Category: Gaming

Youth Gym Usage Up 15% After PS2 Games Installed

Liverpool Gym PS2Back at the tail end of last year, Liverpool City Council installed gym equipment with Sony Playstation games consoles fitted to them, in an effort to induce the local youth to come to the gym.

At the time, Councillor Warren Bradley, Executive Member for Leisure was quoted as saying “By fitting television screens and games consoles to the equipment, we will be able to show children that they can combine their favourite activity with exercise. And by teaching children about the positive benefits of exercise.”

Why are we mentioning today? The Sun, a well known tabloid “newspaper”, is running a brief story and editorial comment about it today, deriding Liverpool council spending money on Playstations in an attempt to encourage children into gyms.

Over the two years since we first discovered the Reebok CyberRider, we’ve written about devices that connect games consoles to exercise machines and have been keen on them. The connection of physical input to video games seems like a great area of growth and it’s certainly true that in those two years there have been lots of interesting developments. Sony and Nike MotionWorks have got together recently to bring EyeToy Kinetic to market in autumn 05, combining the camera add-on for the PS2 with fitness software.

We spoke to Donald Hurst, Operations manager of sport and recreation service at Liverpool City Council to get the accurate details on the story.

The equipment that they’re using, supplied by TechnoGym, includes running a treadmill, rowing machine, and cycle. The four machines that they have working at each of their Lifestyles fitness centres at Peter Lloyd, Everton Park and Garston have been particularly well received, both by the children and adults.

It appears particularly popular at the Garston centre, which has 2,000 members and is their busiest site, with the staff receiving quite a number of positive comments from children’s parents.

Keen children are given an introduction session which runs between 4 – 5:30 daily and are then free to choose from a selection of 30 games supplied by the venue. Hurst said they’ve made the decision to currently not let the children bring in their own games, so they have some control over the type of game being played. Once the game has been selected it has to be setup by the fitness instructor.

Hurst put some comparative usage figures together for us that show usage by young people has gone up by 15% over the same period last year since the Playstation had been introduced. He also told us that there is a growing interest from adults to use the equipment as well.

While Liverpool hasn’t yet gone the whole hog of direct connection between physical input and the games, we think it’s a good start. The increase in attendance figures also point in that direction.

Liverpool City Council

Chernin Hints News Corp. to Buy into Video Gaming

News Corp., the media giant built by Rupert Murdoch is reportedly looking to get into the games business.

The FT is running a story today that Peter Chernin, News Corp. chief operating officer, told a conference in Phoenix, Arizona that they were “kicking the tires of pretty much all video games companies,” as “We see as a big business and would like to get into it.”

Normally used to buying huge companies like Fox, News Corp is clearly looking for the best value company, but finding a big disparity between the largest, Electronics Arts (EA), and the rest of the video games companies. “We are struggling with the gap between companies like Electronic Arts, which come with a high price tag, and the next tier of companies. These may be too focused on one or two product lines.” Chernin said.

There are many reasons why a move into gaming would make sense for News Corp. Numerous studies have shown that people, particularly the young, are moving away from watching television to play video games and the next generation of Set Top Boxes (STB’s) have considerable power. Using News Corps. satellite distribution platform, such as Sky and DirecTV, to distribute games to these STBs makes total sense.

We imagine there is a state of confusion at EA, if not the whole of the games industry, switching between a state of high excitement and nervousness. As the many corporate corpses that litter in the trail of News Corp. attest to, when they do it, they do it big.

News Corporation

Gizmondo beef up with Disney and Sega

Since we first brought news of the Gizmondo gaming console to you in June 2004 it has been coming on leaps and bounds.

Not only is the Gizmondo a handheld games platform, but it’s also able to play music and video; has GPRS, Bluetooth and GPS built-in to it; works as a wireless email and SMS client; and has a digital camera built in. All for an expected $399 in the US or £229 in the UK.

While this is all very lovely, it’s common knowledge that what keeps a gaming machine alive beyond the spec sheet is the games it runs. Tiger Telematics, who have developed and sell the Gizmondo, are developing their own original software, having bought two software developers Indie Studios and latterly Warthog Games in October 2004, but they are also wisely doing deals with other companies.

The fruit of these now-combined studios, renamed Gizmondo Studios, will be nine titles; City; Colors; Johnny Whatever; Sticky Balls; Fallen Kingdoms; Momma, can I mow the lawn?; Milo and the Rainbow Nasties; Furious Phil; and Future Tactics.

