MMO and SEO News from Gameforumer.com |
- Nintendo Download: Wario Edition
- Nintendo announces one of their most barren schedules yet
- Jade Raymond: controllers too complex to be mainstream
- AMD Reportedly Prepping Three Athlon II X4 CPUs For Socket FM2
- Gigabit Google Fiber Plans Unveiled, Include Traditional TV and a Free Internet Option
- A Rough Morning For The Net: Twitter, Google Talk and Windows Azure All Suffer Service Outages
- Valve Hedging Bets on Linux to Avoid Windows 8 "Catastrophe"
- Zynga's Cash Crops Appear to be Drying Up, Investors Head to Greener Pastures
- Asus Jumps on 802.11ac Bandwagon, Launches RT-AC66U 5G Wi-Fi Router
- Samsung Skips Ahead of Apple with Over 52 Million Smartphone Shipments
| Nintendo Download: Wario Edition Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT The Wario series is probably one of the most critically acclaimed franchises of all time. Pretty much all of his games are widely loved, from Wario's Woods all the way up to his offbeat WarioWare games. Today, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, the first ever playable Wario game, makes its way to the 3DS Virtual Console for $3.99. In addition to the aforementioned gem, you'll also be able to nab Miyamoto's Mole Mania (3DS VC, $2.99), Planet Crashers (eShop, $9.99), Dot Runner: Complete Edition (eShop, $4.99), Decathlon 2012 (DSi, 500 Points), and World Heroes Perfect (Wii VC, 900 Points). The deal of the week is the fan favorite Colors! 3D (eShop, $3.99 sale price). Overall this is one of the best eShop weeks to date. Renegade Kid's Planet Crashers is a highly anticipated marquee title for 3DS owners, Wario Land is one of the best Nintendo platformers of all time, and one of Miyamoto's treasured classics is getting some extra exposure. Not bad!  |
| Nintendo announces one of their most barren schedules yet Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT Nintendo of America has just released their first party US release schedule for everything but the Wii U (DS, 3DS, and Wii). Although the games themselves are probably going to be released to critical acclaim and high sales (Kirby's Dream Collection is already doing very well in Japan), many of them don't have any actual release dates, or even targets. The Wii has a whopping one first party US release, seemingly before it dies: Kirby's Dream Collection. The DS has two, but they're essentially the same game, in Pokemon Black and White 2. The 3DS is by far their strongest US presence, but again, there is only one actual hard release date: August 19th for New Super Mario Brothers 2. Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem, and Smash Bros. are all reconfirmed for the 3DS, none of them have even have release windows at the current time. Of course, in light of this paltry schedule, make sure you don't discount the Wii U, which hasn't officially revealed any release dates at all. Provided you're willing to drop a yet-to-be-revealed sum of money on it, you should be good to go in terms of Nintendo love this Holiday season. Nintendo Of America Announces A Rough Release Schedule [My Nintendo News]
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| Jade Raymond: controllers too complex to be mainstream Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT The general crapness of Kinect games coupled with Nintendo's multiple iterations of "classic" Wii/Wii U controllers, indicate that videogames and buttons are here to stay. In fact, the motion fad seems to have died down a ton from a few years ago. Not for Jade Raymond, however. She thinks we need to ditch the physical input in order to go mainstream. "I still think one of the huge barriers is the controller, and even people who played games when it used to be just one big red button and a D-pad can't play games now," the Ubisoft producer patronizingly told OXM. "You have to master face buttons, triggers and they all do different things. So obviously we're never going to get to that really mass-market place where we're touching a really broad audience with our messages with controllers, so Kinect and other more natural ways to interact with games are incredibly important. I think we can go further. "As more of a hardcore gamer I want to see that stuff integrated into hardcore games in a way that makes them better because as fun as all those games are. I don't really play exercise games -- I can't picture myself doing that. I'd love to be able to lean and look round the corner and just integrate more natural motions. The tech for those things isn't quite there, but I hope it will soon." What an inane suggestion. Buttons scare people? Has she seen a television remote? Or a keyboard? I think this assertion that controllers -- still pretty damn humble in the button department compared to some gadgets out there -- are alienating is incredibly presumptuous and inane. Never mind how alienating a total lack of buttons can be -- try playing Steel Battalion ... nothing has ever felt so unintuitive or oppressive. Oh, and you don't get much more mainstream than Madden, FIFA, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto ... none of which use shitty Kinect.  |
| AMD Reportedly Prepping Three Athlon II X4 CPUs For Socket FM2 Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
The website, which is generally very reliable, only got ahold of the basic specs for the chips:
The rest of the details are murky: CPU world doesn't even know when the chips are slated to launch or if they'll be OEM-only or available at retail. The website reports the trio will be based on AMD's Piledriver architecture, but will likely have no integrated GPU functionality.  |
| Gigabit Google Fiber Plans Unveiled, Include Traditional TV and a Free Internet Option Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
Of course, that last package isn't quite no strings attached; freeloaders are limited to 5Mbps up/1Mbps down and they'll have to pay a $300 construction fee to have the fiber wires hooked up to their house, though they can opt to pay the fee in $25 increments over the course of a year. Google waves that fee for premium gigabit subscribers and tosses in 1TB of storage on Google Drive, to boot. The TV offering is intriguing, too: it comes with hundreds of traditional HD channels comprised of the major stations you're used to, on-demand movies, full YouTube and Netflix integration, and a DVR function that can save 2TB worth of TV and up record up to eight different shows simultaneously. Oh, and TV subscribers get a free Nexus 7 to act as a remote and a portable TV screen, though some stations aren't available for streaming to the tablet. Sign me up! Oh, wait: Google Fiber is only available in a small slice of Kansas Cities. Residents in uncovered portions of the cities can "pre-register" for a $10 fee; the neighborhoods that generate the most support by September 9th will be the next ones to receive that delicious gigabit Internet.  |
