Google rated top "most trusted, liked, and respected" company worldwide by consulting firm Reputation Institute, with the Japanese electronics giant taking second place.
Internet giant Google has topped a chart of international brand reputation, followed narrowly by Sony, in a consumer survey conducted by consulting firm Reputation Institute. Apple ranked at number six and Microsoft at number 11 on the list of 28 corporations that have "successfully exported their reputations around the world."
The Institute conducted a number of surveys around the world in January 2010 and then entered the 54 brands most respected in their home countries into a secondary, global survey. The online survey asked consumers to rate companies for "trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling," producing a reputation score of up to 100. Companies with global ratings above 70 earned a spot on the "world's most reputable" list.
Although Nintendo was sixth among the 600 companies in last year's full ranking by the same firm it wasn't among the world's 600 "largest" firms entered into this year's study. This was because its revenues for 2010 were not high enough compared to the local competition, according to Adam Shoer, Reputation Institute's associate director of corporate communications.
Google took the number one spot with a so-called "global reputation pulse" score of 78.62, edging out Sony's score of 78.47. Microsoft slotted in at number 11 with a score of 74.47, though neither it nor Sony was being specifically evaluated for its video game products. Google and Sony both ranked highly in individual regions; Sony placed in the top five in each region surveyed. Google ranked in the top five in each region except Asia, due to an "average" reputation in China, according to the consultancy firm.
Despite Sony and Microsoft having received their share of reputation-harming press over recent years, such as the "red ring of death" and ""yellow light of death" console hardware failures, the survey's results suggest both brands are still held in esteem worldwide. But since the study questioned the general public, for whom Sony and Microsoft are better known as an electronics and software brand respectively, their chart appearances may not reflect their relative reputations as gaming brands.
Developer of Ratchet and Clank, Resistance signs on to create an original game for Xbox 360 and PS3 with Electronic Arts publishing through external developer program.
From Spyro the Dragon to Ratchet & Clank to Resistance, Insomniac Games has been a premiere developer for the PlayStation family of consoles. While gamers frequently--though mistakenly--believe the studio to be a part of Sony, Insomniac has always been an independent developer.
The studio is providing a strong reminder of that today, as it has announced a deal with Electronic Arts' EA Partners program that will see an all-new Insomniac property arrive on the Xbox 360 as well as the PlayStation 3. Neither the game's title nor its planned release window was announced.
"We want to reach more players," Insomniac founder and CEO Ted Price told GameSpot. "We've always been very excited about our PS3 fanbase, but we're at the time in our company growth where we would like to also bring the entertainment experiences we're creating to the Xbox 360 fanbase… Certainly, our interest is in owning what we create. And working with EAP, we can do that and that's a boon for us."
Price was also adamant that the move should not be viewed as a rejection of Sony or an abandonment of the series it has made for the electronics giant.
"I want to make it clear that we're not stopping working with Sony," Price said. "We've had a long relationship with Sony and we've produced some great franchises together and our commitment to them and those franchises--Ratchet and Resistance--remain just as strong." (A third Resistance game was hinted at by a billboard on a Baton Rouge movie set last year.)
Price acknowledged the successes of some independent developers of late, but stopped short of ascribing bigger picture significance to the deals.
"I don't know if this is a trend, necessarily," Price said. "I think the industry's going to continue to evolve and we're going to see different types of deals, different approaches every year."
EA Partners general manager David DeMartini similarly balked when asked if the deals signaled a change in the developer-publisher balance of power.
"I like to categorize it as balance of partnership moreso than balance of power," DeMartini said. "And in that balance of partnership, the entity that has the greatest influence over creative direction should have the most creative control. And that's why as it relates to the well-established independent studios like Insomniac, like Respawn, they absolutely should have control over the direction that their property goes."
In a post on Insomniac's official Web site, Price further explained the impact this agreement will have on Insomniac's future titles. "We've been developing games on an annual pace during the last 16 years," Price said. "One thing that has become apparent to us though is that in order to live up to our own high standards of quality, we want to give ourselves more development time to iterate and polish our games. All future Insomniac titles will benefit from longer development cycles, which will directly benefit you, our fans."
Gamers eager to see what direction Insomniac is heading in will need to be patient. DeMartini said the publisher won't be revealing anything more about Insomniac's EA Partners game at next month's Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Wall Street Journal reports that "major" organisational changes are expected over and above J Allard's departure as early as next week.
Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division is facing a major organisational overhaul in the very near future, The Wall Street Journalreports. The division, which includes the Xbox business unit, accounted for 11 percent of Microsoft's revenue for the first three months of 2010 but competition with both Apple and Google in the mobile space has forced the company's hand, according to the WSJ.
It was reported last week that J Allard, who has overseen all design and engineering across Microsoft's Xbox division, is expected to leave his current roles as Chief Experience Office and Chief Technology Officer. The WSJ's sources indicate that this is just the start of the changes that could be unveiled as early as next week. The woes in the company's mobile phone division are underlined by the recent market share figures, which show that Microsoft's share of the smartphone market dropped to 6.8 percent in the first quarter of this year from 10.2 percent during the same period last year. Over the same time frame Google and Apple's shares climbed to 9.6 percent and 15.4 percent from 1.6 percent and 10.5 percent respectively.
The Entertainment and Devices division has now been profitable for two full financial years, with a third full year of profitability expected to be confirmed when Microsoft publishes its annual results in July. Its first full year of profitability was driven by the 2007 launch of Halo 3.
In the first quarter of this year Microsoft reported $14.5 billion in revenue, a record for the company and a 6 percent year-on-year increase. The Entertainment and Devices division saw its revenues rise 2 percent over the same period, despite non-gaming revenues being up 16 percent. Profit at the division was up significantly, however, thanks to decreased Xbox 360 manufacturing costs and increased Xbox Live revenues, with profit rising from $249 million to $851 million.
EA/BioWare pens deal with Legendary Pictures to bring the world of Commander Shepard to the big screen; I Am Legend, Thor movie writer in talks to pen script.
SCEA senior vice president of publisher relations Rob Dyer says pirates and low publisher support for handheld hurt sales; claims upcoming tech will give titles 60-day piracy-free shelf life.
It's no secret that North American sales for the PSP are at the low end of the spectrum. The handheld is consistently behind its competitors, with the most recent NPD report showing US retail sales of just 65,500 units last month compared to the Nintendo DS, which topped the sales charts with 440,800 units sold.
In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Sony Computer Entertainment America senior vice president of publisher relations Rob Dyer blamed piracy and a lack of American publisher support for the PSP's low sales in North America.
"That's been the biggest problem, no question about it. It's become a very difficult proposition to be profitable, given the piracy right now. And the fact that the category shrunk inside of retail," he said.
"There's a number of titles from American publishers that will be there, but are we getting full-line support? No. I'm not going to b******* you on that."
Dyer said Sony was working on solutions to the piracy problem, hinting that the company was developing a method that would temporarily delay illegal sharing of PSP titles.
"We believe that there's a way that you will be able to, not stop, but slow down the piracy in the first 30 to 60 days from a tech perspective. There's some code that you can embed that we've been helping developers implement in order to get people at least to see a 60-day shelf life before it gets hacked and it shows up on BitTorrent," he said.
North American PSP figures are in stark contrast to the situation in Sony's home country, where the system enjoys strong sales. In recent weeks, the PSP has even outsold the Nintendo Wii and DSi LL in the charts. In the week ending May 16 the PSP sold 24,475 units in Japan; the previous week's numbers stood at 35,233.
"It's [the PSP] killing it in Japan," Dyer told Gamasutra. "[In North America] you have [Metal Gear Solid] Peace Walker that I think is going to do very good numbers. You're going to have some phenomenal support from Square. They have some great stuff coming. You have some great stuff from Capcom. Again, it's a lot of stuff from Japan," he said.
Dyer said Sony would try to rectify the situation with a strong line-up of first-party and third-party titles for the PSP in the next year.
We step into Perseus' sandals and take on some mythological monsters in this movie-inspired adventure.
Though the movie has been in theaters for almost two months, the Clash of the Titans video game still looms on the horizon. Last week at Namco Bandai's pre-E3 event in Santa Monica, we got a taste of what's in store for aspiring Greek heroes. Given the Olympian forces arrayed against Perseus, it should come as no surprise that the game is chock-full of enemies to slay. Our demo featured a number of these foes, but more impressively, it showed off the robust variety of exotic weapons that Perseus can use in his struggles. From swords and hammers to severed wings and magical powers, the weapons in Clash of the Titans promise that you'll have plenty of new and interesting ways to smite evil throughout your quest.
