Hah, Microsoft, who needs 'em? A number of veterans from Ensemble Studios are picking up where they left off after being shut down when Halo Wars was completed. They formed a new studio called Robot Entertainment. More in the full article.

The 6th Annual Video Game Awards of Spike TV is about to kick off next month, and we've got the list of nominees for this one. Cross your fingers tight and wish your personal fave bets good luck. See the list after the jump.

Games Critics Awards is proud to bring to us the list of their top 10 games of 2007. 2K Games' BioShock (PC, Xbox 360) had the prestigious honor of grabbing the top spot as the judges' choice for Game of the Year, based on the point system ranking devised by Games Critics.

You can take a look at the other games that made it into the list in the full article!

With the London Games Festival well underway, The British Academy for Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) concluded its British Academy Video Game Awards night leaving Nintendo with complete bragging rights for one full year. Nintendo's Wii Sports held up against all competition in six categories and was crowned king in Casual, Gameplay, Innovation, Multiplayer, Sports, and Strategy and Simulation.

Microsoft's Crackdown took three titles home, while SCEE's God of War 2 and Capcom's Okami snagged two apiece. The Best Game Award went to 2K Games' BioShock, while on user-voted front, the PC World Gamers Award went to SEGA's Football Manager 2007. Sims creator Will Wright was inducted to the Academy Fellowship, where he joins the likes of Steven Spielberg and Charlie Chaplin.

The full list of winners begins at the full article!

Buy: [ Wii Sports ]
Buy: [ Crackdown ]
Buy: [ BioShock (Games for Windows), (Xbox 360) ]
Buy: [ Football Manager 2007 (PC) ]

The NPD Group has just released the retail sales numbers of Canada's video game industry, and for the month of September, hardware sales of the Microsoft Xbox 360 have jumped to 51,200 units. The rise was attributed to the September 25 release of Bungie Studios' Halo 3, published by Microsoft. Over all, the game industry was reported to have met a 96% increase in total sales from US$ 66.2 million to US$ 129.7 million, year on year.

Throughout the retail sale categories that the NPD report covered, console hardware sales have more than doubled for the month alone, confirming Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter's prediction. The revenue hit a high of 244% from US$ 13 million in September last year to US$ 44.7 million in September this year.

With it, console software sales rose 79% year-on-year, from US$ 27.8 million to US$ 49.9 million in revenue. Handhelds in contrast performed in the lowest margins, though both software and hardware revenue increased according to NPD's numbers.

Handhelds sold in the nation hiked up 29% from US$ 9 million in September last year to US$ 11.7 million this year, while handheld video games rose by a slim 2% from last year - US$ 9.5 million to US$ 9.7 million. The hardware sales ranked by most unit sales for the month of September stood as:

• Microsoft Xbox 360 - 51,200
• Nintendo DS - 45,000
• Nintendo Wii - 42,900
• Sony PSP - 2,200
• Sony PS2 - 16,500
• Sony PS3 - 15,600
• Nintendo GBA - 8,600

You can also see the top 10 video games for September 2007 ranked by most unit sales at the full article.

Shane Kim, director of Microsoft Game Studios, had a lot to say at E3. GamePro sat down with the big wig to talk about Metal Gear Solid 4 on 360, the future of the box, hardware issues, upcoming games, and everything under the sun.

Rumor is hot on MGS4 coming to the 360, and the entire gaming industry anticipates any new word on the issue. Kim sees Konami's defection to Microsoft as a feasible business move. "If you look at it from an economic standpoint, third parties have to support more than one platform. How much do you think that Konami is spending on MGS4? So economically they've got to leverage that the best that they can."

While Sony is dead set on making the PS3 live for ten years, the box's destiny isn't set on stone. "The customers will tell us how long the Xbox 360 is viable. We definitely plan on it have a five-year-plus life cycle. We do plan on winning this generation and nothing is going to shake us off of that aspiration," Kim stated.

The biggest dilemma raining on 360's parade would have to be the hardware failure rates. Kim claims that the box is a "very complex high-end piece of machinery." What of the PS3 then, the machine developers complain about because of its complexity? "I can't speak to Sony and how they built their product. They've got a much bigger product than we do."

Right now, Shane Kim is confident that Microsoft will dominate the competition. "We have a ton of confidence of the content portfolio of Xbox 360 and Xbox Live... We have this huge momentum, and we have the greatest game lineup of any system."

Nintendo's magic wand and the plethora of games that come to the Wii doesn't seem to faze this man. "We're in the leadership position... It's really up to the first parties to create the content that's going to differentiate the platforms and that's where we think we have the competitive advantage."

 

From the folks that will be bringing you the Develop Conference and Expo on July 2007, Tandem Events organizes a double event dedicated for the games graduates of UK. GamesGrads is slated to occur on April 24 and April 26, on Manchester and London respectively.

GamesGrads is a full-blown game career fair to be supported by numerous game industry names, including Havok, Microsoft Game Studios, Disney Interactive Studios, Rare, Lionhead, Juice, and Rebellion. They are many more other developer studios that have yet to confirm details on their attendance. Ali Wynn, an organizer at Tandem Events, was proud to say that the developer response to the event was "great." She also added:

We've got some high profile studios actively looking to recruit games graduates taking part and so far hundreds of graduates registered to come along and meet up with them, showcase their work and hopefully secure a career in the games industry.

