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This week in the Nintendo Download: ZombiU, NBA 2K13, and Hello Kitty

Sam Barsanti — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:04:44 +0000

Nintendo completely forgot about some of its systems in last week’s eShop update, so today it’s going to make it up to each and every Wii U owner with a small amount of new stuff. You can also get another full 3DS title and a Virtual Console game for the Wii, so it’s a good week for everybody. Sort of. You’ll see.

First up is the Wii U, which does get two additions to its digital download service: a pair of demos, one for ZombiU and one for NBA 2K13. For those who aren’t familiar, the former tasks you with navigating a zombie-infested London and features permanent character deaths, and the latter is a basketball game that constantly promotes the fact that rapper Jay-Z was an executive producer on it. As Nintendo adds more demos to the Wii U eShop, maybe someday it will decide to actually make them easier to find.

The big update for the 3DS is another full retail game: Hello Kitty Picnic with Sanrio Friends. If you’ve been thinking about picking that one up and want to avoid the judging eyes of a GameStop clerk, now’s your chance to have some minigame fun with Keroppi and Badtz-Maru like you’ve always wanted. If you have no heart and don’t like Hello Kitty, maybe this week’s 3DS eShop offerings are for you: Reel Fishing Paradise 3D Mini, Wild Adventures: Ultimate Deer Hunt 3D, and 101 DinoPets 3D. The first two are self-explanatory, but the third one is about dressing dinosaurs up in hats and is “more fun than a puppy,” according to Nintendo.

Seriously, of all the fake names to pick… .

As usual, the weirdest update of the week comes from the DSi. Its only new piece of downloadable content is an app called Biorhythm that somehow tracks your physical, intellectual, and emotional “cycles.” It sounds like the dream that the Nintendo Vitality Sensor still lives on as we all hoped it would.

Finally, another old 2D fighter comes to the original Wii’s Virtual Console, and for once, it wasn’t developed by SNK (though that studio did work on it, so it’s basically the same thing): World Heroes 2, which features characters based on various historical figures like Captain Kidd and … a football player. It was the ’90s — that’s what video games were like.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

Justin Bieber, Minecraft’s Creeper, and other cameos in modern games (gallery)

Samir Torres — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 18:00:48 +0000

Guest appearances and surprise crossovers in video games usually distract the player and end immersion. But well-placed cameos are amusing — especially if you have to dig around to find them.

Check out the gallery below to see the cool (and bizarre) cameos we gathered from 13 recent games.

Filed under: Games

Call of Duty: Black Ops II beats Halo 4 in NPD’s dismal November game sales list

Dean Takahashi — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:30:52 +0000

Call of Duty: Black Ops II beat out Halo 4 for the top spot for U.S. retail game unit sales during the critical month of November, according to market researcher NPD.

But both blockbuster games were not able to lift overall game sales high enough to beat sales for November 2011. Sales for total video game hardware, software, and accessories sold at retail were $2.55 billion in November, down 11 percent from $2.87 billion a year ago.

The list does not include some of the fastest-growing parts of the game business, which includes used-game sales, mobile games, social games, and online titles such as free-to-play games. But the U.S. retail sales list is still useful in pointing out trends in gamer tastes, and it also keeps score on which companies are performing the best.

Game hardware sales were $838.9 million, down 13 percent from $962.2 million a year ago. Game software sales were $1.43 billion, down 11 percent from $1.60 billion a year ago. Game accessory sales were $280.9 million, down 8 percent from $305.3 million a year ago. If you count PC games, total software sales were $1.46 billion, down 11 percent from $1.65 billion a year ago.

It’s no surprise that Black Ops II beat out Halo 4, as Black Ops II is on more platforms.

