General gaming

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• Google+ Adds Game Support, Keeps Them Isolated From Everything Else
• 3DS Price Cut Launch Guide: Everything You Need to Know
• July NPDs: Duke Nukem Disappears in the Worst Month for New Game Sales Since October 2006
• Kirby Mass Attack Plays Like Kirby Times Ten
• Gaming Cities: Places Where Development Thrives
• Apple Now the World's Most Valuable Company
• Nintendo Being Pressured by Investors to Bring Games to iPhone

Google+ Adds Game Support, Keeps Them Isolated From Everything Else Posted: 11 Aug 2011 06:39 PM PDT Google has been ramping up to get into the games space in some capacity for quite a while now. Back in June, it looked as if its new social network service, Google Plus, would be getting support for Facebook-style games before long. That day is now here, as Google today announced the addition of games to the lineup of Plus features. For many, games are one of the most annoying aspects of Facebook. Seeing that your friends want you to water their flowers or send them fertilizer can get in the way of spying on their lives. That's why games are getting their own separate page, keeping them isolated from everything else. Irritating as they might be to some, social network games are a very profitable business, as evidenced by the increasing emphasis placed on them by companies like Electronic Arts. Zynga, the biggest of the bunch, has almost entirely made its fortune through Facebook. Its recent IPO filing noted, "To date, we have derived substantially all of our revenue and acquired substantially all of our players through Facebook. We expect to continue to derive a substantial portion of our revenue and to acquire a substantial portion of our players from the Facebook platform for the foreseeable future."

3DS Price Cut Launch Guide: Everything You Need to Know Posted: 11 Aug 2011 05:09 PM PDT The 3DS will be available tomorow, August 12, at its newly reduced price of $169.99 in the United States. Walmart and Target may have jumped the gun in offering the deal early, but now you don't have to worry about going to any specific store in order to get the cheaper price. The reasoning behind the price cut is simple: the system wasn't selling as well as Nintendo hoped, and it needs to drive demand in order to ensure there is a sufficiently install base for Nintendo and third-party publishers to sell their games to. Everyone has their theory on why 3DS hasn't sold especially well -- people don't care about 3D, smartphones have eaten away at the handheld gaming market, the price was too high, there wasn't enough good software. Publicly, Nintendo blames the lack of hit games. In reality, it was likely a combination of all of the above, but times are changing; not every 3DS game will necessarily take advantage of 3D, there are games worth owning on the way, and the price is now lower. With that all in mind, there are a great deal of people now in the market for a 3DS who had little to no interest in it previously. Here's a look at everything you need to know about the system right now, whether you've just picked up a 3DS recently or intend to pick one up at the new, lower price.

July NPDs: Duke Nukem Disappears in the Worst Month for New Game Sales Since October 2006 Posted: 11 Aug 2011 04:35 PM PDT July wasn't a strong month for the games industry in terms of new, physical sales at retail in the United States. In fact, it was the worst month since October 2006 using that criteria, although it's not all bad news if you look at the entire year, according to the NPD Group. "Despite the very rough month, new physical retail sales are down just 4% year-to-date and based on seasonality trends observed over the last 10 years, which have been remarkably stable year-in, year-out, industry sales in this particular channel are poised to land in the flat to -2% range once the total year is completed," reports NPD analyst Anita Frazier. The Xbox 360 was again the best selling console with 277,000 units sold. It, along with all other platforms, saw a decline compared with last July. Impressively, this was the first time the 360 had seen a year-over-year decline since December 2009. The drop is said to be due to the fact that last July was 360's biggest month of 2010 (outside of November and December) because of strong sales of the slim Xbox 360 console, which launched in June.

