History of Palm Article Online March 31, 2011
Posted by Maniac in Game News.add a comment
Apparently I’m not the only person talking about the rise and fall of Palm. The guys at Maximum PC have a very detailed history of the company written by a former employee and company insider.
Wheras I wrote about my experience with Palm on more of a personal level, I admit I entered into the company’s products late in the game, and was not able to get a super detailed history of the company, this guy has, and it’s really informative. So, if you’re interested in the rise and fall of the company which kickstarted the mobile revolution, check it out.
Resistance 3 to Support Playstation Move and 3D March 30, 2011
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Insomniac Games confirmed at their annual community day that the upcoming Playstation 3 exclusive game Resistance 3 will include full support for the Playstation Move and 3D TV.
This is a trend that Sony has been putting in their new releases, as it seems to be something that Sony is trying to keep a one up over Microsoft with. The Playstation 3 supports the 3D HDTV specification both for Blu-Rays and in Playstation 3 games, and the Move controller is compatible with many currently available games either out of the box or with a patch. Resistance 3 will be playable on either a Move Controller or with a Sharpshooter.
Famously, Killzone 3 supported both the 3D HDTV specification and the Playstation Move controller. This seems to be following in it’s footsteps.
There are other games that Sony has promised full 3D support for, including Uncharted 3.
Resistance 3 is coming September 6th, 2011 exclusive to the Playstation 3.
Microsoft Looking To Test New Disc Format For 360 March 29, 2011
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Microsoft’s Major Nelson has announced a new testing program is looking for volunteers with an Xbox 360, and it’s for a new system update which will allow the player to be compatible with a new disc format. No details about the format has been released yet.
The Xbox 360 uses the DVD-ROM format for storage, same as what was used in the PS2, Nintendo Wii and original Xbox. The 360 discs do include a proprietary copy protection software which makes them only compatible with the Xbox 360, which is why calling them a regular DVD-ROM is a slight misnomer. Alternatively, Sony uses Blu-Ray in the Playstation 3, which has a much larger storage capacity than a 360 disc, and the ability to play Blu-Ray Disc movies.
Recently, Xbox 360 games like Lost Odyssey have shipped on multiple discs due to limitations in space.
The only alternate disc format add on released for the Xbox 360 was the HD-DVD player, which used a USB connection to play the ill-fated HD-DVD discs and DVDs through the Xbox 360. The format lost it’s market share to Blu-Ray and the format is no longer supported. It was never used to play games.
Jurassic Park: The Game Behind the Scenes March 29, 2011
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The first featurette for Jurassic Park: The Game has been released by Telltale Games.
It seems like they really understand the same concepts that made the first Jurassic Park movie so fascinating. Like Spielberg did, they’re treating the dinosaurs as animals, not as monsters, which is how they were depicted in the first movie, and that is how they are best depicted.
There was also a small teaser for what dinosaurs will appear in the game. T-Rex has been outright confirmed, as has the Velociraptor. They also promise that a new dinosaur that has not been seen in Jurassic Park before but does exist in the fossil record will premiere, and will be terrifying. Want to know more? Check it out yourself!
The series has been confirmed to have a downloadable five episode run, released monthly, to conclude with a special edition DVD-ROM with all five episodes and special goodies at the completion of the series.
The documentary also confirms that Jurassic Park: The Game will first release in April for PC and Mac and Fall for Consoles. Specific console platforms have not been revealed yet, although I have heard of preview demos being given on the Xbox 360.
Claudia Wells Lends Her Voice to Back to the Future Game March 29, 2011
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Well it’s been confirmed that the original actress to play Marty McFly’s girlfirend Jennifer Parker, Claudia Wells, will reprise her role as Jennifer Parker in Part 3 of the Back to the Future Game series.
Claudia Wells appeared as Jennifer Parker in the first Back to the Future movie. According to the featurettes on the Back to the Future Blu-Ray boxed set, she was unable to be in the two Back to the Future sequels due to a family emergency involving her mother. She has also appeared in several TV shows. This will be her first video game performance.