The top 10 games of the month were:

Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, Wii U, PC)** 1 Activision Blizzard
Halo 4 (360)** 2 Microsoft
Assassin’s Creed III (360, PS3, Wii U, PC)** 3 Ubisoft
Just Dance 4 (Wii, 360, Wii U, PS3) 4 Ubisoft
Madden NFL 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, Wii U) 5 Electronic Arts
Skylander Giants (Wii, 360, PS3, 3DS, Wii U)** 6 Activision Blizzard
Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 (PS3, 360, PSV, PC) 7 Electronic Arts
NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, Wii U, PC)** 8 Take 2 Interactive
WWE 13 (360, PS3, Wii) 9 THQ
FIFA Soccer 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, 3DS, Wii U, PSP) 10 Electronic Arts

**(includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc., but not those bundled with hardware)

Here’s the analysis from Liam Callahan, analyst at NPD:

Overall

“These sales figures represent new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories, which account for roughly 50 percent of the total consumer spend on games. When you consider our preliminary estimate for other physical format sales in November such as used and rentals at $207 million, and our estimate for digital format sales including full game and add-on content downloads including microtransactions, subscriptions, mobile apps and the consumer spend on social network games at $410 million, we would estimate the total consumer spend in November to be over $3.1 billion. Our final assessment of the consumer spend in these areas outside of new physical retail sales will be reported in February in our Q4 Games Market Dynamics: U.S. report.”

“It’s important to compare this month’s results to November 2005, which was the last time the industry began to transition between console generations with the launch of a new platform. Comparing this month’s results to November 2005, retail video games sales are nearly twice as big as they were then (+97%). This really demonstrates the long-term health of retail sales even as many platforms are quite late in their lifecycles.”

“Despite an overall retail video game decline of 11 percent, November had the smallest year-over-year decrease we have seen for dollar and unit sales so far this year. This is a sign of momentum going into the December holiday period.”

Software

“At 14 percent, video game software unit declines are tied with August 2012 for the smallest year-over-year declines so far this year.”

“Overall entertainment software units decreased by 15 percent, however, when comparing the performance of the top 5 titles from this year to last, we see a rise in unit sales of 5 percent (games outside of the top 5 sold less, leading to overall declines).”

“While there was a 21 percent decline in the number of titles that launched this November versus November 2011, these new titles are holding their own and generating the same number of dollars per title on average. Unfortunately, declines this month stemmed from softer sales from catalog titles, which launched outside of this month, with dollar sales down 11 percent, collectively.”

“Half of the software dollars sold in November 2012 were for the Xbox 360, which gained 8 share points in overall software sales from last November.”

Hardware

“November 2012 was the lowest hardware decline for dollar sales we have seen in year-over-year trends so far this year.”

“The much anticipated launch of the new Wii U console brought in more dollars than the Wii launch in November 2006, up 21 percent from that launch month. With an average price 35 percent higher for the Wii U at launch compared to the Wii, this is an example of how consumers are willing to come out and spend when they see the value of the product.”

“Comparing Wii sales from November 2011 to Wii sales combined with Wii U sales in November 2012, dollar sales increased by 76 percent.”

“Xbox 360 led overall hardware platform sales for the sixteenth consecutive month.”

“Through bundling compelling third party content with the PS Vita hardware, November 2012 was the second highest month of sales on a unit basis for the PS Vita since launch.”

“The Nintendo DS was the only platform to increase in hardware unit sales versus November 2011.”

Accessories

“Skylanders accessories continue to perform well, building off the original game with the Skylanders Giants. Skylanders unit sales of both original and the new Giants were up over 250 percent compared to last November.”

Filed under: Games

NBA 2K13 producer reveals exclusive tips for conquering the ‘New Dynasty’

Sebastian Haley — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:00:43 +0000

Publisher 2K Sports really thinks it has something special with the latest entry in the long-running NBA 2K franchise. NBA 2K13 has spread beyond consoles to mobile and Facebook as well, so we got producer Robert Nelson to share some b-ballin’ tips for the touchscreen iOS and Android versions.

Check out the game’s iTunes page here and read GamesBeat’s exclusive producer tips for the Facebook version here.

Filed under: Games

October NPD: Dishonored charts high while XCOM fails to chart at all

Jeffrey Grubb — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:39:42 +0000

It’s official — the video game industry isn’t just about sequels. Publisher Bethesda Softworks’ new property Dishonored was the fourth best-selling game in the month of October.

This information comes from the monthly sales data provided to GamesBeat by The NPD Group financial analysis firm. NPD tracks software and hardware sales at brick-and-mortar retailers around the country. The analyst firm does not include any digital sales (like Steam or the PlayStation NetworkI ) in its data, nor does it track the sales of mobile games. The industry continued its recent trend of under-performing compared to 2011. These numbers reek of a market that can’t wait for some new blood, and that’s exactly what we’ll get the next time we cover these numbers: This is the last NPD report before the Wii U.

