Napalm Riot

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Officials from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) have announced that sales of the SingStar franchise on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 have totaled over 12 million units in PAL territories – including Europe and Australia.

The first PlayStation 2 title was released in 2004, allowing users to sing along to music videos via bundled microphones, in the style of traditional karaoke.

The game proved an instant success in Europe, where several new versions are released every year them . . . Read more

The Ant Commandos (TAC), a leading provider of innovative wireless video game music peripherals and accessories, announced today its universal PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3 adapter for guitar and game controllers is now available at retail for an SRP of $19.99.

This is great news for Guitar Hero and Rock Band fans as they can protect their investment in PS2 guitar controllers and revitalize them for Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band for PS3. Gamers will no longer have to throw away all of the valu . . . Read more

From the makers of the groundbreaking Sims series, Maxis presents Spore, their latest unprecedented simulation game, slated to release in the US on September 7th of 2008.

In the Spore universe players will begin as multicellular organisms called protean microbes in the cell stage, like an amoeba for instance. From this stage you will be able to progress through four other stages including creature, tribe, civilization, and space. Each stage is largely different from the next and each provides . . . Read more

Ingle Games Ltd. is gladly to announce that Phoenix Nirvana, the new highly anticipated expansion pack of Phoenix Dynasty Online is ready and you could click here to download the expansion pack now, with game client Version 7211.

The game’s unprecedented success and overwhelming popularity over the past several months have spurred players asking more and more features to be added in the game. We are delighted to oblige our supportive players by adding the Marriage System, Refining System an . . . Read more

One of the dangers of building your house upon a soft foundation is the possibility that cracks will start developing down the line after everything has had a chance to settle down.

Such seems to be the case with Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade strategy and its now infamous file size cap. What started out as a 50MB file size concession to the 'hard drive-free' Xbox 360 core unit has now become a right pain in the butt for both software publishers and consumers chomping at the bit for juicy digit . . . Read more

Sierra Entertainment has announced The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, the third chapter in the successful Legend of Spyro trilogy.

Developed by Etranges Libellules, Dawn of the Dragon sees Spyro teaming up with an unlikely ally - Cynder - to face his most challenging mission to date. With the Dark Master's evil enveloping the world like a disease, Spyro must fulfil his destiny and unlock the true power of the purple dragon within him.

(Continuation Source: http://www.videogamer.com/n . . . Read more

Bad news, bargain hunters; Nintendo has gone on record saying there are no imminent price cuts for the Nintendo Wii or DS. Satoru Iwata, the company's president, said he did not believe in the "model" of price slashing, as it tends to leave early adopters feeling a little disheartened. Though we do agree, surely early adopters are well out of their honeymoon phase by now?

(Continuation Source: http://www.gizmodo.com.au…ing_console_prices-2.html)

Venture capital firm KPCB — the investor group behind Apple's $100 million iFund to seed third party iPhone development — has announced that Electronic Arts co-founder and CCO William 'Bing' Gordon will be joining the firm as Partner as of June 2008.

The firm says Gordon will retain some connection with Electronic Arts as its Chief Creative Officer Emeritus, and will "return to the company to lead periodic workshops . . . Read more

You can tell a lot from a gamer’s hardware. And in the gaming world, nobody knows more about the platforms on which PC gamers run their games than the Steam game distribution network. In 2000, Half-Life was one of the best-rated, best-selling games of all time. Created by Valve, it was distributed through traditional retail channels. When it came time to release the sequel, however, Valve went direct. Using the Steam platform — Steam’s desktop software handles game registration, purchasing . . . Read more

Apple on Monday released an update for iMac computers equipped with ATI’s Radeon HD 2600 Pro or Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics card installed, running Mac OS X v10.5.2 or later. The update is available for download from Apple’s Web site.

The update — version 1.01 — makes a change to the graphics card firmware on these systems that improves system stability, according to Apple. Once it’s done, the Mac’s Boot ROM or SMC version information (as listed in System Profiler) will read 113-B2 . . . Read more

Graphics developer Nvidia has quietly rolled out its GeForce 9600 GSO video card, offering strong performance at a price that should appeal to both mid-range consumers and system manufacturers looking to put a little extra bump in their graphics offerings without significantly raising their products price tags.

