Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games

Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games | The Verge: " .. . . the new Xbox One console will have no backwards compatibility whatsoever. "No, there's not," said Whitten, when we posed the question. "The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn't really work from that perspective." That means that Xbox 360 discs won't work, but also extends to Xbox Live Arcade downloadable titles. Anything that was designed for the Xbox 360 will have to be rebuilt, and it sounds like Microsoft doesn't plan to do so. . . ."

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Nintendo Wii U sales collapse ahead of Xbox launch

Nintendo Wii U sales analysis: total collapse ahead of Xbox launch | BGR: "What makes the Wii U performance such a horror show is the fact that its sales tanked before the next Xbox has even debuted. After Microsoft and Sony really start slugging it out in the media spotlight with hardware comparisons, game exclusives and pricing speculation, the Wii U is going to be starved of oxygen."

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Conscious computing vs Cow Clicker

Conscious computing: how to take control of your life online | Technology | The Guardian: " . . . By far the funniest, or maybe the most horrifying, illustration of this situation is Cow Clicker, a Facebook game created in 2011 by the game designer Ian Bogost as a satire of undemanding "social games" such as FarmVille – in which, as Bogost put it, "you click on a cow, and that's it". In Cow Clicker, you clicked on your cow and it mooed, and that was it: you then had to wait another six hours to click again, unless you were willing to part with real money (or virtual money, accumulated through clicking) for the right to click again immediately. Bogost's joke became a surprise hit: at its height, Cow Clicker had more than 50,000 users, some paying $20 or more for pointless "improvements" to their cow, such as making it face the opposite direction. "After a while," Bogost told a US radio interviewer, "I realised they're doing exactly what concerned me about these games" – becoming "compulsively attached". "I began to feel very disturbed about the product." Eventually, a few months after the launch, Bogost eliminated all the cows in a Rapture-like event he called the Cowpocalypse. After it, users could keep playing only by clicking on a bare patch of grass – and some actually did. Responding to a player who complained that Cow Clicker was no longer "a very fun game", Bogost replied, "It wasn't very fun before.". . ."

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Gran Turismo 6 Holiday Release on PS3

Gran Turismo 6 Set for Holiday Release on PS3 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com: "Gamers, start your engines: Gran Turismo 6 is heading to the PlayStation 3 this holiday season. Sony announced the news on Wednesday during a celebration of Gran Turismo's 15 years as a top-selling video game franchise."

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Facebook Game Revenue Up as Zynga Presence Wanes

Facebook Game Revenue Up, Even as Zynga Presence Wanes - John Paczkowski - Social - AllThingsD: "“Q1 represented our largest three-month quarter of games revenue to date despite a 37 percent drop in year-over-year payments volume from our largest developer,” Facebook CFO David Ebersman said during the company’s earnings call. “Our other developers increased their payments volumes by almost 60 percent, and we saw record numbers of people playing games on Facebook.”" (read more at link above)

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Electronic Arts - a Critical Quarter

Why This Quarter Is Key for Electronic Arts (EA): The video game industry has struggled for a long time now, as console makers have been slow to produce new innovations and game producers have increasingly relied on sequels in established blockbuster series to produce sales . . . Still, Electronic Arts has had a particularly tough time even compared to its peers. The company was named Consumerist's Worst Company in America last month, as survey respondents cited failings in customer support and game quality as key contributors to the bad rating. . . . Moreover, the social-gaming space has been changing at a rapid pace, challenging EA's presence in it. Last month, EA said it would shut down three games it offers to Facebook users. For its part, Facebook has shifted the bulk of its attention toward mobile advertising and other revenue-enhancing initiatives, and the disappearance of its former emphasis on gaming has pushed EA and other gaming players back to their console roots to some extent. . . . (read more at link above)

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EA confirms 10 percent of staff laid off in major restructuring

EA confirms 10 percent of staff laid off in major restructuring | The Verge: " . . . During the call, EA label president Frank Gibeau also spoke briefly on the company’sdisastrous launch of SimCity, in which network failures left millions of owners unable to play their new game. The franchise’s creator Will Wright might think that the launch was “inexcusable,” but Gibeau insists the company has learned from its mistakes. “This will not happen again,” he said."

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Microsoft IllumiRoom

Microsoft IllumiRoom is a coffee table projector designed for the next-generation Xbox | The Verge: "When Microsoft first unveiled its IllumiRoom technology at CES, it did so in an unusual way. The software giant traditionally reveals its research projects in short, scrappy videos accompanied by research papers and a lot of technical jargon. IllumiRoom was different. The chief technology strategy officer at Microsoft, Eric Rudder, joined the Samsung keynote to showcase a video of an augmented reality projection unit designed to extend gaming onto nearby walls. The demo showed off a concept that appeared finely tuned, using what felt like a marketing video."


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Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep

That Tiny Tina Borderlands 2 DLC Will Release on June 25 - Kotaku
Kotaku
Today Gearbox acknowledged the next piece of downloadable content coming to Borderlands 2 is indeed named Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep. It's coming out on June 25, either for $9.99 (aka 800 Microsoft points) or for free as part of the Season Pass ...

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Mozilla releases Firefox UE3 demo

Mozilla releases Firefox UE3 demo
T3
Mozilla has released a demo of Epic Citadel for its recently announced Unreal Engine 3 Firefox port. The game was ported to Javascript using the new browser-based engine. Significantly, it was the first game to make use of the engine on the iPhone after it ...

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Game Design merit badge

Girl Scouts Chapter Introduces Game Design Merit Badge - Mashable
Mashable
The Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles have introduced a Game Design merit badge to help encourage its members to get interested in a variety of science and technology fields. The L.A. Girl Scouts chapter partnered with the Women in Games International ...

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