Hardware and software sales were both down year-over-year, but accessory sales ticked up slightly. We’ll take a deeper look at the wider market after we list the month’s best-sellers:

NBA 2K13: Take Two Interactive (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PC)
Resident Evil 6: Capcom (360, PS3)
Pokémon Black Version 2: Nintendo (NDS)
Dishonored: Bethesda Softworks (360, PS3, PC)
Pokémon White Version 2: Nintendo (NDS)
Madden NFL 13: Electronic Arts (360, PS3, Wii, Vita)
FIFA Soccer 13: Electronic Arts (360, PS3, Wii, Vita, 3DS, PSP)
Medal of Honor: Warfighter: Eletronic Arts (360, PS3 PC)
Borderlands 2: Take Two Interactive (360, PS3, PC)
Skylanders Giants: Activision (Wii, 360, PS3, 3DS)

“The top title was NBA 2K13 from Take Two Interactive. This game outsold last year’s 2K12 by over 60 percent in both dollars and units,” said NPD analyst Liam Callahan. “This favorable comparison may have partly been due to the NBA lockout at the start of last year’s basketball season, likely tempering consumers’ interest in 2K12 initially.”

I say we forget about video games and start covering sports, because that’s where the money is. Madden topped last month’s list, and NBA 2K13 dribbled in to take its place this time around. The other ball-based titles did well with EA’s football and soccer simulators dropping to the middle of the chart after holding two of the top three spots in the previous 30 days.

With the second spot on the chart, the anticipated Resident Evil 6 didn’t seem to suffer the effects of a cold reception from critics, but that high placement is a bit misleading.

“Sequels new to market this month did not perform as well compared to prior iterations,” said Callahan. “This, combined with poor comparisons against the launch of hits like Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City in October 2011, led to the decline in software sales.”

Sequels new to the market mean only Medal of Honor and Resident Evil. Those two games sold OK, but they represent a disappointment compared to their franchise predecessors. Skylanders Giants, another sequel new to the market, sold over 160 percent more units than Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure.

In terms of hardware, Xbox 360 topped the charts for the 22nd month in a row. Customers purchased another 270,000 units and spent a total of $315 million on the platform. That streak will likely come to an end as Nintendo launches the Wii U on Nov. 18.

In the industry at large, sales were down 25 percent from $1 billion to $755.5 million. The primary culprit is hardware sales, which dropped 37 percent. The market is saturated and few people remain to purchase new consoles.

Software dropped from $576.8 million to $432.6 million. Again, this is largely due to Resident Evil 6 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter not performing as well as last year’s big sequels. Also: Assassin’s Creed III came out Oct. 30 and was not part of the tracking period.

NPD notes that used games and rentals earned the industry $101 million, while digital sales piled on another $359 million.

“We would estimate the total consumer spend in September to be just under $1.2B,” said Callahan. “While October was another month of steep declines in retail sales, we are looking forward to November 2012 with the results of Assassin’s Creed III, and Halo 4, which were positively reviewed, as well as the results of Call of Duty: Black Ops II. These software titles, along with the Wii U launch on November 18, will provide a much needed boost to retail sales.”

The biggest game not to chart this month is probably XCOM: Enemy Unknown from developer Firaxis. Publisher Take Two did mention that the game was a success especially in terms of digital sales, which NPD does not directly track.

Filed under: Games

GamesBeat weekly roundup: Cliff Bleszinski, Skylanders Giants, and alleged racism at Kixeye

Jasmine Maleficent Rea — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:30:02 +0000

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games, online developer Kixeye comes under fire after a former employee blogs about alleged racism in the workplace, and Zynga pre-announces weak third quarter earnings.

You’ll also find reviews for Resident Evil 6, FIFA 13, and Bad Piggies, as well was previews for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Skylanders Giants, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

News:

Mobile news:

MMO news:

Mists of Pandaria sales fall short of previous two World of Warcraft expansions

Interviews:

Reviews:

Previews:

Pitch us in one Tweet:

Pieces of flair:

Filed under: Games

Beef up your NBA 2K13 career with Facebook and mobile apps (preview)

Giancarlo Valdes — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 01:41:21 +0000

So you just picked up NBA 2K13. And, as usual, you can’t stop playing or thinking about it, especially when you’re away from your console because of work or (even worse) social obligations.