Kirby Mass Attack Plays Like Kirby Times Ten Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:30 PM PDT Strange things seem to always happen to pink and plushy Kirby. He was banished to Patch Land and forced to travel through a world made of fabric in Kirby's Epic Yarn. In Kirby's Pinball Land, the pink tough guy got slapped around pinball stages. And there was that other time he was rendered limbless and forced to roll the through the hills of a transformed Dream Land in Kirby Canvas Curse. You could start to presume that Kirby has gone through it all. Yet if you look at the series as a whole, for every Kirby game that feels like a by-the-numbers-platformer (stern glance at Kirby Squeak Squad), a game with a more experimental approach (like the ones mentioned above) appears to remind us that Kirby games can try something very different and succeed. Kirby Mass Attack falls into the more experimental category of Kirby games. Developed by HAL Laboratory, Mass Attack has the titular hero split into ten mini-Kirbys (oh no!), and you control this rampaging pack of (up to ten) mini-Kirbys through a variety of taps, tugs, and flicks of your DS stylus. Nintendo recently showed me some of the more challenging aspects of Mass Attack, and its point-and-flick mechanics, as representatives for the Japanese company took me on a tour through a handful stages found in two of the game's five worlds.

Gaming Cities: Places Where Development Thrives Posted: 11 Aug 2011 12:12 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet Gaming Cities: Places Where Development Thrives A closer look at some of the biggest little cities in game development. By: Steve Watts August 11, 2011 If you follow game development, you're probably used to hearing a handful of cities cited endlessly as video game hubs. If you're an aspiring developer, you may even get discouraged with the constantly reinforced impression that to break into the industry, you'll need to move to Los Angeles, Seattle, London, or Tokyo. While those cities are bustling hubs of game talent, some developers simply can't make the move -- or don't want to. Don't worry, though. The game industry isn't bulletproof, but it was sustaining itself through the recession much longer than other industries, leading many areas to offer their own waves of tax breaks to attract studios. Between state-run incentives and nearby schools, game studios are opening in lesser-known cities; in fact, you can probably find at least a dozen studios in your neck of the woods. As a primer, we've compiled several burgeoning game cities absolutely bursting with game development talent.

Apple Now the World's Most Valuable Company Posted: 11 Aug 2011 11:35 AM PDT As Nintendo is facing lower stock prices and increasing pressure from shareholders to begin making games for Apple's iPhone and other mobile platforms, Apple couldn't hope to be in better shape shape. For a brief period of time on Tuesday, Apple's value surpassed that of Exxon Mobil. This made it the world's most valuable company, although by the end of the day, things had flipped back to the way they were. The same thing happened again yesterday, except this time it managed to hold on to the lead, meaning as of right now, the maker of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod is worth more than any other company on the planet. Apple's value surpassed that of Microsoft last year, then making it the world's most valuable technology company. While Exxon Mobil's share price has been sporadic over the past five years (though it has seen a big improvement since mid-2010), Apple has largely seen steady growth, particularly since the beginning of 2009, and that's only continued since the iPad debuted in early 2010. Apple's market value currently sits at about $337,174 million, compared with Exxon Mobil's $330,770 million, a fairly steep drop from where it was six months ago.

Nintendo Being Pressured by Investors to Bring Games to iPhone Posted: 11 Aug 2011 10:31 AM PDT Nintendo isn't in the best of positions as of late. Wii isn't selling as it once was, and 3DS has failed to catch on in the way the company hoped. Wii U is set to come out next year and a price cut is aiming to remedy the 3DS's sales woes (causing it to be a money loser in the process), but it may not be enough for some. A growing number of investors are frustrated with Nintendo's non-presence on iPhone, according to a new Bloomberg report. The sale of games on the App Store is big business, and Nintendo continuing to ignore that market isn't being taken to kindly. Some would argue that the model used by Nintendo is outdated; people would rather spend $0.99 on an app than $39.99 on a new game. While the average App Store game might not have the same level of quality as a retail 3DS titles, many are quite good -- and even if they aren't, users can buy another 39 cheap App Store games and potentially get as much, if not more, play time and enjoyment out of them than they would from one 3DS game.

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