Tag Archives: sony

How the video games industry is faring

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A look at results from selected companies in the video games business:

April 12: Market tracker NPD Group says U.S. retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories fell 25 percent in March from a year earlier to $1.1 billion. It marked the fourth month of decline as Sony Corp.’s new PS Vita handheld failed to spark a turnaround. Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Mass Effect 3” was the top seller in the month.

April 18: Video game maker THQ Inc. says its expects adjusted loss and revenue in the latest quarter will come in above Wall Street’s expectations because of better-than-expected digital sales and strong sales of “Saints Row: The Third” and “UFC Undisputed 3.”

April 19: Microsoft Corp. says revenue from Xbox 360 products and services fell 33 percent. Although it got more revenue from its Xbox Live subscription service, it sold about half the Xbox 360 consoles it did a year ago and fewer stand-alone Kinect motion-control sensors.

April 26: Nintendo Co. reports a $533 million loss for the fiscal year that just ended as weak sales of the Wii home console and the strong yen eroded earnings. Nintendo sold 9.8 million Wii machines during the fiscal year, fewer than the 15 million a year earlier and below its initial hopes of selling 13 million machines.

Skyrim DLC Reveal Appears To Be Imminent

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Skyrim Includes Oblivion And Morrowind Landmasses Downloadable content for Skyrim is much more of a “when” than an “if,” and it’s looking now like the “when” is actually fairly soon, as a tweet from Bethesda’s PR and marketing VP Pete Hines reveals. Hines claims to be “working on getting a little more info out on Skyrim/DLC,” with news coming “maybe next week?” Hines also mentions that he’s working on getting a final release date for the previously announced Skyrim update that will add Kinect support to the game.

Those comments a preceded by another tweet in which Hines gives a “no comment” to fresh rumors that Bethesda now has the rights to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise. It’s entirely possible that the DLC talk is meant to deflect us all away from digging deeper on the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rumor, but there’s no denying that Skyrim fans are waiting with bated breath for word of an official expansion for the game. I certainly am. What do you think it will be? Will it be something as ambitious as adding map locations for Cyrodiil and/or Morrowind, since the framework for those locations is already built into the game?

Patent Troll Sues Dell, HP, 10 Others Over 3G, 4G CDMA Tech

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Golden Bridge Technologies (GBT), an intellectual property company focused on CDMA technologies, has launched a lawsuit claiming rights to an CDMA enhancement technology that is used in 3G and 4G networks.

GBT is targeting Samsung, ZTE, Sony, HP, RIM, LG, HTC, Pantech, Dell, Huawei, Sierra Wireless, as well as Motorola, alleging infringement of its 6,574,267 and 7,359,427 patents, both entitled “Rach ramp-up acknowledgement.” The patents, which have gone through an extensive revision period over the past few years, were filed in 1999 and 2003, respectively, and granted in 2003 and 2008, respectively. the documents describe a CDMA system using spread-spectrum modulation that achieves “reliable high data throughput and low delay.”

This specific system consists of an approach of:

“receiving at a first RS (remote station)-spread-spectrum receiver the broadcast common-synchronization channel, and determining frame timing from the frame-timing signal, and transmitting from a first RS-spread-spectrum transmitter an access-burst signal.

The access-burst signal has a plurality of segments, which have a plurality of power levels. At the BS (base station)-spread-spectrum receiver the access-burst signal is received at a detected-power level. In response to receiving the access-burst signal, the BS-spread-spectrum transmitter transmits to the first RS-spread-spectrum receiver an acknowledgment signal.

The first RS-spread-spectrum receiver receives the acknowledgment signal, and in response to receiving the acknowledgment signal, the first RS-spread-spectrum transmitter transmits to the BS-spread-spectrum receiver, a spread-spectrum signal having data.”

GBT alleges that, in total, more than 200 3G and 4G LTE cell phones and tablets offered by the lawsuit targets are infringing on its patent. The company asks for triple damages for “willful” past and present patent infringement. There is no request to halt any product shipments and sales.

GBT, based in Long Branch, New Jersey is a relatively old IP company by today’s standards. The firm owns 50 patents in the CDMA space and was formed in 1995 “by a consortium of telecommunication technology investors, scientists and intellectual property attorneys.” Its primary business is “the creation, licensing and enforcement of Wideband CDMA technology and intellectual property,” but it does not actively manufacture any products.

Anticipation builds for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale

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It looks like Sony really are planning to release a Super Smash Bros style game exclusively for PlayStation 3 owners. More clues have turned up over the weekend, including a domain name now which has officially been registered by Sony.

You may remember that we recently informed you about a survey that Sony was apparently conducting, in which they were asking gamers what they thought of a game with the title ‘PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale’.

At the time we were thinking that the name is a bit long winded, but it seems that Sony may be pressing forward with the long title, after the discovery that the company has now obtained a domain name. The website www.playstationallstarsbattleroyale.com now officially belongs to Sony Computer Entertainment America as noted by Joystiq, and it is looking very likely that this is the same game that was originally unveiled as ‘Title Fight’.

Furthermore, we’re hearing that this game may even be unveiled this Thursday, during a special episode of GTTV. If true that’s pretty massive and very surprising, as you would have assumed that such a reveal would be saved until their E3 press conference which we now know will take place on June 4th. After the unveiling of God Of War: Ascension last week – what does Sony have left to reveal for the event? We would at least like some things to be kept a secret if possible.

