According to Nielsen, interest in Android powered phones has increased from 26 percent late in 2010 to 31 percent for the first quarter of 2011. Apple iOS devices, however, saw a slight dip from 33 percent to 30 percent.
Windows Phone demand was flat (from 7 percent to 6 percent) while interest in Nokia Symbian wasn’t high enough to be measured. Demand for Blackberry was down from 13 percent to 11 percent, with roughly 20 percent of consumers unsure of what to get next.
Source: Tech Crunch
Dave Madden has joined Electronic Arts global media sales group as its leader, replacing Elizabeth Harz, who had been SVP of global media sales at Electronic Arts for three years. He will lead ad sales at Electronic Arts various businesses for console, mobile and social games, and will look to make it easier to buy and sell media on the company s plethora of titles.
Madden’s previous experience as 11 years as an executive with WildTangent leading their advertising sales, marketing and business development activities as EVP. WildTangent is responsible for RuneScape, and is a major player for online game ads, recently moving into social game ads.
Source: PaidContent.org {link no longer active}
2K Games have announced that they have commissioned a oil-on-board portrait called Untitled: I’m So Awesome, I Don’t Even Need To Name It to celebrate the upcoming release of Duke Nukem Forever… and the Royal Wedding, they claim. Created by artist Frank Frid, they say the painting took 350 man hours to create and “was painted in a single sitting.”
“As usual, I look awesome,” said Duke of the 35″ x 23″ masterpiece. “I’m clearly the Royal story everyone should be talking about this week.”
Duke Nukem Forever will release June 14, 2011.
Geoff Keighly’s App Store book The Final Hours of Portal 2 includes some interesting tidbits, including the fact that it was originally a prequel set in the 50s that included none of the familiar characters people have come to love, or portals. What’s most fascinating, however, is the revelation of its single-player nature.
“Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game with an isolated single-player experience,” wrote Keighly, relating a comment made by Valve founder Gabe Newell. “What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out.”
Whether this means more cooperative play or a greater focus on multiplayer titles like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 remains to be seen.
Anyone who’s played Portal or its sequel remembers those deadly but cute turrets with their oddly soothing voices. Here’s a small secret showing some of the Turrets showing their harmonization with Turret Wife Serenade.
Zynga has hired John Schappert, who will head up Zynga’s game division. This is a rather major coup for the company, as Schappert was formerly the COO of EA where he helped lead the effort to boost the company’s digital business through games for mobile devices and Facebook.
Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter thinks this might be a step towards an IPO for Zynga. “If Zynga is serious about going public, they need someone who knows how to do it, said Pachter. They just grabbed a guy to give them what they were missing — public management experience.
Source: Reuters {link no longer active}
Sony has officially revealed that sometime between April 17 and April 19, 2011, PSN and Qriocity service user account information was stolen by an unauthorized intruder into the network. They confirmed that is the reason the services were shut down.
“We are currently working to send a similar message to the one below via email to all of our registered account holders regarding a compromise of personal information as a result of an illegal intrusion on our systems,” said Patrick Seybold, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media. “These malicious actions have also had an impact on your ability to enjoy the services provided by PlayStation Network and Qriocity including online gaming and online access to music, movies, sports and TV shows.”
“We have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week”, he added.
As for why nearly a week took place between this revelation and the shut down of the network, Seybold explained, “There’s a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers’ data being compromised. We learned there was an intrusion April 19 and subsequently shut the services down.”
We then brought in outside experts to help us learn how the intrusion occurred and to conduct an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the incident, he added. “It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday [Monday, April 25] to understand the scope of the breach. We then shared that information with our consumers and announced it publicly this afternoon.”
Source: PlayStation Blog
Friendster was one of the top pioneering social network sites on the planet, but it’s fallen on tough times since launching in 2002. Now the site is recommending options for users to export profile information {link no longer active}, like photos, blogs, comments and groups uploaded or created by its users because they are deleting it all on May 31.
“Our improved site is designed to create new profiles that allow you to connect differently with people and do things differently than other networking sites,” says the site. “Basically, the new site will complement your existing online presence in other social networking sites.”
Malaysian payments company MOL Global acquired Friendster at the end of 2009. Their plan for the site seems seems to be a greater focus on games and a look and feel specifically designed to appeal to the Asian market.
Ganesh Kumar Bangah CEO of MOL Global/Friendster recently declared that social media sites are being increasingly overshadowed by Facebook. Because of that, Friendster will leverage be repositioned as a social entertainment site for people to play games and music, and that it will leverage Facebook Connect.
Source: Tech Crunch
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has announced that they are making a new item available to Free Realms players celebrate the start of the NBA playoffs. Users can pick up jerseys from all 30 NBA teams as part of the promotion.
The NBA Jersey’s are available for download PC players only for 50 Station Cash. The jerseys include the league’s biggest stars like Chicago’s Derrick Rose, Miami’s Lebron James, and L.A.’s Kobe Bryant.
Find out more at FreeRealms.com. {link no longer active}
Infamous 2 has a beta right now for its level creation tools, and a closer look at some of the environments shows developer Sucker Punch lampooning other game franchises. The ribbing also includes a couple of Sony game franchises.
Call of Booty – Call of Duty
From Croatia With Uncharted Love – Mix of From Russia With Love and Uncharted
Assassin’s Need (Love Too) – Assassin’s Creed
Hey, Low Reach – Halo Reach
No Need For Speed – Need For Speed
Epic Hickey – Epic Mickey
Little Big Unit – LittleBigPlanet
Latch It And Skank – Ratchet & Clank
Sly – Sly Cooper
Source: iGo Gaming Blog
