Scandinavian massively multiplayer game specialist FunCom has received 5 million Euro of new funding from Nordic Venture Partners.

Funcom current operations the science fiction themed MMORPG Anarchy Online, which was launched in 2001. This new funding will be used for the company’s launch of the upcoming PC-based massively multiplayer title, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

While the mobile game industry has seen an inflow of funding from the financial markets over the past several years, the fixed gaming industry is still largely dominated by funding from the top tier publishers. FunCom’s continued success and ability to raise capital demonstrates that the same is possible for fixed developers.

Microsoft showcased the Xbox Media Center Extender (MCE) at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) this week. MCE allows the user to stream various types of content, including HDD video, from a Media Center PC to the Xbox 360.

The continued battle of the “games are good” “games are bad” war plays on with a recent article in Discover Magazine that examines the growing body of research suggesting that video games exercise the mind similar to the way physical activity exercises the body.

Laparoscopic surgery, also known as keyhole surgery or band-aid surgery, involves manipulating controls/joysticks to control a fiber optic camera and surgical tools to perform minimally invasive surgery with only tiny incisions in the person’s body. Laparoscopic surgery has been around for many years now, but doctors have only recently begun to notice a stirring correlation between the top surgeons and video gamers.

Surgeon Butch Rosser, directory of minimally invasive surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, read a reporter’s comments about one of his procedures that referred to him as a “Nintendo surgeon”. This started his thinking that perhaps his apparent gift among many of his peers was because he was a gamer.

Chris Merris of CNN presents, in an August 24th article, a great look at a possibility that several in the game industry have proposed. Is Sony bluffing about how expensive the Playstation 3 will be?

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The Technology Suits looked into the business strategy of a move like this by Sony and think that it is quite reasonable. If Sony is playing a “bait and switch” game with the price of the PS3, will it hurt Microsoft and the Xbox 360? Not likely.

Even if the PS3 does release around the $300 price point or even less, Microsoft is still in a better position by entering the next generation race 8 to 12 months before the competitors. Console manufactures have historically sold each console at a steep loss per unit, where console licenses for each game sold on the system bring in significant revenues down the line. Many analysts have claimed that Sony in fact often sells hardware at a loss to maintain brand strength and market share, with Sony’s video game revenues and movie divisions subsidizing at least portions of the hardware businesses.

Early adopters and many hardcore gamers will no doubt buy the Xbox 360 at the proposed $300 and $400 prices, and the more expensive bundles of games and accessories will likely increase the overall stigma of a “must have” item. This higher price point will lessen the loss that Microsoft experiences form each console sale and help the bottom line.

When the final pricing for the PS3 is announced and it goes on sale, Microsoft will be in a position to decide whether or not to drop the price to be more competitive with Sony’s release. Plus, Microsoft will have many months to monitor consumer views on the high prices and new technology.

By moving first, Microsoft may be in a position to manipulate the 360’s price to track closer with consumers’ willingness to play and maximize revenues, but Sony will have the extra time to learn from Microsoft’s mistakes, as will Nintendo with the Revolution (We have not forgotten it and are excited to hear more details on the Revolution.). While the PlayStation 3’s hardware specs may be fairly locked down, Sony can continue to tweak the software offering with the console such as media center functionality, DVR capabilities and integration with other digital services.

This is a short story, but one that hardcore members of the gaming industry and fans are sure to like.
In a Croatian car magazine Auto Klub, Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi, the man behind the Gran Turismo franchise, revealed that the 5th iteration of the series will be released in 2007 on the PS3. […]

Microsoft has promised for months that the Xbox 360 will be available for the 2005 holiday season, and today, the company has moved one step closer to that goal.
Microsoft released packaging detail on the Xbox 360, its price and confirmation on a release this year. The next-gen system will be available in […]

A new research from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore finds no evidence of a strong link between video game violence and aggressive behavior in players.

The study followed a “treatment” group of 75 people that had never played MMORPGs before and played Asheron’s Call 2 for the first time in the study and a control group of 138, who did not play the game. The only flaw that we initially see in reading the summaries is that the partipants, with ages from 14 to 68, were solicited through online message boards which may limit the personality types much more than a true random sample.

“According to Ziff Davis Media’s annual “Digital Gaming in America” survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected U.S. households, nearly a quarter of all video game players watched less television than last year and expect to cut their viewing time even further this year. The study also showed that 76.2 million people in the United States play videogames, up from 67.5 million a year ago, representing an increase of 11.4%. The increase in gaming follows strong sales of portable gaming systems and reductions in the prices of current-generation video game consoles.”

The internet has been ablaze recently with talk of map products from Google and Microsoft. These additions are really cool to look at but do not seem to offer real value or things to do in the worlds. As an avid gamer, I was questioning, haven’t we seen similar things from games in the past. […]

The IGDA’s Casual Games SIG has just released 2005 Casual Games White Paper (2MB, 125 page pdf).
The White Paper is the work of over 30 volunteers in the casual games space, and the list of contributors reads almost like a who’s who of the industry including; AOL, TryMedia, Skunk Studios, Large Animal, Pogo, Shockwave, […]