Friday, May 13th, 2011
GamersFirst is reporting that they’ve recently appointed David Jones as the newest member of Reloaded Productions, were he’ll serve an advisory role for the upcoming APB Reloaded title.
“The opportunity to have David reconnect with us during the production of the new ‘APB Reloaded’ game has been great and it lets us take advantage of both a deeper understanding of the original vision of APB, as well as leveraging the strengths of the Free2Play model used in the new ‘APB Reloaded’ game,” said Bjorn Book-Larsson, COO and CTO of GamersFirst in a statement.
This is a major score for GamersFirst, as Jones’ pedigree is something to be marveled. He’s credited as the creator of the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise, as well as it’s MMO successor, “APB: All Points Bulletin”. Post GTA, Jones split from DMA Design (later to become Rockstar North) in 1999 to create Realtime Worlds in 2001. Seeking to recreate his success, Jones and Co. released “Crackdown” in 2007. Crackdown was an Xbox only affair, and offered up an action-adventure, third person shooter, published by Microsoft. Post Crackdown, Realtime Worlds put it’s full resources towards the creation of APB: All Points Bulletin, resulting in one of the worlds’ most customizable MMOs to date. Now coming full circle, APB Reloaded is slated for a May 18th Open beta, and presents players with a truly open-world of cops and robbers’ adventure.
“This game was my passion back when I was developing it with Realtime Worlds, and I’m extremely excited to be able to participate in fulfilling the long term vision for the title,” Jones stated. “After seeing what the team has done with the game thus far, I’m certain that APB Reloaded will become the title that truly breaks new ground for online game experiences, especially with transition to a free to play model.”
“Allowing players to try out key aspects of the game before committing to making purchases fits this game tremendously well” Jones added.
Again, on tap for May 18th, APB Reloaded is a free-to-play, third person MMO based in the modern-day fictitious city of San Paro. As the city crumbles to it’s knees, players choose their faction, Enforcers (the good guys) or Criminals (the bad guys). Having chosen sides, the battle ensues, with players battling for turf, committing or preventing petty crimes, and gaining reputation and respect within their chosen organization. APB Reloaded promises to deliver non-stop chaos, and offers up some of the most complete set of customization tools to date.
The APB Reloaded closed beta is currently underway, but the open beta begins on May 18th, with interested parties able to sign up directly at gamersfirst.com/apb.
Tags: GamersFirst, GTA, Rockstar
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Monday, May 19th, 2008
Market research firm NPD released April data on Thursday putting Nintendo’sWii on top.
Nintendo also released their own press release using the NPD numbers:
According to NPD, the Wii outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3. The Wii moved 714,000 units in April bringing it’s total US sales since launch to 9.5 Million units.
NPD’s numbers show that Microsoft milked the cash cow for 188,000 units and Sony, 187,100 PS3′s.
Perhaps having a bit of advanced knowledge of the upcoming numbers, Microsoft released a statement of their own on Wednesday that they’d reached the 10 Million units sold mark, making the Xbox 360 the first next-gen console to reach this landmark. Microsoft gave itself a pat on the back, arguing that this is the landmark that that usually indicates the eventual winner of each console generation.
Speaking of April, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV launched on the 29th on Xbox 360 and PS3. Granted, GTA IV had only been out for 2 days last month, and box Microsoft and Sony saw an increase in these sales, and yet Wii still came out on top.
NPD’s data on GTA IV places the game in two of the three top slots of software sales, with the Xbox version cashing in with 1.85M copies, and the PS3 version selling 1M units.
Again, Nintendo backs that ass up with Mario Kart Wii coming in as the second best selling game for the month of April, pushing 1.12M bananas out the door. Overall, 6 out of the top 10 best selling games during April were Wii games.
Let’s not forget about the other white meat: handheld gamers. The Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP outsold both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. The DS cranked out 414,800 receipts, with the PSP paling in comparison at only 192,700.
Overall, NPD’s research indicates what we’ve already mentioned, even though the economy sucks, the gaming industry is still partying like it’s 1999, with total sales in April racking up $1.23 billion. Yep, that’s Billion. That’s a 47% increase over the $839 million only one year earlier. Likewise, hardware sales were up 26% from $339 million in April 2007 to $426 million in April 2008.
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Monday, May 5th, 2008
With the cost of Gas creeping higher every day, the housing market mired in turmoil, and an estimated cost of $3 trillion for the war in Iraq, the American consumer confidence index (a survey on how the average American views their economic health, both past and present) is at an all time low.
So really, let’s forget about the “real world” and delve into a far more exciting one: games!
America’s biggest specialty retailer of both video games and the associated hardware required to run these games GameStop is expecting double digit growth this year. Growth is forecasted by a number of factors but the accelerating demand for next-gen hardware such as the PS3 has boosted GameStops numbers by a mile. Janco Parterns Mike Hickey explains that success for GameStop is
“highly attributable to video game play attracting a mainstream audience,” with the demographic expansion having much to do with “new consoles like the Wii, which pull back on the geekish complexity of typical content aimed at hardcore gamers.”
Hickey also goes on to attribute massive growth to upcoming new releases and expansion packs. The upcoming (April 29th) release of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto IV could net the company an expected $100 million in a single week. Tack on the much anticipated 2nd expansion to Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King” and GameStop could post record breaking numbers this year. Blizzards first expansion pack “The Burning Crusade” sold 2.4 Million copies in 24 hours and 3.5 Million copies in the first month.
Tags: America, content, GameStop, Iraq, Janco, mainstream, Mike Hickey, MMORPG, Rockstar, video, Wii, World of Warcraft
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