The Videogame Release List 9/20 – 9/26

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Shack News lists this week s release slate for PC, 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii and DS. They say you can measure the temperature outdoors by the number of chirps a cricket makes. The same can be said in fall and early winter by the number of good games that publishers release. Plenty of reasons to start staying indoors this week with Halo 3: ODST, Aion for PC, Katamari Forever for PS3 and the usual eclectic variety for Nintendo systems.
Check out this week s list at Shack News.

Family Of Marvel Artist Files IP Claims On Popular Franchises

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Right on the heels of Disney’s acquisition, the children of Marvel artist and character creator Jack Kirby have filed claims for ownership rights to some of Marvel s hottest franchises. The IP at issue is X-Men, Hulk, Fantastic Four and Thor, a list that s collectively a fantastic four in its own right. The claim also goes beyond Disney and Marvel, naming Sony Pictures, Universal, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Read the full story at NY Times.
Ben Fritz of LA Times also reports on the story and includes a statement from Disney that the Kirby claim was considered in the acquisition of Marvel. Read his report at LA Times.

Sony Counters BBC Program On PS3 Failures

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Matt Martin at Gamesindustry.biz calls Sony s response to BBC Watchdog highlighting PS3 hardware failures unprecedented. The program put together the segment on PS3 after receiving 155 complaints from viewers on a hardware malfunction called the yellow light of death , where the system shuts down immediately after booting up.

There are a lot of layers to this story, including a programming stunt orchestrated by BBC outside Sony s UK headquarters, and an 18-point rebuttal from SCEUK on the claims. Read the full story and SCEUK s response at Gamesindustry.biz.

Capcom Building A Cult Of Resistance For Dark Void

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Capcom’s community site for its upcoming title is no void. On the contrary, it is one robust destination singularly focused on recruiting people to generate buzz for the upcoming title Dark Void. Slick presentation and assets fuel the drive to arm a corps (of hardcore evangelists) to go out and build their own army (of mass evangelists).

Read more and link to the Dark Void site at Kotaku.

Top 10 Social Media Strategies

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Beeline Labs, a marketing innovation firm, recently interviewed marketing and PR executives from major companies such as Best Buy, GE and Cisco on their social media strategies. Firm founder Lois Kelly compiled what she calls the best pieces of advice, which she presents as a top 10 list of strategies used by these major brands for engaging consumers through social media.

Read more at iMedia Connection.

Deloitte Forecasts Holiday Sales Will Remain Flat For Retailers

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Lisa Baertlein reports for Reuters on Deloitte s retail sales forecast for the holidays, which the analyst firm sees weighed down by a host of economic problems plaguing consumers including credit availability. Mentioned in the story, conversely Best Buy revised up its full year forecast to reflect improving sales trends and store traffic.

Read the full report at Reuters.

Games For Windows Update Coming With Windows 7

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Games For Windows revealed enhancements and compatibility with Windows 7. The list of impressive improvements includes a promise of easier game installs, support for 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, support for ratings and parental controls in Windows 7, and better security and stability. All that, and according to the blog PC 2008 game revenue was up 18 percent over 2007.

 

UK Movie Marketing Firm Hires Game Vet, Eyes Game Trailers

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UK movie marketing firm Creative Partnerships has created some big-time spots for big Hollywood blockbusters including Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean and Ratatouille. They say that they’ve been studying the growth of the game industry and its share of the entertainment market. Today, they announced that they’ve pounced. The firm has hired a game marketing vet in an effort to expand its services into games.
Read the story at MCV UK.

What Do You Call A Video Tweet?

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The chief executive of Particle, a company that describes itself as an inventor of products for web and mobile, sees a future where microblogs won’t just tell us what our social network is doing. They’ll show us. His company s new product Robo.to lets microbloggers push 4-second video snippets through Twitter and Facebook. [a]listdaily would like to introduce the phrase I tawt I taw a wideo Tweet to commemorate this seemingly serious leap forward in social networking.

Read more at NY Times.