Game industry students interested in attending GamesGrads should look up the official GamesGrads website and register there. All registrants will be entered into a draw to win an iPod Video and a Super Pass for the Develop Conference and Expo 2007 to take place once again in Brighton.

Just yesterday, Microsoft had revealed their black crusader, the Xbox 360 Elite, which stirred the Xbox 360 community for its slick look and roomy 120 GB hard drive storage. While the Xbox 360 is now going back to the old-school black motif, like most PC Banzai Runner rigs (minus all the bells and whistles) and the PlayStation 3 (need we say the Atari Jaguar and the Sega Genesis, too?), Microsoft did deal a below-the-belt blow to current top selling Nintendo Wii.

John Rodman, Group Product Manager for the Xbox and Xbox Live, said, "We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing. We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else." He is entitled to his own opinion, but he hasn't even considered the two other demographics the Wii has touched.

The aged and the female parts of the incidental gamer market have also been tapped into by the fun, non-gamer friendly Wii. Retirement homes have equipped their entertainment centers with Nintendo's next-gen platform, and the only console to have even reached the corporate bracket of the market is also the Wii. Ever had an Xbox 360 in your department's lounge room?

Earlier, Microsoft Game Studios VP Shane Kim explained why they were inspired with Nintendo's accomplishments with the Wii and how Microsoft Game Studios hopes to tap into a broader piece of the market that none of the competing platforms knew existed. According to Kim, they hope to follow suit by attracting older, younger and fairer people to their platform. So why comment like this now?

Microsoft Game Studios">Shane Kim, Corporate VP of Microsoft Game Studios, told Gamasutra in an in-depth interview that "Sony has helped us with their own missteps" while continuing to praise Nintendo for their phenomenal success with the broader market. Because of the delays Sony has had with their console's launches, he claims the Xbox 360 has grabbed a firm lead in sales worldwide (aside from Japan and some PC-for-life Asian countries) especially in Europe.

"I feel more confident about our competitive position today than when we launched the program. We've already got ten million units out there, we've got six million members on Xbox Live, we will have 320 Xbox 360 games available for customers by the end of this year," Kim said.

According to Kim, the Xbox 360 is the leading game development platform and is bountiful in exclusive content. Additionally Kim said, "Certainly I feel like we're executing our strategy, and it's running on all cylinders. Sony has helped us with their own missteps, and I'd be foolish not to say that it's not helping us. That's fine. I feel better about our competitive position than when we launched the platform." Regarding his views on what Microsoft would like to do in response to Nintendo's approach to the gaming industry, he replied:

In general, I applaud Nintendo for their success. I think what they're doing is very important. They're trying to bring more people into the industry and -- objectively speaking -- I think it's Nintendo and Microsoft that are really generating the excitement for the industry. And that's important for the industry.

He also believes that Nintendo aren't actually competing, as Nintendo isn't going the souped-up hardware route as Sony and Microsoft are or aspiring for broader online horizons as the electronics and Redmond giant have been aiming for. But in order to tap into Nintendo's broader slice of the pie, Sony and Microsoft have to go head-to-head against each other for every new gamer they could get to their platforms. This is what he considers Microsoft would like to do better in.

It's common sense that "what goes up must come down," but you need specific formulas if you're going to send a space shuttle into space. In other words, you need solid data and clear numbers.

So we appreciated the data we found in a Gamasutra article about BrandIntel, a market research company out of Toronto, and BrandIntel's "Top 50 Video Games Report." The study took data from both "online and human analysis from January 1, 2006 to October 31, 2006 for over 1,200 titles" - including those that have only been announced. "The games were broken down in terms of audience interest and sentiment score, and then subsequently ranked."

The results. So which games got the most audience (customer) interest?

1. Gears of War
   The game is from Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios is unstoppable. (We had to use Tim Buckley's Ctrl+Alt+Del comic take on it from ctrlaltdel-online.com.)
   
2. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
   Any "hardcore gamer" should be willing to show respect for this venerable franchise steeped in gaming tradition from Nintendo EAD. *bow your head and ask for Miyamoto's blessing* LOL
   
3. Madden NFL 07 (with versions for the Xbox 360, for the PS3, and for the Wii)
   If you've been reading QJ comments, you'll see people's interest vary depending on the platform. Some versions for some consoles are ridiculed for bugs and because EA Sports has lost its touch, but some versions are praised for innovations.
   
4. Halo 3
5. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (with versions for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii)
   
6. Fight Night Round 3
7. Call of Duty 3 (with versions for the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3)
   
8. Assassin's Creed (with versions for the Xbox 360 and PS3)
   
9. Resistance: Fall of Man
   
10. Tony Hawk's Project 8

The research took "online consumer communities such as message boards, discussion forums, blogs and other internet social communities," as well as "over 670,000 raw search results, of which 48,000 consumer mentions on next-gen video games were used in compiling the data."

The trends. According to the study, there are some trends: moving away from World War II shooters and moving towards futuristic shooters, action adventure got discussed because of "open-ended game play and highly-interactive environments" but sports games got discussed (dissed) for "inaccurate and unrealistic" gameplay.

That makes sense to us: it's easy to diss a sport game because you play the sport in real life or watch it on TV. You don't usually have to deal with aliens or monsters unless you went to snooty high school, so a futuristic shooter will tend to make us notice (in a positive way) the atmosphere and effects and gameplay.