Author Archives: Chris Morris

Sonic’s RoxioNow gets big HDTV boost

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Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow has taken a big step forward in its ongoing expansion, today announcing an integration of the streaming media service onto HDTV chipsets from Trident Microsystems.

The service, which is used by Blockbuster, Lionsgate and Best Buy (among others), will now be built-in to forthcoming sets – a more direct approach than the app format many other companies are taking with today’s Internet-enabled sets. Trident is one of the top three semiconductor providers to both TV and set-top box manufacturers. Its clients include Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic, Motorola and Roku.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Video Game Prices Are Too High: THQ CEO

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It’s not uncommon to hear consumers grumble that the price of video games is too high, but that’s not something you expect to hear from the CEO of a game publishing company.

THQ’s Brian Farrell, however, is taking a stance that runs counter to some of his peers, with plans to launch the next installment of one of the company’s oldest franchises at just 2/3 of the going price for new software.

Read more at CNBC.com

 

‘Call of Duty’ sets opening day record

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Gamers have enthusiastically answered Activision Blizzard’s “Call of Duty,” as the publisher celebrated Veterans Day with a victory as its military videogame became the biggest entertainment launch in history.

That record already belonged to the industry’s biggest gamemaker when Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” stormed into stores last November.

Read more at Daily Variety

 

Interview: CEO Farrell On THQ’s Path Through The Changing Game Landscape

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[Gamasutra’s Editor-at-Large Chris Morris spoke to THQ CEO Brian Farrell as the company ramps up its digital distribution business while experimenting with lower price-points for boxed product.]

THQ and the broader video game industry have a lot in common. Both have struggled financially in the past couple of years. Both are seeing their role in the greater entertainment landscape change. And both are seeing the evolution of financial models that have served them well for years.

Leading the charge for those changes at THQ is CEO Brian Farrell. He’s in the unenviable position of leading a company that’s in the midst of what he calls a “turnaround year” – with significant growth not expected to resume until 2012. To get the company to that point, though, he’s throwing out a lot of the industry’s standard practices and he’s raising a few eyebrows in the process.

Read more at Gamasutra

Call of Duty sets new entertainment records – again

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For the second year running, Activision’s “Call of Duty” franchise has broken all-time entertainment industry opening day records.

“Call of Duty: Black Ops,” the latest installment in the $3 billion franchise, had opening day sales of $360 million in the U.S. and U.K – a number no entertainment property (film, game or book) has ever come close to.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

App Review: Ragdoll Blaster 2 HD

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With more than 200 levels, Ragdoll Blaster 2 HD never gets old. What players may not realize is that much like Angry Birds,  the longer they play, the more they learn about physics. There’s an undeniable visceral fun in shooting the ragdoll dummies out of a cannon, but the player’s focus quickly shifts to puzzle solving and how to hit the target — and the app never gives you an easy way out. The setup for the app is simple, but mastering it takes a long while, which are the key ingredients in a fun game.

Read more at Common Sense Media

Google TV suffers another blow

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Search giant Google says it wants to take TV into the future, but the networks are pretty comfortable with the present. Fox has joined CBS, NBC and ABC (along with Hulu) in blocking its content from appearing on Google TV.

Uses who use the service’s Web browser to access the network’s site will still see the Web page itself, but will receive an error message when they attempt to stream any programming. Typical PC users, of course, still have access to all of the content.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

NHL widens its streaming program

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As Major League Baseball reaps the benefits of expanding its online game streaming subscription package beyond the PC, the National Hockey League is getting in the game.

The NHL has announced its NHL GameCenter Live service is now available on the PlayStation 3, Roku and Boxee. The service, which was initially announced Oct. 5, lets subscribers watch up to 40 out-of-market games per week as well as classic matches.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

Nintendo’s weirdest trademark

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It’s common for companies to trademark their characters, games and hardware – but cultural sayings revolving around them? That’s a new one.

Nintendo has filed a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark the phrase “It’s on like Donkey Kong”. I’ll pause a minute to let that sink in.

Read more at Variety’s Technotainment blog

 

The Money Making Game #2: The PlayStation Phone

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We certainly have no problem getting caught up in the fun of playing games, but the people who create them have their pocketbooks to worry about, too. In this column, finance expert and GameSpy contributor Chris Morris guides you through the tricky corridors the gaming industry’s financial side, touching on big-time business decisions and how they matter to the common gamer.

While the Internet has been buzzing about leaked images and details of what seems to be a prototype PlayStation Phone from Sony Ericsson, the debate has generally circled around whether the leaks were real or faked. The question no one seems to be asking is: Is this a good idea in the first place?

Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume Sony is, in fact, working on a PlayStation Phone. The company, after all, hasn’t done much to quell the rumors, with CFO Masato Kato stirring the embers during a quarterly results conference call earlier this month when he said “The PSP … was more concentrated I’d say [at the] core gaming segment rather than the light game, but now we are addressing that market as well.”

Read more at GameSpy.com