True Blood Season 3 Premiere Feasts On Millions

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It seems HBO’s myriad methods for promoting True Blood‘s third season have worked. Reports are that the season premiere of the show was over 5 million viewers and the replay of the premiere later Sunday night had more than 1 million for a Sunday night total of 6.4 million viewers, blowing the season two premiere with 3.7 million viewers out of the water.

True Blood beat the Sunday lineups of networks Fox and NBC, which is impressive for a pay-cable network. The show doubled its monthly viewership from 2 million per episode in season one to 4 million in season 2, and there could be another noticeable jump for HBO’s biggest series in season 3.

Source: Buddy TV

Zynga Reportedly Gets $147 Million From Softbank

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Insiders are saying that Zynga has received an investment of $147 million. This money reportedly comes from Softbank Corp.

Softbank and Zynga have discused joint distribution of various games through Softbank’s mobile-phone service in Japan and other countries. The agreement still hasn’t been finalized and Zynga spokeswoman Dani Dudeck and Softbank spokesman Takeaki Nukii declined to comment.

Source: Businessweek  {link no longer active}

Force Unleashed II: Betrayal

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To some, the Force Unleashed titles present a problem, as they deal with a piece of Star Wars canon in way that doesn’t totally click with the movies. To others, they don’t care because of the displays of badassery using the Force such as what’s shown in the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II video below.

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ESPN Coming To Xbox Live

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Microsoft and ESPN have struck an exclusive deal that will deliver 3,500 sports events over the next year, with a good majority of them being presented in HD.

The E3 presentation showcased several sporting events displayed with the ability to use a DVR type setup. The service will cater to sports fans with polls, live events, trivia and what seemed to be a fan bar at the base of the screen during the demonstration of the service.

The service will be available to all Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

T-Mobile Getting iPhone?

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No Verizon support for iPhone 4 was announced, and that’s disappointed a lot of people. Interestingly, though, Shawn Wu at Kaufman Bros. released a report speculating that a non-AT&T iPhone is “closer to reality than ever [and] could happen as early as this fall.”

Talking to retailers around the country, Wu surmised that the AT&T monopoly on Apple products would soon end. The kicker is that it’s not Verizon, but T-Mobile.

“Interestingly, both the new iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS support 3G at the 2100 MHz frequency and, from our understanding, the technical hurdle to support T-Mobile is minor compared to supporting CDMA technology at VZ and Sprint,” Wu wrote.

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Microsoft Kinects

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The new Kinect was a major focus at the Microsoft Press Conference, and several big announcements for the new interactive controller have come to light. Seeking greater immersion, they showed off demonstrations of speech recognition and uncanny user tracking.

New features include a new sub-dashboard specifically set up for the Kinect. With Kinect Video, interactive Zune and other features, the Kinect showcased a wide variety of games and features targeted towards the social audience. Also mentioned was the ability for the Kinect to stream effortlessly with the Windows Live voice chat features.

Several games showcased included Kinect Sports, Kinectimals, Kinect Joyride and Kinect Adventures. All of these games will utilize account avatars, and displayed a side that rivals the Wii’s softer image.

Several publishers and developers have already pledged support for the motion platform, with 15 titles confirmed for launch. Ubisoft is looking at releasing a fitness title in Your Shape, Harmonix has now moved on to dancing with Dance Central, and Turn 10 Studios has unveiled a Kinect version of Forza Motorsport. Star Wars fans will be pleased with an as of yet named game that will allow users interactivity with the Lightsaber as never before (the latter two aren’t planned for release until 2011).

Kinect will launch on November 4. There’s still no word on pricing or any bundles with Xbox 360 hardware.

Ninja Gaiden Creator Making Devil’s Third

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Tomonobu Itagaki has taken the wrapping off his next video game project. THQ and Vahalla have announced Devil’s Third, a super-violent new third-person shooter for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Devil s Third looks to build on the work Itagaki started with Ninja Gaiden by adding another component: shooting.

The ex-Team Ninja staffers are creating a breakthrough for the shooting genre, according to Itagaki. Valhalla’s vision is to craft a shooter with a direct feeling of your opponent s demise.

“In looking at real combat, close combat has a more visceral bloody feel to it. I want to get more of that close combat feel in [Devil’s Third],” Itagaki said to in a recent interview. “It’s not taking a hack and slash game and tacking on some ranged weapon combat. We feel we have a lot to learn as we make this, but we also feel confident in our experience and the fundamental elements of head-to-head competition in [our previous] games.”

THQ Executive Vice President Danny Bilson recalls the first time he witnessed the game’s multiplayer mode. “We green-lit the same day,” Bilson said. “Within 10 minutes of meeting Itagaki-san, I wanted to work with him. There was no hesitation at all. It was all about, how do we make a deal and how soon do we make a deal?”

Bilson hopes to make Devil’s Third a part of THQ s transmedia initiative. “As we expose some of the fiction, it all becomes clear,” Bilson says. “[The title Devil’s Third] absolutely came out of the game, there’s a character in the game that has a relationship to the music, said Bilson, referring to classical’s music’s Diabolus in Muisca , the dissonance of tritones.

Itagaki was clear that he had not forgotten his fans. “A lot of fans probably wanted me to continue making fighting games. So, sorry about that to anyone who’s disappointed,” he said. “For people who are fans of Ninja Gaiden, this is going to be a different type of game. Quite different. Even though the genre is new, it’s the same core group making it. Think of the main elements animation, maneuverability, speed, violence, beautiful women all the core game elements, it’s all the same group of guys.”

Source: Kotaku

Starbucks Getting Free Wi-Fi

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Starbucks today announced that they will focus more on embracing social and digital media. As such, the company will be launching one-click, free Wi-Fi through AT&T in all U.S. company operated stores on July 1.

There will also be a new online customer experience called the Starbucks Digital Network. This will grant customers access to new content and access to paid content from paid sites.