Remember when we determined the 3DS's hefty cost? The Japanese noticed.
News Blips:
Eighty percent of Japanese gamers consider Nintendo's 3DS to be a bit pricey, according to a survey by Get News. To slice up the pie, 28 percent of the 1,000 surveyed gamers regard the handheld's ¥25,000 ($305) figure as high, 32.2 percent think it's slightly high, and 19.2 precent think it's too high. I see the survey failed to poll gamers on whether the 3DS will blend or not. That's just as important.
Steven Ter Heide, lead producer on the Killzone series, figures that game budgets will continue to rise in the near future. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Ter Heide likened the pressures of the gaming industry to the movie industry, saying, "There'll certainly always be big budget titles because audiences will always want to see these over-the-top kind of no-holds-barred titles." As a result, he said budgets will rise "because the amount of stuff that you need to put into games, the stuff that the audience is expecting, that's still growing as well." It's not the size of the budget that counts, it's how well you squander…er, use it.
Movie rental service Redbox is expanding its game rental program to "thousands" of kiosks across the country. For just $2, customers can rent certain titles for just one day, perpetuating the theory that contemporary games are becoming increasingly shorter — or that gamers have blindingly fast thumbs of steel. Want to find the nearest box? Dial in your zip code at the company's official website and get rentin'. [Xbox 360 Digest]
Blizzard bans a number of players for using cheats to earn achievements in Starcraft 2's single-player campaign. While using a "trainer" to alter gameplay is nothing new, Blizzard's actions signified its emphasis on gaining achievements the honest way. "While single-player games only appear to be you and a computer at first, your achievements and gamer score also carries [sic] weight and prestige for your online play," wrote a Blizzard representative to Cheat Happens. I suppose things have gotten slightly out of hand when players cheat to get superfluous achievements.
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