Publisher 2K Sports understands your pain. With its NBA 2K Everywhere initiative, it’s making sure you always carry a piece of the game with you thanks to a pair of apps that tie back into the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of NBA 2K13. MyNBA2K for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire devices is a free companion app that lets you “warm up” before the big game on your console with a variety of minigames and rewards. NBA 2K: MyLIFE is a social game on Facebook that also sends bonuses back to your NBA 2K13 career as you manage your player’s life off the court.

Both of them will be available soon with MyLIFE debuting next Tuesday, October 9, while MyNBA2K comes out this Friday, October 5. Here’s a look at what you can expect when both apps are live.

Signing autographs until your fingers bleed

As a star NBA player in NBA 2K13′s MyCareer mode, you’ll need to keep your fans happy, and a good way to do that is through signing autographs in MyNBA2K. Once you set up the style of your signature, you have 60 seconds to sign as many posters of yourself as you can, and fans will either praise or insult you depending on how accurate your signature is to the original. As a reward, you can choose to increase your overall number of fans or you can accept virtual currency (VC) — used throughout NBA 2K13 to buy anything from NBA players to shoes — instead. Both fans and VC are immediately sent to your console game.

These rewards are only possible if you log into MyNBA2K with your MyPlayer account, giving you access to Autograph Signing as well as nine other minigames (pictured right) created by developer Visual Concepts. Each game has a VC reward option (you can earn up to 1,000 VC every 24 hours) along with specific bonuses, like earning a temporary free-throw shooting boost from playing Free Throw Practice. The boosts only last until your next match in NBA 2K13, though you can keep coming back to the app to earn more afterward. The app also features MyTeam, a top-down, turn-based version of basketball (pictured in the gallery below) that uses players you unlocked from the same mode in NBA 2K13.

If you don’t own a copy of the console title, however, both MyTeam and the minigame Team Loyalty — which quizzes you on your teammates’ performance from MyCareer mode in NBA 2K13 — are inaccessible, due to the fact that they don’t have any console data to draw from.

“If you can cram in 15 minutes here, 10 minutes here, 30 seconds here on the bus … you can get 50 more VC in the game, stat bonuses, or whatever floats your boat,” said Rob Nelson, senior producer at 2K Games, in an interview with GamesBeat. “So that’s [MyNBA2K]: 10 [minigames] developed by Visual Concepts, nine if you don’t have an account at all, just for free.”

Why make (virtual) friends when you can buy them?

The other way of earning VC, fans, and even exclusive dunks (from leveling up) is through Facebook with NBA 2K: MyLIFE. Ditching NBA 2K13′s realism for a cartoonish look (where you can sync your player’s appearance from the console game), MyLIFE is all about establishing strong social connections with your fans and other NBA stars.

One of the keys to succeeding in MyLIFE is hosting parties in your home. At these parties, computer-controlled guests and real-life friends can interact with your objects, like basketball courts or swimming pools, to generate Excitement points and Rep. The more Rep you have, the more buildings and types of guests (like VIPs) you unlock. Accumulate enough Excitement points during the event and you’ll receive endorsement offers, which gives you cash to expand your little plot of land.

In the demo shown to GamesBeat, Washington Wizards player John Wall (the only VIP at the party) challenged the player to a Dunk Contest. As one of the minigames in MyLIFE, the Dunk Contest requires you to hit the right spot on a flashing, colored meter to nail a slam. The fancier the dunks you choose to execute, the faster the meter moves. After Kelly Wilson, social games associate producer at Visual Concepts, finished the match, she earned 50 fans for her MyPlayer account.

And since she played a game with Wall, she was able to interact with him and generate Relationship points. This number increases each time you hang out with the VIP, and eventually, that individual will become one of your best friends. While this usually takes a lot of virtual footwork, Wilson sped it up by using MyLIFE’s premium currency (bought with real-world cash). You can then add your best friends to your entourage, which will follow you around everywhere you go and boost the amount of points you normally receive.

