Xbox Is Moving To A Broader Audience, Says Microsoft

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Kinect Sports won the Best Family Game award at this year’s BAFTA’s. With this win, and four other Kinect titles nominated, Microsoft U.K.’s GM for retail, sales and marketing Neil Thompson said this signals a shifting audience for Xbox.

With Kinect Sports winning Best Family Game, you could argue Xbox is moving to a broader audience in terms of its market appeal, said Thompson. And as the install base grows, more publishers will seek success because the range of consumers we re attracting to the platform is becoming more diverse every day. I think people will see that success and love it.

We re constantly looking at what we re doing as a platform, he added. I think people are excited about Kinect, that s what we re focusing on and that s what you re going to see us really deliver on as we go through this calendar year, both in terms of what we re doing with that platform and the different types of gaming experiences that we re bringing to the market.

Source: MCV

Resident Evil Returns To Raccoon City

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Capcom has confirmed ongoing rumors that a new Resident Evil title is under development at Slant 6 Games, veterans of Sony’s SOCOM series. The game will be a squad based shooter, described as a re-imagining of the events between Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, where Umbrella Security Services soldiers look to cover up the outbreak in Raccoon City, killing zombies, survivors and U.S. special forces.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will have co-op for up to four players and multiplayer online modes. Familiar characters like Leon Kennedy will return.

Capcom also announced that the 3DS title Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D will include a free demo of Resident Evil Revelations.

IPhone Developer Talks Difficulty In AAA Games

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Ben Murch, who worked on Burnout Paradise and Bodycount, is familiar with the AAA development process and wasn’t fond of it. He help found Rodeo Games to make iPhone games and he revealed the reason why he chose a small studio.

“It’s down to a lot of people wanting more creativity in the games they’re making,” said Murch. “When I was working at Criterion it felt like it was a great big team, and I wanted to have more in the decision-making. On Burnout it felt a lot more like you were a cog in the machine. There were the big guys at the top and they were making the decisions. To be fair, that’s absolutely fine, because when you go to work and you’re an artist, you can’t really expect to be making calls on design and those sorts of elements. Otherwise it would just be an absolute mess. So you need people to just go to work and do their jobs.

“Whereas during Bodycount, we were all getting into the . . . We feel like we’ve got something more to add here. Almost like, why aren’t we running the show Which is a bit of an egotistical thing to say, he said. “Quitting then starting up this, there’s definitely an element of just having all the power in your hands and being able to do whatever you like and not having to run through a million meetings to make a decision on something.”

As for why Rodeo ended up targeting the App Store instead of Xbox Live Arcade, he said, “Doing things like the Xbox Live Arcade stuff never seemed like something we’d be able to go into and make a good living for ourselves,” he explained. “It’s a hard submission process, and it’s hard just getting your game into the queue. We looked at that a couple of years ago, and it seemed almost impossible to make any headway into that kind of market, whereas all the Apple stuff is ultra developer friendly.”

Source: Eurogamer

Sucker Punch: Feudal Warriors

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The fourth and final animation dedicated to Sucker Punch details the background of the massive samurai warriors Baby Doll must face. These warriors have been infused with demonic power, making them unbeatable until now.

 

3DS Will Reach All Audiences, Says Ubisoft

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Console launches are famously dominated by the most hardcore gamers. Still, Ubisoft believes that the 3DS will reach a larger, mainstream audience and there advertising scheme reflects that.

“Instinctively, it s easy to assume that the hardcore gamer will be the early adopter to new hardware, and inevitably this will be the case to some extent,” said Murray Pannell, U.K. marketing manager of Ubisoft. “But when you consider that millions of consumers have already bought into the DS console family, it s not difficult to believe that the broader audiences will come quickly to the new 3DS. As such, our PR and marketing approach will reflect the fact that we need to cater for all audiences both core and mainstream.”

“There is always an expectation that first party will spend large, but in the case of 3DS I genuinely believe that Nintendo will be focusing on ensuring that the overall 3DS platform is a success,” he added. “So assuming that does happen, then it makes the job of attaching more of our games to the install base so much easier.”

Source: MCV

Apple’s IAd Application Has Rocky Start

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Apple has generally had the golden touch for the last decade, establishing industry trends with the iPhone, iPod, iTunes and iPad. Their in app iAds business, however, has failed to take off the ground much yet.

While Apple has dropped their minimum asking price from $1 million to $500,000, Apple remains fairly inflexible in their negotiating. Other ad companies are already offering ways for brands to place ads directly on apps at a cheaper price, having a level of device marketing that iAds just doesn’t offer.

Source: AdWeek

Zynga Seeks Tax Breaks

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Zynga has announced that they are looking to extract tax breaks from the city of San Francisco. They want a deal similar to what the city offered Twitter to remain in the area; they say they will consider moving their HQ otherwise.

We are looking at a variety of options to grow the company in the Bay Area, and as part of that, we are in serious discussions with the city, a Zynga spokesman said in a statement. It would be premature to comment on those conversations at this time. We are encouraged that the city is engaging with us on this issue.

Source: MarketWatch