Medal of Honor's creators think the negative press surrounding their game prior to its release is to blame for its average review scores. What, did Fox News start reviewing games or something?
News Blips:
DICE, the developer behind Medal of Honor's multiplayer, claims the Taliban controversy surrounding the game resulted in lowered review scores. Producer Patrick Liu said the game's setting stirred up feelings that affected the judgment of reviewers. "Medal of Honor is to some extent judged harsher than it should be, Liu said. "The game is better than today's reviews are indicating." He added that Medal of Honor has the disadvantage of competing against popular first-person shooters like Call of Duty and DICE's own Battlefield games. "It's a very tricky situation to be squeezed in between those giants," he said. Honestly, I don't think the controversy hurt review scores — just some egos. [Eurogamer]
An open-source electronics company awards a $2,000 prize to hackers for bypassing Kinect's security features. Adafruit Industries originally offered $1,000 to anyone who could hack Kinect to make it run on any operating system. The company doubled the prize after Microsoft issued a statement against hacking its product. "Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products," the statement read. "With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering." Adafruit awarded the prize to hackers who released a video showcasing their control over the camera's motor functions. Maybe if Microsoft had spent a little less on advertising and more on security, Kinect wouldn't have been hacked in less than a week. [GamesIndustry.biz]
Sony claims 60 percent of people interested in owning PlayStation Move already own a Wii. The company is basing its claim upon research conducted by market analysis firm Ipsos. Though the research posits that Kinect will outsell Move and Wii, Sony claims it sold over a million Move units in North America in its first 30 days, and customer intent to purchase Move has more than doubled. I'm not sure this is something to brag about: "Some of the people interested in our product have already given money to our competition!" [Gamasutra]
Developer Artificial Mind and Movement renames itself Behaviour Interactive and announces sequels to Wet and Naughty Bear. "Behaviour" was the company's original name when it began developing games for the original PlayStation. The change comes as a result of the company's renewed focus on "developing original IP on multiple platforms alongside its work-for-hire business with major publishers." Behaviour is working on Wet 2 and Naughty Bear 2 in addition to several other titles on all platforms.
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