Epic Games CEO and founder Tim Sweeney expressed his opinion on the flagging state of the PC gaming industry. In an interview conducted by TG Daily, he pointed out the different problems the PC marke t is facing as well as some possible solutions the industry can take if it wants to make some headway against its rivals. You can check out the rest of the interview by reading our full article, accessible through the "read more" link below.

Vivendi Games Mobile, a division of Vivendi Games, is giving European mobile phone subscribers a chance to win a Nintendo Wii video game system in exchange for their "worst ever date" stories.

"Terrible dates are something that everyone experiences but few ever really talk about, so this is a chance to celebrate Larryness and engage in some collective laughter therapy courtesy of Nintendo and MySpace," said Paul Maglione, president of Vivendi Games Mobile.

This contest is part of Vivendi's campaign to drum up support for the recently-launched mobile game Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail. The game is now available on wireless networks throughout Australia, New Zealand, and across Europe. Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail will soon be launching on carriers in North America as well.

Those interested have until August 8 to post their worst date story to the Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail Myspace web page and add Larry as their "top friend." You can click on the Read link to head there. There will be five winners in all - one each from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

With all the talk about video games being a bad influence in general, it's good to hear about gamers actually stepping up to do the right thing - even if it means putting themselves in harm's way. Such was the case with Adam Mapleson, a quiet and gentle IT consultant who tried to prevent two armed robbers from making a clean getaway after a heist - and received gunshots to the chest at point blank for his efforts.

It's a typical case of an ordinary individual responding to the call of duty, really, even if it meant grievous bodily injury. Adam Mapleson was on his way to work when he saw two armed robbers, their faces obscured with scarves, assault a female security guard who was in the middle of reloading a cash machine.

Ignoring common sense and the instinct to run away from danger, he instead ran toward it - tackling both robbers in a mad dash to help the security guard. But even with the element of surprise, it wasn't long before things went completely downhill for our young gamer. Shots were fired, and Adam crumpled to the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

Thankfully, there's no bad ending in this tale of modern-day heroism. Recent news tell us that Adam's doing fine, recovering in a hospital bed, surrounded with loving family and friends. On the other hand, it's quite obvious that things didn't go as planned for the two robbers, with the stolen cash box having set off its security countermeasures: dousing its contents with indelible red dye, effectively rendering the money inside worthless.

An extraordinary feat of heroism from an ordinary human being, indeed. While some people can prattle on about a recent shooting and the culprit's already dubious connection to videogames, friends, family and even Adam himself states on his MySpace account that he's a true gamer at heart. Maybe this could shake some sense into those parties, but who knows?

One thing's for sure, though - Adam Mapleson saw what needed to be done, and he did it. Gamer? Yes. Hero? Definitely.

In the current generation of the gaming market and industry, there is a large divide which encompasses the gaming community. From potential and core customers to technophiles and technophobes, the industry faces the challenge of trying to bridge the gap between the two sides. And Nintendo, as the risk-takers they are, took to the gauntlet to tap those "white spaces."

In an opinion article authored by none other than Nintendo of America's president Reggie Fils-Aime, he mentioned that Nintendo had spotted this "dichotomy" several years ago. Gamers of the enthusiastic persuasion were more than comfortable with adopting new hardware and new styles.

The industry began catering to this evolutionary cycle, in the sacrificial offset that potential gamers would not feel compelled to enter the mainstream, mainly because they are alienated by the advancement of technology and the increase of complexities. Fils-Aime added:

For the frustrated, it simply wasn't worth the investment of time or money in the midst of a life ever-busier with work, family and other obligations. The players happily jousting inside the castle walls didn't see the moat outside widening.

Click on Full Article for more on the phenomenal insight Nintendo had on the gaming market.

We know that everyone may be familiar with the online video game news site called Eurogamer. Now, this site recently put up a new community portal for -who else?- video game fans and players.

Basically, the portal is somewhat like MySpace, or Friendster for that matter, and Eurogamer itself is not ashamed to admit this. Community members will be able to set up their own page, update their profile, join and create user groups, and ultimately communicate with other members.

Eurogamer Managing Director Rupert Loman is quite happy with this development and mentioned that they are actually planning to launch the site in five different European languages later this year. He added that there is more to come but for now, they are quite contented with what they have,

The Eurogamers launch is the first step in our plan to offer new ways of interacting with gamers. The reaction to the site from our group of beta testers has been overwhelmingly positive, and we're looking forward to developing the site to its full potential.

Lastly, Ubisoft pledged its full support to Eurogamers by promoting its latest Xbox 360 title Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2), which will also become available in Europe on PlayStation 3 (PS3) a little later.

