Nintendo Considering Reissue Of Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary

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Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary released on December 12 and has mostly sold out at retail. While the release, with four classic Mario games, a soundtrack CD and a booklet, was supposed to be limited edition, Nintendo is considering a reprint.

We are gratified by the consumer response to this limited edition product, which we created to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. game on NES, said Nintendo of America PR director Marc Franklin. Because of the strong response, we are exploring the option of bringing this item back at a later date. Until that decision is made, consumers should check with retailers, as supplies will vary by store.

Source: Wired

EA: Digital Business Bigger Than Packaged Goods In 2011

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Digital is definitely coming on strong in the gaming industry, and it’s even become the major part of publishers that have traditionally focused on retail, like EA. In fact, EA CEO John Riccitiello sees 2011 as a pivotal year for digital vs. retail goods.

“At the end of [2011], the digital business is bigger than the packaged goods business, full stop. No questions in my mind. Then, you know, I think that we’ll find ways to even sell our packaged goods content in chunks and in pieces and subscriptions and micro-transactions,” he told IndustryGamers in a recent interview. “Look at what I Warner and Turbine did with Lord of the Rings Online. While I still think the majority of their revenue is from people giving them the premium subscription for fifteen dollars a month, there’s a lot of people coming in and they upgrade. I’m not sure that fifteen dollars deal is that great a deal, but that s a separate issue. I guess to best answer your question, I think these business models are going to find their own feet. We’re very careful about making sure we price appropriately for platform and also for the intellectual property.”

“Our highest ARPU (average revenue per user) are free-to-play games among paying users, noted Riccitiello. You think about that and say, ‘how can a free game be the game they pay the most for ‘ We have people who are giving us $5,000 in a month to play FIFA Ultimate Team. And it s free. Dirty little secret.”

“I actually don t think that there s a lot of mileage in trying to decide exactly how consumers want to buy their entertainment content, he mused. They may want to buy it on an iPad; they may want to get it through the social network, they may want to pay for it through micro-transactions and monetizing, or they may want to pay for it all at once. They may rather pay a subscription price in order to count on what their costs are going to be, but they may want to pay for it all at once and never have to pay for it again. We’re in all of those businesses and I think the way this is going to work is that the models that the consumers like the most are going to grow the most.

Source: IndustryGamers

Interactive Video Ads Predicted To Be Big In 2011

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Branded video is and will continue to be an important part of online marketing campaigns. YouTube listed a few of the biggest branded videos of the past year and Jeremy Scott predicted some major trends from them.

The big theme is interactivity. I think you’re going to see more creative thinking with regards to letting audiences interact with ads in 2011, wrote Scott. Part of the reason is that the brand can get much more free publicity leverage out of it–interactive YouTube ads are still new enough to generate some media attention, which helps with gaining views as well. But interactivity is also a rising trend because audiences are more engaged to a piece of content when they are able to impact it . . . dictate it . . . or control it. Two of YouTube’s six highlighted branded video ads featured interactivity with the viewer or with the video environment, but there were plenty of other great videos that did the same thing in 2010 but didn’t make this list–Google’s Chrome Fastball ad or Stallone’s fake interview for The Expendables, or even Google’s recent Nexus S commercial. And don’t forget that, while Old Spice Guy’s original commercials were widely enjoyed, they didn’t become legendary until the day the Old Spice Guy himself took to the Internet to create personalized videos, many of which were responses to comments, Tweets, and articles people were writing online. It really was the ultimate interactive ad campaign if you think about it.

Almost all of the most successful ads incorporated some form of humor, showing that laughts are a great way to get attention. It seems likely that there will be more experiments and failures, but higher amounts of innovation.

Brands drive the video industry, concludes Scott. They have the money, time, and creative resources to experiment and fail. They blaze the trail for the rest of us, and can help push online video to ridiculously entertaining new heights. What the best brands do with online video in 2011 is likely what we-the-people will be doing in 2012.

Source: Reelseo.com

Wahlberg Confirms Role In Uncharted Movie

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Recently, rumors have been flying that Mark Wahlberg had not been cast as Nathan Drake and that the Uncharted movie wasn’t set to even begin filming soon. That’s not the way Wahlberg tells it, though.

David O Russell is writing right now and hopes to direct, Wahlberg says. It s myself, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro. [They re] hopefully going to shoot it in the Summer time.

