Gaming

It appears that the Ouya is going to be a bit delayed. This is good news though, as it is being delayed because the console developers have more cash to spend on it, $15m more to be precise. Ouya already raised around $7m on Kickstarter, and now, when it should be taking its last steps towards completion, it has had almost twice as much more injected into it by lovely venture capitalists. We were expecting the console in early June, but that has slid back to 25 June. The time and money will in part... 

It’s ancient history now, but once upon a time, if you wanted to play the most recent and most interesting games, you had to get up, leave the house and make your way to an arcade. Games consoles and home computers lived further down the food chain, their owners waiting for often sub-par versions of glorious arcade hits to be released on home systems. The real experience happened in an arcade. Even to those who experienced that era, it’s a little hard to believe when you look at the sad... 

In the past twelve months, Zynga Inc has struggled with a contracting player base, a deflated stock price and waves of layoffs. Now it is coming to terms with downsized ambitions. As Chief Executive Mark Pincus, 47, leads the online games developer he founded in 2007 through perhaps the most crucial year of his tenure, he is pushing to restore revenues by doubling down on “FarmVille,” the franchise that took Facebook users by storm four years ago and launched Zynga to stardom. Though... 

Some well-known industry analysts are suggesting that Microsoft could be behind as much as six months on software development for the Xbox Next. According to these sources, a combination of events have put Microsoft in this position, but it seems that some titles that were being developed internally have been canned. The situation led to Microsoft seeking to secure exclusives from 3rd party sources to fill in the gaps. We first suggested a link between EA and Microsoft on some sort of an exclusive... 

Ubisoft has confirmed that Watch Dogs will arrive on November 19th in North America and November 22nd in Europe. The game is been confirmed for the Xbox 360, Xbox Next, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, and Wii U. The release date for the PlayStation 4 version is expected to coincide with the release date of the PlayStation 4 console, so depending on its release date, the release of the PS4 version could be adjusted. (This apparently applies to the Xbox Next, as well.) We are also being told that... 

Nobody expected Zynga’s results for this quarter to be great, so nobody was exactly surprised when the company announced a decline in almost every number that matters. It turned a small profit, but that’s a bright spot in an otherwise deeply unimpressive set of results. The really important figures – the number of people playing and, crucially, the number of people paying – are all down. Zynga’s business may not be hemorrhaging money, but it’s losing audience,... 

The NPD Group will report its US video game retail data this Thursday, and in a preview note Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter commented that he’s expecting Nintendo to post yet another weak month of Wii U sales. For the Wii U’s fifth month on the market, he’s forecasting that Nintendo sold just 55,000 units, which would represent a 17 percent decline month-over-month. Moreover, Pachter’s expecting this slide to continue for Wii U, even if Nintendo chooses to implement... 

As anyone who has accidentally walked into a room full of children can tell you, they’re good at asking the kinds of questions that just keep drilling down. “Why is the sky blue? So why does blue light get scattered more? Then why is the sky red at sunset? Where are you going?” And although I don’t recommend it, if you were to sit one of these little buggers down with a quarterly earnings reports from EA or Activision, they might soon start asking “Why are violent video... 

Nvidia believes next generation mobile graphics processors will have more horsepower than GPUs used in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It sounds great, despite the fact that current gen consoles have been around for seven years and their replacements are just around the corner. Nvidia SVP Tony Tamasi said the next generation of Tegra chips, post Tegra 4, should be able to outperform the old crop of consoles. “The PS3 and Xbox 360 are barely more powerful than mobile devices… The next click... 

Ouya, the open Android-based console designed by Yves Behar, is being shipped to its Kickstarter backers today, and the company officially announced this week at GDC that it will hit retailers in the US, UK and Canada on June 4. Ouya is promising “hundreds” of titles for the June 4 release and the $99 console will be available at Amazon, Best Buy, GAME, GameStop, Target, and the store on OUYA.tv. Additional controllers will be sold for $49.99. And for digital purchases, consumers will... 

When Crytek opened its new Crytek USA studio, it picked up a number of the staff from Vigil when THQ hit bottom. Now, it looks like those former Vigil studio members might be lucky enough to see Crytek acquire the Darksiders franchise that these folks poured their hearts and souls into. Crytek is apparently looking to buy the rights to the Darksiders franchise. This is not to make a new Darksiders game, but is in the spirit that the people who created the game might as well own the IP if someone... 

The recent launch of SimCity was a troubled one for Electronic Arts, as the company struggled to get its servers fully functional. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be good for any game’s launch, but when a title is designed to be always online, and countless players therefore can’t even play the game they just purchased, the situation quickly escalates. EA moved as fast as it could to rectify the situation, but some players felt EA’s real intent was to force DRM on its customers.... 

A video game that uses a computer-generated layout of a building can aid the sight impaired to navigate the venue in real life by improving their spatial awareness, researchers said on Wednesday. The game, based in a building at a center for the blind in Newton, Massachusetts, uses audio cues to help blind players find hidden jewels and remove them from the building without being spotted by roving monsters. After competing in the game, researchers found the players were able to find their way around... 

Warhammer 40K owner Games Workshop has confirmed a new licensing deal with Roadhouse Interactive to develop new titles for mobile space based on the franchise. The developer, who is based in Vancouver, describes the new Warhammer title as a side screening action game. While Roadhouse confirms that the game is in development, the end mobile platforms that will see the released version of the game are still up in the air at the moment; but more information is sure to be coming in the months ahead,... 

Sony has inked a deal with game engine development company Unity to bring a cross-platform engine to its upcoming games console, the Playstation 4 (PS4). Unity’s game engine is designed to run on a multiplicity of devices and is capable of scaling up to high end systems with powerful graphics cards, while being able to run on tablets, smartphones and games consoles. However, Sony’s partnership with the firm now extends Unity’s engine to the PS4 and is set to bring a host of tools...