The other minigame, Tip-Off, simulates the outcome of a basketball match based on your current stats. Win or lose, you’ll get rewards in the form of VC and fans for the console experience, as well as other bonuses for use in Facebook. You can also unlock NBA pros in NBA 2K13′s street-basketball mode, Blacktop, if those same players visit your estate and become your friends in MyLIFE. Otherwise, you’d have to spend VC in the console game to play with them.

“We kind of want to keep that story alive too, like if [the NBA player] is at your house and he’s your friend, of course you wouldn’t have to buy him,” said Wilson. “He would just come over for free because he’s your friend. It’s a little bit of fantasy we want to keep there.”

Filed under: Games

The DeanBeat: Take-Two’s No. 2 exec Karl Slatoff on the time of disruption and opportunity in games (interview)

Dean Takahashi — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:00:27 +0000

The video game industry is having a watershed year, marked by disruptions of the traditional console retail game business and the rise of social, mobile, and online titles. Karl Slatoff, the chief operating officer of Take-Two Interactive, welcomes this kind of change because he believes his company has the right strategy to succeed in the long term. It is focusing on original, blockbuster games such as Max Payne 3.

Right now, the quickest way to make Slatoff go quiet is to mention Grand Theft Auto V, the highly anticipated next installment in a series that has set records for blockbuster video game sales. Take-Two’s Rockstar Games label is expected to release GTAV sometime this year, though an exact launch date hasn’t been revealed. It’s just the kind of title that could get the game industry out of its funk — a result of the lack of new consoles.

The game isn’t at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) video game trade show this year, and neither is Rockstar. There’s plenty of speculation about the title, but Take-Two has to keep mum. Slatoff still had plenty to talk about, however, when we caught up with him at the E3 this week in Los Angeles.

GamesBeat: Now that it’s out in the open, what do you think of all the console makers and their announcements at E3?

Karl Slatoff: You mean the lack of announcements? Well, let me ask you a question. What do you mean by their announcements?

GamesBeat: Anything that’s interesting to you as far as what your people are going to have to do. Platform-level things, the Wii U…

Slatoff: We’ve talked about the Wii U for quite some time now. We’re doing NBA on the Wii U, so we think it’s a pretty interesting platform, and it could have some good features that work well with certain games. We’re actually really excited to support it.

GamesBeat: It seemed like it was going to have just one tablet per Wii U machine, and now they’re talking about two. I’m not sure if they’re really prepared to tell everybody, here’s how you do a game for two gamepad tablets.

Slatoff: It might. I can’t really talk about the tech because that’s not what I do. I’m sure the guys at Nintendo have figured out a way to make that work pretty seamlessly.

GamesBeat: Tablet against tablet for two players seems fundamentally necessary, especially for the game you’re talking about.

Slatoff: Yes, but that’s interesting, we’re excited about that.

GamesBeat: And the asymmetric stuff, does that have some appeal as well? One tablet against for Wii controllers?

Slatoff: I think it could. Again, I haven’t seen any iterations of it specifically as it applies to any of the things that we’re prepping on at this point. Any feature that’s new is interesting. I think it could have interesting applications depending on how people work with it.

GamesBeat: And now the level of the tech is on par with the Xbox 360 and PS3, and that might make cross-platform games easier [from a dev perspective].

Slatoff: It’s HD, right? That’s a lot of development right there. From that perspective I think it will. But every platform has its own unique challenges and opportunities. It’s a more powerful machine that we can use, that could be a core gaming machine, that’s obviously something that’s really appealing to us.

GamesBeat: How’s the lineup for you guys?

Slatoff: You’ve seen it. Between Spec Ops: The Line, we’ve got a fantastic lineup. I think it’s the best lineup the company’s had in this short period of the its history. Following up we’ve got Borderlands, we’ve got XCOM: Enemy Unkon, BioShock Infinite, GTA as well. I think we’re in pretty good shape. I don’t think we’ve been in this position before, so we’re excited.

GamesBeat: But you’re not telling people enough about GTA.

Slatoff: We’re not telling them anything. We’ve said all we’re gonna say about GTA. It is in development, and obviously it’s very important for us.

GamesBeat: Are you preparing to deal with all the gamers that are here at E3 going, “I WANNA SEE IT”?

