Zynga announced recently that Dave Wehner will be the new CFO. He is the former managing director at Allen & Co. and will be replacing Mark Vranesh, who becomes Zynga s chief accounting officer.
Sources close to the matter indicate that this move does not signal an imminent IPO, but may lead to more acquisitions on the horizon. Zynga is estimated to be worth something in the realm of four to five billion dollars.
Source: VentureBeat {link no longer active}
Inception continued its box office reign this weekend, having taken first place in the domestic box office with a total of $27.5 million. In just 17 days since opening, the Christopher Nolan film has taken in $193.3 million in the U.S. for a $363.3 million worldwide total.
Meanwhile, Dinner for Schmucks premiered to second place with $23.3 million, followed by Salt ($19.3 million) and Despicable Me ($15.5 million) in third and fourth place. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore took in nearly half of what its predecessor did on its opening weekend with $12.5 million, only good enough for fifth-place.
Source: MTV
Halo: Reach will be a long term hit mostly for its multiplayer, but there are plenty of people who are interested in it for its story. Here in this trailer, we see some glimpses of the story campaign and how much the aesthetics have been affected by Call of Duty.
One can’t spite Realtime Worlds for ambition in their new Project MyWorld. They’re looking to recreate the whole world in 3D and have it be some sort of real life recreation.
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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been flitting between action movies and family affairs since his movie career began. After going WAY into the the latter category with The Tooth Fairy, the needle is shifting back towards action in an uncompromising way with Faster.
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Shooters are popular over in China, but some brands are less well known over there than over here. Call of Duty also seems like a natural candidate to turn into a subscription based service, given its popularity over in the West.
Therein lies the rub for Activision, since it already has a partnership with Chinese company NetEase. Bringing out an MMO with the Call of Duty label in China could be just the combination needed to launch the brand over in the Asian Pacific region.
“We expect the Company could extend their relationship with Activision Blizzard, by establishing an additional license to operate Call of Duty Online in China and Blizzard’s unannounced MMO, which will likely leverage their battle.net platform. The eventuality of COD in China could bring an additional +$50 to +$100 million in sales and +$0.15 to +$0.30 in EPS in its first year of operation,” wrote Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey. “We believe the regulatory authorities will approve the last World of Warcraft expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King, potentially driving active paying accounts to over +10 million.”
Hickey also noted that the Chinese market still has quite a bit of room to grow. “Despite the rapid growth of the online game market in China, now roughly $4 billion, it s only 40 percent the size of the U.S. video game software market and less than 20 percent of the total U.S. game market; suggesting additional room for meaningful expansion.
Source: IndustryGamers {link no longer active}
Warner Bros. has unveiled the first movie posters for Green Lantern. They’ll connect with Green Lantern fans quite readily, since they contain parts of the Lantern Corps oath and reveal Mark Strong as Hal Jordan’s arch-enemy Sinestro and also give a sneak peak at Peter Sarsgaard as the telepath Hector Hammond, who seems to be under the influence of Parallax.
Expect to see these images, split in quarters.
While the iPad has opened up the audience to tablet computers, it is also a bit pricey. The answer to that may be GenTouch78, which in some places is retailing for as low as $149.99.
The 7-inch tablet by Augen runs using the Android operating system. Costing less than most computers, laptops, and even other smartphones and tablets, it could fill a niche in the marketplace, which could make up for its plastic touchscreen and less intuitive interface.
Source: CNN
Recently, fan site MundoRare closed down after Rare declined their offer of a fully paid documentary about their 25 years of history. Rare has issued a statement over the closing, saying nothing of the circumstance.
“Everyone at Rare was very sorry to hear that MundoRare would be closing,” read a statement from Rare. “We’ve appreciated all their support and work over the years. We wish everyone involved with the site all the very best for the future.”
While they easily had the chance to go tit-for-tat in this affair, it was probably for the best on the PR side that they issued something more clinical.
Source: Eurogamer
There was initially some pushback over the price offered for Kinect ($149.99 or 129.99 British pounds). However, U.K. retailers are saying they’re getting great pre-orders for the device.
One large chain is apparently hoping that stores can get 10 pre-orders a day, and that they expect to have a half million in the pipe by launch. They are now saying that the price tag is reflective of the product s playability and appeal to a wide range of customers.
“The feedback we’ve had so far from our customers is that they feel the price is appropriate to the product,” described Grainger Games sales director Phil Moore. “We have taken a large number of deposits for Kinect already and it is set to become our biggest pre-order to date. This tells us the device s appeal has not been affected by the price point.”
“Based on our orders thus far, customers are clearly excited by this offering and price and quite rightly so,” added The Hut Group’s head of business development Sarah Jasper.
“Retailers are confident that cynics will be won over the minute they experience Kinect in person. Kinect is a fantastic piece of technology and we believe that once people actually try it for themselves, they will understand the full scope and value of what it offers them,” said Game Group’s U.K. MD Martyn Gibbs.
Source: MCV