A three year deal with Disney should bring their games to the Gizmondo platform. The initial fruits of the deal will be Tron 2.0. Developed in-house by Gizmondo, the contract also “envisions for four additional titles to be determined by mutual agreement”. The agreement has the Gizmondo paying a minimum guarantee totalling $100,000 for the Tron 2.0 property over three years. Four other titles could also be developed under the deal.

Tiger Telematics have also signed a letter of intent with Taiwan-base Digital Media Cartridge Ltd, hoping to bring many of the classic Sega video games to the platform. Currently this deal looks a little less certain that the Disney deal, but the games being discussed include Sonic the Hedgehog, Outrun, Golden Axe, Altered Beast and Shinobi.

As an icing on the cake, our friends at CNET declared the Gizmondo a finalist in the Next Big Thing awards.

The Gizmondo soft launched by taking pre-orders in the UK in October 2004, and should be in UK shops in February 2005 priced at £229. The online capabilities will be provided using a Gizmondo-branded Pay As You Go (PAYG) service.

Gizmondo

Sims 2 Get Hacked Off

Sims 2 Telescope alien AbductionWe’re constantly amazed by the world of online gaming. It’s a fascinating, deep and engrossing world. Some at the Digital Lifestyles offices are big fans, others are scared of it. The latter worry that if they start to get involved, they will be sucked in to the games vortex, never to reappear.

SlashDot pointed us to an interesting story that SecurityFocus ran about the alterations to items in the Sims 2 that are spreading around the game with unexpected results. If this world is new to you, it’s well worth a read.

There are many site, like mod the sims 2 that contain hacks such as Expensive Telescope Abduction Hack v1.0, mentioned in the article, that guarantees that your Sim will be abducted by aliens if you look through the telescope between the hours of 7pm and 2am.

Hacking online PC games isn’t new. Ever since the days of Doom, hackers have been making modifications to give themselves the advantage of seeing through walls, or infinite ammunition – anything to give themselves an advantage. Indeed one of the advantages that Microsoft listed at the launch of the Xbox was that “unauthorised” code couldn’t be run on it (others saw it as restricting the platform), so games wouldn’t be ruined.

We attended the Edinburgh International Games Festival last year and sat in on a debate about the virtual currency within games be sold in the real world for real money. The Electronic Arts representative (EA sell the Sims 2) attitude to it was very relaxed to it, claiming that it wasn’t something that bothered them.

It looks like pressure from Sims 2 players has moved EA into action in this case, they’ve written software that acts in the same way as anti-virus software, scanning for alter objects and removing them.

6 PSP Games Due from EA

SIRIUS SportsterToday Electronic Arts (EA) used CES to announce its line-up for the US launch of Sony’s handheld entertainment system, the PSP due in March.

The six games are FIFA Football and MVP Baseball, (only available in the US and not in the UK) along with four previously announced franchise greats; Need for Speed Underground Rivals, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR, NBA STREET: Showdown (working title) and NFL STREET 2: Unleashed.

EA say each game has been specifically designed for the PSP, as they found that trying to port the games didn’t work visually and they wanted the handheld titles to take advantage of the unique PSP functions such as WiFi head-to-head game play. To create the games, EA created the very dramatic sounding Team Fusion.

More details of the games are on their dedicated PSP site. It has some screen shots of the games which looks most impressive.

EA’s dedicated PSP site

Thomson: ContentGuard and Verisign deals

Paris-based Thomson have been busy. They’ve done two deals that will have an impact.They have become a strategic investor in ContentGuard, a closely-held developer of Digital Rights Management (DRM) intellectual property. With this investment, Thomson enters into a partnership with current investors Microsoft and Time Warner Inc.

Digital Rights Management describes a wide range of technologies that have been developed to allow movies, music and other digital content to be accessed by consumers over the Internet while protecting that content from unauthorised copying and counterfeiting – a technology championed by Microsoft and its Windows Media Player software.

Thomson has agreed to purchase an aggregate 33 per cent voting stake in ContentGuard from Microsoft, Time Warner and Xerox, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The announcement follows Time Warner’s April 2004 purchase of most of Xerox’s stake in ContentGuard.

The three companies (Microsoft, Time Warner and Thomson) are using the announcement to promote the development of inter-operable DRM systems, accelerate the deployment of consumer devices that support Digital Rights Management, and encourage content owners to launch new distribution channels.

The move is also interesting because Thomson is a long-standing technology and services provider to content owners and network operators, thus bringing a unique perspective that should complement the interests of ContentGuard and its co-investors. Thomson also has a lot of experience in IP licensing, which should further help to support ContentGuard’s licensing activities and accelerate and broaden the acceptance of DRM and ContentGuard’s intellectual property.