Slatoff: Every year we do it … and the thing I always find interesting [is] you’ve got people who are always predicting, “Are they going to announce something about that title during E3?” And I’m not sure that’s ever happened. I don’t see why they’re so surprised that Rockstar’s not here and they’re not saying anything about the title. But we’re used to dealing with the questions.

GamesBeat: The balancing out of the portfolio, does that still look good for you guys as far as non-GTA years and GTA years? There’s been an imbalance in the past.

Slatoff: I think it does. We’ve had a profitable year without GTA releases. We did not do that this past year. We had planned on doing that, but we had to move some titles around. So I would say that it depends on when releases come out. Whether it’s going to be profitable or not without GTA really depends on that. But one thing for sure is, I think it’s hard to argue that we are 100 percent dependent on any one given title. Because we do have so many titles that have performed as well as they have. I think our intellectual property at this point in time is unmatched in the industry. We’ve got a huge franchise with NBA, BioShock, Borderlands, Red Dead, GTA, Civilization… What else? I’m missing some, there are other ones out there, but those are pretty big titles, like Mafia. All of them I think are capable of going into the next generation and beyond.

GamesBeat: How many people are you guys now, how many studios?

Slatoff: What did we say the official studio count is now? It’s like 15, and about 1700 employees, development employees worldwide? It depends on what you count.

GamesBeat: It sounds like it’s more than this time a year ago.

Slatoff: No? I think it’s probably about the same. Slightly more?

GamesBeat: It seems like some of the competition might be getting smaller in the core console space. THQ is weak right now. They’re still doing games, but… Does it feel like there’s a thinning-out of the console competition?

Slatoff: Well, look, there are people announcing studio closures all the time. Doing the shovelware doesn’t work anymore. You need to actually have something that’s going to get consumers out of the chairs and into the stores or online to download a new game experience. That takes a big investment, and it takes a sophisticated marketing organization to do it, and I don’t think that every studio or publishing system… We’re not all created equal that way. I think that you’ve seen some of the shakeout … at this point the consumers are really looking for something that’s compelling and unique every time they go out to buy a game. For us, I think that positions us very well, because that’s really been our strategy for a good number of years.

We don’t come out with a thousand releases a year, and we never have. We’re obviously focused on profitability, but quality, we believe, drives profitability at the end of the day. So for us this is a good thing.

GamesBeat: And at the same time there’s this growing competition in the mobile-social-online…

Slatoff: We get that question a lot, and we are active in the mobile space, we’ve released a good number of titles in the mobile space. We’re only talking about iOS and Android, in that regard. But we really think about the games first. We don’t think about platform first. We think, first and foremost, is it a casual experience or is it a core gaming experience? And then the second lens, is it a single-player experience or is it a multiplayer experience? Those four components, that axis, that’s how we manage our business.

If we’re looking to build a core single-player experience, we’re going to think about that experience creatively and then we’re going to build it for the platform that can support that experience. So for us, whether it’s an iOS and Android platform, a console platform, a PC platform, it really doesn’t matter. We don’t care. Obviously platform will dictate how you develop to a certain degree, but for us it’s always judging the creative experience. I would say that something like Max Payne or GTA is actually a core gaming experience that you can experience on tablet platforms. They’re just from older generations. But for the most part, tablet gaming has been more casual. I think that will change over time, and should the tablet ultimately become a core gaming platform, obviously we’re going to be there, because we’re there now doing it.

I don’t really see it as competition from tablet, I see it more as the platform is evolving. That presents an opportunity for us, because I think they will be ubiquitous, and the barrier to entry for the consumer to get into the gaming space may be lower now. Because you’ve got a tablet that has multiple functions. If you have a tablet and that’s your gaming device, that’s fantastic for us, because that barrier is gone for the consumer.

PR: One thing that’s interesting to note, too, as we’ve taken advantage on the PC platform with things like Steam, tablets give us great opportunities, Karl mentioned GTA3… We have this incredible catalog of titles that we can go back and see, you know, what classic games, if you will, that were amazing experiences, can we bring back to these tablet platforms? I think our position of being able to create AAA games gives us the added strength of, those become AA catalog titles over time. It’s been a very important part of our business.

GamesBeat: Like on Steam as well, and OnLive?