The 9600 GSO is designed to compete with AMD's still unreleased Radeon HD 3830 graphics controller. The 9600 GSO shares the same architecture as Nvidia's current GeForce 9600 GT graphi . . . Read more

With an unusual Monday morning product announcement, Apple released an update to its line of aluminum-clad iMac consumer desktops. The 20-inch and 24-inch flat-panel all-in-one computers now sport faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, replacing the previous slate of 2.0, 2.4, and 2.8 GHz processors with 2.4 and 2.66 GHz options in the 20-inch form factor, and 2.8 and 3.06 GHz processors in the 24-inch units (see "Apple Releases New Aluminum iMacs, Refreshes Mac mini," 2007-08-13).

The iMacs can . . . Read more

ArenaNet is celebrating the third anniversary of the release of its global hit, Guild Wars, with a prize-packed online sweepstakes starting April 28 and running through May 31.

The Guild Wars franchise, made up of the original Guild Wars, Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North, has become one of the most successful online role-playing games on the market, having recently surpassed the five-million units sold mark.

ArenaNet has marked the success of Guild Wars with the release of Guild Wa . . . Read more

Zyon Games announced their North American website launch of Secret Online today. The website can be found at http://secret.zyongames.com and is the first official English translation of the immensely popular free-to-play Chinese MMORPG dubbed Secret Online. Gamer fans will find a great deal of English content on the site, including such goodies as videos, screen shots, and game play guides.

Secret Online is one of the most anticipated Internet games for North American audiences in 2008. With . . . Read more

Software publisher Strategy First Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Silverstar Holdings, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSTR), is leading the way to space with Exodus from the Earth. The upcoming shooter takes players out of this world and back again on a quest to reveal the secrets of a dangerously powerful corporation and fight for dear life. Developed by Parallax Arts Studio and published by Strategy First, Exodus from the Earth will be available for PC in fall 2008.

Mankind assumed it would take five bil . . . Read more

Health insurance and benefits provider Humana will be sponsoring the Games for Health Conference this year, to be held May 8th and 9th, 2008, at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, MD. In addition to organizing a keynote panel featuring a discussion on emerging activities in the games for health field by four of the nation’s leading health insurance providers, Humana will sponsor two demonstration rooms showcasing the latest efforts in exergaming.

More than 300 attendees are expec . . . Read more

Independent Southern California-based Spark Unlimited was born out of the Medal of Honor developer diaspora, making its debut in 2004 with the release of Call of Duty: Finest Hour.

The studio recently completed its first original game, the alternate history WWII shooter Turning Point: Fall of Liberty for Codemasters, and is in the midst of developing its next original title, Legendary, which has since shed its subtitle The Box.

The first-person shooter takes the legend of Pandora's Box int . . . Read more

In order to bridge the tabletop miniature games and the MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the people from EA Mythic and Games Workshop decided to recreate a battle at the Gates of Ekrund.

John Schaffer from Games Workshop crafted a scaled model of the ancient Gates of Ekrund. He based his work on a few screenshots that were from the MMO's in-game environment. Once it was finished, Adam Gershowitz and John Rudy from EA Mythic were tasked to participate in the battle.

(Continuatio . . . Read more

Synopsys officially rolls out a silicon core for PCI Express 2.0 Monday (April 28), claiming the 5 GHz technology is beginning to get attention from designers. The news comes at a time when experts say the industry is moving at a relatively slow pace down the Express road map.

Synopsys is supplying silicon intellectual property for the physical layer, controller and verification portions of the Express 2.0 spec.

"Other companies tend to have one or two of the components but not all three," . . . Read more

A second-generation self-tuning Robot Guitar was recently announced by Gibson Guitar Corp. (Nashville, Tenn.). Two new models are available--a Les Paul Studio Ltd. and an SG Special Ltd.--both offering a new locking input jack. The first-generation Robot Guitar was superseded by the new second-generation models earlier this month. The new instruments, which sport a metallic purple finish, are now sold out, but EE Times has learned that a new metallic green finish will be announced by Gibson soon . . . Read more

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