| A Rough Morning For The Net: Twitter, Google Talk and Windows Azure All Suffer Service Outages Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
It's odd that all three toppled in succession like dominos, but fortunately, none of the disruptions were overly long. A quick glance at Digsby tells me Google Talk is back up and running, and Windows Azure's status dashboard shows green lights and clean sailing around the globe. Twitter's status still says that "Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter. Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue." We haven't run into any issues Tweeting retro-tinged pics of our utilitarian meals, however. How about you? Did the service outages knock you for a loop today?  |
| Valve Hedging Bets on Linux to Avoid Windows 8 "Catastrophe" Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
Newell sat down for a fireside chat at Casual Connect, an annual videogame conference in Seattle. AllThingsD was in attendance and posted some interesting, if unflattering (towards Windows 8) quotes from the head of Valve. "We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It's a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space," Newell explained. "I think we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that's true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality." Newell isn't alone in his assessment. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell wrote a piece for Kotaku earlier in the year in which he called Windows 8 a "schizophrenic" operating system unable to decide if its a tablet or desktop OS, and a "usability nightmare" that puts too much focus on touch. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Zynga's Cash Crops Appear to be Drying Up, Investors Head to Greener Pastures Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
In a conference call with analysts, John Schappert, chief operating officer for Zynga, was critical of changes Facebook made last quarter. "Facebook made a number of changes in the quarter. These changes favored new games. Our users did not remain as engaged and did not come back as often," Shcappert explained, according to The New York Times. That's concerning, but the biggest red flag for investors is the fact that Zynga sharply cut its forecast for its bookings (leftover revenue after paying Facebook) to as low as $1.15 billion, down from a previous projection of $1.47 billion. More details are included in the full report (PDF). Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Asus Jumps on 802.11ac Bandwagon, Launches RT-AC66U 5G Wi-Fi Router Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
The RT-AC66U is a dual-band router with up to 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and up to 1.3Gbps on the 5GHz band. It's purportedly easy to setup and use, yet offers an advanced feature-set with goodies like QoS settings, DLNA support, VPN, and dual USB ports with printer and file server sharing. One of the features Asus talks up is AiCloud, which offers a unified app for iOS and Android devices that transforms the RT-AC66U into a personal cloud server. In addition, Asus' Download Master service lets users download files when their PC is turned off, as well as manage and monitor downloads remotely. Asus didn't say how much the RT-AC66U will cost or when it will ship. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Samsung Skips Ahead of Apple with Over 52 Million Smartphone Shipments Posted: 26 Jul 2012 05:01 AM PDT
Granted Samsung has the benefit of playing in Android's ecosystem, which allows it to pump out several different devices, whereas Apple deals solely with its iPhone line. Regardless of how and why, Samsung finds itself leading the smartphone category, and by a large margin. Samsung's smartphone shipments have been bolstered by its flagship Galaxy S III device, which Juniper Research dubs a "phenomenal success." In the month of June, Samsung sold 10 million Galaxy S III phones, helping to widen the gap in overall smartphone sales with Apple, though the iPhone 5 launch will likely tighten things up. As far as Android competitors go, Juniper Research says they "continue to fall short, with the resources needed to compete with Samsung's marketing push halting HTC's early promise (11.6 million) and Motorola, distracted by the Google acquisition, lacking a strong presence in Western Europe." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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Even with all the talk about new directions like Trinity, 
Google just unveiled 
They say bad things come in threes, and that was definitely true for folks who rely on the Internet for communications and cloud-based data centers today. The woes started this morning when Google Talk went down and stayed down for several hours. Then Microsoft's Windows Azure service went belly up in Europe, followed by some users running into outage issues with Twitter. And without Twitter, how are you going to complain about the other services being down?
You may have heard that Valve is hard at work porting its Steam client to the Linux platform, but it's not because the company has developed a sudden affinity towards the open source space. The real reason is because Valve views Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 release as a "catastrophe" in the making for the PC industry at large, or at least that's the viewpoint held by Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director at Valve.
Shares of Zynga plummeted 40 percent to $3.03 in after market trading after the social game developer reported a net loss for its second quarter ended June 30, 2012. Zynga tried to put a positive spin on the fact that its Q2 revenue of $332 million represents a 19 percent year-over-year increase and that its six months year-to-date revenue of $653 million is a 25 percent year-over-year increase, but the numbers still added up to a $22.8 million net loss for the quarter, and a $108.1 million net loss for the six month period.
It might be awhile before there's an officially certified 802.11ac standard, but in the meantime, companies are ready and willing to forge ahead with router models based on draft specifications, just as we saw in the draft 802.11n days. Asus is one of them, having just announced the launch of its RT-AC66U 5G Wi-Fi router with greater than gigabit wireless speeds on the 5GHz band.
While Samsung and Apple continue to tangle in court over patent infringement claims brought on by the latter, the former spends its spare time shipping smartphones, and a great number of them at that. In the second quarter of 2012, Samsung figures it shipped 52.1 million smartphones, or nearly double that of its closest rival, Apple, which shipped 26 million iPhone devices in the same time period.| You are subscribed to email updates from Home To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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