PS3 DLC From Edge/Schick Products

Sony today announced that they have teamed up with Edge and Schick for a new way to promote their games. Special edition Edge Shave Gel and Schick Quatro products featuring Killzone 3, Gran Turismo 5 and InFamous 2 will be shipping to stores soon.

Clean yourself up, get DLC.

Each of these custom products will have a code that can be entered at edgeshave.com/ps3. It will give access to a Retro Map Pack or three Unlock Points in Killzone 3, a customized Chevy Camaro SS “Edge Special” for Gran Turismo 5, and a “Sniper Blast” in-game power for InFamous 2.

Source: PlayStation.Blog

Facebook Pushes New Game Discovery

Facebook is adding a Discover New Games sidebar module that shows off what games users are playing. It is designed to be a way to grow games outside of developer promotion and revive some of the virality lost by the current set up of Facebook.

The module displays the names and faces of the viewer s friends who play a game the viewer has yet to install. The name of the game, its thumbnail icon, and a ‘Play Now’ link appear below the facepile. When users see this implicit social recommendation by friends, they assume their must be some entertainment value in the displayed game, and may choose to click and install it.

Source: Inside Facebook

Gears Of War Producer Laments Changing Betas

Game betas used to be a means by which the final kinks and balancing were worked out in the months leading up to a game’s release. However, with beta participation now guaranteed by various pre-order bonuses, they’ve become more promotional of the final product than a tool for the development process.

“For me I think it has to do with people moving from PC to consoles,” said Gears of War executive producer Rod Fergusson. “In PC days people were used to swapping out video cards, putting in their own memory, formatting your own harddrive . . . you were kind of your own tech support so the idea of having an unfinished product to play with and be involved with it was exciting. But when you move to the black box of the console it was sealed, and if you opened it you voided the warranty and so it was much more hands-off.”

“The idea of a console beta that’s an unfinished product is really foreign to that audience and so their expectation is that this is representative of the quality of the game and they have to judge it on this, he added. “It’s really hard to do betas then because you have to make it so polished and so far along that it’s hard to get the feedback you want.”

Source: Strategy Informer

Brink On The Edge With Pre-Order Bonuses

The pre-order deals for the upcoming shooter Brink are out. Game, Play and Amazon will all be getting different offerings in the Doom & Spec Ops Packs, Fallout Pack and Psycho Pack respectively.

The Doom Pack includes unique pieces of Doom game themed equipment and the Spec Ops Pack has combat equipment. The Fallout Pack has Fallout: New Vegas themed outfits and the Psycho Pack has has a set of unique combat equipment. All of the sets come with a body tattoo of some sort.

Source: Eurogamer

Fight Night Champion: Mike Tyson Talks Troubled Past

EA Sports has run some interviews with Joe Frazier, Tommy Morrison and Bernard Hopkins . . . but the one with Iron Mike Tyson is definitely the most notable. Coming on the heels of the Animal Planet series Taking on Tyson, the Baddest Man on the Planet spills on how he got into boxing, his troubling upbringing, and prison.

Batman: Arkham City Is No Place For A Hero

If this trailer merely had Batman zipping around and beating up criminals, it would probably be enough. However, with some slick editing and the song Short Change Hero by The Heavy, we have one of the best trailers of the year so far.

JamParty: Remixed Gets Facebook Contest

Zivix has announced a new Facebook contest for JamParty: Remixed. Those that Like the game on Facebook and enter their email address will be entered to win a copy of the game and a t-shirt.

The Facebook page also includes options to create a profile to host and share MP3s of your favorite music with people. To find out more, visit their official Facebook page at facebook.com/JamParty.

Ubisoft Forges Rocksmith

Ubisoft has announced that it is entering the sphere of guitar games with Rocksmith. It is said they’re in discussions with Gibson to do a combo package with a real guitar for $200.

The game will be all about learning to play a real guitar, and won’t be like the discontinued Guitar Hero. “Guitar Hero is a party game. Rocksmith is a music experience,” said Ubisoft senior VP marketing Tony Key. “The dream of playing guitar compared to how many follow through — there’s a big gap. We will create a new generation of guitar players.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Display Ads Doing Their Worth For Google?

Google acquired ad company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, by far its biggest ever acquisition. They were hoping to take up a great deal of the display ad market online and their stock soared as a result to $595.

Since then its stock hasn’t moved much, closing at $592 on Mar. 9. Google’s ad practices have angered privacy advocates and attracted the attention of antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Europe, writes Brad Stone. The competition has changed a lot, too. Back then Yahoo! was the biggest player in the fragmented market for display ad dollars; now Microsoft is a serious contender. Facebook has become a Mad Ave-friendly colossus worth $75 billion by some estimates, and Twitter is poised to grab a larger share of marketing budgets. Even Apple has gotten into the display advertising game with its iAd program for mobile devices.

Google still declares it one of their best acquisitions ever, and that it brings in $2.5 billion annually, reaches 80 percent of all Internet users and that 99 percent of its 1,000 largest advertisers run display spots as well as text-based search ads. Of course, many analysts observe that roughly half of that income for display ads comes in from YouTube, and would likely be producing the income it is without DoubleClick.

There is also a division that deals with monitoring how people use the Internet that comes from DoubleClick that Google is now using. The acquisition has led to more outcry over Internet privacy, though Google says most users don’t opt out of tracking and that it makes for a more relevant, better experience for all.

The biggest threat to Google’s display ambitions may be Facebook, notes Stone. The social network will bring in revenue of around $4 billion in 2011, according to research firm eMarketer, almost entirely from the small, ignorable display ads it runs on its members’ pages. Those ads are sold by Facebook itself, which doesn’t allow Google into its rapidly growing universe of over 500 million members.

Susan Wojcicki, the Google senior vice-president who spearheaded the original DoubleClick acquisition, doesn’t seem to be worried, saying, “Facebook will definitely do interesting things and has an interesting perspective. But the Web is a really big place.”

Source: Business Week