“The development of Web services and new content distribution systems requires a complete ecosystem of participants. Thomson’s investment alongside Time Warner and Microsoft shows that media, software, devices and services companies are committed to developing the infrastructure for Web services to flourish”, said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect, Microsoft. “This partnership will help propel the licensing of DRM intellectual property. With the participation of Thomson, a recognised leader in IP licensing, we add a European headquartered partner that will make this important technology more accessible in other parts of the ecosystem, particularly services and devices.”

“Today’s announcement marks yet another important step in our work on DRM, and expands our collaboration with key partners on this strategic initiative,” said Ron Grant, senior vice president at Time Warner. “We look forward to working with Thomson, Microsoft and others on offering consumers exciting new digital media products and services while simultaneously protecting content.”

In another move, Thomson and VeriSign have joined forces to create an authentication and authorisation service for movies, music and games delivered over digital networks. The new service, which will likely debut next summer, will be used to process secure transactions and for other back-office functions. It is geared at the subscriber digital entertainment market over broadband networks, which is a fast growing industry.

VeriSign’s Internet transaction authentication and network infrastructure technologies will be used, while Thomson will capitalise on its experience in content security, management and distribution. Both companies also plan to develop proprietary technologies to authenticate and authorise digital content and to build an interface for home networking devices such as video recorders, mobile devices and computers. These features could help protect movies and other content from piracy.

Thomson
ContentGuard
VeriSign

JFK Reloaded Described as ‘Despicable’

JFK ReloadedOn the eve of the 41st anniversary of John F Kennedy’s murder, a dramatic new ‘docu-game’ brought the tragic assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald to life for a whole new generation. However, a spokesman for the president’s brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, called the game ‘despicable’, but has not commented on whether the family was taking any action to stop the game’s release.

JFKReloaded ($9.99, ~€7.70, ~£5.40), recreates the last few moments of the President’s life and challenges participants to help disprove any conspiracy theory by recreating the three shots that Lee Harvey Oswald made from the infamous sixth floor of the Dallas book depository.

The game promises to accurately recreate the surroundings and events of 22nd November 1963 in downtown Dallas, using information from the Warren Commission report, and has taken a ten-man team seven months to research and six months to program. The reconstruction enables players to examine the challenges that faced Oswald.

‘This new form of interactive entertainment brings history to life and will stimulate a younger generation of players to take an interest in this fascinating episode of American history,’ commented Kirk Ewing, managing director of Traffic and the creator of JFKReloaded. ‘We’ve created the game in the belief that Oswald was the only person that fired the shots on that day, although this recreation proves how immensely difficult his task was.’

Regardless of the continued passion in the US surrounding the death of one of America’s greatest heroes, Traffic is determined to promote the title respectfully whilst encouraging as many people to play the game as possible. The company has also offered an incentive of up to $100,000 (~€77,000 ~£54,000) for the first person to most accurately recreate the three shots made by Lee Harvey Oswald. A cash reward of this size is the first of its type for a game.

“We genuinely believe that if we get enough people playing the game we’ll be able to disprove once and for all any notion that someone else was involved in the assassination. The computer ballistics model says it’s possible, but players will discover just how hard it is to place those three bullets in exactly the same way that Oswald did.” The site goes live at midnight on the 22nd November 2004 and will run for 3 months.

It’s more than likely that this game will raise the issue in the press of video games containing violence, as was last seen with ‘Manhunt’. Last time the press got the wrong end of the stick and blamed a killer’s obsession with the violent computer game ‘Manhunt’ for the death of a schoolboy, although it actually turned out that the game was present in the victim’s home, not the killer’s. Some are wondering if the release of JFK game around the anniversary of the incident was a calculated move by the development company, Traffic, after watching the sales of Manhunt go through the roof during the last press frenzy.

UK Youth Shun TV To Play Games Online

The age of interactive gaming is well upon us. And, if a new survey undertaken on behalf of BT is to believed, traditional forms of entertainment such as the TV and board games are being overlooked in favour of newer, more interactive technology. This is in contrast to those who feel that there’s nothing as exciting as looting from a half-soaked Monopoly banker or finding the missing piece of a jigsaw from the back of the family sofa.

The research shows that rather than relaxing on the sofa in front of the TV watching programmes, over half of all the online console gamers questioned would rather give up the TV than their online games. And it’s not just committed gamers who feel this way – approximately 77 per cent of 11-16 year olds said they would rather play computer games than traditional board games.