 

Well, if it isn't April Fools Day, it's certainly a time for strange news. As reported on digg.com">Digg and first broken by Squid News, it seems that Richard "Dampe" Denton, the creator of video game Ocarina of Time 2D, may not actually be dead.

The post on Squid News outlines a rather plausible account of fact-checking the events behind Dampe's death. Furthermore, it seems his accounts on MSN and MySpace have remained active, which does indicate that someone's using his accounts, at the very least.

Unfortunately, due to the timing of this news, we're still calling this a rumor for now. It could just be a very bad joke, but it also could be an attempt of the developer to get away from the pressures of having to work on OoT2D. In either case, we're hoping more evidence points to his being alive than dead, just so everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.

Nintendo certainly has bigger plans for Miis. In Shigeru Miyamoto's anticipated Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007 keynote speech, the charismatic game designer said that the Wii channel will enable users to participate in various events involving their Miis. Could this be the end of MySpace and the start of a more successful Mii-centric network?

There will be Mii popularity contests, and other Nintendophiles from everywhere will get to discuss each other avatars' appearance. Miyamoto said that the Mii concept has been around for a long time now, but they haven't turned it into much of anything. We believe that this MySpace concept of Miis will be much of something, though, and already we share the view with analysts.

Says Richard Doherty, research director for Envisioneering Group, "Within a year, the Wii may be the most successful and valuable social-networking community on the Web". The Wii already features channels that provide users with real-time news and weather reports. Nintendo's choice to launch a Mii-centric channel is part of the company's drive to make its Wii system not only a gaming platform, but also a compelling content-delivery tool.

In case you don't know it yet (which we doubt) Miis are avatars, made with built-in Wii system, that represent players in various games. There are a number of websites that have Wii gamers compare screen shots of their Mii creations. Nintendo's new ideas about its Wii channel could be the start of a very optimistic dialogue about the future of Wii.

Yeah, we're all familiar with this scenario already: indie, unsigned rock band gets big break by releasing a YouTube smash hit, thanks MySpace and free online downloading for getting their music out there. Well, here's something that's in that vein but is something a bit fresher, and is related to us gaming folks.

An article over at Yahoo! News reports that video games are the latest "new cool music space." Buzzwords aside, the report basically informs us that more and more artists are looking towards video games as a means of getting their music delivered to audiences.

A nice example of this would be the electronic dance group Young Punks. The group won a heap of new fans when a band track was picked for EA Sports' FIFA game.

Legendary music entity Nile Rodgers explains at this week's annual MIDEM global trade fair for the music industry that: "It's difficult to be introduced to new music without radio as it's the repetition that sells and what's more repetitious than a video game." Rodgers teamed up with Microsoft in 2002 and went on to churn out soundtracks for a string of video games that include Halo:Combat Evolved, Age of Mythology, Brute Force, and Outlaw Volleyball.

And all the "cool" people laugh at fanboys for enjoying game soundtracks.

From NPD's report "Kids & Digital Content" comes these very interesting information: even two-year old toddlers are now into videogames. The study looks closely at how kids between two and fourteen years of age acquire and use digital content for their computers, portable digital music and/or video players, cell phones, and video game systems.

NPD reported downloading and playing games is the most popular activity followed by watching downloaded movies, television, music videos or online streaming video content. The study says kids play games at an average of 44 minutes in one sitting.

By the time kids are 7 years old, more than one in 10 are downloading content in some form. In the 10-year-old age bracket, 22% of all kids included in the online survey are downloading. Half of all 14 year-olds included in the study were into downloading digital content.

How many kids with access to the Internet are actually surfing the net? The figure is a big 75%. Almost half of them are online and surfing the Internet without any assistance. Only 25% are surfing the Internet with their parents or someone else. The top sites visited by kids include Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network. MySpace and Yahoo! are also fave surfstops.

"Without a doubt, kids are digital content natives, seamlessly navigating between traditional and digital sources of media without missing a step," said The NPD Group. "To kids, there is nothing new or novel about digital sources of entertainment. The real challenge for marketers is to be one step ahead of their competition, providing the content and technology kids crave."

The MiiSpace that is Mii Plaza.net has just made itself Wii-friendly (or Wii-friendlier). Wiimail, the latest official feature from Mii Plaza, allows registered users to receive messages, friends requests, and friend approvals straight off the Wii Message Board feature of the console. Yep - it's MySpace on the Wii, and you didn't even have to boot up Opera.

The only other requirement besides being a registered member is to add "friends@miiplaza.net" to your Wii Address Book. Obviously that's the email router that'll feed off the mail destined for you (or is it yoo, since we're talking about a MiiSpace here?). Voila! All your x number of connected friends can now bug you to no end off the Message Board, too. You even know it's them, since their Mii avatar is automatically attached to each mail. Mii Plaza.net has plans to include other features into Wiimail.