Slatoff: Yes. Everyone says they’re platform agnostic, and you can’t be 100 percent platform agnostic and be in this business. So that’s a little bit of hyperbole. But we try to be as much as we possibly can. We don’t really care how it’s delivered. Because there’s nothing on the horizon that we see from a development perspective that we don’t feel like we’re prepared to develop for. And I actually don’t believe in the notion of certain devices having natural price point limitations. I think that what people are willing to pay has to do with the content that they’re getting. Today, you may not be able to sell a game for more than 10 dollars or 6 dollars or $4.99 or whatever the price point may be on iOS, but that’s because the game’s probably not worth that much. It’s not delivering the kind of experience that you’ll get when you play BioShock Infinite. The day it does deliver that experience, then I think there will be plenty of opportunity for us.

GamesBeat: It seems like the console guys are sort of differentiating themselves with variations of tablet, touch, and gesture.

Slatoff: There’s some of that.

GamesBeat: It looks like everybody’s still trying to find exactly what it is.

Slatoff: It depends on what the functionality is meant to do. My personal opinion is, having played a lot of games on tablets, SmartGlass is kind of a tough thing to use for a core gaming experience. We’re used to the controller.

GamesBeat: Real time.

Slatoff: If you play Max Payne, it works, but is it the same as holding that controller in your hand? Really having that tactile control over your character? I think for real-time experience, you need that kind of control. And if you’re playing Call of Duty, without the fine motions… I think that certain platforms have limitations. I think SmartGlass is one of them. But they can be overcome with peripherals and software and so on.

GamesBeat: Faster speed.

Slatoff: Yes, there’s processing power limitations as well. We know that will improve. Tomorrow’s tablet will be as fast as today’s gaming PC, someday.

GamesBeat: Are you officially investing in next-generation R&D?

Slatoff: We haven’t really talked about next gen, specifically because our first-party partners haven’t talked about it. But it’s obviously coming at one point in the future, and we’ll be ready for it. Just like anybody else. Obviously it’s something we think about, something that we’ll be well-prepared for.

GamesBeat: The Nvidia guys are talking about a resurgence in the PC. Do you see that happening as the console generation stretches out?

Slatoff: Depending on the titles that are coming out in this period of time, I think that there’s always an opportunity for PC gaming to grab a little bit of share of the market. I’m not sure if that’s a function of the PC gaming market growing, or if it’s a function of people buying fewer consoles during that period of time. I do think the PC market is robust, and things like Steam help, because that’s a much better experience. Obviously the PC gaming audience has embraced that. And I think those platforms are getting better and better. There’s more than just Steam, there are other platforms as well.

That’s the most powerful gaming device on the planet, the PC gaming device, so it’s a good gaming device. I think there’s always opportunities for that segment to grow.

GamesBeat: In the core space, it looks like there’s your model. And then there’s the come-out-with-the-same-franchise-every-year model.

Slatoff: That’s right.

GamesBeat: That’s all that’s left. It sounds like you guys are not believers in…

Slatoff: Well, it depends on the title. Look, we put an NBA game out every year. So obviously for that type of title, that makes sense. We have not gone the route of Call of Duty with any of our franchises. Call of Duty is also becoming less and less about that single-player experience and more about that multiplayer experience. They’re fantastic at what they do. I think it may make more sense for something like Call of Duty to just iterate on a yearly basis. You can almost see it iterating into an online, a pure online play someday. Who knows what Activision is thinking about doing? But for that type of franchise that may make sense, because it is so much about the multiplayer.

When you’ve got a solid, narrative-driven single-player experience, it’s difficult to come out with something fresh and new every year. Every time we release something, we’d love to take the IP to the next level, so we start building franchises. And doing that every year is something that we find very difficult to do.

PR: We’ve used the James Bond analogy. One of the reasons the James Bond movie franchise is so successful is that they’ll come out with this amazing experience, and then they go away for a period of time, and people are really clamoring for it, and then when it comes it’s bigger and better than the previous one. The audience is really hungry for it. I think part and parcel with our commitment to high quality titles that are really leading-edge.

GamesBeat: You want to stay away from the James Bond video game model.

