Ben Schefers bought his first Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 console four months ago to play games remotely with his friends. But the 33-year-old database manager now spends more time using it to play movies, television shows and documentaries.
“It’s something that my wife and I can both agree on,” he says, adding that he plays Xbox 360 games only a few times a week–and often only after his wife is asleep.
Blowing away terrorists, apparently, never gets old.
The new videogame Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, set to hit stores Tuesday, is a sequel spawned by sequels. But rather than following the frequent pattern of franchises fading as they age, Modern Warfare 2 is the most highly anticipated game of the season.
At its media event in early September, Apple threw down the gauntlet to Nintendo Co. and Sony Corp. Dedicated gaming gadgets like the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable “seemed so cool,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing, but “they don’t stack up against the iPod touch.”
The smart-phone wars are heating up. Handset makers are releasing a wave of new devices backed by a flood of advertisements, as some fight for survival in the fast-growing but increasingly crowded market.
Companies such as Motorola Inc., Palm Inc. and HTC Corp. are hoping new phones will help them reclaim market share from the reigning iPhone and BlackBerry.
When MTV Networks’ Harmonix Music Systems developed the videogame The Beatles: Rock Band, it made many small changes to some of the most beloved songs in rock history. All of them were made in consultation with Apple Corps, the Beatles’ management company, but some of the changes have come as a shock for fans.
If iPhone app developers have one complaint about Apple’s App Store, it’s that the approval process for apps isn’t transparent enough. Apps have been known to be rejected, or worse, sent into a black hole without an explanation.
Some apps that one might think would be rejected are approved, while others that seem like no-brainers aren’t.
Apple Inc. said Thursday it will let iPhone application developers offer their users the option to buy additional content or features within a free app on its App Store.
App developers said they received an e-mail notice from Apple informing them that the in-app purchase feature was now available for free apps and that it would “simplify your development by creating a single version of your app that uses in App Purchase to unlock additional functionality, eliminating the need to create Lite versions of your app.”
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.
When Jon Myers and partner Chuck Hootman created their first iPhone app, “Cornhole All-Stars,” their aim was to come up with a fun, casual game that would give them a foothold for their new game start-up JUFTi. The last thing they expected was to run into censorship troubles, which they did–in Canada.
The medical waistband is the latest front in the battle among smart-phone makers for the business customer.
Pagers have long reigned in hospitals, where they are prized for their dependability. But with doctors treating more patients and hospitals facing pressure to be more efficient, companies like Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. see an opportunity to peddle their devices.
Stanford University was one of the first academic institutions to come out with an iPhone app last October. Now Stanford has debuted an upgrade, dubbed iStanford, which lets students search for courses, add or drop them and see their grades.
Anybody who has read Penn & Teller’s “Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends” won’t be surprised to learn that the comedian-illusionist duo has come up with a new foolproof trick that anyone can do with their iPhone.
Though still pending approval by Apple, Penn Jillette was in San Francisco at the TechCrunch 50 conference, talking up Penn and Teller’s new card-trick app, in which they appear to be able to guess cards remotely.
How does Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello see the videogame industry shaping up in the recession? He provided a glimpse of his viewpoint in an email to EA employees Wednesday that was obtained by The Wall Street Journal. EA has a strong product lineup for this holiday season, with the Need for Speed Shift racing game, FIFA 10 soccer game and The Beatles: Rock Band music game, so Riccitiello’s tone was positive overall.
Unflattering tales about lithium-ion batteries are once again making headlines, this time in Apple’s iPhones. In France, users have reported 10 cases of exploding or cracking iPhones, while similar claims have been reported elsewhere.
As social networking services and multiplayer games have become more prevalent, it was only a matter of time before somebody came up with an idea that combines the two.
Booyah Society, a new social gaming app that launched on Apple’s App Store on Monday, puts a game-like twist to social networking by rewarding users for recording and sharing real-life achievements with other members as well as on Facebook and Twitter, with which it is integrated.
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