Xbox 360's Wiimote Accessory Is Already In Development, Coming This Generation

This is hardly a surprise. Kudos to Nintendo!

From Gizmodo - Microsoft's been working on a Wiimote-esque controller due to come out late this year—development started on it all the way back in Summer '07—but the whole process has been "a colossal clusterfuck." Here's what MTV news knows courtesy of their exclusive source, who sketched out what it looks like above.

The 360 Wiimote shaped very much like the Nintendo Wii's Wiimote and has a speaker, microphone, four LED lights, A/B/X/Y face buttons, an analog stick and an underside trigger. The Wiimote, on the other hand, doesn't have a Microphone and has a D-pad instead of an analog stick. It's being worked on by Rare, who are trying to come up with a "unified interface and look for the controller." The current problem Microsoft's having is between marketers and designers. The former wants it just about exactly like the Wiimote so they can match them on spec sheets and lure game developers into porting over Wii games onto the 360. The designers want it to be even more feature-rich than just the Wii, and describe it as Halo, Gears and Forza "in waggle form." | Read full article

Apple developing full-fledged digital lifestyle fitness companion

From Apple Insider - Electronics maker Apple Inc. is developing a digital fitness companion system based around its iPhone and iPod touch players aimed a helping americans, and folks in general, live a healthier and more fit lifestyle.

A series of patent filings discovered by AppleInsider this week provides an overview of four distinct components that will comprise the system, including an iTunes-like software application, hardware-based heart rate and physiological sensors, a rewards tracker, and a component to facilitate synchronous group activities. | Read full article

Canadians make music, not war

From The Globe And Mail - If you look at figures released by market research firm NPD Group for video game sales in Canada and the United States in February, a potentially fascinating cultural difference becomes apparent: when it comes to games, it seems Canadians like to make music and Americans like to make war.

Despite it’s hefty $170 price tag and bulky box, the Xbox 360 edition of Rock Band, Electronic Arts’ popular rock music simulator, has been flying off store shelves north of the border, sitting comfortably atop the Canadian chart in January and placing second in February (Wii Play, a collection of mini-games being scooped up by consumers for the Wii remote that comes bundled with it, took top spot in February). What’s more, three of the top five games on Canada’s February chart are music themed: Activision’s axe grinding Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for Xbox 360 and Rock Band for PlayStation 2 came in third and fifth, respectively. | Read full article

What Do Casual Games And Pharmaceuticals Have In Common?

From Video Insider - I recently flipped through an issue of Time magazine and noticed that pharmaceutical companies not only push their latest sleep aids, cholesterol suppressors and erectile dysfunction meds, but they also compete for market share amongst themselves.

The issue I looked at had ads for Actonel, AdVair, Ambien, Cymbalta, Cypher Stent, Medco, Rozerem and Zetia. My first thought was, There is an awful lot of money used to advertise these well-known drug brands. At the same time, I thought about the value proposition of online video advertising:

* touches millions of consumers each month.
* has sophisticated consumer targeting and tracking with each ad served.

Out of curiosity I looked at Time's online rate card, and with simple math I calculated the combined monthly ad-spend of all the pharmaceutical companies to be in the neighborhood of $3 million — just one issue. I looked deeper into what Time offers advertisers and found that the magazine guarantees 19.5 million impressions per month, charges a hefty $48 CPM for black-and-white full-page ads and a whopping $74 CPM for full-page color ads. I also noticed that each pharmaceutical ad was two full pages:

* Page one — the actual full-color ad.
* Page two — the full-page disclosure that generally appears on the back of the page of the color ad

This suggests each drug company buys two pages per month for an average cost per thousand of $61. WOW. | Read full article

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young

From The New York Times - Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.

Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster Web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.

Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. Now the likes of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Club Penguin, are working at warp speed to pump out sister sites. | Read full article

In a New Merger, Evidence of How Much the Gaming World Has Changed

From The New York Times - As recently as three years ago, if you told a top game industry executive that your favorite genre was online PC games, you would almost invariably provoke a reaction akin to telling a television mogul that your favorite shows explain the migration patterns of obscure African fauna. In other words, you would get the verbal equivalent of a condescending pat on the head — “Oh, that’s nice” — while the executive looked around for someone with something more relevant to say.

And if you had dared suggest that an online fantasy game made by some guys in Orange County, Calif., would become a worldwide phenomenon by attracting more players in China than in the United States, you would have been laughed out of the room.

