Nintendo Needs To Price Wii U ‘Keenly’ Says Codemasters CEO

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Nintendo recently revealed that there will be no announcements of the price for the Wii U until 2012. While Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has said the system won’t be cheap, Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens emphasized the need for smart pricing.

“I anticipate further price cuts on existing consoles prior to Christmas this year, and there’s room for further price cuts next year. So Wii U needs to be very keenly priced,” said Cousens. “Pricing is critical in a very fragmented hardware space,” he added. “So I am not sure they are going to be able to come out and hit a premium price point from the outset. But Nintendo is smart. It is always innovative. It has demonstrated its breakthrough ability in the past, so let’s see if it can do it again. And the industry should cheer it on.”

Source: MCV {link no longer active}

AT&T Nets Mobage For Android Customers

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AT&T has announce an agreement with ngmoco to bring the Mobage social gaming platform to AT&T customers. The social gaming platform will become a hub for AT&T Android users to discover and play games.

Games are consistently among the most popular entertainment apps for smartphones, said Ted Woodbery, vice president, Wireless Data, Voice and Ancillary Services, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets.  We are pleased to be the first U.S. wireless carrier to work with ngmoco and look forward to giving our Android customers access to the rich Mobage gaming catalog later this year.

“AT&T has been a leader in the smartphone revolution in many ways,” said Neil Young, CEO, ngmoco. “We are delighted to bring Mobage to the massive group of Android users on the network.”

Trials And Tribulations Of Promoted Tweets

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Promoted Trends are premium ad space from Twitter and one of its biggest sources of income. Reportedly costing $120,000 a day, its a premium slot, but it often ends up getting corrupted because of the organic nature of Twitter.

Discovery Channel recently bought time recently for Shark Week, yet it occurred when another tag #reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend was trending leading to tweets like “She won’t shut up during #sharkweek!!! #Reasonstobeatyourgirlfriend.” Lexus CT Hybrid also had to hold down the slot on April 20 during Adolf Hitler’s birthday, the Columbine Massacre’s anniversary and marajuana celebrators (for 4/20).

“The very nature of social media is real-time conversation, said Lexus spokeswoman, Meg Seiler. We will continue to work with our partners on an ongoing basis to test, learn and develop best practices and guidelines in this space. That said, we also feel social-media users can distinguish between trending news topics and promoted topics. It’s not that much different than if we purchase an ad in a newspaper that is reporting about the day’s news, good and bad.”

Promoting on Facebook and Twitter is still seen as important despite the set backs because of the number of eyeballs it gets brands in front of. Twitter is looking to edit trending tweets to keep offensive content out of the top trending topics.

“As a brand steward for our clients, nasty and offensive organic trends don’t add to the appeal of the Promoted Trends product, but I am not sure if that would totally prohibit an ad buy, especially given the ephemeral nature of the trend list, said Candace Kuss London-based director of planning-interactive creative strategy. But if I was advising Twitter, I would be concerned. While personal users might prefer organic trends to freely reflect pure volume, professionally I think it would be good to see Twitter extend their ban of the obscene to include the dangerously offensive and to publish a clear guide to their curation principles.”

Questions still remain over how Twitter will differentiate the meaningfully obscene from the pointlessly offensive. “It’s a tough call,” said David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation. “But there should be some moderation. You want the platform to remain in the hands of the people. There are people who use Twitter in great, great ways but there are also a lot of jerks out there.”

Twitter is a great instant reflection of our popular culture, but that isn’t always pretty, and it leaves sponsors in bad spots sometimes.

Source: Ad Age

PlayStation Network Announces Play Program

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Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced their new PlayStation Network Play program. This will allow users to pre-order games and receive a PS3 theme, along with bonus DLC with purchase during the program.

PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive 20 percent off every Play purchase and gamers 18 years and older will receive Payday: The Heist for free if they purchase all four Play titles. The games part of the promotion are Street Fighter III Third Strike Online Edition on August 23, The Baconing August 30, BloodRayne: Betrayal September 6 and Renegade Ops on September 13; Payday: The Heist can be pre-ordered separately starting September 20, 2011.

Source: playstation.com/PSNplay

Street Fighter Producer Would Love To Do Marvel vs. DC

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Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono has managed to fulfill one of his ultimate fantasy match ups with Street Fighter X Tekken. However, he’s well aware of those clamoring for another match up, and there’s a dream match up of his own that he wants.

