L.A. Noire Kindle E-Book Featuring Stories From The City’s Dark Past

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Now available via Amazon Whispernet on Amazon.com for the Kindle, Rockstar Games has partnered with Mulholland Books to publish a collection of short fiction expanding the world of the interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire. 1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage reintroducing readers to characters seen in L.A. Noire. Readers will come across not only familiar faces, but familiar cases from the game that take on a new spin to tell the tales of emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and their ill-fated victims. Explore the lives of actresses desperate for the Hollywood spotlight, heroes turned defeated men, and classic Noir villains in original short fiction by Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss. L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories breathes new life into a time-honored American tradition, in an exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere.

World Of Warcraft Subscribers Slip To Three Year Low

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Financial revelations by Activision recently revealed that World of Warcraft currently has 11.4 million subscribers. This number is the lowest for the service since December 2008.

The game’s subscription mark had been hovering around 11.5 million after the release of the game’s second expansion Wrath of the Lich King, reaching the 12 million mark when World of Warcraft: Cataclysm released in December 2010. The dip is likely due to some combination of players having completed most of the new story content and the positive reception to rival MMO Rift.

Source: Kotaku

Sony May Have To Compensate PSN Developers

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With the PSN outage entering its third week, the developers and publishers that rely on the service are feeling the pinch. Q-Games’ Dylan Cuthbert doesn’t know when the service is coming back online, but expects some news soon.

“At the moment I think they are running around patching holes etc., and in a week or two they’ll have something more concrete to say,” said Cuthbert.

When asked about potential compensation for lost revenue to publishers/developers, Cuthbert said, “I have no idea yet what Sony are going to do to help developers such as ourselves but I have a feeling they are thinking about doing something or they will lose developers which of course is pretty bad for them.

Source: IndustryGamers

PSN: No May 31 Restoration Deadline

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Recently, a report from Bloomberg stated that PSN and Qriocity services would be down until perhaps as late as May 31. Those reports are apparently erroneous, and Sony has no deadline they are working with right now.

Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesman Patrick Seybold said that the company is running a series of tests with outside parties to ensure PSN’s security. It is believed that some services could be restored in a rolling fashion as May continues.

Source: VentureBeat

Alan Wake Sees More Content; Not Sequel Or DLC

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Reports have been flying that Remedy Entertainment is working on Alan Wake 2, which will be revealed at E3 and might feature Kinect support. While Remedy head of franchise development Oskari Hakkinen did not confirm all that, he did confirm more work on the franchise.

“Fans of the franchise will be excited to learn that yes, more Wake is coming! But to be absolutely certain to avoid confusion, this next Wake installment will not be Alan Wake 2. And neither will it be DLC,” said Hakkinen. “The rest we’re saving for our official announcement when we’ll actually show you.

It’s something that’ll definitely give more to the Wake fans out there, but just as importantly, this installment will also give an opportunity for players who aren’t familiar with the franchise to finally jump on board,” he added. “We can’t wait to show you more, bear with us. Release dates, platforms and pricing are unconfirmed as of yet, but Fall 2011 is probably a good guess.”

Source: Eurogamer

Uncharted Crew Talks Movie

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Director David O. Russell is looking to tackle the Uncharted franchise in a movie with Mark Wahlberg as Nathan Drake. While some of the ideas around the movie fill many gamers with consternation, Naughty Dog has collaborated with Russell on the project and is hopeful for the results.

“We’re waiting too,” said Creative director Amy Hennig. “But if the guy who made Three Kings wants to make an Uncharted movie, we should be thankful, right ”

“Is it difficult, is it strange Yeah, said Nolan North, voice of Drake in the games. But that’s the business of making big movies – you need big stars. I’m very protective of what we do. If that ever infringed on what we do well, I’m burning someone’s house down.”

Source: CVG

Call Of Duty Online China Bound?

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Activision has long been rumored to be bringing the Call of Duty franchise to new platforms and they may be reading such a release for Asia in the coming year. In the company’s most recent financial statement, they discussed the growth of its biggest franchise.

“The company plans to allocate the majority of its resources and focus toward opportunities which it expects will afford it the greatest competitive advantages and the greatest potential for best-in-class quality, high-margin digital growth, and long-term success,” said Activision in a release. [This includes] robust investment in forthcoming Call of Duty titles, including a micro-transaction game for China; the development of a best-in-class digital platform surrounding the Call of Duty franchise.”