After all, it was not that long ago that cooperative online games were an afterthought in much of the business, an often-derided pimple on the behemoth that was the industry’s main focus: consoles like the Sony PlayStation 2 and the original Microsoft Xbox. The conventional wisdom was that only hard-core nerds would play online and that the big money was in pumping out sequel after sequel of barely distinguishable console sports games and flashy shoot-’em-up fare. | Read full article

Activision’s Chief Looks for Gaming’s Next Moves

From The New York Times - Guitar Hero III, a video game sweeping the nation like a Top 40 tune, lets players strum along on a toy plastic guitar to rock songs played on a television screen. It is attracting a wide audience: children, teenagers, 40-somethings, even the elderly.

But not the chief executive of Activision, its publisher.

“Someone asked me the other day what my favorite song is,” said Robert A. Kotick, who is 44 and not much of a game player. “I couldn’t think of one.”

Mr. Kotick will certainly have his hands full with other things. On Sunday, Activision announced that it would join forces with the Vivendi Games unit of Vivendi Universal, creating a company that will vie with Electronic Arts to be the largest video game publisher in the world. | Read full article

Electronic Arts to Add 2 Video Game Studios to Its Stable

From The New York Times - Seeking to fill gaps in its product lineup, the video game publisher Electronic Arts said Thursday that it would acquire two software studios from Elevation Partners in a deal worth $860 million, the largest in its history.

The studios, BioWare Corporation and Pandemic Studios, are known for their action, adventure and role-playing games. Elevation owns their parent, VG Holding.

Electronic Arts, the world’s No. 1 video game publisher, is known for blockbusters like the Sims and Madden NFL, but it has at times had less than 10 percent of the lucrative market for role-playing, action and adventure games. | Read full article

A Global Vision From the New Man at EA Sports

From The New York Times - EA Sports is one of the most powerful, lucrative brands in the video game business. That’s not enough for Peter Moore.

Two months ago Mr. Moore stunned the game world with the announcement that he would step down as head of Microsoft’s games operation to be president of the sports division at Electronic Arts, the No. 1 game publisher. He started his new job yesterday, and today in a presentation to journalists at the company’s headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., he is to share his vision for moving EA Sports beyond video games to a global sports and entertainment enterprise. | Read full article

GenieKnows Unveils Game-Focused Search Site

From Online Media Daily - HALIFAX-BASED IT INTERACTIVE SERVICES, PARENT company of the GenieKnows.com brand of vertical search engines, announced the launch of GenieKnowsGames.com, a game-focused search portal.

GenieKnowsGames.com will provide searchers with game-related information--including reviews, blogs, discussion groups and how-to guides, as well as a search engine with algorithms tweaked to find the most game-relevant information. | Read full story

Gaming Surpasses Video, Social Nets In Online Popularity: Study

From Online Media Daily - OVER A THIRD (34%) OF U.S. adult Internet users play online games weekly, according to Parks Associates, with games trumping social networking and online video as the most popular Web-based entertainment activity.

Online video came in as the second most popular activity, with some 29% of users watching short clips weekly, while social networking rounded out the top three at 19%. The market research company, compiling data from two studies for its new Casual Gaming Market Update, surveyed nearly 2,000 Web users over age 18.

"Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities," said James Kuai, research analyst, Parks Associates.

Casual games--loosely defined as easy-to-play online games targeted at a mass audience--typically have low production and distribution costs. Parks forecasts that the industry will rake in $400-$500 million this year, with a significant portion of the revenue coming from advertising. | Read full story

MTVN Makes 2-Year $500 Million Gaming Commitment

From Online Media Daily - MTV NETWORKS ON THURSDAY PLEDGED to spend more than $500 million on gaming properties worldwide over the next two years. That includes the $100 million Nickelodeon committed last month to the development, distribution and creation of casual gaming titles, sites and platforms.

The Viacom company's attention to gaming is broad. "Whether hardcore or casual, online or console-based, we know that games are a dominant activity across all our audiences," said Mika Salmi, president, MTVN Global Digital Media. | Read full article

Sony v. Microsoft (With Helmets): The Sequel

From The New York Times - In yesterday’s post about the game console battle between Microsoft and Sony, I noted that the big publisher Electronic Arts has been releasing games for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 many weeks, even months, before releasing them for the Sony PlayStation 3.

This is potentially no insignificant matter because it could give an incentive to consumers looking for a new console to buy the 360 rather than wait for the games to come out on the PS3.

An industry analyst I spoke to said that the reason for the difference in timing was due to the fact that the PS3 itself launched a year after the 360. This means that software developers have had less time to familiarize themselves with the PS3.
Grand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto

Turns out that rationale is only partly true, according to Electronic Arts. | Read full article

Game focuses on immigration issues

From CNN - A Japanese computer science student fails to take a full load of university classes and loses his student visa. A 10th-grade Indian girl is detained because of a high school essay she wrote on the Department of Homeland Security.