Here’s a little behind the scenes documentary on how Telltale Games was able to get her in the game, I don’t know just how fictionalized it may be but I’ll leave that to you to decide.
Back to the Future The Game Part 3 is out now for PC and Mac. It’s coming soon for PS3 and iPad.
Portal 2 Investment Opportunities Trailer 2 March 28, 2011
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The next trailer for Portal 2’s Investment Opportunities has been released, this one focusing on the importance of preferring robots as a cooperative team as opposed to using humans. It is also voiced by J.K. Simmons, who plays Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science.
Portal 2 is coming April 21st for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Cross platform play has been promised between PC and PS3 users,and anyone who buys a copy of the PS3 version of the game will get the PC version for free.
How to Install the Xbox 360 Slim Hard Drive March 25, 2011
Posted by Maniac in How To, Site Videos.36 comments
Got a new Xbox 360 Slim and notice you can’t play Halo 3 ODST through online cooperative mode, or that it can’t play Xbox 1 games? You probably have the 4GB model that doesn’t have a hard drive.
You can buy a hard drive for the new slim, but it’s not quite clear how to install it.
Maniac shows you how to open up the Hard Drive bay in a new Xbox 360 Slim, and how to install a new drive. It’s REALLY hard to find if you don’t know where it is.
Duke Nukem Forever Delayed (Again) March 24, 2011
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Ladies and Gentelmen, Randy Pitchford.
Duke Nukem Forever (now) coming June 14th, 2011 to Xbox 360, PC, and PS3.
Portal 2 Investment Opportunities Videos Launch March 22, 2011
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I’ve been trying to post this up all day, and from the looks of it, WordPress finally looks like it has become active again, which is a good thing.
Valve has released the first part in what is looking to be a whole video series on different gameplay segments of Portal 2, which is coming out in April. Now these don’t show actual gameplay per se, what they do instead is show you about the new gameplay features that Portal 2 is going to have. They’re voiced by J.K. Simmons, who is going to play the voice of Cave Johnson, the head honcho of Aperture Science, and like the game, they’re just hilarious.
Portal 2 is coming April 21st, 2011 to PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
The New Wave of Marketing Part 2 March 22, 2011
Posted by Maniac in Editorials.add a comment
I started an article last week where I talked about all the pros and cons of traditional marketing trends that have started over the past five years all to get a player to buy your game as close to day one as possible, so you can sell your game as close to the release price as possible.
We discussed options like traditional media advertising, collector’s editions, and day one goodies for those who preorder. They all have their pros and cons, and I talked about all that in my previous article. Now I want to talk about some of the games that bucked the trends and were the most creative at promoting the release of their game to the gamers.
Now, a small disclaimer here. A lot of the games that I’m going to talk about did in fact do a lot of the traditional advertising paths I discussed in the previous article, but they complemented this advertising with something truly unique (or unique at the time).
Without further ado, I decided to start this series with the mother of all groundbreaking games.
Doom (PC) – id Software was about to release the biggest game for the DOS platform which was going to revolutionize gaming as we knew it. They had developed a first person shooter in a 3D environment, which would allow its user to use their modems or network cards to frag their friends. It was the first true deathmatch game. They needed to get the word out about this game and they weren’t going to do it through the traditional channels. They were going to follow the shareware model that had been pioneered for gaming by men like Scott Miller at Apogee.
They first released the shareware on a system controlled by David Detta, who let them use it. Within hours gamers swamped it to download the shareware, and Detta’s computer crashed. They also gave out free copies of the shareware to many game stores and told them to take the money from selling it and put it into marketing the full game’s release.
By the end of it, there were more copies of the Doom shareware on PCs than copies of Windows 95, and Microsoft had done a multi-million dollar traditional marketing push for that operating system. These were the first inklings of the power of digital distribution and the strength of the online community in promoting something.
In the end, the first Doom was a massive financial success for id Software, and cemented their reputation as the most groundbreaking game development company of the time.
Keep checking back here for later parts, each detailing the most creative promotional methods in game development history.
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