Plus, Last of Us censored in Europe, Crytek website possibly compromised, EA beats Activision in digital sales
A selection of links, hand-picked by the Guardian games writers.
*PS4 & PS Vita bundle coming for 'around $500' - Rumour | VideoGamer.com*
This could be a smart move for Sony:
Sony may introduce a hardware bundle containing a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita when the next-gen console goes on sale later this year, according to a new report.
Inside Gaming Daily claims to have been told by a "well-placed anonymous source" that a bundle containing the two consoles will release at "the end of the year" for "around $500" (~ £325).
Sony has yet to announce any form of PS4/PS Vita bundle, but has been keen to push PlayStation Vita's functionality with its upcoming next-gen platform.
The company seems keen to play up the 'second screen' possibilities of PS4, and PS Vita sales have been slowed. Selling the two together will put the 'remote play' concept into more hands.
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*Carmack criticises "fundamentally poor" Kinect interactions | GamesIndustry International*
The id co-founder remains skeptical about Kinect:
id Software co-founder John Carmack has addressed the "fundamentally poor" interactions offered by Kinect, and casting doubt over its relevance for game development.
In the opening keynote of Quakecon 2013, Carmack acknowledged that Kinect was targeted at a "broad consumer base" with different demands and expectations to his own. However, he argued that even the new iteration of the hardware - on paper, a big improvement over the launch version - has obvious flaws.
"I think Kinect still has some fundamental limitations with the latency and frame rate on it," he said, as reported by Polygon. "Interacting with it is still ... when you interact with Kinect, some of the standard interactions - position and hold, waiting for different things - it's fundamentally a poor interaction.
"One way that I look at it is - I used to give Apple a lot of grief about the one button mouse. Anybody working with a mouse really wants more buttons - [they're] helpful there. Kinect is sort of like a zero button mouse with a lot of latency on it."
We possibly shouldn't expect head-tracked strafing in Doom 4, then?
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*Naughty Dog confirms European version of The Last of Us censored | Eurogamer.net*
European fans of gratuitous dismemberment will be disappointed:
In the US version of the game, the multiplayer features dismemberment and exploding heads. The European version's multiplayer does not.
Eurogamer's US news editor Jeffrey Matulef, who, as you'd expect, is playing the North American version, has found that executions with certain weapons trigger exploding heads. The execution with the "Shorty", a sawed-off shotgun, blows your opponent's head clean off in the US version. In our version, we get a blood spurt.
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*Crytek admits 'user data may have been compromised' | CVG UK*
Another games publisher finds its digital offering compromised:
Crysis studio Crytek has admitted that some users' information may have been compromised in a suspected hacker infiltration of its websites last week.
Four Crytek websites, Crytek.com, Mycryengine.com, Crydev.net and MyCrysis.com, were taken offline over the weekend after the studio says it "became aware of suspicious activity".
This follows the hacking of an Ubisoft server last month.
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*Even without Warcraft, EA's digital sales trend higher than Activision's | Gamasutra*
Some stats on the emerging battlefield for major publishers: digital sales...
In terms of company-to-company comparisons, this is the first 12-month period in which EA exceeded the digital revenue of its greatest rival, Activision Blizzard. At the end of March of this year, Activision Blizzard had annualized digital revenue of $1.73 billion per year while EA was hitting $1.66 billion. At the end of June, however, it was EA with the $1.72 billion total and Activision Blizzard with $1.62 billion.
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You can follow Press Start at Pinboard. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.
A selection of links, hand-picked by the Guardian games writers.
*PS4 & PS Vita bundle coming for 'around $500' - Rumour | VideoGamer.com*
This could be a smart move for Sony:
Sony may introduce a hardware bundle containing a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita when the next-gen console goes on sale later this year, according to a new report.
Inside Gaming Daily claims to have been told by a "well-placed anonymous source" that a bundle containing the two consoles will release at "the end of the year" for "around $500" (~ £325).
Sony has yet to announce any form of PS4/PS Vita bundle, but has been keen to push PlayStation Vita's functionality with its upcoming next-gen platform.
The company seems keen to play up the 'second screen' possibilities of PS4, and PS Vita sales have been slowed. Selling the two together will put the 'remote play' concept into more hands.
--------------------
*Carmack criticises "fundamentally poor" Kinect interactions | GamesIndustry International*
The id co-founder remains skeptical about Kinect:
id Software co-founder John Carmack has addressed the "fundamentally poor" interactions offered by Kinect, and casting doubt over its relevance for game development.
In the opening keynote of Quakecon 2013, Carmack acknowledged that Kinect was targeted at a "broad consumer base" with different demands and expectations to his own. However, he argued that even the new iteration of the hardware - on paper, a big improvement over the launch version - has obvious flaws.
"I think Kinect still has some fundamental limitations with the latency and frame rate on it," he said, as reported by Polygon. "Interacting with it is still ... when you interact with Kinect, some of the standard interactions - position and hold, waiting for different things - it's fundamentally a poor interaction.
"One way that I look at it is - I used to give Apple a lot of grief about the one button mouse. Anybody working with a mouse really wants more buttons - [they're] helpful there. Kinect is sort of like a zero button mouse with a lot of latency on it."
We possibly shouldn't expect head-tracked strafing in Doom 4, then?
--------------------
*Naughty Dog confirms European version of The Last of Us censored | Eurogamer.net*
European fans of gratuitous dismemberment will be disappointed:
In the US version of the game, the multiplayer features dismemberment and exploding heads. The European version's multiplayer does not.
Eurogamer's US news editor Jeffrey Matulef, who, as you'd expect, is playing the North American version, has found that executions with certain weapons trigger exploding heads. The execution with the "Shorty", a sawed-off shotgun, blows your opponent's head clean off in the US version. In our version, we get a blood spurt.
--------------------
*Crytek admits 'user data may have been compromised' | CVG UK*
Another games publisher finds its digital offering compromised:
Crysis studio Crytek has admitted that some users' information may have been compromised in a suspected hacker infiltration of its websites last week.
Four Crytek websites, Crytek.com, Mycryengine.com, Crydev.net and MyCrysis.com, were taken offline over the weekend after the studio says it "became aware of suspicious activity".
This follows the hacking of an Ubisoft server last month.
--------------------
*Even without Warcraft, EA's digital sales trend higher than Activision's | Gamasutra*
Some stats on the emerging battlefield for major publishers: digital sales...
In terms of company-to-company comparisons, this is the first 12-month period in which EA exceeded the digital revenue of its greatest rival, Activision Blizzard. At the end of March of this year, Activision Blizzard had annualized digital revenue of $1.73 billion per year while EA was hitting $1.66 billion. At the end of June, however, it was EA with the $1.72 billion total and Activision Blizzard with $1.62 billion.
--------------------
You can follow Press Start at Pinboard. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.