Sony explains why you’re getting a smaller, but not cheaper, PlayStation 3 (interview)
Sony packed a lot of memory into the new PlayStation 3, which is smaller and lighter. But it didn't cut the price as expected.
stories by D. F. Smith
Game designer crosses over from making Halo games to Zynga’s social games — he’s never going back (interview)
Jim Veevaert has crossed over from making games like Halo 3 to Zynga's social games like Ruby Blast. He says he's never going back.
Will GameStop’s digital ventures be enough to ward off online threats? (interview)
Chris Petrovic (pictured above) is the general manager of GameStop Digital Ventures. His job is to make sure that the world’s largest video game retailer crosses over into the digital era, when gamers are as likely to download a digital …
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is a triple-A fighting game with an iffy price tag (review)
June 13, 2012 6:05 PM
D. F. Smith
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown has some irritating flaws, especially thanks to an oddball pricing structure. At the core of it all, though, lies some of the best 3D martial arts around. That’s enough to make it worth a download.
THQ’s Brian Farrell talks about looking for a bottom and staging a comeback (interview)
Brian Farrell, chief executive of embattled video game publisher THQ, has endured a lot of criticism in the past year as investors have pummeled the company’s stock price and watched as Farrell has had to make cutback after cutback in …
Cerebral online gunfights carry Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (review)
June 10, 2012 7:02 PM
D. F. Smith
The new Ghost Recon's solo campaign has some flaws, but the online action shines.
With 1.3B tanks obliterated and 30M players, Wargaming.net plans to conquer the online gaming world (interview)
Let’s Battle. That’s a particularly apt slogan for Wargaming.net. The has scored big with its World of Tanks game, a hardcore massively multiplayer online game that lets you battle your friends in World War II tanks. Since it launched in …
EA Sports chief leading the charge into digital games (interview)
Electronic Arts is in the midst of rebooting its EA Sports business. Not only is the company re-entering basketball games with NBA Live coming this fall, it has also snatched the all-important license to Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed-martial arts fighting …
The DeanBeat: Take-Two’s No. 2 exec Karl Slatoff on the time of disruption and opportunity in games (interview)
Karl Slatoff of Take-Two Interactive talks about investing in big games of the future.
Trash talk from Sony game executive: Our competitors are losing the plot (interview)
The battle of the press conferences at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is over. Now it's time for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo to interpret the competing events and declare victory. The latest to do so is Sony's head of digital games, Jack Buser. Buser says that while Sony showed some great new content, rivals lost the plot.
Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi says Xbox SmartGlass takes an open view of mobile-console integration (interview)
Naturally, Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing officer for Microsoft‘s game business, thinks that his company won the battle of the press conferences at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). But it remains to be seen whether fans will opt for Microsoft’s view …
Nintendo’s Scott Moffitt has to create mass lust for the Wii U game console (interview)
Scott Moffitt is the executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo. He’s got a tough job because video game marketing is changing. Nintendo is trying to sell its 3DS gaming handheld in the face of huge competition from …
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot embraces disruption, new business models and new platforms (interview)
Yves Guillemot, the chief executive of French game publisher Ubisoft, belives that traditional game companies will be able to meet the challenge of the changing game business, which is being disrupted with new business models and platforms. Ubisoft’s position is …
Ubisoft’s creative director on why hooded assassins still fit in the American Revolution (interview)
Alex Hutchinson is the creative director on Assassin’s Creed III. The game is one of the biggest video games of the year, and Hutchinson’s job is to make sure that the creative vision of the game captures the imagination of …
Game of Thrones brings the pain…and not in a good way (review)
May 14, 2012 8:58 PM
D. F. Smith
Telling a story is only part of making a game, and that’s where the Game of Thrones game falls down. This feels like a novella turned into a role-playing game against its will, which makes it tough to recommend, no matter how addicted to Ice and Fire a fan might be.
Smash, grab, and steal from your friends in Fable Heroes (review)
April 30, 2012 1:52 PM
D. F. Smith
But like Juliet once said, what's in a name? Fun is fun no matter what they call it, and Fable Heroes is a pretty good time. It's a cooperative game but only up to a point. A lot of players will recall The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, another "co-op" experience that cheerfully rewards the selfish, greedy, and mean. Four friends can get their ten bucks worth of fun here so long as they don’t end up at each other’s throats before it’s over.
Bloodforge brings a good, gory romp to Xbox Live Arcade (review)
April 24, 2012 2:57 PM
D. F. Smith
Bloodforge isn't a great game or even a good one in some respects. It's not very polished, and it's not very deep. For some of us, though, it'll dish out 15 bucks worth of violent lunacy. And let's be honest with ourselves. Sometimes we just want to hit some buttons and watch some heads explode.
Newbs and pros can all find useful roles in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s multiplayer (preview)
April 24, 2012 6:23 AM
D. F. Smith
The beta test version of Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier dropped late last week. Offering a taste of what’s coming up in the full edition’s multiplayer mode about a month from now, it has two basic maps and three different …
IGN Pro League viewers highlight the rise of eSports online
April 17, 2012 10:16 AM
D. F. Smith
The numbers are in from this month’s IGN Pro League (IPL) gaming competition, and they’re record-breakers of a kind. IGN boasts of drawing 346,000 streaming spectators at the tournament’s peak and more than 3 million unique viewers over all three …
Electronic Arts burned by reports of impending layoffs
April 16, 2012 3:31 PM
D. F. Smith
Electronic Arts has an internal shakeup in the works, according to several reports around the web today. While EA representatives claim that the world’s biggest games publisher is still on an even keel, the worst accounts claim that more than …
