NCsoft debuts $2 application for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad to provide on-the-go access to in-game auction house, character profiles.
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Cupertino company sees smartphone's 90% growth fuel Q4 profits of $4.31 billion on earnings of $20.34 billion.
Last month, April held an event in San Francisco, and a good portion of that show was focused on the Cupertino-based iPhone maker's growing presence in the gaming space. According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, more than 1.5 billion applications that are in "Fun & Games" section App Store have been sold, and the company hopes to further benefit the sector since the beginning of its gaming platform center of social networks.
Apple saw no shortage in demand for iPhone 4.
This week, Apple put a point on its strength in the mobile sector as part of its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report. For the three month period ended September 25, the company said that it had sold 14.1 million iPhones worldwide, a 91 percent spike in terms of unit sales compared to the same period last year. Notably, Apple launched its latest iPhone revision, iPhone 4, in late June.
iPod sales, including the Touch, also ticked up 11 percent during the period to 9.05 million units. Apple has also continued to see success with the iPad. Having launched the device in April, Apple said that its tablet device sold 4.19 million units during the fiscal quarter. During its March 26-June 25 quarter, Apple sold 3.27 million iPads, putting the device's lifetime-to-date sales at nearly 7.5 million units.
For the three-month period, Apple posted $20.34 billion in revenue, a massive 67 percent year-over-year increase. As part of a post-earnings conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the spike "was fueled primarily by record iPhone sales, the tremendous popularity of iPad, and our best Mac quarter ever." Net income saw a similar hike, rising 70 percent to $4.31 billion and besting the company's previous best of $930 million.
"We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings--both all-time records for Apple," commented Jobs.
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French casual games publisher sees sales rise 15% to $44 million thanks to 113% growth on Apple's handheld devices.
Apple has ridden the launch of the iPad and iPhone 4 to substantial success over the past few months, but it isn't the only tech company benefiting from the new hardware. Reporting on its second-quarter earnings this week, casual gamemaker Gameloft reported sales of €33.6 million ($43.9 million), up 15 percent from the year prior. At the half-year mark, Gameloft sales have reached €66.6 million ($87.2 million), up 11 percent year-over-year.
Nova is one of Gameloft's original iPad games.
Gameloft did not report net income for the period. However, France and publisher did note that it will release its full half-year earnings report on Aug. 31.
While Gameloft attributed its mounting success to a growing global proliferation of smartphones, it said the bulk of its success came from Apple's devices. During the April-June period, App Store sales for games released on the iPhone and iPad grew 113 percent. Gameloft also attributed its sales growth to an increased share in Java- and Brew-based phones.
Gameloft says that the volume of its sales came in the West, with Europe and North America as accounts for 34 percent of the company 'Revenues for the period. All other regions contributed to the remaining 32 percent of quarterly sales.
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Continue reading Gamestop 'S Buy 2, get 1 free offer for used goods returned to the
Zombie Cow co-founder Dan Marshall (of Ben There, Dan That fame) told Seattle PI, "There was always going to be a risk it won't pass Peer Review, but obviously we'll do whatever we can to get the Xbox version out," later adding, "it'd be a shame if a huge number of teenagers missed out on some quality gaming and vital education because of some abstract, cellular-level innards and pubic hairs." Even if the game's educational nature doesn't win over the Xbox Live peer review process, the game will get a free PC release courtesy of UK's Channel 4.
[Via Kotaku
No subscription will be required to play purchased games.
After a trial year with no subscription fees in the US, OnLive has revealed that it will continue this way. Users who sign up for a free account will have access to demos, messaging, friends and spectator options, in addition to having the option to purchase games.
Limited-time passes can now be bought to play full games through the cloud-based service. If titles are purchased in full through OnLive, however, no monthly fee will be charged.
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According to the announcement, Smart Bomb's next project is a browser-based dogfighting sim titled Sky Legends. Little is known about the game -- only that it will be built on the increasingly popular Unity engine, will feature multiplayer matches and customizable planes, and is due out in the first half of 2011. Keep an eye on the game's official site for future updates. Or this site! That works, too.
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We cut the carpet in front of the camera, and find out why sometimes you just have to let myself go.
Dancing games that ask you to mimic the moves of the on-screen guide or follow the arrows are anything but new, practically spilling out of arcades both in Japan and the rest of the world. Up to this point though, if you wanted to get a workout by busting a move in your own lounge room, you were forced to pony up for hardware to track your performance. Dance mats have long been the most accepted devices to measure skills, but they represent expensive investment and offer little in the way of interoperability with other games.
Enter the Evolution of Dance, a game designed from the ground to work with Microsofts Kinect Sensory system cells, and free you from the hassle of cables and, when all you want to do is get down. This is a rhythm game, and while the interface motion has changed little, its still all about earning points, after bouncing with the rhythm.
Our time with the demo gave us the choice of a handful of songs, mostly J-Pop, and included a handy beats per minute (BPM) indicator for each track to help determine how sweaty we wanted to get. Menu navigation was done by sweeping our hand either to the left or the right in front of us, though we noticed that regardless of how gently we waved, the game would either lurch violently forward through the track listing or crawl to the next option. Since we were at TGS we opted for the appropriate sounding "A Geisha's Dream" (which you can listen to in the trailer below) and picked the easiest difficulty setting after watching more adventurous players ramp it straight to normal on their first try with mixed success.
Since your next move doesn't appear on screen in advance and there's a brief delay between viewing, processing, and then commanding your limbs to respond, the game seemed quite accommodating as we bumbled our way through the opening of the song. Initially aiming to simply perform the body shapes as they scrolled onto the screen to earn points rather than dance, we quickly abandoned the idea and simply followed our virtual choreographer and found it to be a much more natural experience. Since moves are often repeated, it became more like a free-form memory game, aping the manoeuvres rather than waiting on the scoring objective. Changes in pace like slow arm raises after fast hand motions can throw you quickly, but we'd hazard that like any rhythm game, while the initial learning curve can be a little steep, subsequent plays will only become smoother as you learn the mechanics and timing required.
Unfortunately for us we were only allowed a single song, but we left the booth eager to give it another shot and dance the night away. With Rock Band developer Harmonix also supporting Microsoft's Kinect camera at launch, you may want to consider investing in a glowstick, a whistle, and some light-up flooring in advance. Dance Evolution will be boogieing on the Xbox 360 this November.
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