- Uncategorized
AMD Cutting Jobs, Slashing Survivors’ Pay
Processor and graphics-card manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices is cutting 1,000 jobs and reducing pay for everyone else to get through terrible times for computer sales. Nine hundred workers will lose their jobs, with the remaining reductions coming from attrition and the sale of another business unit. All told, it represents 9 percent of the Sunnyvale,…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
The Family Tree of Game Developers
Check Your HUD put together this impressive, massive and nearly comprehensive family tree of game developers. Not sure what else to add, as just looking over it gets a little mesmerizing. The author says it’s not a complete family tree, and it’s got a few errors (“Infograms” for eg.) I’m sure nitpickers can find many…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Tired of “Mortal Kombat Killer”? How About “Xbox Taco Assailant”
Law enforcement near Orlando, Fla., have in custody a 19-year-old who refused to stop playing games to join his family for dinner and threw a taco at his mother after she unplugged his Xbox. Intrepid and indispensible local news resource WOFL-TV of Orlando reports that alleged Xbox Taco Assailant Zachary Moir is in the Volusia…
By Owen Good -
UncategorizedMadden’s First Video Game — It Wasn’t Football
Tucked in a gallery of vintage video game ads is that at left — John Madden lending his cred as “sportscaster for CBS Video Games” to Atari 2600 versions of GORF and Wizard of Wor. Huh. I vaguely remember that library of games. Tooling around teh Google, lo and behold, there’s video (below) of pre-mushmouth…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Rigopoulos “Would Love to” do Amplitude Sequel on PS3
Harmonix’s big hit before Guitar Hero/Rock Band, and a foreshadowing of their gameplay, was Amplitude, developed for SCEA on the PS2. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos says he’d love to “do it right” for the PS3. Ars Technica interviewed Rigopulos earlier this week, and in the discussion, both noted that Sony owns the IP, but doing…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Duck Hunt for a Dollar, ’til Ninty Bags It
A Duck Hunt knockoff for the iPhone and iPod touch is available for 99 cents, but it lacks two key things: Nintendo’s approval, and the Asshole Dog. Venture Beat’s MG Siegler found the app, which calls its emulator the iPES, probably another reason Nintendo’s gonna smash it, as if the dead ripoff quality of gameplay…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Valve’s View: Pirates are Customers Too
Speaking this week at a forum on game industry law, Valve’s Jason Holtman said the company views pirates as “underserved customers” and used a win-win anecdote about Russia showing how they deal with them. According to GameDaily, Holtman said all Valve games are released simultaneously in Russia, a market rife with game piracy. The reason:…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Chinese Online Gamers Must Now Give Real Names
Two paragraphs is all the China Daily puts to this topic, so I can’t give much context here. But the Chinese government will start “real-name registration” for online game players this year. The item, in the China Daily, also notes that four online game companies had their operations suspended because they did not have “the…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
EA Sports Offering Immortality to Pryzbylewskis of the World
If you’ve tried to live vicariously through NCAA Football as a big man on campus, but have such a F-ed up last name the announcers only referred to you by number, now’s your chance. EA Sports is asking you to submit your last name and its phonetic pronunciation for inclusion in NCAA Football 2010. Log…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Nirvana Bassist Vexed by Own Song on Rock Band
“I knew the bass line to the song, of course, but I couldn’t quite master this new, different way of playing it,” writes Krist Novoselic, bassist for Nirvana, of his encounter with Rock Band 2. Novoselic wrote about confronting a song he’d played hundreds of time – in studio, live, you name it – on…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
U. of Wisconsin Bulldozes Its Last Arcade
The idea that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is razing its second arcade in as many years isn’t surprising — for-profit arcades are suffering terribly. But demolishing an eight lane bowling alley? In Wisconsin? Jeepers. Wisconsin’s Union South, the campus student union for the past 38 years, is being cleared off to make way for a…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Wii Helping Snowbound Schools Make P.E. Fun
Anyone who’s ever lived in upstate New York can imagine the difficulty gym teachers face in winter, when kids simply can’t go outside. Many schools, however, are using the Wii to get kids some exercise. A story in the Post-Star of Glens Falls, N.Y. reports about the mushrooming uses of video games in local schools…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
“Mortal Kombat Killer” Gets 36 Years
Lamar Roberts, a teenager convicted of beating to death a seven-year-old, will be an old man when he gets out of prison. The so-called “Mortal Kombat Killer” received a 36-year sentence yesterday. The 2007 beating death of Zoe Garcia, 7, was described by prosecutors and law enforcement in Greeley, Colo. as a reenactment of fight…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Microsoft Retires Gamerscore Blog
Gamerscore Blog, an important part of Microsoft’s Xbox community outreach for several years, is being retired. Microsoft will now focus that effort through Xbox.com and the Xbox dashboard. In the final post, published yesterday at 5 p.m., Gamerscore said that internal housekeeping had organized community outreach into several channels, making Gamerscore a little redundant, making…
By Owen Good - Uncategorized
Kotaku Originals: Obi-Wat?
Flipping Obi-Wan from good to bad? Is this pro rasslin’? Apparently Free Radical’s decided to turn eternal Force face Ben Kenobi to heel. I’d rather see a bunkhouse stampede with Zuckuss, Porkins, and a Dianoga. The retcon or newcon or noncon or whatever it was that eagle-eyed Crecente spotted in the leaked Battlefront III footage…
By Owen Good -
-
-
-
-