VentureBeat |
- Microsoft takes over Halo with launch of upcoming Defiant Map Pack (video)
- A small game studio scores big with Torchlight (video)
- Apple wises up by sharing its Mac OS X Lion code with hackers
- Nintendo 3DS starts selling in Japan — and gets hacked right away
- Week in review: Debate grows around Apple’s subscription plan
- Will Microsoft conquer free-to-play games with Age of Empires Online? (video)
- iPhone 5 part shows bigger display, iPad 2 available next week?
- Frog Design’s Jan Chipchase on how the poor can least afford bad design
| Microsoft takes over Halo with launch of upcoming Defiant Map Pack (video) Posted: 27 Feb 2011 08:00 AM PST
While the map pack isn’t as big an undertaking as a brand new game, it’s important in generating sequel revenues and it is also key to reassuring fans that Microsoft will focus a lot of resources in the care and feeding of the Halo franchise, which has generated well above 40 million units in sales. Bungie, the original creator of the multi-billion dollar franchise, has moved on to a new game series for Activision Blizzard. Now Microsoft has to prove that it can manage and care for this decade-old gold mine in a way that keeps the fans — who have played Halo games for 3.3 billion hours on Xbox Live — coming back. If it succeeds, Halo games will continue to print money for Microsoft for years to come.
O’Connor says that the map pack, built by developer Certain Affinity in Texas, isn’t an easy thing to build. One reason is that the maps have to be tailored to what the fans want. But fan feedback is all over the map and what people say they want often diverges from what people actually do when they play. Certain Affinity, fortunately, has been working on map packs ever since Halo 2 debuted in 2004. “These things have to be really well-thought out on the ground level of the design,” he said. “How do the expert players enjoy this map and how do new players enjoy it?” O’Connor says the company is still hiring developers for 343 Industries and it has the luxury of trying to convince potential hires to work on one of the most beloved game franchises in history. He says that, during the 10th anniversary year of Halo, the company will do all it can to make this year seem like a big deal. He’s not talking about what 343 Industries’ major effort is. But hopefully it will be epic. We talked with O’Connor about the transition and the map pack. Check out the video. Companies: 343 Industries, Bungie, Certain Affinity, Microsoft People: Frank O’Connor
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| A small game studio scores big with Torchlight (video) Posted: 27 Feb 2011 08:00 AM PST
“I think the era of the five-year, $90 million project may be coming an end and mercifully so,” Schafer said. “We measure our development cycles in months, not years.” Against the odds, Runic was able to create and self-publish Torchlight, a high-quality online game that sold through digital distribution. It got funding from China’s Perfect World Entertainment to finish the game and begin work on other titles. The downloadable game is a lot like Diablo, but with lots of improvements and gorgeous graphics and a real story with 20 hours of game play. That’s quite a bargain for $20, and many gamers thought so too. Since launching in October, Torchlight generated a considerable amount of sales on Valve’s Steam digital distribution service. The game was a big enough hit to keep Runic going on its own. Now Runic is about to publish Torchlight as a console game on Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade, the downloadable game market on the Xbox 360. To create that game, Runic had to reconfigure the game for console controls, something that the Schaefers always wanted to do. That title will launch shortly. Schaefer said that the company is in full-scale development on Torchlight 2, which could come out as early as this summer. That game will add multiplayer play. And if the property continues to be successful, Runic could build a Torchlight massively multiplayer online world, which could be published by Perfect World, which is one of the biggest makers of MMOs. Someday, sometime, Schaefer’s old employer, Blizzard Entertainment, is going to produce some serious competition for Torchlight. Blizzard has been working for years on Diablo III and may be getting close to publishing it in 2012. By then, Runic will hopefully have done multiple titles in the same time that it took Blizzard to do one. Blizzard might crush Runic, but I would guess that won’t happen. Check out our interview with Schaefer below. Companies: Flagship Studios, Perfect World Entertainment, Runic Games People: Max Schaefer
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| Apple wises up by sharing its Mac OS X Lion code with hackers Posted: 26 Feb 2011 11:20 PM PST
That’s pretty progressive thinking for Apple, which has previously kept mum about cooperating with security researchers, also known as hackers, who have from time to time caused the company embarrassment by breaking the security of its systems and then telling the world about it. In this case, the company is seeking feedback from the hackers in advance so that it can patch any holes in the security of the operating system before it is released. If it’s true, that’s a big step because it means that Apple is willing to trust the hackers with its code.
