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Video-Game Stocks Fall On Disappointing Sales Data

October 20th, 2009

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By Dan Gallagher

Shares of video-game makers fell Tuesday after the release of disappointing September sales data that sparked worries about the rest of the year.

Late Monday, the NPD Group reported that sales of video-game software grew 5% in September to $649.3 million. That gain came after six consecutive months of declines as the industry grappled with the slowing economy and difficult comparisons.

Still, analysts were looking for growth of 15% on average, according to reports compiled by MarketWatch.

“While stronger-than-expected hardware sales bode well for future software sales, there is no denying that software sales were disappointing,” Todd Mitchell of Kaufman Bros. wrote in a note to clients Tuesday.

Video-game stocks have been underperforming the market since early summer, as concerns have grown that sales for the year will be unable to surpass last year’s record results, despite strong releases planned for the holiday season, such as “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”

The stocks have made gains over the past month, as analysts have widely predicted a turnaround in sales. Mitchell noted that the latest sales data may cool enthusiasm.

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BFG Enters Gaming Notebook Market

October 16th, 2009

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by Mark Hachman

bfglaptop Just a few months after launching its first desktop gaming PC, the Phobos, BFG is entering the gaming notebook market.

The Deimos X-10 SLI isn’t an ultraportable – it’s a desktop-class gamig machine that happens to be built into a notebook form factor.

The notebook uses the Intel platform, and can be configured with either a Core 2 Duo, Quad, or Extreme processor. Graphics, however, is the centerpiece, and the Deimos was designed with the option to run two GeForce GTX 280M 1GB cards in SLI mode, duplicating the performance of a desktop gaming rig. The Deimos display 1920-by-1080 true HD LCD screen.

“The Deimos X-10 SLI notebook is perfect for gamers and media enthusiasts who demand desktop performance but prefer the portability of a notebook,” said John Malley, senior director of marketing for BFG Technologies, in a statement. “Deimos X-10 comes fully locked and loaded to deliver the ultimate HD mobile gaming and multimedia experience.”

The rest of the notebook’s specs are more conventional: up to 4 Gbytes of DDR3 memory, 4 USB 2.0 ports, and DVI and HDMI output. Still, the Deimos also includes three drive bays and built-in Dolby surround sound, including a subwoofer, and a Super Multi Blu-ray reader.

The Deimos costs $1,859, and can be preordered from BFG’s Web site. BFG is offering a 10 percent discount from now until Oct. 10, and a free service visit is included.

Sony releasing PS3 with 250GB hard drive next month

October 16th, 2009

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The 250GB PlayStation 3.

Sony

Starting November 3, consumers will be able to purchase a PlayStation 3 with a 250GB hard drive, Sony announced on the official PlayStation blog.

The console, which will sport the same slim look as the 120GB device, will sell for $350.

Sony says the PS3 has sold 1 million units worldwide in the first three weeks following the launch of the lighter console, which also experienced a significant price drop from $399 to $299.

Industry analysts have predicted the moves by Sony will propel the PS3 to the top of hardware sales for the month of September. Official sales figures will be released Monday by market research firm NPD Group.

Readers, has the lower price spurred you to buy or consider buying a PS3?

By Brett Molina

What Happens When Games Go to ‘The Cloud’

October 5th, 2009

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By Nick Wingfield

On Wednesday, a start-up called OnLive that’s generating a lot of buzz–and skepticism–in the videogame world raised a new round of financing from AT&T, Warner Bros. and others. We spoke to OnLive founder Steve Perlman, a well-known serial entrepreneur, about the investment (which wasn’t quantified) and some of the implications if OnLive or start-ups like it are successful.

OnLive has developed technology that it says will allow consumers to play graphically rich videogames without owning high-end PCs or consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that are normally required for such titles. Instead OnLive plans to run games on powerful remote servers in data centers and pipe high-definition game graphics over the Internet to consumers, who can play them on low-end PCs and Macs or through an inexpensive OnLive device connected to their televisions.

If OnLive can get consumers to switch to playing high-end games in the cloud, the potential losers include makers of game consoles like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. There are still a lot of questions about whether Perlman can pull off such a feat, in large part because of doubts OnLive can deliver games that aren’t marred by “lag”–interruptions in game performance caused, in this case, by the chore of pushing loads of high-definition game graphics over sometimes flaky Internet connections. Perlman says he’s confident he has designed the technology in such a way that players won’t notice any delays when they’re roaming around killing zombies and rappelling off buildings.

Game publishers could see a number of benefits from a move to cloud gaming, but one of the less obvious ones is the potential taming of used games, which critics believe steal sales of new titles. All games from OnLive will be delivered to consumers on demand so there’s no disc for them to resell.

The specialty retailer GameStop pioneered the used games business, and others like Wal-Mart have begun experimenting with similar offerings. Retailers say used games are good for the industry because they give consumers trade-in credits that help them buy new games. Perlman says publishers have privately told him a different story.

“We hear about games released for the Christmas season – by the time the holidays are over, publishers have had five player registrations for the same disc,” he says, adding used games “are just killing them.”

OnLive hasn’t said what partners, if any, will help it bring its game service to consumers, but AT&T’s investment in the company suggests the possibility that it could eventually be bundled with broadband service. OnLive’s service, Perlman said, could become part of a “quad-play” offering by such providers, to complement the triple-play bundle of voice, television and Internet service most cable and telcos are marketing to customers already.

Perlman declined to say whether any such agreement exists with AT&T. “I’m quite limited in what I’m allowed to disclose,” he says.

Billions stolen in online robbery

July 3rd, 2009

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Eve Online is about the struggle between giant corporations

Space trading game Eve Online has suffered a virtual version of the credit crunch.

One of the game’s biggest financial institutions lost a significant chunk of its deposits as a huge theft started a run on the bank.

One of the bank’s controllers stole about 200bn kredits and swapped them for real world cash of £3,115.

As news of the theft spread, many of the bank’s customers rushed to remove their virtual cash.

Space scandal

The theft from EBank took place in early June but only now have details emerged about the amount of money stolen and why it was taken.

The theft was carried out by EBank’s chief executive, a player known as Ricdic, now known to be a 27-year-old Australian who works in the technology industry. His full identity has not been revealed save that his first name is Richard.

The stolen kredits amounted to 8% of the 2.6tn that Ebank had in its virtual vaults.

“Basically this character was one of the people who had been running EBank for a while. He took a bunch of (virtual) money out of the bank, and traded it away for real money,” Ned Coker, of Icelandic company CCP which runs Eve, told the Reuters news agency.

Eve Online has about 300,000 players all of whom inhabit the same online universe. The game revolves around trade, mining asteroids and the efforts of different player-controlled corporations to take control of swathes of virtual space.

It has now emerged that Ricdic used the cash to put down a deposit on a house and to pay medical bills.

“I’m not proud of it at all, that’s why I didn’t brag about it,” Ricdic told Reuters. “But you know, if I had to do it again, I probably would’ve chosen the same path based on the same situation.”

Ricdic has now been thrown out of the game as trading in-game cash for real money is against Eve Online’s terms and conditions.

The rules governing play within Eve would not have sanctioned Ricdic if he had simply stolen the cash and used it in the game, nor if he had bought kredits with real dollars.

The scandal is not the first to play out in Eve Online. In early 2009 one of the game’s biggest corporations, called Band of Brothers, was brought down by industrial espionage.

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Credit Due: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8132547.stm