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UK Brain Drain Hits Games Industry

 There’s a real worry in the Uk that gaming courses in universities are not up to standard and even worse general interest in maths and sciences are at an all time low.

The games developers say that they are struggling to find in the UK the kind of high-powered mathematicians and computer scientists that they need to build increasingly sophisticated products.

I think it’s fair to say that once upon a time the UK was at the top of a large pile of gaming devs, but over the years lack of funding and the general un-sexyness of maths and science has caused us to slip down the ladder. As far as the develpoers are concerned they say it’s up to the government to sort it out (good luck with that)

Source bbc

Capcom Lifetime Sales

For a company sales figures are great because it shows you how much money you’ve made, so for Capcom these figure must be very pleasing indeed.

Tellingly though, it also shows us which games from Capcom’s cannon have proved most popular over the years. Taking an older franchise like Street Fighter or Mega Man you can see that the older titles in the series proved more popular than newer versions, with three early Mega Man games as opposed to the one Battle Network game showing up in the chart.

If that tells you anything it should be to bring back the old Mega Man. (Read on …)

Games Can Make Us Creative

Studies at Penn State University suggest that computer games can aid creativity, if certain criteria are met.

S. Shyam Sundar, professor of film, video and media studies at Penn State and Elizabeth Hutton, a Penn State graduate student have been studying the effects of computer games to amplify positive social traits like creativity.

“We looked at two emotional variables: arousal and valence,” said Hutton. “Arousal is the degree of physical excitation — as measured through skin conductance — and valence, which is the range of positive or negative feeling.”

The results appear to indicate that after playing, happy or sad people are most creative, while angry or relaxed people are not. Also high or low arousal is key to creativity. In other words, medium amounts of arousal are not conducive to creativity.

“When you are highly aroused, the energy itself acts as a catalyst, and the happy mood acts as an encouragement. It is like being in a zone where you cannot be thrown off your game,” explained Sundar. A negative mood, especially when there is low arousal, brings a different kind of energy that makes a person more analytical, which is crucial to creativity as well, he added.

Source Physorg

Encryption Chip Will End Piracy Says Bushnell

Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell believes Piracy will be a thing of the past thanks to a new chip, I say never say never me hearties!

At Wedbush Morgan Securities annual Management Access Conference yesterday Mr Bushnell spoke of a new encyrption chip known as TPM. (Read on …)

Wii Ware for Europe!

So here’s a date for your diary “May 20th” yes that’s right this is the date for the WiiWare European release and here is a few titles that will launch with WiiWare.

• Dr. Mario & Germ Buster
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
• Lost Winds
• Pirates: The Key of Dreams
• Pop
• Star Soldier R
• Toki Tori
• TV Show King

There you go so all you have to do is wait another week and you can play “Dr. Mario & Germ Buster” but remember, don’t let him touch you, He’s not a trained Physician!

Apple To Take A Bite From The Gaming Pie?

Two very interesting stories have popped up that indicate Apple might be looking to muscle in on Sony Microsoft and Nintendo’s turf. From the sound of the patients filed their step into gaming probably wont be the conventional home console, but possibly something more subtle and anyone familiar with the pippin will surely understand why. (Read on …)

Iwata speaks…

Today, Nintendo released its briefing on the financial results for the past year. In it, Satoru Iwata (Nintendo’s president) talks about the obvious issues on hardware and software sales, console prices and the impact the slowing economy might have. A little boring I hear you say, and you would be mostly right.

However, Iwata did drop a few exciting hints about a possible Wii storage device and comments on the rumours that Microsoft are developing a Wii-mote style controller. (Read on …)

UK Game Charts

Ok, here’s a quick look at whats happening in the UK gaming charts courtesy of Chart-Track. (Read on …)

Strike First, Strike Hard, Show No Mercy

If the impending launch of Wii Fit and the possible tauting of Wii Pole Dancing wasn’t enough for you, news has just come in that Games Publisher - Graffiti Entertainment - have announced a new Wii title coming in October 2008 which will attempt to teach players Martial Arts. (Read on …)

Johnny Lee @ TED 2008

Remember the “A interview with Johnny Lee” post we did a while ago well he is still doing his thing but this time doing a multi-ovation demo for TED 2008 “Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers”.

There he goes through his Wii Remote hacks, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touch screen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. And I have to say that this guy is now one of my heroes!

300,000 Copies in one day?

The rumours are coming in that our favorite plumber and friends have managed to shift around 300,000 copies of “Mario Kart Wii” on its launch day!

Now this isn’t confirmed so don’t go shouting about it but if true it means that it has beaten previous game by almost double! Now the last two games Mario Kart DS sold 160,000 at launch, while Mario Kart Double Dash did 180,000 on its first day. So this is a big thing if the numbers are right!

So all we have to do now is wait for the correct figures to be released!

Computer game addicts like people with Aspergers

 
The British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference, which is currently being held in Dublin has had two very interesting discussions about computer games and their affects on us. Yesterday Miss Jane Barnett from Middlesex University spoke about the calming effects gaming can have on the individual, which can be found here.