“At least security crosses their mind now,” Miller said. Both Dai Zovi and Miller are authors of the book The Mac Hacker’s Handbook and have become famous over the years for breaking the security on Apple’s products. You know that Apple wasn’t happy about that book. But it is very common for big companies to hire people like Miller and Dai Zovi to undertake “penetration testing,” where the company sanctions them to break the company’s security so that it can be improved. The Linux operating system is constantly improved through the open-source process. But Apple has operated more as a closed company when it comes to security matters. Apple could afford to put security as a lower priority for many years because hackers always went after Windows instead. But now that Apple’s products are more popular, it is becoming a target. Companies: Apple People: Charlie Miller, Dino Dai Zovi
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| Nintendo 3DS starts selling in Japan — and gets hacked right away Posted: 26 Feb 2011 06:26 PM PST
The system won’t arrive in North America until March 27 and in Europe on March 25. Nintendo typically targets its initial launches of new game systems for the Japanese market first and then it builds larger supplies to launch worldwide. The system is a critical one for Nintendo, which wants to continue to dominate handheld gaming despite the strong sales of Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad — which have become spectacular game platforms. New game systems typically sell out in their first sales spurt, so we’ll be watching to see how the launch goes for Nintendo. GameSpot said crowds lined up at one store at the Yodobashi Camera store in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district. But some of the people were there to get a new toy based on the Kamen Rider television show. It so happened the new toy was being released on the same day as Nintendo’s new dual-screen portable device. The 3DS is available in cosmo black or aqua blue colors, and there were eight Japanese 3dS games available at the launch. Outside the store, a number of new 3DS owners tired out the system’s Street Pass social functionality outside the store. The 3DS costs 25,000 yen, or $300, in Japan. In the U.S., it will cost $250, with games costing $40 each. That might be a reflection of how competitive the U.S. market has become with the Apple and Android devices on the market. Nintendo has said it expects to sell 4 million DS units by the end of March, including 1.5 million in Japan. Given past history and the interest in the device, that should be easy for Nintendo to do. The DS has sold more than 145 million units in its lifetime since 2004. Sony will have its own new handheld game system, the NGP, coming this fall. Bloomberg reported about 2,000 people lined up at a store in Akihabara, after e-commerce retailers sold out their pre-orders. Reuters said customers lined up at a camera store in Yurakucho, Tokyo. And the Wall Street Journal reported hundreds of people outside a store in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. PC magazine reported that the 3DS system got hacked soon after the sales started. Hackers “jailbroke” the device to support flash memory cards that can play older Nintendo games. [photo credit: GameSpot] Companies: nintendo
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| Week in review: Debate grows around Apple’s subscription plan Posted: 26 Feb 2011 12:51 PM PST Here's our roundup of the week's top tech business news. First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:
Apple iPad 2 said to be unveiled at March 2 event — Apple will finally debut the iPad 2 at a San Francisco event on March 2. HP's new business laptops offer up to 32 hours of battery — Hewlett-Packard announced a new family of laptops for business users with new industrial designs and one very interesting feature: a battery life of up to 32 hours. Amazon takes on Netflix with Prime instant videos — This is Amazon's first move to counter Netflix's streaming video dominance. Apple rumored to launch new Macbook Pros — Rumors said Apple was going to introduce new MacBook Pro laptops last week — and it did. And here are five more stories we think are important, thought-provoking, fun, or all of the above:
Grameen IT CEO on how technology transformed Bangladesh — Kazi Islam describes his job as "implementing the future". Apple looks towards music files that surpass CD quality — Apple, the company responsible for the widespread popularity of heavily compressed music, is looking into offering high-fidelity music files that will surpass the quality of CDs. Google's investment in Transphorm could be good news for electric cars — Google is backing a startup called Transphorm, whose power-conversion efficiency technology could some day help create more efficient electric cars. Killzone 3 with Move controller: a novel but not brilliant gaming experience — Sony's newly launched Killzone 3 video game for the PlayStation 3 promised to be a big step up in first-person shooting sci-fi combat, but it has serious shortcomings. Companies: Apple, Google, Grameen IT, Hewlett Packard, HP, Room 77, Sony, Transphorm
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| Will Microsoft conquer free-to-play games with Age of Empires Online? (video) Posted: 26 Feb 2011 11:35 AM PST
If this free-to-play version takes off, it will become Microsoft’s flagship entry in the new age of downloadable online video games, where upstarts such as Gameforge, Nexon, Outspark and Perfect World are the contenders for the throne. Successful free-to-play video games can generate huge amounts of revenue and establish companies in the new digital distribution market. As I approached the game at Microsoft’s event this week in San Francisco, I was surprised to run into Chris Taylor, the zany chief executive of Gas Powered Games. He disclosed that his company had been working with Robot Entertainment on the project and was now taking over as lead developer on Age of Empires Online. Gas Powered Games has specialized in real-time strategy (where you fight enemies that move at the same time as your own forces), having made ground-breaking games in the PC-focused genre such as Supreme Commander. Everybody fretted over the death of real-time strategy when Microsoft shut down Ensemble Studios (the original developer of Age of Empires) a couple of years ago. But it’s hard to kill off a whole genre. Robot was started by former Ensemble Studios veterans and it began work on the online game two years ago. Now it has moved on to another game, Orcs Must Die. Taylor said that created the opportunity for Gas Powered Games to step in and finish the game, which still doesn’t have a launch date but is slated to come out this year.
Ian Vogel, a Microsoft producer, said the art style is more accessible. To me, it looks more like a cartoon than the realistic graphics of the older Age of Empires games. One downside is that the game is downloadable. That means users must download it to their computers before they can play it. In the U.S., that’s not a great thing since not everybody has great broadband connections and some people don’t trust downloads. Browser-based games, where no download is required, tend to do better here with the mass market. Still, downloadable games can offer a great graphics experience and deep game play. The game has familiar combat between players, and it also has quests to embark upon. You can play cooperatively with friends or challenge them in matches. Since the game is integrated with your friends list on Xbox Live, you can engage in live chat.