Slatoff: No, we’re not doing a James Bond video game. But you know, the other outline, as well, is that we also really strongly believe in investing in new IP. There is a finite amount of resources that any game company has. You can always do more deals and more deals, but any given company has a finite number of resources. And if we dedicated everything to just doing sequels, trying to get something out year after year, that may work for a period of time in terms of exploiting the profitability, but if you’re not investing in the future, you run the risk of becoming irrelevant. We do strongly believe, I think you know that, and I think the industry understands that too, that investing in new IP is something that you have to do continuously. If you have to take some resources off sequel IP to do so, we’re willing to do that.

GamesBeat: Did you read David Kushner’s book ["Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, about Rockstar games and the evolution of Grand Theft Auto"]?

PR: We’re not gonna comment on that.

GamesBeat: You’re more at the edge of that, although Take-Two was right in the middle of it…

Slatoff: You mean from a timing perspective?

GamesBeat: Your experience personally.

Slatoff: I didn’t read the book, so I don’t really have any answers. Did you read it?

GamesBeat: Yes. I didn’t realize how much of the inner circle conversations came out in the FTC paperwork. It seems like a lot of it came from just looking through emails that had to be disclosed in the FTC investigations. I was surprised. At least it was a decent portrait of the whole idea of a game company just pushing for content that adults like. As developers get older, they like Game of Thrones on HBO. There’s this content there that people don’t associate with kids, right? He got this point across, that these guys were pioneers in that sense.

Slatoff: I can’t speak to the book at all, but in terms of the industry evolving, there are segments, like any entertainment industry… We used to get this thing about video games as a toy. Obviously they don’t do that anymore. I think the technology’s evolved and the storytelling, the art has evolved, to the point where video games have arrived, and we’ve got kids’ stuff, we’ve got teen stuff, we’ve got adult stuff. And I think that’s an indication that the video game industry is becoming a traditional entertainment business.

PR: There’s less of a disconnect. As somebody who’s been in the industry for 15 years, as Karl said, there was definitely that connotation of, it’s toys, it’s for kids, and even though the products are rated, even though the FTC keeps complimenting our industry on self-regulating and empowering consumers with more information than most other entertainment properties to make educated decisions, there’s still that perception of… These are kids’s toys and such. I also think the ESA has done a pretty good job of helping to get that messaging out about… Really letting the broader media and population know that the vast amount of people playing these games are adults. As you said, as your tastes evolve, they’re going towards experiences that are relevant and on par with the films they go see, or TV shows they watch.

Slatoff: And the channel’s done a pretty good job of enforcing it. I’m not all on top of it, but I’ve read articles on people looking at it, that video games are better than movies at actually self-regulating. Not allowing content that’s not supposed to go to minors get into the hands of teens.

GamesBeat: The cinematic part of Max Payne 3 — I love it. I was sort of getting a feel for it, Max Payne 3, a shooting game, lots and lots of shooting, and then this Last of Us that Sony’s been showing. There are differences — you kill one person in a scene here, or you kill eight people in The Last of Us, and that’s a very gut-wrenching scene. In Max Payne you’re killing thousands of people. One of them is a game, one is almost more like a movie. The thing that strikes me is this is a little more moving, because it’s like a life and death struggle for every kill, every death. Games that are really upping the drama of each situation — it seems like a very compelling way to make games. But it doesn’t always make the gamer happy.

Slatoff: It’s hard to find that balance. And I think Max Payne does a great job of finding that balance, because you can feel the angst as you’re playing. But it’s a shooter. In a shooter you want to be able to shoot stuff, and I think it’s pretty good at delivering both. I think what you find out, when you play Spec Ops, is you’re going to feel some of that drama. There’s a big element of that in Spec Ops, and I think that’s one of the differentiating factors of the narrative, the single-player narrative is so strong compared to some of the other military shooters that are out there. You’re going to see some of that. I agree, I think that’s exciting, and I think that helps evolve the art form, but at the end of the day, it’s a game and you want it to be fun. You want to be able to shoot stuff if you’re playing a shooter.

GamesBeat: The storytelling front seems like it’s a really interesting place for differentiation in the space.

Slatoff: The Rockstar guys have always been about storytelling, too. They make great games as well. But the writing and the underlying stories have always been a huge part of what they do. So I agree. I think that the combination of both is really where you go. Sometimes I think you can go too heavy one way or the other.

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