Today's News Blips is brought to you by the restorative properties of Advil and a space heater. What? I'm still sick.
News Blips:
Rumors abound that Sony is crafting a tablet device to rival Apple's iPad. Engadget reports that the device, known as the "S1," will run Google's Android 3.0 software and feature "PlayStation integration" in addition to coming preloaded with PS1 games. Engadget also claims that the tablet will carry a $599 price tag and come out in September. Oh, and before you wonder why Engadget's mockup sketch looks like a half-folded piece of toilet paper, know that the curved bit is designed to "remind the owner of something personal in the way that it mimics an open paperback stuffed into the back pocket, or a magazine folded backward upon itself such that only a single page is visible to read."
Game consultant Mark Cerny believes that physical media sales are still important to the costly console market. "There has been a number of highly publicized titles that have cost $70-80 million. It is rather hard to spend that money in an efficient fashion," Cerny said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "What typically happens when you're up in that budget range is that you are not quite sure what sort of game you're making. And so you have a seven year development period, and it changes, and your burn rate is very high because you have a large team." Cerny also said he was "suspicious" of episodic content and microtransactions, believing that such systems won't work for consoles. I guess there's some truth there, but I've fallen victim to the siren song of Rock Band 3's Music Store more than once.
Indie game developer Jonathan Blow calls social games "evil." In an interview with PC Gamer, the creator of Braid said he considers social games to be selfishly designed to steal a gamer's free time while giving little back. "I'm not trying to say, 'I know what's best for players and they shouldn't play these games,'" he said. "It's OK to play social games to an extent, like it's probably okay to smoke cigarettes to an extent. But what these designers do — and this is why I always go to it from the design standpoint — they very deliberately design the game to not give the player everything that they want, to string the player along and to invade the player's free time away from the game." At least Blow didn't pull Nazis into this. Things get serious when the Nazis are involved.
The winners of the 7th Annual International Mobile Gaming Awards are announced. An international jury at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, reviewed 260 titles from 40 countries. The winners were selected for six categories, showing off a pretty diverse array of titles for a platform that, among other things, can make and receive calls. Check out the categories and the winners below:
- Best Casual Game: Plants vs. Zombies
- Best Real World Game: AR Invaders
- Best Sports Game: Snowboard Hero
- Excellence in Design: Infinity Blade
- Excellence in Gameplay: Beyond Ynth
- Most Innovative Game: Papa Sangre
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