Digital Trends
The mid-year annual E3 Expo used to be the main event of the video game industry, must like San Francisco Macworld Expo for the Apple community, or January’s Las Vegas CES show for almost the entire media and consumer electronics industry. The event attracted tends of thousands of visitors, all eager to get a glimpse of games and products aiming at the upcoming holiday season: the event developed a reputation for outlandish booths, extravagant excess, and exclusive events.
Nyko has made a name for itself producing accessories for the video game market, but the company may be taking a quantum leap forward in the leisure technology market with its forthcoming Party Station for the Nintendo Wii, demonstrated this week at the E3 conference in Santa Monica.
Game publisher Ubisoft has announced it’s bringing its 3rd person shooter War World to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade. Scheduled to be available “later this summer”—c’mon folks, there’s more than one hemisphere—War World hopes to redefine thenotion of an “arcade shooter” by combining tactical game play, fast action, and next-generation visual effects. In the game, players take on the roles of one of 10 “mechanoids” (think two-leggedbattle robots), each with their own unique strengths, and take them on a string of havoc and mayhem in a 100-level single-player campaign. Or, if that’s not challenging enough, War Worldwill also offer a four different multiplayer games through Xbox Live, supporting up to 8 players. War World is rated T for “Teen” by the ESRB, but neither Microsoft nor Ubisoft havereleased any pricing infomation.
And on an utterly different note, Ubisoft also announced at this week’s E3 conference in Santa Monica that it plans to launch a new line of video games specifically intended for girls aged 6 to 14, after conducting “extensive lifestyle research” into that audience. Video games specifically aimed at girls have so far failed to make serious dent in the traditionally male-dominated, shoot-and-blow-things-up world of video gaming, although there have been some noteworthy efforts from Sierra and other publishers.
At this week’s E3 conference in Santa Monica, game publisher THQ previewed new titles it expects to bring to market in the first part of 2008, including its internally developed action-adventure title Darksiders: Wrath of War.
Electronic Arts is the world’s largest video game publisher, and it showed in the company’s announcements and demonstrations at this year’s scaled-back E3 Expo in Santa Monica. EA’s pending titles span a wide variety of styles and genres, and leave no franchise—and no gaming platform—untapped.
At its presentation at this week’s E3 Expo in Santa Monica, Sony took the wraps off a redesigned PlayStation Portable (PSP) which is 33 percent lighter, 19 percent thinner, and sports a high quality video output so users can hook the unit to an external monitor or display to view photos, videos, or movies.
On the surface, the new PSP doesn’t look dramatically different from its current incarnation, and in some ways the redesign fails to meet some gamers’ hopes for a "PSP 2" with dramatically enhanced capabilities. Nonetheless, the new PSP will offer a 4.3-inch screen and support for UMD discs, front-facing speakers, faster load times, and improved battery life.
Mega game-publisher Electronic Arts has disclosed brief details of two games it is developing with Oscar-winning film director Steven Spielberg. The games will mark the first fruit of EA’s much-heralded (and now doubt expensive) multi-year partnership with Spielberg announced in late 2005. Under the deal, Spielberg will develop three new games for Electronic Arts; EA gets full rights to the games, while Spielberg gets first crack at adapting the games for film or television.
Aspyr Media today said they’d begun shipping Activision’s Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland for the PC. The game was developed by Neversoft Entertainment and retails for $39.99 with an ESRB rating of “T†for Teen.
The PC version of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, Aspyr said, gives users the ability to explore the Los Angeles skate world. Gamers can skate and BMX bike across a variety of locations, including Santa Monica, Hollywood and East Los Angeles. Features of the game include the ability to customize and upgrade characters, unlock new tricks and expanded controls for pulling off more tricks.
Skateboarders and fans of Tony Hawk will be happy to know that Activision today announced that the Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland video game for the Playstation 2, Xbox and GameCube is now available in stores for $49.99. It was developed for Activision by Neversoft Entertainment.
Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, said Activision, allows gamers to take part in a storyline which “pays homage to the roots of skateboarding and punk styleâ€. It is set in a massive Los Angeles environment which spans from Santa Monica to East Los Angeles. Gamers play the role of a young rebel skater who is trying to prove himself to other skaters, legendary and local, by doing things like bert slides, stalls, Natas spins handstands, one-footed grinds and manuals, wall runs, wall flips, board smacks and board throws.
Sprint Nextel and RealNetworks announced today that Sprint customers can subscribe to RealNetworks’ Rhapsody Radio as part of the Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Service. The service will be available throughout the U.S. for an additional $6.95 per month on top of the normal PCS Vision Service fees and enable customers to access high-quality streaming audio from the Rhapsody service, as well as selected podcasts, music news & videos, and a new "Beats N Breaks" of instrumental tracks.
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