Twitter Getting Ad Messages From LocalResponse

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Location-based online services like Twitter and Foursquare have helped users tell the world where they are, but it’s been a challenge for brands to try and take advantage of that. Nihal Mehta looking to fill the location ad niche with a company called LocalResponse,which will allow marketers to message consumers via Twitter based on location and updates.

“We’re seeing a lot of brands want to look at sentiment from the Twitter firehose,” said Mehta, referring to the entire file of data some buy from Twitter on a monthly basis. “So we’re listening for negative sentiment about a competitor and targeting a message to convert them.”

LocalResponse can be used to cross-sell and up-sell customers that tweet about them or to reward loyalty when users’ check-in to certain types of stores. With the ability to analyze posts from 200 million users globally, they’ve already signed up 10 marketers, including Coca-Cola for energy-drink Powerade Zero.

“Did you know that on Black Friday last year Target got fewer than 20,000 Foursquare check-ins ” said Jeff Flemings, who is working with Powerade on its campaign. “It’s symbolic of the niche quality that has dogged location-based services to date, despite all the hoopla.”

Twitter, which is the only service LocalResponse can message back on, has given its blessing to the project, and may sell the tool to advertisers as part of an upcoming partnership. “People inside Twitter are saying we’re monetizing Twitter better than they are,” said Mehta.

Of course, there’s always the sticky issues of creepiness of getting a coupon for a product you just tweeted about. “We’ve all received at-message spam before, the difference here is that it’s coming from a business or brand you’ve already expressed interest in,” said Mehta.

Source: AdAge

Lakers Bow May Hurt NBA Playoff Ratings

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The Los Angeles Lakers have bowed out of the NBA Playoffs with a sweep at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks, trouncing them 122-86 in the fourth and final game in the series. While the ejection of Lakers players Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum late in the game as a result of flagrant fouls made the end ugly, the byproduct could be even more distasteful to the NBA.

The blowout may also signal the end of the NBA’s ratings momentum. (Clearly, many people enjoy seeing L.A. in distress; per Nielsen overnights, the elimination game on ABC drew a 6.5 rating, up 27 percent from comparable coverage of a Boston-Cleveland game a year ago.) writes Anthony Crupi. Along with representing the nation s No. 2 market, the Lakers are also a hard habit to break. Since 2000, the team has appeared in seven NBA Finals match-ups; five of these series averaged household deliveries of 10.0 or greater. Not for nothing did NBA commissioner David Stern in 2004 joke that his dream match-up for that season’s Championship round would be the Lakers versus the Lakers. The highest-rated NBA Finals broadcast not featuring the Lakers aired on ABC on 2006, when the six-game Heat-Mavs series averaged an 8.5 HH delivery. That showdown represents the least-watched Finals since 2000.

Adding to these ratings issues are the fact that the Boston Celtics are struggling against the Miami Heat, down now three games to one. Boston represents the seventh largest TV market and has a fervent nationwide fanbase for its sports teams.

“The good news for TNT and ESPN is that teams from several other high-ranked markets still remain in the running, as Chicago (No. 3) and Atlanta (No. 9) are knotted up at two games each in their best-of-seven series. From a big-market standpoint, perhaps the best result the NBA can hope for is a meeting between last year s Eastern Conference champs, Boston, and No. 6 Dallas, said Crupi. Simple momentum may also work in the networks favor. Through May 5, TNT is up 31 percent in total viewers, averaging 4.52 million fans per telecast. Together, ABC and ESPN are up nearly 27 percent versus the same time one year ago.

No matter which clubs advance to the Finals, the prospect of topping last year s Celtics-Lakers classic seems rather remote. The clincher scared up a 18.2 rating/27 share, making it the highest-rated NBA game since Game 4 of the 1998 Bulls-Jazz series (19.1/33), he noted. That series marked Michael Jordan’s swan song with the Bulls and stands as the most-watched NBA Finals in history (18.7). In the instant classic Game 6, Jordan scored the game-winning jumper with 5.2 seconds left on the clock, giving the Bulls their third straight title and drawing a stellar 22.3/38 for NBC.

Source: AdWeek

Microsoft Purchases Skype

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Microsoft has confirmed that it will be purchasing Skype for $8.5 billion. Microsoft is hoping to tap the Internet communications company’s 170 million connected users to bring real-time video and voice communications to more consumers and business via devices like Xbox 360, Kinect and Windows Phone.

“Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world.”

“Microsoft and Skype share the vision of bringing software innovation and products to our customers,” said Skype CEO Tony Bates. “Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s plans to extend our global community and introduce new ways for everyone to communicate and collaborate.