Learn about stealing weapons from your enemies and watch Perseus in action in this demo of Clash of the Titans.
Clash of the Titans follows the plot of the movie closely and is written by one of the film's screenwriters, hopefully ensuring a good amount of fidelity. Perseus begins his adventure in a fairly linear fashion, taking quests and fighting monsters in an effort to protect humanity. Later on in the game you gain access to a hub area that lets you replay earlier quests or take on challenge quests in order to earn specific rewards. Perseus can amass a substantial inventory, and he gets many of his items from the corpses of his foes.
Perseus' primary weapon is his trusty sword. This weapon enables him to execute light and heavy attacks, as well as some powerful combos. His sword is always equipped, but just because you have one sword doesn't mean you can't have another. In the bottom left corner of the screen, there are four circles that correspond to the four primary directions on the D pad. Each circle represents an equipment slot that can hold a variety of different items, and by tapping the D pad you can switch your secondary weapon on the fly. Though secondary attacks are all mapped to one button, don't expect them all to feel the same. Different swords have different power and speed ratings, and Perseus will execute a unique combination specific to the blade he is using.
Of course, not all secondary weapons have blades. Large hammers do serious damage but take more time to swing, while axes offer a powerful alternative for when blunt objects aren't doing the trick. Bows provide an effective way to take out enemies at range, though magical cores can be just as helpful. One in particular unleashes an attractive-yet-deadly plume of flame, and a healing core came in handy when Perseus' health began to get low. There is even a whole category of wings that you can use as weapons, and they use a variety of wind attacks to damage your enemies, include swirling vortices and massive gusts.
Yes, wings, like the kind you might rip off of a harpy. In fact, that's exactly how Perseus acquires his own personal weaponized harpy wing. When you pummel an enemy vigorously, it will be temporarily surrounded by a faint yellow glow. Attack in this window of time, and you'll see rhythmic prompts appear onscreen. Attack in sync with the rhythm, and you'll brutally maul your enemy and steal its weapon/magic core/wing/what have you. Get out of sync, and you'll get a sharp smack in the mouth from your recovered foe. This bit of risk means that once you've stripped a given enemy type of its weapon and added it to your arsenal, it might be best just to thrash your foe soundly without opening yourself up to a counterattack.
Taking stock of your enemies' vulnerabilities is another important combat tactic. Different baddies will be weak or resistant to different damage types, encouraging you to flex your entire arsenal. Having four different secondary weapons accessible during combat is great, though you can always pause the game and swap them with others should you feel the need. If you encounter flying enemies, for example, consider pulling out your hydra's soul to magically snatch them out of the air and throw them against a wall. Then whip out that one hammer that looks like a boulder on a stick to finish them off in style.
Though Perseus is a lone adventurer for much of the game, there are quests in which he will be accompanied by a companion. These characters are drawn from the movie, and each one brings different abilities to bear on the field of battle. Io, for example, will heal Perseus when his health gets low. A second player can pick up a controller and jump in for some cooperative action on these missions as well. Whether you play it alone or with a friend, Clash of the Titans is looking to serve up an epic portion of mythological combat. Be sure to check out the interview from our hands-on session, and keep an eye here for more on Clash of the Titans in the coming months.
Namco Bandai's retro horror revamp for PS3 and 360 gets a thematically appropriate release window later this year.
When Namco Bandai last talked about Splatterhouse, it was to delay the action horror game into the third quarter of this year. The game is apparently going to miss that window, but not by much. A Namco Bandai representative has told GameSpot that Splatterhouse is now due for a Halloween release, putting the haunted house game alongside an appropriate holiday.
An update of the original gross-out arcade beat-'em-up released in 1988, Splatterhouse features a mix of platforming, puzzle-solving, and brutal combat, all set to an original storyline by comic-book scribe Gordon Rennie (Judge Dredd, Necronauts). Players assume the role of a college student in search of his kidnapped girlfriend and subsequently happen upon a mask that confers great power--and an insatiable bloodlust.
This email was sent to kife1100@gmail.com. Create an Account Don't want to receive this feed any longer? Unsubscribe here This email was carefully delivered by Feed My Inbox. 230 Franklin Road Suite 814 Franklin, TN 37064
No comments:
Post a Comment