The massive uptake of online games is mainly due to the rollout of broadband across most of the country, and the fact that you can play against, and talk to, gamers from all over the world within the same game. Global rivalries are strong online – apparently – with a third of UK gamers (31 per cent) choosing the US as the nation they most like to beat online, followed by the French (18 per cent) and Germans (11 per cent).

An online community atmosphere also attracts and retains gamers. Rather than converse face-to-face in real-life, some 58 per cent like to play online against new people and just over a quarter prefer online gaming as they compete against real people, whilst half enjoy it as it brings people together, according to the survey. Moreover, 17 per cent of online gamers would find a world without online gaming almost impossible to live in. Great in some ways, tragic in others.

The crux of the research comes down to BT attempting to appear as the ones who drive the uptake of online console gaming in the UK with the sole purpose of selling more broadband. Duncan Ingram, managing director broadband and Internet services BT Retail, of BT said: “This research shows that consumers are looking for more interaction when it comes to home entertainment. The advent of broadband brings a whole new social experience to console gaming by allowing gamers to take their consoles online and play against a community of gamers from all over the world.”

BT

Sales in Virtual Goods Surpasses $100m

Real-world trading based on virtual items is at least three years old, but it’s only now that researchers have estimated that online trading already rivals the gross domestic product of some small countries. According to an article publishing on NewScientist.com, the real figures are likely to be much higher, where virtual worlds are booming in China and Japan

The technology of real-world economies is based on the value of persistent world game characters and items. For example, you can buy Ultima Online and EverQuest characters on eBay, exchanging actual money for ‘imaginary’ game items, such as clothing and weaponry. Nevertheless, trade in these digital goods continues to grow, and it has already gone from being a pastime pursued only by a handful of hardcore gamers, to being a fledgling industry in its own right.

There’s even an online service to help players of online games trade their commodities more easily and freely. The Gaming Online Market (GOM) is a Canada-based online venture founded by Jamie Hale and Tom Merrall that aims to be the first true stock brokerage for online worlds. GOM currently allows players of online games to pay in US dollars, or exchange currency from one game to another at the current going rate. Before now, these have been trades restricted mainly to eBay auctions, along with all the risks associated with such transactions. Having said that, eBay facilitated the selling of $9 million in trades for Internet games last year (excluding Sony’s Everquest).

The coming together of real and online worlds has a far more widespread reach than games. For instance, virtual spaces will increasingly be used as assembly points to carry out business meetings and as physics simulators to experiment with building physical objects. Some companies are also using virtual worlds to try out design products, such as clothes, before attempting to market them in the real world.

Sony PSP Arrives on 12.Dec in Japan

After months of speculation that the Sony PlayStation Portable would not appear until 2005, Sony have just announced its release in Japan on 12 December, just ten days after Nintendo DS, and at a price that is much lower than expected.

The PSP, Sony’s entry into handheld games machine market will be available in two flavours. The normal edition PSP at $186, (~ £101, €145) will include the handheld itself, an AC adapter, and a battery pack. A value pack $232, (~£126, €181) will be the normal pack plus a 32MB Memory Stick Duo, a set of headphones with a remote control, and a carrying case.
 
The PSP is more than a mere games machine, it can also be used for watching movies and listening to music files – but not just yet. The standard for films is still under discussion with several movie studios, and a movie line-up and download service won’t be announced for several months. It’s a pity this last task was not completed before announcing the launch, as doubtless much of PSP’s success will depend on it, but we suspect it will be down to rights and DRM protection.

Sony denies that competition from Nintendo DS influenced the PSP price, offering several other plausible reasons. One being that the price was possible because about half of PSP’s parts, including the main computer chip, are produced internally by Sony.  Another being that it was apparently set, based on an informal survey of Sony officials who were asked what they would pay for the PSP if they were going to buy it. Whatever the reason, Sony doesn’t expect to make a profit on PSP until well into next year, obviously being prepared to sacrifice it for strong PSP branding.

There will be 21 games available for the PSP launch, including high-profile third-party titles such as Electronic Arts’ “Need for Speed Underground” racing gaming and Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Konami’s “Metal Gear Acid”, and Sega Corporation’s Puyo Pop Fever – Puzzle

In Japan, Sony plans to sell 500,000 PSP machines by the end of this year, and 1 million by 31st March. Dates and prices for the United States and Europe have not yet been set, although overseas sales are being planned for the first quarter of 2005.

Sony