Monthly Archives: July 2011

Nintendo CEO takes 50% pay cut after 3DS debacle

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Sick of watching CEOs cashing out while their company — and employees — suffer? So is Nintendo. After slashing the price of the Nintendo 3DS, the company is cutting executive salaries just as ferociously.

Global president and CEO Satoru Iwata announced Friday at a meeting with shareholders that he would be taking a 50 percent cut to his fixed salary as a show of responsibility for the dismal quarterly earnings and failure of the 3DS to catch on. In addition, members of the board of directors are taking a 30 percent pay cut, while other executives will see their paychecks cut by 20 percent.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

Nintendo cuts CEO salary in half

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After the company’s stock hit a six-year low yesterday, Nintendo executives are feeling the heat.

Satoru Iwata, global president and CEO of the game giant, effectively fell on his sword for the 3DS’s lagging performance, today announcing he felt a “very great responsibility” for the situation and would be taking a 50 percent salary cut.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Game Show Hosts: Then and Now

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Tabloids may obsess over the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Jennifer Aniston, but if you want to spot a truly timeless celebrity, turn on a game show. Several of the biggest names in the game show world around aren’t as front and center as they used to be, so here’s a look at how they catapulted to fame – and what they’re up to these days. Come on down!

Read more at Yahoo! Games

Nintendo slashes 3DS price to $170

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Faced with horrendous earnings and ongoing weak demand, Nintendo has dramatically lowered the price of its 3DS handheld system just four months after the system hit store shelves.

Starting Aug. 12, the company will drop the price of the 3DS from $250 to $170 — a move it hopes will spark flagging consumer interest and lay the groundwork for a strong holiday season.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

Opinion: Nintendo Slashes 3DS Price, But Did It Do Enough?

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Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris Morris questions whether today’s major Nintendo 3DS price drop is enough to “resuscitate” long-term hardware sales in a world of smartphones and Angry Birds.

Welcome to the post-iPhone world, Nintendo. We were wondering when you’d take those blinders off.

Thursday’s announcement that the game giant would be slicing the price of the 3DS by nearly one-third after just four months was significant on a number of levels. But as the mobile gaming world continues to evolve at a breathtaking pace, it may not be enough to secure the system’s long-term future.

Read more at Gamasutra

Amazon strikes streaming deal with Universal

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Amazon Prime’s streaming catalog isn’t as big as the one at Netflix, but it’s working hard to catch up.

The retail giant has struck a deal with NBCUniversal Domestic TV Distribution that will add select Universal Pictures films to the Prime Instant Video collection. The deal will bring the total number of streamable videos to 9,000.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Nintendo slashes 3DS price

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Just four months after the high profile launch of its 3DS handheld gaming system, Nintendo is acknowledging that it has a problem on its hands.

The video game giant announced plans Thursday to slash the price for the 3DS by one-third — from $250 to $170 — effective August 12. The move came as the company reported fiscal first quarter revenue that was more than 50 percent below the previous year and a $328 million dollar quarterly loss. It also cut its projected earnings by 82 percent.

Read more at Daily Variety

Critics, shmitics: More Duke Nukem is coming

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It took more than 12 years for Duke Nukem Forever to see the light of day, but the wait for expansion packs may wind up being less than 12 weeks.

Take-Two and Gearbox Software have announced that the first downloadable content for the long-anticipated but critically-derided shooter will be out this fall. And in true Duke style, he’s taking aim at the kings of the FPS hill.

Read more at Yahoo! Games

Netflix vs. Hulu – the screen battle

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When it comes to audience reach, Netflix owes a debt of gratitude to the video game industry.

A new Nielsen Co. study finds that Netflix users are primarily streaming content to television sets – with half of those customers streaming the service through their Wii, PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Bet the FarmVille: How Facebook games are like casinos

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Playing a game on Facebook from the comfort of your living room couldn’t be any further away from the loud, smoky casinos of Las Vegas or Atlantic City. But scratch that surface a little and you’ll find that, aside from the complimentary cocktails, the two are virtually identical.

Both are designed to keep you sitting there playing, unaware of the passing hours. Both attract millions of visitors per year.

And both rely heavily on a small percentage of those visitors to make up the majority of their income.

Read more at Yahoo! Games