Taylor says the cool thing about the game is that millions of people could play it without paying a dime. But you can take your civilization to the next level by purchasing a Premium Civilization Pack, which adds new game play and new experiences. The real sales trick for Microsoft is to convert as many people to paid accounts as possible. Typically, only 3 to 5 percent of players will pay, but that generates enough revenue to make a lot of games profitable. Success isn’t guaranteed, however. THQ recently decided to pull the plug on Company of Heroes Online after it failed to get enough people interested in paying. With the premium version, you can get access to rare gear, unlock new units such as Armored Elephants and Civilization Powers. You can explore a full technological development tree, enjoy more player vs. player options, produce more kinds of crafts in new workshops, and earn in-game currency from the stores in your capital city. Check out our video interview with Taylor below. Companies: Gas Powered Games, Microsoft, Robot Entertainment People: Chris Taylor
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| iPhone 5 part shows bigger display, iPad 2 available next week? Posted: 26 Feb 2011 11:10 AM PST
And in other Apple news, there’s a good chance that the iPad 2 will be readily available for consumers next week, as opposed to the April ship date many are expecting, AppleInsider reports. First the supposed iPhone 5 part: the reseller iDealsChina has found a photo (above) of what looks to be a digitizer screen panel resembling the iPhone 4’s, except it features much more screen space. In exchange for the increased screen size, the part shows significantly less bezel space on the sides of the display (the screen practically touches the side of the phone), as well as less space between the screen and the home button and top ear piece. To get a sense of the screen differences, check out the mockup image below. At this point, it’s pretty clear that the iPhone 5 will feature a larger display; the only question is, how will it fit into Apple’s iPhone design. There are also rumblings that Apple is considering removing the iPhone and iPad’s home button altogether, which would make room for larger screens without significantly increasing the size of the devices. As for the iPad 2 availability rumor, I would take it with an even larger helping of salt. AppleInsider’s sources say that Apple is preparing its operating segments for functions that resemble a large-scale consumer product roll out. With Apple hosting an iPad 2 press event next Thursday, the news seems to point to the iPad successor actually being available next week. But given that Apple reportedly started manufacturing iPad 2’s earlier this month, it seems unlikely that it would be ready to ship out units to customers so quickly. Via 9to5Mac, mockup via Piotrek Companies: Apple
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| Frog Design’s Jan Chipchase on how the poor can least afford bad design Posted: 26 Feb 2011 09:54 AM PST
Chipchase’s job as Frog Design’s “Director of global insights” takes him all around the world and into the most private areas of people’s lives. The aim of his research is to understand what makes people tick and how that knowledge should inform the design of products and services. Frog Design works for big companies who want to know where the future business opportunities lie and what disruptions are coming. I talked to him about love, money and design in the developing world. Chipchase is not a believer in design at a distance. “If you spend time out in the places where people do the things they do, you get a different perspective. You get a much richer, more nuanced perspective way beyond any marketing, statistical insights,” he says. Much of his time is spent in emerging countries. There has been a historical tendency to lump people in emerging countries together — in particular bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) people. “China is not a country, it’s a continent,” insists Chipchase. “India is not a country, it’s a continent. China has a bigger middle class than the entire population of Europe. Anyone who doesn’t try to break those down is a fool.” BOP people usually form the largest but poorest group in a country. Companies also need to understand their obligations to their customers. “When you go into the BOP, your obligations are that much clearer. Your responsibilities as a corporation are that much greater because the people you are effecting with your products and services tend to have lower margins for error” he explains. “What is so compelling about what you produce that someone is willing to put so much on the line? Can you really imagine (the equivalent of) giving up your car for this product?” One of the biggest mistakes companies make, according to Chipchase, is assuming they can just sell the same thing in emerging markets. “There are certain companies who would put out one phone for that entire market. There are other companies which have done a fantastic job of targeting products at the aspirers within those communities, at the entrepreneurs, the stay at home Mums. These niches are hundreds of millions big.” You should also never underestimate those BOP consumers, he says. “Five years ago I was in Uganda before any of the mobile money services were around, before M-paisa (the pioneering P2P mobile payments service in Kenya), and one of the things I saw in a Ugandan village was people had created their own mobile money service.” People were trading airtime as a form of currency. ”If that kind of thing can naturally organise, what role do we have as designers?”
