture capitalist firm Lauder Partners after laying off all of its employees in August 2012.

OnLive’s holding company, the Palo Alto gaming company had outstanding debts of at least $18.7 million, excluding money it owed in the future for leases and other contractual obligations, according to the letter, which was sent to OnLive creditors last month.
Full details of the deal were not disclosed, but figures in the letter indicate that the company’s creditors will end up getting no more than about 26 cents on each dollar they were owed.
The letter details that OnLive, which had previously raised more than $40 million from AT&T, HTC and other major investors, had been exploring a sale or another investment for a “substantial period of time”, as noted by Joel Weinberg, the CEO of Insolvency Services Group, which is handing the company’s bankruptcy-like process.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...d-for-just-48m

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Apple-owned fingerprint readers pose serious security risk to Windows PCs

October 10th, 2012, 23:31 Posted By: wraggster

Security specialists have highlighted a flaw in fingerprint-enabled devices that allows hackers to easily retrieve Windows account passwords.
The issue was first raised by ElcomSoft, but then publicised by a duo of security specialists called Adam Claudill and Brandon Wilson. They found a method to extract Windows passwords from the registry for devices that use UPEK fingerprint readers – a company that is now owned by Apple – that affects PCs from Acer, Dell and up to 14 other manufacturers.
Both teams slammed the standard of security, noting that the passwords were stored in plain text and protected by just a 56-bit encryption code key.
The only real obstacle to gaining full control of the machine is having local administrator access.
“From a penetration testing perspective, local administrator access is required to obtain the necessary registry key's value, so it only matters if you already have control of the PC,” Wilson told Ars Technica.
“But since so many of these devices are used in corporate environments, it makes it easy to obtain domain credentials, and from there, easily expand an attack to other systems.”

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...ows-pcs/029346

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Wing Commander creator due to announce new game today

October 10th, 2012, 23:28 Posted By: wraggster

The veteran games designer Chris Roberts is set to announce his new game at the Games Developer Conference today.
The designer is responsible for the development of a number of space combat and exploration simulators including Wing Commander, Freelancer, Privateer and Strike Commander.
He has been quietly building up a fan base through his website,Roberts Space Industries, where he has let slip a few details including a teaser video and concept art.
The announcement will take place at 3pm UK time and will bestreamed live via Gamespot.
Update: It seems that a launch video has been released ahead of the official announcement!

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...e-today/029349

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Tropico 4 goes gold

October 10th, 2012, 23:25 Posted By: wraggster

Kalypso Media has announced that its award-winning, economy simulation title, Tropico 4, is to be released as a gold edition.
The collection will include both the original game and its recent expansion, Modern Times.
Tropico 4 Gold Edition will offer fans of the long running franchise the complete Tropico experience, including both the construction and management simulation elements from the original game, as well as the newly introduced city-building features of the Modern Times expansion pack.
Players take their place as the president of a tiny Carribean island, where it's their job to grow their country, either as a benevolent leader or a power-hungry dictator.
With a strong focus on economic supremacy, players can choose whether to rely on tourism, farming, big business or gruelling sweatshops to fuel their rise to power.
Mark Allen, head of marketing and PR at Kalypso Media, said: "Tropico 4 Gold Edition will be the perfect Christmas purchase for gaming fans that enjoy fun yet challenging gameplay, mixed in with tongue in cheek humour and instantly likeable characters, including El Presidente himself."

Tropico 4 Gold Edition is set to hit shores on November 13th.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...es-gold/029352

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Lenovo announces new Windows 8 tablets

October 10th, 2012, 23:24 Posted By: wraggster

Lenovo becomes the latest company to announce details about its upcoming Windows 8 devices: Lynx, Twist and Yoga.
“We think these innovative convertibles are the best devices for a groundbreaking touchscreen experience, plus their multi-modes give people even more ways to use their PC,” said Peter Hortensius, senior vice president at Lenovo.
The PC manufacturer has unveiled a range of hybrid tablets, including the IdeaPad Yoga, which comes in two variants.
The IdeaPad Yoga 11 has an 11.6-inch LCD display and the IdeaPad Yoga 13’s screen comes in at 13.3-inches. Both use a hinge mechanism that enables the user to fold the keyboard behind the touch display for use as a tablet.
The Yoga 11 uses an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core ARM processor with Windows RT and the Yoga 13 has an Intel i3 processor and runs Windows 8.


http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...tablets/029354

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Microsoft 'Digits' can control gadgets without touching

October 10th, 2012, 23:19 Posted By: wraggster

Microsoft's new motion control bracelet takes gesture input from a human hand and renders it in real-time 3D.
The Digits prototype is part of Microsoft’s effort to create a device that would allow the wearer to control their smartphone and other gadgets using hand gestures.
Developers working with the device will have a new frontier of interface options available to them like gesture-based controls in games, sign-based typing, and even turning the pages on an e-reader as if they were three dimensional objects.
Mapping finger movement and orientation means the device wearer can remotely control their device from anywhere.
“The Digits sensor doesn’t rely on external infrastructure, which means users are not bound to a fixed space," said David Kim, a Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellow from Newcastle University's Culture Lab. "They can interact while moving from room to room or running down the street. This finally takes 3D interaction outside the living room.
“We wanted users to be able to interact spontaneously with their electronic devices using simple gestures without even having to reach for them,” continued Kim.
“Can you imagine how much easier it would be if you could answer your mobile phone while it's still in your pocket or buried at the bottom of your bag?''
The great thing about this prototype is that it leaves the hand free, unlike other data gloves out there. However, Digits does have downsides: some gestures, like crossed fingers, cannot currently be tracked, and abandoning gloves means the loss of tactile feedback.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...ouching/029356

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OpenBOR v3.0 Build 3713

October 10th, 2012, 14:16 Posted By: wraggster

The guys over at Lavalit have released a new version of the beats of rage clone for the Dreamcast, Dingoo, PSP, Linux, Windows, GP2x, Nintendo Wii and Wiz.

OpenBOR is a continuation of the Beats Of Rage 2D game engine, which was originally
created by the wonderful folks over at http://www.senileteam.com.

In 2004, Senile Team released Beats of Rage, a free beat-'em-up for DOS inspired
by SEGA's Streets of Rage series and using sprites from SNK Playmore's King of
Fighters series. The game spread only by word of mouth, but it nonetheless
amassed popularity very quickly. Senile Team soon released an edit pack allowing
anyone interested to create a mod for the BOR engine.
In 2005, Kirby2000 asked Senile Team to open the source code to BOR. They
agreed, and OpenBOR was born. Development on the engine was continued by the
community, and still is to this day.

Heres whats new:

r3713 | utunnels | 2012-10-08 22:29:00 -0400 (Mon, 08 Oct 2012) | 1 line
Changed paths:
M /engine/openbor.c
Force memory clean up after reallocating a freespecial/cancel.

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Phantasy Star Online 2 notches 1 million registered players

October 10th, 2012, 00:48 Posted By: wraggster

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Sims 3 '70s, 80s & 90s Stuff' pack announced, university expansion teased

October 10th, 2012, 00:47 Posted By: wraggster

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Atom-powered Acer Iconia W510 on sale November 9th for $500 and up

October 10th, 2012, 00:35 Posted By: wraggster

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