From the very first days of its home console business, Nintendo has given its box art a trademark standard, a border or frame that clearly marks the title as being for a Nintendo system. Did you know, though, that this trademark is a lot older than the NES or Famicom?
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Matt DeMino is a freelance artist and illustrator from Texas. Aghast at the fact his own player character’s card in Dragon Age was just a green hand, he set out to fix it, and drew this series of fantastic Inquisition cards.
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So awpluke and some friends thought they’d spice their D&D game up by replacing a table with a flipped-over 50” TV. Then putting Skyrim on that TV.
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One of the films we’ve been supporting ever since it first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival is a little gem called The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Ethan’s review), which Sony Pictures Classics is releasing later this year. Well, the director of that film, Marielle Heller (seen left above), is a very talented filmmaker who has already landed her next big directing gig. Deadline reports that Heller is set to direct a project called On The Basis Of Sex for Focus Features, and the exciting news is that she has secured Natalie Portman for the lead role. Whoa! Portman is now (hopefully) going to be working with two of the very best up-and-coming filmmakers out there – Alex Garland and Marielle Heller. I couldn’t be happier about this news. ›››
Continue reading Natalie Portman Cast in Marielle Heller’s Next Project on Ginsburg
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Valve’s PC gaming platform Steam continues to break records.
On Sunday, May 10, a record 9.5 million people were logged into Steam at the same time. That’s a new concurrent user number for the platform, and is up from 9 million just a couple months ago.
The news comes by way of Steam’s “Stats” page, which reveals that the milestone was achieved in the early afternoon PDT on May 10.
Valve’s free-to-play DOTA 2 is currently the most popular game on Steam, based on unique users, followed by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Grand Theft Auto V.
Steam is a juggernaut in the PC gaming space. It currently has more than 125 million registered accounts.
In other Valve-related news, the company recently found itself in some hot water over paid mods, while its new Vive VR headset–made through a partnership with HTC–will launch later this year.
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Creative Assembly’s horror game Alien: Isolation has now sold more than 2.1 million copies, publisher Sega announced on Monday as part of its latest earnings report for the year ended March 31.
This is up from the 1 million sales figure that Sega announced back in January.
Does Isolation’s success mean a sequel is on the way? It’s too early to say for sure, though Creative Assembly has said it sees a “great opportunity” to make a follow-up.
As you can see in the chart above, Sega’s Football Manager 2015 shifted 810,000 units for PC, while the new Sonic Boom games for Wii U and 3DS combined to sell 620,000 copies.
For Sega’s latest financial year, the company’s total packaged software sales rose to 12.3 million, but Sega still said “performance in the field was weak due to the harsh market environment.”
The digital side was another story, however.
Digital game software for mobile phones, smartphones, and PC “remained strong,” Sega said. The publisher specifically called out games like Ange Vierge, SAKATSUKU Shoot, Phantasy Star Online 2, Puyopuyo!! Quest, and Chain Chronicles — Kizuna no Shintairiku.
Sega’s Consumer Business division–which houses its games business–saw net sales of ¥111.76 billion ($932 million). That represents an increase of 11.2 percent from the previous financial year. Operating income for Sega’s game division, meanwhile, was ¥4.03 billion ($33.7 million)–an increase of 93.1 percent.
Overall, Sega’s entire business–which includes Pachinko machines and even resorts–posted an ¥11.258 billion ($93.9 million) loss for the period, due in part to restructuring costs.
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Project Cars has become the first car racing simulation to take the No.1 spot on the UK games chart in two years, according to the UK sales monitor Chart-Track.
For the week ending May 9, the crowd-funded sim developed by UK outfit Slightly Mad Studios managed to hold off competition from Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, which ended its 86th week of chart placement at No.2.
Last week’s No.1, Mortal Kombat X, dropped down to third place, ahead of FIFA 15 at No.4, Dying Light at No.5, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare at No.6.
Battlefield Hardline, meanwhile, dropped four positions from No.3 to No.7.
Minecraft: Xbox Edition, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and Destiny filled out the bottom half of the top ten at No.8, No.9 and No.10 respectively.
The full top ten follows:
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Frontier Developments has announced it will give a free Steam key to those that purchase Elite: Dangerous from the developer’s online shop, or backed the game on Kickstarter.
Speaking on the studio’s forum, Edward Lewis, a community manager for the developer, said it wanted to accommodate PC players that prefer to use Valve’s Steam platform to play games.
“We always appreciate it when you buy direct from our store because it means we can put more into supporting and developing Elite: Dangerous,” he said.
“But we know a number of long-time players and backers like to play through Steam and we think it’s fair everyone has that option, not just new players.”
Continuing, Lewis added that Frontier has been working with Valve to provide integration between Steam accounts and Frontier accounts.
“Elite: Dangerous runs on Frontier’s servers, so we’ve been working with Valve to give you a way to seamlessly connect your Steam and existing Frontier accounts in a way that’s easy. It’s coming soon.”
According to Lewis, existing owners will be able to generate a Steam code from their Frontier accounts page from May 28.
Elite: Dangerous is already available on Steam for $59.99 (£39.99). The sci-fi space combat and exploration sim was previously only available for purchase through the game’s website.
Frontier previously announced a major Elite: Dangerous update called Powerplay, which will add faction gameplay to the space simulator, developer Frontier Developments has announced.
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Nintendo will not reveal any new information or show NX, its next gaming console, at E3 2015.
Company chief executive Satoru Iwata was asked specific details on the console during a recent meeting with investors, but replied by reiterating that Nintendo does not plan to fully reveal NX until 2016.
“We do not plan on talking specifics about the NX until 2016,” he said, as translated by Kotaku.
Iwata would not provide any additional details or a release window for the NX, only repeating that it is “calling it a ‘new concept’ … not thinking of [it] as a ‘simple replacement’ for the 3DS or the Wii U.”
Smart phone titles and quality of life experiences would also not be represented at E3.
“Since we understand that E3 is an event for dedicated video game machines, we do not intend to discuss the smart devices as well as quality of life,” said Iwata.
During the presentation Iwata once again addressed why the NX had been announced before Nintendo was ready to fully reveal it, saying the company wanted to affirm its commitment to home gaming, following the announcement of its partnership with DeNA and plans to develop mobile games.
The sentiment echoes previous statements Iwata made during the initial NX announcement to the same effect: “As proof that Nintendo maintains strong enthusiasm for the dedicated game system business, let me confirm that Nintendo is currently developing a dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept under the development codename ‘NX’.”
“It is too early to elaborate on the details of this project, but we hope to share more information with you next year.”
As part of its recent earnings report, the Japanese game giant also updated its launch schedule for upcoming Wii U games. Interestingly, The Legend of Zelda for Wii U (working title) is now listed as “TBD.” The game, previously expected to launch by the end of 2015, was delayed back in March as a result of Nintendo discovering “several new possibilities” for the project.
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