“I actually get a lot of requests for Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat on my Twitter feed and elsewhere,” said Ono. “I understand why people want it, but it’s easier said than done. Having Chun Li getting her spine ripped out, or Ryu’s head bouncing off the floor… it doesn’t necessarily match.”

“I’ve had a couple of dream projects in my head for a while, one being Street Fighter X Tekken, which is actually coming true,” he said. “Another would be a Marvel vs DC game which would be pretty damned cool if we could ever pull it off. I’m a big comic-book fan. Now if I can get the presidents of those two companies in the same room shaking hands, then we could get something started. I’d love to see that just as a fan.”

Source: PlayStation Blog

Pepsi Signs On As Main X-Factor Sponsor

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Coca-Cola has long been a main sponsor of American Idol, but it won’t be that way on Simon Cowell’s new show. The X-Factor has gotten into bed with Pepsi, and will be seen on judge’s cup, on banners and more.

More than sponsoring the show, Pepsi will have the winner star in a commercial to be shown during the Super Bowl on February 5. This sponsorship will cost Pepsi $60 million.

It s been the most collaborative relationship I ve ever had with a sponsor, said Cowell. From Day 1, they just bought into what we d planned for the show, and almost became like producers. As we developed the show, we consulted with them in all the decisions, and they came and presented to us their own marketing ideas.

Historically our approach, from Michael Jackson in the 80s through Britney Spears in 2001, was really an approach of borrowed equity, said Frank Cooper, the global consumer engagement officer, PepsiCo Beverages. The X Factor relationship is more about what role a brand can play in an entertainment platform beyond simple sponsorship.

The Super Bowl ad will be billed as one of the top prizes of the show. Pepsi’s presence will also include a Pepsi Challenge where views choose the song contestants will sing, and customers will also have a chance to vote on parts of the Super Bowl ad online.

With Diet Coke having surpassed Pepsi for the number two cola beverage on the market, Pepsi hopes the increase in traditional marketing will slide the pendulum back in their favor. Our hope, and our intention, is to find the right balance in spending between TV and digital, said Cooper. When people are sitting on the couch looking at the TV, you will see that the actual elements of the song they are singing have been filtered by, shaped by and ultimately brought to you by Pepsi.

Source: New York Times

Batman: Arkham City Gets Nolan North Voiceover

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Dax Ginn, Rocksteady Studios marketing manager, confirmed recently that Nolan North will be voicing a main character in Batman: Arkham City. It’s not the main character (which is being fulfilled by long time Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy) but will instead be the villainous Penguin.

We wanted to ramp up the threat so that when Batman goes in to Arkham City he’s feeling the heat, not just from Joker, said Ginn. But from Penguin voiced by none other than Nolan North!

Source: CVG

Sony Development Manager Notes 3D Features Not Costly

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The adoption rate for 3D televisions has not been spectacular, and use of 3D is not terribly high even among those with TV sets that have the capability. However, SCEE senior development manager Simon Benson is not especially worried, noting that the price is coming down all the time and the margins aren’t much different between 3D and non-3D TVs.

“It’s certainly not a concern for us on the game side, the major reason being… when we’re adding 3D features to a game, it’s not a significant overhead for us,” said Benson. It’s not like we have to justify being able to sell millions more games because of it, it’s just another feature of the game. What we’re talking about here is, in some cases we’ve had titles where 3D has been half a percent of overhead. It can literally be the render programmer spending a couple of weeks manipulating it… So often it’s the case of it doesn’t even hit the radar of whether we should or shouldn’t, it can just be done.”

“We’re not asking people to fork out twice as much here, and I think what probably going to happen over time is it’ll be the case like now, if you try and go out and buy an standard definition TV you probably just wouldn’t be able to,” he added.

Source: Gamesindustry.biz

Bethsoft Wants Games Standardization

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Movies have long flourished by having singular standards for people to use for their home media, like VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. Bethesda Softworks game director Todd Howard would like to see gaming move in a similar direction.

“I’d like there to be only one platform. It’s a lot of work to make the games look good on every platform you’re on,” said Howard. “I often equate it to DVD or Blu-Rays. Once I’ve bought a DVD I can use it in my TV, in my computer, in my car, here, whatever. And I think it would be good for gaming if it was like that.

However acknowledges that there are some hurdles for the industry to ever have a single format. “They spend billions of dollars selling consoles at a loss for years, but then make the money back with games,” he commented. “It’s not like the industry is hurting, we’re doing really well. But if I had one wish, you know, we would have better games for a single platform.”

Source: CVG