Check out this cool post on how certain game franchises, consoles, and gaming in general have changed from 1998 to 2008. From GamesRadar.com
How Gaming has Changed in 10 Years
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The most acclaimed celebration of gaming is back. Spike TV’s Video Game Awards 2008 premiere on Sunday, December 14 (9:00- 11:00 PM, ET/ tape delay west coast), broadcasting LIVE from Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, CA.
In addition to honoring the best in video games – this year’s show is featuring a special treat for fans. For the first time ever, Spike is going to feature exclusive premiere footage from the industry’s most highly anticipated releases. The only way to see these exclusives – and what the future of gaming holds – is to tune into the show.
Check out the Trailer for this years event and more info below:
Spike TV announces the nominees and categories for the year’s most acclaimed celebration in the excellence of gaming – the 2008 “Video Game Awards.” The sixth annual “VGAs” will bring together megastars from the worlds of video games, Hollywood, music, sports and more to celebrate the outstanding achievements within the video game industry over the past year. The two-hour extravaganza will premiere LIVE on Spike TV Sunday, December 14 (9:00- 11:00 PM, ET/ tape delay west coast) from Sony Picture Studios in Culver City, CA.
The 2008 “Video Game Awards” will feature exclusive premiere footage from the industry’s most highly anticipated releases. On VGA.Spike.com, Spike TV will reveal one, new world-premiere each Wednesday leading up to the live telecast on December 14. The very first exclusive to be announced is EA Sports’ Fight Night Round 4. In addition, fans can log on to VGA.Spike.com view the latest, breaking news on this year’s event.
Leading the way with nine nominations, including a nod for Game of the Year, is Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 4, while LittleBigPlanet, Fallout 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 all notched seven nominations. November’s hottest release, Gears of War 2, garnered four nominations. Below are a few of the nominees and categories, while the full list can be found at VGA.Spike.com.
GAME OF THE YEAR
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games/ Rockstar North)
LittleBigPlanet (Sony Computer Entertainment/ Media Molecule)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks/ Bethesda Game Studios)
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc/ Kojima Productions)
Gears of War 2 (Microsoft Game Studios/ Epic Games)
STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Media Molecule
Rockstar North
Harmonix
Bethesda Game Studios
BEST MUSIC GAME
Rock Band 2 (MTV Games/ Harmonix)
Guitar Hero World Tour (RedOctane/ Activision Publishing/ Neversoft Entertainment)
Wii Music (Nintendo/ Nintendo)
SingStar (Sony Computer Entertainment/ SCE Studios London)
David Braben may have warned that the UK is the most expensive place in the world to make games, but this year’s Develop awards showed that the country has no shortage of talent. Grand Theft Auto IV developer Rockstar North led the pack with awards for visuals, audio, and in-house development, and parent company Rockstar Games took the overall grand-prix prize. Other notable winners included best use of a license for Traveller’s Tales with Lego Indiana Jones, and Nintendo won the publishing-hero award. Read more…
According to Guy Cocker
From the Associated Press:
“Grand Theft Auto IV” raked in more than $500 million (324.04 million) in its first week in stores, selling more than 6 million units worldwide, the video game’s publisher said Wednesday.
The highly anticipated title from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. has received stellar ratings along with criticism for its violent content. The game follows Eastern European immigrant-turned-gangster Niko Bellic on crime missions around a fictional Liberty City.
The title sold about 3.6 million units on April 29, its opening day, bringing in roughly $310 million (200.91 million). This is $10 million (6.48 million) more than what Microsoft Corp.’s “Halo 3,” another blockbuster game, took in during its first week last fall.
The game has also lifted sales of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3, the two consoles for which it is available.
Without giving numbers, Microsoft said Xbox 360 sales jumped 54 percent in the week following the title’s launch, compared with the prior week, and more than 2.3 million people played it on its Xbox Live online service.
“Retailers say roughly four out of every 10 Xbox 360 consoles sold also included the sale of a copy of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV,’” said Aaron Greenberg, director of product management at Xbox 360 and Xbox Live.
Sony spokeswoman Laura Bakken said the company’s 10 largest retailers have “all seen a pretty substantial lift” in PS3 sales, but she did not give specifics.
The game is generating controversy as previous versions have.
Take-Two sued the Chicago Transit Authority on Monday after the organization removed ads for the game because of its “Mature” rating, which means it is not suitable for people under 17. The game also caught the ire of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which seeks an adults-only rating because it lets players drive after imbibing in virtual liquor.
Previous versions of the game generated controversy over hidden sex scenes, sharp criticism from Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton and a 2006 lawsuit that blames the game for three New Mexico murders committed by a 14-year-old.
An analyst with Wedbush Morgan, Michael Pachter, said he expects the game to sell 12 million copies by the end of 2008. Previous versions of Grand Theft Auto have sold more than 70 million copies worldwide.
New York-based Take-Two is the subject of a $2 billion (1.3 billion) hostile buyout from larger rival Electronic Arts Inc., whose offer Take-Two has repeatedly rebuffed as too low.
Take-Two’s shares were recently trading at $26.39, which is above EA’s tender offer of $25.74 (16.68) per share; the offer expires May 16. Unless EA is willing to offer more, it seems “increasingly possible” the acquisition attempt could unravel, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey said in a note to investors.
from ShackNews.com:
As is the case with many anticipated launches, reports are spreading across the internet that Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360) players are experiencing system freezes across both editions, with its introductory sequence said to be especially prone to lockups.
Judging from the reports, it seems that the 60GB model of the PlayStation 3 is most affected by the issue, with NeoGAF poster Marty Chin offering his observation that “trying the same disc on another model often results in it working.”
While developer Rockstar has yet to make any official statement regarding the issue, a support representative told Kotaku that the company is well aware of the complaints and working on a fix, though it is not yet sure what is causing the problems.
Though the Shacknews staff and our readers have put multiple hours into both versions, we have yet to experience any system freezes or notice any claims of such problems in our dedicated chat thread, though complaints are beginning to surface in this article’s comments.
Check it out here from Rockstar Games.
Realtime Worlds was founded by CEO and Creative Director David Jones, who created the Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings games franchises. These two franchises have reached combined global sales exceeding 70 million units, generating over $2.5 billion. The Company expects its first title, Crackdown, to be released in 2007. Realtime Worlds has established an agreement with Microsoft Game Studios to publish Crackdown for Xbox 360. All Points Bulletin, a massively multiplayer online game, will be published for the PC and for Xbox 360 by Korean online games giant Webzen.
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