These are two of the characters in "ICED!" -- a new video game that invites players to step into the shoes of foreigners who run afoul of the U.S. immigration system.

It is part of a burgeoning genre of video games that examine major social and policy issues such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the situation in Darfur and the Electoral College.

"The game allows you to get into the body of a person, so you can experience what they are going through. There are very few opportunities to get that perspective," said Mallika Dutt, head of the nonprofit Breakthrough, which produced the game and uses new media to highlight social issues around the world.

"ICED!" -- a play on the acronym for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office -- is scheduled to be available for free download next month. It differs greatly from games like "Border Patrol," which popped up on the Internet last year and exhorted players to kill illegal immigrants as they entered the country. | Read full article

Study: In-Game Ads Increase Purchase Consideration By 41%

From Online Media Daily - NEW RESEARCH FROM MICROSOFT'S MASSIVE reveals that in-game ads clearly have a positive impact on metrics like brand familiarity, ad recall and ad rating--even increasing purchase consideration by an average of 41%.

Massive partnered with Nielsen Entertainment on the study, which surveyed more than 600 Xbox 360 and PC players of Electronic Arts' Need for Speed Carbon.

Advertisers included in the research crossed the consumer packaged goods (CPG), automotive, technology tools and quick-service restaurant (QSR) categories, with campaigns that ran an average of 6-8 weeks. | Read full article

Video Game Matches to Be Televised on CBS

From The New York Times - The magic of television has already transformed everything from motorcycle acrobatics to poker into living-room spectator sports, not to mention turning competitive singing into a national obsession. Next on the list: video games. | Read full article

Massive Adds Five EA Sports Titles To In-Game Ad Network

From Online Media Daily - MICROSOFT'S MASSIVE INC. ANNOUNCED THE incorporation of five new sports titles from Electronic Arts (EA) into its in-game advertising network--further strengthening the in-game ad value proposition in a booming U.S. video game market.

With video game hardware and software sales topping $1.1 billion in June according to market research firm NPD, advertisers seeking to reach gamers have more consoles and games than ever to do so. The EA titles joining Massive's network include both perennial bestsellers and a number of new releases to connect brands with highly engaged sports gamers.

The Xbox 360 and PC titles include Madden NFL 08, NASCAR 08, NHL 08, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, and SKATE, and all five will feature the ability to incorporate dynamic in-game ads via the Massive Network.

Available ads include 2-D units (such as a movie poster or soda machine), embedded sound and video units (say, a movie trailer or music video), interactive units, and even 3-D object replacement, which can insert branded objects into the game play over a certain period of time. | Read full article

Where are the Wiis?

While on vacation in Northern Virginia, I figured it would be a cinch to find a Wii console. After all, the region is full of stores selling consumer electronics. I wasn't prepared to leave empty handed.

After visiting at least 5 stores and calling another 8, I was laughed at by staff at leave 4 times. Their typical response to my question about whether they had a Wii was, "No, we don't have any. We got 10 in last week and people lined up around the block..."

I have heard that Nintendo is playing up the shortage to keep hype around the console at a high pitch. But it could backfire. Do I want a Wii? Hell yes. Am I willing to wait in line or spend $100 more than the retail price to pick one up? Not a chance. At this rate, my Wii envy may disappear in a month or so, to be replaced by the next big thing. Until then, I will still dream of Wii Sports and the fabulous Wiimote.

In Battle of Consoles, Nintendo Gains Allies

In the competition among the makers of video game consoles, momentum is building for the Wii from Nintendo among its crucial allies: game developers and publishers.

Inspired by the early success of the Wii, the companies that create and distribute games are beginning to shift resources and personnel toward building more Wii games, in some cases at the expense of the competing systems: the PlayStation 3 from Sony and Xbox 360 from Microsoft.

The shift is closely watched because consumers tend to favor systems that have many compelling games. More resources diverted to the Wii would mean more games, and that would translate into more consumers buying Wii consoles later. | Read full article

Wii could top record-holding PS2

From CNN Technology - Sales of Nintendo's quirky Wii video game machine could top the legendary PlayStation 2, making it the biggest hit in the industry's history, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said on Thursday.

Nintendo Co. Ltd. sped past Sony Corp. in market capitalization last month to become one of the 10 most valuable companies in Japan.

Iwata in an interview also played down the threat to Nintendo's business of a price cut in Sony's PlayStation 3 and the introduction of a thinner PlayStation Portable.

The Wii has outsold Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 monthly since its November launch, helped by its relatively affordable $250 price tag and a motion-sensing controller that can be swung like a bat, for instance. | Read full article