by Yukari Iwatani Kane, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Videogame publishers, pushing to expand their businesses, are making games that target girls and women a new industry battleground.
This holiday season, more games than ever are being geared toward female players. Electronic Arts Inc. is releasing the latest installment of its “Littlest Pet Shop” game for young girls and introducing a series of fashion-themed games called “Charm Girls Club” for older girls later this month.
by Steven Kurutz, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Fantasy video games and heavy metal music seem like a perfect marriage, given that both often rely on Tolkien-esque imagery and create elaborate, male-centric alternate worlds.
But while games use metal songs in their trailers, during play the soundtrack usually transitions into orchestral music. “Brutal Legend” on the other hand, a game for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that’s being released tomorrow by Electronic Arts, is all metal, all the time.
by Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
On Wednesday, a startup 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 startups like it are successful.
Hardware freaks flocked to San Francisco last week to hear Intel talk about microprocessors, the electronic brains in PCs. But Advanced Micro Devices made some pretty brainy claims of its own.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
In the near future, consumers will be playing videogames without controllers, giving directions to lifelike avatars and waving files from screen to screen a la “Minority Report,” according to Microsoft.
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
U.S. video game sector sales fell 29 percent in August to $848.9 million, down from $1.19 billion a year ago, according to market research firm NPD Group. That includes a 37 percent drop in video game hardware, a 26 percent drop in software sales and a 12 percent decline in video game accessories.
Karl and Dorsey Gude of East Lansing, Mich., can remember simpler mornings, not too long ago. They sat together and chatted as they ate breakfast. They read the newspaper and competed only with the television for the attention of their two teenage sons.
A recent report released by the USC Annenberg School for Communication says that videogames don’t represent American society any better than television does. In fact, it says that some cases videogames do a worse job.
by Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
The threat from Best Buy and other retailers to GameStop’s video game sales is no joke, writes Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter in a note this morning in which he lowered estimates for GameStop.
Videogames often get criticized as a waste of time, but tech companies are using them to solve complex business problems. So-called “serious” games can help businesses understand what their customers need, spark ideas and make key product decisions.
by Marisa Taylor, Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
The recession has affected the videogaming industry in some unexpected ways, with consumers buying more games and spending more time playing them, according to a new survey of 2,400 gamers by Nielsen.
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.