What do you make of the name as well folks? PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale is a bit too long in our opinion – what’s wrong with just ‘PlayStation All Stars’? That’s a much better sounding title we reckon, so let’s hope Sony are still reviewing this.

The game is seemingly on the way, so what characters are you looking to see? Abe from Abe’s Odyssey? Heihachi Mishima from Tekken? The possibilities are endless on this game and if it plays in a similar style to Nintendo’s Smash Bros franchise, consider us very interested.

Timing of Skyrim DLC, possible eight month wait at E3 2012

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So the hunt for Skyrim DLC goes on it seems. After teasing gamers with an upcoming announcement which everyone thought was related to DLC, we were actually treated to a brand new trailer for Bethesda’s other game instead – Dishonored.

It goes without saying that they are taking their time on the new content for Skyrim. It has been six months since the game released in November and aside from numerous patch updates and the Creation Kit for PC users, console players have had little to get excited about.

Could it be that all the excitement about new content is actually turning to frustration? After it was revealed that Bethesda had trademarked the name ‘Dawnguard’ all sorts of speculation started to fly around, with many believing that the Mythic Dawn cult group from Oblivion would play some part in the first expansion pack.

Talking about expansion packs, it does now look certain that the first piece of DLC won’t be on the minimal side. Bethesda had teased the idea of add-on content being substantial, and it looks like Skyrim players are going to see content on the scale of the brilliant Shivering Isles pack that released for Oblivion.

Unfortunately, not everyone will be enjoy the content at the same time though. The Elder Scrolls franchise has fallen victim to the Call of Duty exclusivity plague and it means that Bethesda will be releasing the new content on the Xbox 360 first for a month, before those of you playing on PS3 and PC can access it.

It’s not an ideal situation obviously and there is bound to be ton of jealousy when the pack finally does surface. With just two months to go before E3 2012, could Bethesda actually be keeping gamers waiting until then to announce their DLC plans? If they have made gamers wait six months so far, it wouldn’t surprise us if we had to wait another two months as after all – E3 is the grandest stage of them all to make announcements.

What are your honest opinions on the lack of DLC for Skyrim at the moment? It seems unheard of for a modern game of this generation to not provide any additional content after six months. Are you bothered by the wait, or are you happy for Bethesda to take their time on it? Are you contemplating an announcement at E3 2012 now, or do you still think the content will be announced before?

Sony, Microsoft start E3 2012 party early with keynote times

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Are you starting to get excited about E3 2012 yet? If not, you should be as Sony and Microsoft have just announced important dates and start times for their respective keynote conferences.

Just like E3 2011, it seems like Microsoft are starting to follow a certain pattern. Last year the company were first to announce the latest and greatest involving the Xbox 360 and this year, history will repeat itself.

Microsoft has confirmed that their keynote will start on Monday June 4 at 10am Pacific Time. For those of you in the UK that relates to 6pm UK time so an ideal slot for most of you. However, those watching in Asia will have to stay up quite late as the event won’t start until 1am Hong Kong time or 2am in Japan.

Sony on the other hand will be much more accomodating for their Asia viewers. Their keynote will start on June 4th also, but will take place much later at 6pm Pacific Time or 9pm Eastern Time. That means that UK fans will have to stay until late for a 2am start, but those watching in Asia can enjoy a 9am (HKT) or 10am (JP) start the following morning (Tuesday).

While Sony and Microsoft have now both finalized their E3 conferences, we’re yet to hear from Nintendo as they look to have another crack at showing off the Wii U to the world. We’re guessing that their keynote will take place on Tuesday June 5th, but we’ll update this as soon as they have given the details officially.

What can we expect to see from Sony and Microsoft though at E3? They have both said that they are not going to show any new hardware, but do you think it is a sly move to divert attention away? Both the PS4 and the Xbox ’720′ have been rumored to death, so perhaps both companies want their eventual reveals to be a complete surprise since in previous E3 tradition, the major reveals are often leaked prior to the event.

How many of you are actually going to try and get tickets? Microsoft’s event is probably the one you want to attend, since the company has become notorious for handing out free goodies such as Xbox 360 consoles. We’re expecting to see a full reveal on Black Ops 2, while some gameplay for GTA V and The Last of Us would go down a treat as well.

Bad day to be wokring at Sony: Sony to cut 10,000 jobs worldwide

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Sony Corp. will cut about 10,000 jobs worldwide over the next year as it tries to return to profit, Japanese news reports said Monday.

The Nikkei business daily and other media said Sony’s decision to slash 6 percent of its work force comes as it struggles with weak TV sales and swelling losses.

Sony spokeswoman Yoko Yasukouchi wouldn’t confirm the reports.

New CEO Kazuo Hirai is holding a press conference Thursday.

Sony has announced restructuring plans by selling its chemical unit. Sony is also merging its LCD panel operation with Toshiba and Hitachi. Yasukouchi said those changes could affect up to 5,000 employees who are subject to transfers.

Sony earlier this year reported a 159 billion yen ($2.1 billion) loss for the October-December quarter and more than doubled its projected loss for the full fiscal year through March 2013.