- Nintendo reassures third-party publishers. There has been a lot of talk in the development community that only Nintendo can make money out of the Wii. Nintendo don’t want to lose third parties so this is obviously an effort to stop resources being directed onto other platforms.
- Xbox Live servers couldn’t handle the Christmas traffic.The rapid growth of Live has surprised even Microsoft. Expect this to give them the enthusiasm to invest even more into it, we all know that online is the future.
- French tax credits to aid Ubisoft expansion. The UK was the third biggest game development nation for many years, behind America and Japan. It has slipped to fourth now behind Canada. Presumably it will soon slip behind France. And all the UK government can do is to blame video games for knife crime. They are ignorant and absurd.
- GTA Hot Coffee Settlement Revealed. This whole legal case was patently ridiculous. The law is an ass. And, as ever, the only real winners are the lawyers.
- Sony continue to reduce Playstation PS3 manufacturing costs. The price war is going to be the focus of the battle with Microsoft and both sides are gearing up for it.
- Electronic Arts hits back at Fox News Mass Effect lies. This is truly excellent. Too often ignorant, self important fools in both the media and politics take a swipe at video games when they don’t know what they are talking about. And we let them get away with it. What Electronic Arts has done here is brilliant. It is a pity that bodies like ELSPA aren’t more pro active at slapping down these idiots.
- U2 manager want’s to end piracy. No chance, the genie is out of the bottle. Once something is digital and available online it is game over. The music industry has a broken business model. The same can happen to games. In fact piracy is taking off massively right now on Nintendo DS. This is one reason why server based games could evolve to be the main publishing model.
- iPhone costs driven down again. Apple are deadly serious about grabbing massive market share. Their market positioning is all about driving volumes. And increasingly they will be using gaming to drive up revenues. The iPhone is going to be a significant gaming platform.
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The piracy on the DS is rampant just like you said. Its surprising how many people you see using the fake storage cards on the trains etc. Really surprised me, Nintendo ought to shut the websites providing this information.