Local mobile carrier Roshan recently introduced M-Paisa there. “Somewhere like the U.S., mobile money is just one step away. In Afghanistan, it’s probably 3 steps away. The 3 steps are textual literacy, mobile literacy and financial literacy (e.g. understanding the concept of “interest”). That doesn’t mean that people are not going to use it. It just means that they have to be even more motivated.” Male literacy in Afghanistan stands at 43 percent, female at 13 percent. How do you design mobile services for people who can’t read? Apparently, illiterate people often have “proximate literacy” where friends and neighbors who can read help out. Trust is a more difficult barrier. “There is close to zero trust in institutions in Afghanistan,” Chipchase told me. “The mobile carriers have more trust than the banks. On the M-paisa agent’s commission, we have heard of customers saying ‘The agent wanted a bribe’. ”
Afghanistan is also a country with relative geography. “So if I was to describe this hotel in Afghanistan it would be … Go to the coast, find a big roundabout, head north towards the sun until you find a little lady selling vegetables and ask her if she will point you to the right alley.” Even locating an M-Paisa agent in this environment could take several hours the first time. As Chipchase describes it, illiterate BOP people can learn anything, but they need to be sufficiently motivated. The dating etiquette in Afghanistan involves buying airtime, and possibly a mobile phone, for your beloved. “The mobile phone makes love marriages possible," said one young Afghan. There’s nothing more motivating than love. Companies: Frog Design People: jan chipchase
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The baton has passed in the Halo video game franchise. 
The responsibility for Halo now rests with Frank O’Connor (pictured left), head of 343 Industries, a Microsoft-owned game studio. O’Connor said in an interview that a number of ex-Bungie employees like himself continue to work on the franchise. But the company has also recruited a lot of new blood to apply fresh ideas to the familiar Halo universe, which is the single-biggest video game property that Microsoft has ever created and which is primarily responsible for the success of its Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles.
The Halo Reach Defiant Map Pack is the second for 
The maps include Condemned, which takes place above a massive space station in orbit above the planet Reach. I played this game and a lot of the fighting centered around a multi-level central ring (pictured at top) where you could jump high into the air and shoot your enemies either above or below you. It also includes Highlands, a military training area set in a wooded area on Reach. It’s a big map where players can engage in massive 16-player battles. I also played Unearthed, a Titanium mine and refinery on the planet where you can ride around in vehicles such as the Warthog (above right).
Max Schaefer is the head of Runic Games, a tiny game startup with a big punch. He and his brother Erich have been making fantasy role-playing games for more than 15 years. They started 
It isn’t easy to create a new video game development company that focuses on high-quality games. But Runic’s path to the market is one that others can take in the age of digital distribution. For the sake of creativity and innovation, its important that the industry figures out how to create financially viable independent game development companies. So Runic’s success so far is an inspiring example for would-be entrepreneurs who want to create a new company in the video game business.
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve requested that you be invited to the pre-release seed of Mac OS X Lion, and you should receive an invitation soon,” 
Nintendo started selling the 3DS handheld game system this weekend in Japan, and fans lined up in chilly weather to get their hands on the new handheld which can be viewed in stereoscopic 3D without special glasses.
Age of Empires has sold more than 25 million copies in retail stores over the years. So it was a big leap when
The online-only downloadable game won’t be the same experience as Age of Empires. It has a different art style and you most likely won’t be playing massive battles in the online version, as was possible in the older games. That’s a trade-off that will make the game more marketable. But there are benefits that come from having a persistent world that’s almost like a massively multiplayer online game.
In this game, your empire’s capital city is always alive in a persistent world. You can customize your city, collect resources, create crafts and then trade them with others. You can build your forces and enter a combat arena with your friends or fight random battles. Those battles are a lot like the older multiplayer real-time combat sessions in the classic games. But now you can gain experience and collect winnings that can be used to build the persistent version of your empire. You can progress through levels and get access to more stuff.
We reported a few weeks ago that the iPhone 5 would 
You could call Jan Chipchase the 
Frog Design just published some research from Chipchase on mobile money services in Afghanistan that illustrates the complexity of designing services for such markets.
Afghans hold their wealth in “portfolios” of goats, gold, commodities and various currencies including dollars. Roshan pays 10 percent of its workforce using mobile money, and they immediately trade it for something tangible. In such a society, “Imagine going back home to your household” says Chipchase “and it’s pay-day and the head of the household says ‘Where’s your money? You say ‘It’s on here (the phone)’. ‘Fool!’ says the patriarch’” You can see how this would seem like trading the family cow for the magic beans in the | You are subscribed to email updates from VentureBeat To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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