Source: Moviehole

World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm Breaks Records With 4.7 Million Sold

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Blizzard Entertainment has announced that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has sold over 4.7 million copies during its first month of release. Just like the first day sales of 3.3 million copies, this represents a record for PC sales.

“We created thousands of new quests, introduced new lands to explore, and extensively revamped the game world for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, making it our biggest and most ambitious expansion yet,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’ve been floored by the community’s response so far, and we’d like to thank them for their continued passion and support for World of Warcraft, and for helping Cataclysm reach this incredible milestone.”

AT&T Says Verizon IPhone Will Be ‘Slow’

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The Verizon iPhone hasn’t released yet, but AT&T is already talking trash about the device.  Rumors are also flying that Verizon will unleash an unlimited data plan.

“The iPhone is built for speed, but that’s not what you get with a CDMA phone, said Larry Solomon, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications for AT&T. I’m not sure iPhone users are ready for life in the slow lane.

Source: Business Insider

Microsoft Will Support Kinect On PC

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Kinect right now is just for the Xbox 360, but numerous knock-offs have already appeared for the PC. Microsoft sees the potential for the hand free device on PC as well, and doesn’t want competitors to get too far ahead in that space.

“We’ll support that in a formal way, in the right time, and when we’ve got an announcement to make we’ll make it, said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Source: BBC

Bayonetta Creator: ‘Women Are Scary’

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There’s a scene in Bayonetta which is more naughty than the rest, with an angel named Joy striking a dirty pose in a contest with our titular heroine. According to Platinum Games director Hideki Kamiya, it was his favorite scene in the game and he gave some interesting reasoning.

“When people ask me where the inspiration for the scenes in Bayonetta came from, all I can say is ‘from my head’,” he explained. “When people ask me what my favorite scene is, all I can say is ‘all of them’ . . . Well, if I had to pick one, I would say it is the scene where Joy first appears in the game, with Bayonetta and her impostor getting into a pose battle.

“That was my way of expressing the feminine notion that, to one woman, all other women are enemies. Even women walking by each other will check out what the other is wearing, and might smolder a bit with antagonism. Women are scary.”

Source: CVG

Konami Takes Facebook Users To Mall

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Konami Digital Entertainment has announced that they are launching a new Facebook game focused on building a shopping mall. Called Viva! Mall, it focuses on generating virtual revenue via shopper interaction, based around the player’s own taste and style.

“Konami has always been at the forefront of interactive entertainment,” said Shinji Hirano, President of Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. “With the release of Frogger and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Challenge already gaining traction among the Facebook community, we felt like we were ready to make another contribution to the social networking site with the release of Viva! Mall. This title is our first major attempt in bringing a full featured Facebook game to market and consumers can expect to hear more announcements on our next Facebook game soon.”

Viva! Mall will release on January 14, 2010.

Xbox Live Argued To Be Key Advertised Platform

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Xbox Live has over 25 million users worldwide averaging over 30 hours per month on the service, with a 157 percent increase in the time spent watching movies and television on Xbox 360 in the past year and 42 percent of Gold members in the U.S. watching an average of an hour of television and movies on the service every day. BRDC Continental’s research director Max Willey points to these figures as part of the reason why the platform is important for advertisers.

The intuitive nature of Xbox Live navigation (those nice big icons on the dashboard) is increasingly being used to place targeted, interactive advertising, said Willey. The advertising, whilst noticeable, is relatively unobtrusive to those who choose not to interact, but its key strength is the extent to which it rewards users who do click through, giving them a mix of immersive content and virtual freebies such as downloadable gamer pictures, themes, streamed video and even branded games.

It’s positive for both the consumer and the brand if they can interact with some feature in a positive fashion. In a study of a recent Xbox Live ad campaign, it led to a 150 percent increase from pre to post exposure on spontaneous recall of the brand advertised.

It is a fair assumption that Xbox Live users – who fit the digital consumer profile (being significantly more likely to have Virgin or Sky) – are less likely to be consuming other media whilst navigating the XBL menu, noted Willey. The service is predominantly a gateway to online gaming, and any gamer will tell you it’s virtually impossible to do anything else whilst gaming, particularly online, where pausing a ‘deathmatch’ puts you at an enormous disadvantage! This gives Xbox Live advertising an edge over other media.

Given the attractiveness of the audience, the positive impact of advertising on users of Xbox LIVE, and the unique potential of the platform for giving users an immersive, rewarding brand experience, advertising on Xbox Live looks set to grow, concluded Willey.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz