All Topics Gaming older than one year ago

Choice is a good thing, unless you're selling to the casual crowd.

Nintendo has added three lovely new items to the North American Club Nintendo catalog. The "cheapest" of the trio is a Super Mario Galaxy 2 screensaver for ten coins. It's the second Club Nintendo screensaver to be released -- a Mario 25th anniversary version is also available for the same price.

Moving up, for 250 Coins, you can score a canvas tote bag with colorful polka dots and a Super Mushroom silkscreen. And for 550 Coins, there's the black messenger bag, featuring a Super Star design.

Based on the options, we suspect a lot of people are going to show up at E3 with the same messenger bag next year. That'll be embarrassing.

Sure, raising the price of your online service by 20 percent seemingly out of nowhere could be classified as anything but consistent, but Xbox Live marketing senior director Craig Davison says it isn't like that. During an interview with Gamasutra, Davison recounts how the service has grown in its near six years of existence and how the "infrastructure costs" have gone up.

"As you can imagine, the costs associated with maintaining a service at that level and making sure all of those features are consistent, we're hitting that quality bar, we're adding the customer service infrastructure necessary, we're accommodating all of the same social features and functionality too, there's a cost. Infrastructure costs, of course." Davison added that the consistency across all "entertainment applications," whether it be games or things like Netflix and Zune -- which Davison reveals usage has doubled among Xbox Live users over the last year -- is a big part of it.

Davison doesn't only address the Xbox Live price increase in the Gama interview, but also addresses this week's launch of Kinect and the Xbox 360's rise as an overall entertainment solution outside of games. Hit the link below to read more.

I know we’ve talked about this in the past, but we never actually posted any footage!

What do you get the Mario fan who has it all? Here's your answer.

Gearbox's shoot-n-loot action game Borderlands has just been updated on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, delivering a level cap-raising patch for all players. Have fun getting to 69, kids! [Gearbox Forums] More »

When Bizarre Creations got gobbled up, its properties were scattered like so many crumbs across Activision's comically large bib. The Club rolled onto Sega's plate, Activision's tongue snatched up Geometry Wars and a nugget called Project Gotham Racing was left in front of Microsoft. Now, Develop reports that the first-party publisher is hunting for the perfect developer to turn that crumb into a new repast.

Develop's source says that Microsoft is in talks with several European devs to take the license, seeming to indicate that Turn 10 (Forza) would not take the wheel, as has been previously rumored. When we spoke with Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer in September, he told Joystiq, "We don't have a developer for PGR," lending some credence to the story. Lending further credence: his affection for the series. "I love PGR," he told us.

"We were talking about it just a couple months ago," Spencer continued. "We don't have any plans for it right now but I do know that most of our team that worked on PGR are still in the studio. So, at some point, I can still see us doing something with it if we find the right opportunity and the right team. We could make something happen." So, it's a hunt for developers then! If we were Microsoft, we'd work something out with Disney to bring on Brighton-based Black Rock Studio (Split/Second) to handle it, but you'd be shocked how rarely we're consulted on these things.

Project Sword, the technologically impressive game you've been using to show off your new iPhone 4 to friends, family and Charlie Chaplin, is set to become a full game this holiday. Dubbed "Infinity Blade," the Chair-developed "action-RPG sword fighting adventure" will be available for iPhone 4, iPad and iPod Touch.

Infinity Blade will feature single-player battles within ye olde castle environments and will gradually grant you experience, improved stats and more powerful items. It will be expanded to support a multiplayer mode (and Game Center) via free updates after launch.

According to Epic Games, the Unreal Engine 3-powered demo wound up in the hands of over one million people, lured in by the promise of what the company calls "triple-A mobile gaming." How much are people willing to pay for triple-A mobile gaming? Epic has yet to announce a price, but it'll have to be careful not to build a costly moat around its spot on the App Store.

#aspyr The turn-based strategy game that turns adults into nation-building addicts, Civilization V, is making the leap from PC to the Mac in time for Thanksgiving (or by the end of this month, if you don't celebrate gluttony, annually). More »

It appears Gran Turismo 5 may finally be finished. After countless delays, series creator Kazunori Yamauchi told car enthusiast website Jalopnik that the discs were being "stamped as we speak," whilst making a disc-stamping motion with his hands.

While retailers have recently placed skepticism on a pre-Christmas GT5 release, today's news should provide some hope for fans. Those Blu-ray manufacturing plants should be able to press a few million copies in time for a holiday release -- unless Yamauchi insists on making these discs personally. By hand. Each and every one of them.

[Thanks, Pat. T!]

We guess "a few weeks" means "next week" in Gearbox-speak. The level-raising update for Borderlands is now live. Outside of eight new levels of XP to accrue, players will also find all enemies and bosses now scale to level, and some bugs in the ClapTrap DLC have been squashed.

Unstable times.

According to a tweet from Ben Cousins, general manager of EA's Easy studio, Battlefield fans can start looking forward to a new entry in the franchise. Easy handles free-to-play online games for EA, such as Lord of Ultima and Battlefield Heroes, and this Friday, the studio will show its "new, unannounced" Battlefield game to London press for the first time, Cousins tweeted.

Given Easy's current projects, we're inclined to guess the new Battlefield will be another freemium entry in the online space. Of course, does it even exist? It's still "unannounced," after all -- actually, wait, wasn't that tweet kinda the announcement? We're going to need to lay down. Our brain suddenly hurts.

Digital download sells for $14.99, delivers unique blend of action and strategy.

Electronic Arts has posted its financial report for the second quarter (July-September) of its 2011 fiscal year, posting $631 million in revenue, a decline of $156 million compared to revenue recorded during the same period last year. However, the megapublisher managed to cut its net loss to $201 million -- almost half of last fiscal year's second quarter loss of $391 million.

EA CEO John Riccitiello said of the company's recent performance, "We credit our results to blockbusters like FIFA 11 and to innovative digital offerings like The Sims 3 Ambitions and Madden NFL 11 on the iPad." Indeed, FIFA 11 was a golden goose for the publisher -- it was the best-selling game in Europe during the quarter, pushing the life-to-date sales of the FIFA franchise past 100 million worldwide.

The publisher also revealed its "cost reduction plan," which seeks to "restructure key licensing and developer agreements to improve the long-term profitability of its packaged goods portfolio." How much more obtuse can the plan get, huh?

Coming from the Hopper’s Edition booklet… Well, that’s all I need to keep me excited! I never want to see the No More Heroes franchise end!

Shoot for gore.

#playstationnetwork It's time for the second season of Sony's The Tester, and there's a whole new group of eager job applicants this time around, along with a brand-new liveblogger covering the festivities. Join us, won't you? More »

Mega Man, also known as Rockman in Japan, is a cybernetic video game character, is the title character of what has been referred to as the original Mega Man series developed by Capcom since 1987. Since then, he has become one of the company’s primary original characters and continues to be one of the [...]

Is it OK to commit violent acts against Vulcans? Check out the court transcript to find out.

Is it OK to commit violent acts against Vulcans? Check out the court transcript to find out.

EA Sports has decided to give NBA Elite 11 the longest delay possible, updating the game's release date to never. EA's John Schappert confirmed during a recent investor's call that "we have elected to cancel NBA Elite 11."

Elite attempted to completely rework the basketball game, abandoning the gameplay and namesake of EA's long-running NBA Live franchise. The gamble appears to have backfired, and development is being moved away from EA Canada to the studio famous for Madden. "Future development of that franchise will be handled at EA Tiburon in Orlando," Schappert added.

Is it OK to commit violent acts against Vulcans? Check out the court transcript to find out.