Today Dr John Charlton of the University of Bolton and Ian Danforth of Whitman College, USA have announced their findings with gaming addiction, which show some startling similarities to a form of Autism, known as Aspergers (Wikipedia) syndrome. (Read on …)

Link between online gaming and violence killed off

In an ironic twist to my suggestion on Monday that an undisclosed UK “newspaper” should actually spend some money researching the links between gaming and violence, somebody actually did but not the newspaper. A group of trained professionals from the University of Middlesex have spent time and money researching said affects and their findings are what you’d expect if you’re a common sense thinker. (Read on …)

Crime Pays, According to one UK “Paper”

A British Newspaper is offering money for anyone who has a story to tell about gaming turning them into criminals.

This is undoubtedly in the wake of the Byron report and the imminent release of GTA IV towards the end of April, and unfortunately speaks volumes to me about the current climate we live in, where a newspaper would rather pay for sensationalism than bother to do some research.

An advertisement, found here, is requesting that any resident living in the UK who has turned to crime as a result of computer games to come forward and tell all, for their troubles these individuals will be paid hundreds of pounds. The exact newspaper responsible is not known, but fingers have already been pointing at the usual suspects of the British tabloids.

It’s a real shame that words like impartial and unbiased are not words these so called newspapers seem interested in using, or spending their money researching these so-called links into gaming and criminal activities. I also think that it’s ironic that a newspaper is also willing to fund potential criminal activities in order to sully Grand Theft Auto, a game based around criminal activities.

Source videogaming247

Mario Kart: Are you the best of the best…

Following on from my last post on Mario Kart, news has broken that GAME - the UK gaming store - is hunting for the best Mario Kart driver.

On 5 April, 30 GAME stores will be opening their doors to the all-comers to find the Countries greatest Mario Kart gamer and not only that, you’ll get an early viewing of the highly anticipated game. Then the best gamer in each store will get an expenses-paid trip to the Final in Surrey on 14 April and will have the opportunity to win the star prize - a pretty impressive Mario Kart Wii inspired VW Beetle Convertible. (Read on …)

Studies show games encourage social skills

A study by the University of California has shown that computer games can aid in the development of social and community building skills and not hinder them as a lot of people believe.

Observations carried out on children interacting with computer games showed that though only one child could play at a time, the children negotiated turns and gave each other advice about how to play the game. The Children exhibited a great deal of executive planning skills and complex social negotiations without any guidance or interference from adults.

Unfortunately the article is very brief and does not go into a lot of detail, hopefully when it is published shortly a more complete version will be available.

Full article here

8.1 games sold to 1 Wii in December!

According to IGN, the Wii’s NPD numbers for December 2007 in the US were a ratio of 8:1, which means that for every Wii bought 8.1 games were sold too. Also tie ratio for PlayStation 3 was 5.04 in December while the Xbox 360, with one year ahead of its predecessors,had a 7.76 in December.

Now I know this isn’t the case as you could just have 7 people buy say Wii Play or Mario Galaxy and another person buy a Wii with Zelda! But saying this I was in New York just before Christmas and I couldn’t see any Nintendo Wii’s in any stores to buy, so where were these people buying theses from?

This new year i’m sure will produce even more figures showing us how good the PS3 or 360 or Wii is doing, but I believe Nintendo has been playing the waiting game for a long time now and that Nintendo have more surprises in store for us!

Wii bringing us Pre-crime!

The guys over at Cynergy Systems have taken Johnny Lee’s idea of “Tracking fingers with the Wii Remote” and taken it one step further, turning this idea more into something out of Phillip K Dick’s “The Minority Report”!

Below is Johnny Lee’s video.

And this is the new video showing you what else you can do (If you have 8 days to spare!)

(Read on …)

Sony & Nintendo face new patent suit

Since Immersion won its lawsuit against the giant that is Sony over their Force Feedback rumble technology in PlayStation and PlayStation 2 DualShock controllers it seems that everyone is trying to do the same.

The latest is a company called Copper Innovations Group that claim Nintendo and Sony are violating their patent filed in 1996, this covers a method for connecting devices to a system and sorting their inputs by means of hardware identification numbers tied to each transmission.

The company are seeking damages plus interest, legal fees, and an injunction permanently prohibiting Sony, Nintendo,or their agents from infringing upon the patent. (Read on …)

12 Most Influential Online Videos of All Time

Looking at The Webby Awards‘ homepage the other day lead me to “The 12 Most Influential Online Videos of All Time” page which has all the winners from over the years on it which include such vidoes like Starwars kid but what cought my eye was “All Your Base Are Belong to Us (2000)”

Can you belive it has been 7 years since this was relesed?

Anyway for all of the 2 peolpe that havent seen this it was a phrase, from a muddled translation of a Japanese video game, and was the ultimate insider reference among gaming geeks.

But when a flash animation set to a catchy dance tune hit the pre-iTunes, pre-YouTube Internet, it became the first “mash-up” to take pop culture by storm.

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