Gaming

With Metal Gear Solid 4 finally available for the PlayStation 3, it doesn't take a genius to predict that the PS3 is going to get a boost from having a hit console-exclusive title under its belt. Nevertheless, analysts are boldly proclaiming change is asunder. Sony's got the Big Mo--as in momentum--while Microsoft's got the big Slo--as in demand for its Xbox 360 is slowing down. Which inevitably means the price-cut rumors are getting the Big Sto--as in stoke those flames, baby.

Joystiq is reporting that EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich, "Believes the PS3 is going to keep … Read more

When I was a kid, I usually found myself doing one of two things: playing video games at home or trying as best as I could to attract every girl I saw. Was I a video game addict? Probably. Was a socialite? Yep. And you know what? I wasn't alone.

According to a report from Reuters, Daniel Loton, an Australian graduate student found that "15 percent of 621 adult respondents to an online survey were identified as "problem gamers" who spend more than 50 hours a week playing games."

But only 1 percent of those respondents had poor social skills and shyness, suggesting the cheerleaders in school were wrong: video game addicts are cool too.

Sweet, sweet justice.

The beauty of this new study isn't that it tells us something we didn't already know--I was known as the cool dude on campus for a reason, you know--but it helps us combat the fools who insist that video games are bad for children and hinder their ability to interact in the real world.… Read more

Video games reportedly can help cancer patients or awaken survival genes. Now, according to a new survey, people with acute depression and Attention Deficit Disorder are benefitting from games as well.

The survey--conducted by Information Solutions Group on behalf of game creator PopCap--found that disabled gamers make up 20 percent of the casual-game audience and play more often than others, citing health benefits as the reason.

PopCap, not surprisingly, makes casual games, and thus has a vested interest in the poll results. Still, the findings are worth noting.

The survey questioned 13,000 users on their video game use. … Read more

Q&A At the Game Developers Conference in February, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, and other companies that sell PC gaming hardware and software announced the creation of the PC Gaming Alliance, an organization whose specific purpose is defending the PC as a gaming platform.

Its goals include defining an accurate scope of the PC gaming market and establishing a hardware baseline for developers to use as a reference point. We spoke with PCGA President Randy Stude, who also works for Intel as director of the Gaming Program Office, about these topics and other plans the PCGA has for the future.… Read more

Video game maker Take-Two Interactive Software announced better-than-expected earnings on Thursday thanks to recording-setting sales of Grand Theft Auto IV.

For the second quarter ended April 30, net profit was $98.2 million, or $1.29 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $51.3 million, or 71 cents per share, in the second quarter of fiscal 2007. Sales were up more than 160 percent to $539.8 million for the period, blowing away analyst estimates of $499.1 million.

The company also raised its forecast for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Take-Two said it expects to … Read more

Q&A Kevin Unangst, Microsoft's Senior Director of Global Gaming, hit the interview rounds starting in April, with the goal of working to dispel the myth that PC gaming is in trouble.

That idea came about in the beginning of the year following a report from NPD research showing that U.S. retail sales of PC games trailed those of games for the various consoles. As Unangst and others have pointed out since the NPD report, those figures do not take into account subscription-based PC gaming, like the World of Warcraft juggernaut, nor do they factor digital distribution … Read more

Intel has four new desktop chipsets to show off from this year's Computex trade show in Taiwan. The G45 and the G43 focus on HD video playback by way of a new Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD integrated graphics chip. The P45 brings support for faster memory and is the first mainstream Intel-made chipset with two graphics card slots. A scaled-down P43 chipset rounds out the new 4 Series. All of the chipsets use Intel's familiar LGA 775 processor interface, which means support for Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad desktop CPUs. Intel has also … Read more

An interesting article from Kotaku today, discusses Ubisoft's intention to get into the film business and try to expand its offerings beyond video games.

"Our goal is to create a studio that will be very high quality, our goal is to try to get to the level of quality of Peter Jackson's Weta studio," Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot said in an interview. "We have been working to train people, to recruit highly talented people and we are in test mode at the moment. We are going to make sure that we get to the level of Weta. We have a long way to go but in getting to that level will help us to actually be one of the studios where everybody has to go."

Peter Jackson, best known for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and as director of King Kong, is currently working in collaboration with Bungie to create a new game set in the Halo universe. The game is currently titled Halo: Chronicles, but no release date has been given.

Guillemot sounds ambitious and I applaud him for trying to do more with his business, I can't help but wonder if video game developers have any place in other forms of entertainment. Can they really create a stellar sitcom or a blockbuster hit at the theaters? Are they capable of publishing sci-fi novels?

With the way things are going in all of those industries, I don't think it's too far-fetched at all.… Read more

Major League Baseball has struck out in its attempt to get the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede in a fantasy baseball dispute.

The justices on Monday said they won't take up MLB's challenge, backed by the National Football League Players Association, of prior court rulings favoring a fantasy league company. The announcement came without comment in a standard list of case statuses published by the high court (PDF).

MLB's Internet media arm, later joined by the pro-baseball players' union, had claimed that C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing--a Missouri company that sells fantasy sports products via … Read more