[Following his looks at Pong, Breakout, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man, writer and theorist Eric-Jon Rossel-Tairne now examines the inexorable rise of Shigeru Miyamoto, from Donkey Kong through Mario Bros to Super Mario Bros.] It is 1981. Somewhere between testing and ...

In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including the implementation of virtual goods, a message to developers in Dundee, and the purpose of games. In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable ...

Japanese social gaming platform holder, DeNA, is hoping to tempt US developers to release games on its service with talk of giant profits to be made. "The amount of money to be made in Japanese social gaming is astronomical," said ...

Japanese social gaming platform DeNA is talking up a giant profit opportunity, hoping to tempt U.S. developers to release games on its service in Japan. "The amount of money to be made in Japanese social gaming is astronomical," said DeNA ...

Following Apple's announcement that its social gaming network Game Center will be launching alongside revised iPod Touch hardware next week, Aurora Feint revealed "OpenFeint PlayTime," a new infrastructure allowing real-time multiplayer gameplay across iOS and Android devices. Addressing Game Center ...

UK retailer GAME has furthered its presence in the digital downloads space with the announcement of a new software tool called GAME Downloader. Built by software developer GameShadow and usable through a web browser, the application will scan a user's ...

Blitz Game Studios has announced that its BlitzTech game development tools will now feature full motion control functionality for use with the Xbox 360 Kinect and PlayStation's Move. BlitzTech,which is used internally by the UK firm and also licensed to ...

Sony made an announcement today at the International Franchise Association Trade Show in Berlin that the PlayStation 3 firmware update that will allow users to watch Blu-ray movies in steroscopic 3D has been pushed back to October, according to consumer ...

LucasArts has confirmed to Gamasutra that the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II developer and publisher has reduced its staff, following media reports of layoffs at its San Francisco headquarters. After reports at consumer weblog Kotaku that a layoff of ...

South Korean online game publisher NCsoft revealed that Guild Wars has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide since the episodic action MMORPG launched five years ago (when the firm last shared sales figures for the title in April 2009, ...

[In this Gamasutra analysis piece, Tom Cross looks at GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky and its odd combination of FPS, RPG and tower defense game, examining the art of gameplay hybrids.] Uber Entertainment's new XBLA title Monday Night Combat ...

Sony announced at the International Franchise Association Trade Show in Berlin today that it will launch a new cloud-based service called Music Unlimited for systems including the PlayStation 3 in Europe later this year, as it rolls out its Qriocity-powered ...

This morning in San Francisco at a Gamasutra-attended press conference, Apple laid out the plan of attack for its next generation of devices, and while it's clear that the game industry is in its sights, it's not a full-on assault ...

GDC Online organizers are reminding potential attendees that today is the last day to save up to 40% on passes to the October 5th-8th event in Austin, TX, fully detailing the comprehensive exhibit floor, Summits, keynotes, a PlayStation Home developer ...

Epic Games is best known as the hardcore developer behind games like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, but in formally moving its popular Unreal Engine 3 to Apple's iOS devices, the studio hopes to bring hardcore flavor to iPhones, ...

RedLynx, the Finland-based studio behind the hit Xblox Live Arcade game Trials HD, announced Motoheroz for Nintendo's WiiWare service. Motoheroz is a physics based, side-scrolling racer, in the same vein as the company's Trials series. The game features a single ...

Apple CEO Steve jobs revealed a thinner, more game-friendly iPod Touch at a Wednesday Apple event attended by Gamasutra. Aside from slimmer dimensions, the updated version of the device, which hits stores next week, will have the A4 chip found ...

With only 11 states currently showing support for a California law that would restrict the sale of games to minors, Activision's chief public policy officer said he expects that most states would oppose the measure. "We wouldn't be surprised if ...

At a Wednedsay Apple event attended by Gamasutra, Epic Games and subsidiary Chair Entertainment revealed Project Sword, an Unreal Engine 3-powered fantasy game that utilizes Apple's upcoming Game Center. The title is in full 3D and is Epic's first game ...

Kuju Entertainment parent Catalis said this week that subsidiary studio and Burn Zombie Burn developer DoubleSix is breaking off from Kuju and will form its own business division. DoubleSix, formed in 2007 by Kuju, is a developer of digitally distributed ...

This week's edition of Critical Reception examines online reaction to the Team Ninja-developed Metroid sequel Other M, which reviews describe as "a worthwhile addition to the Metroid canon." Metroid: Other M currently earns a score of 80 out of 100 ...

Telltale Games designer Dave Grossman shares a story of testing Sam & Max on his mother-in-law in Gamasutra's latest feature, explaining why assumptions about the audience will fail you. One such assumption is that your audience will implicitly understand the ...

SPIL Games, one of the largest online webgames companies, has published HTML5 versions of all 47 of its online game destinations, saying that the web language is set to replace Flash as the standard for games on the web within ...

Big box retailer Target said Wednesday that it would become the first brick-and-mortar retailer to carry Facebook Credits, the virtual currency that Facebook hopes to standardize transactions on its social network. Beginning September 5, Facebook users can buy the credits ...

Real-time strategy game StarCraft II sold over 3 million units in its first month worldwide, publisher Activision Blizzard said Wednesday, as the game continues its reign as PC leader in retail game sales for 2010. The July follow-up to 1998's ...

Paris-based media and telecommunications giant Vivendi SA has today increased its profit expectations for 2010, despite reporting a drop in second-quarter net profit. The company, which owns a 52% majority shareholding in video game publisher, Activision-Blizzard Inc., said its second-quarter ...

Paris-based media and telecommunications giant Vivendi SA has today increased its profit expectations for 2010, despite reporting a drop in second-quarter net profit. The company, which owns a 52 percent majority shareholding in video game publisher, Activision Blizzard Inc., said ...

UK-based veteran independent game development studio Team 17's co-founder, Martyn Brown has told Gamasutra that the developer's decision to focus entirely on digital distribution will ensure that any mistakes made will be their own. "Our shift is to independent publishing," ...

Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that its major retail title Madden NFL 11, which launched earlier this month for PlayStation 2 & 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and PSP, is currently the number one selling game for August in the North ...

In April of this year, mobile social network operator and game creator DeNA announced a partnership with Yahoo! Japan to launch a PC web-based gaming platform called Yahoo! Mobage. While developers have been allowed access since January, the Yahoo! Mobage ...

Casual gaming company Miniclip has announced the formation of a new smartphone division which will focus exclusively on bringing its library to the iPhone and Android platforms. Former Skype product manager Antonio Sergio Varanda will head up this new department, ...

Prolific mobile games publisher Gameloft (Modern Combat, Asphalt) announced its financial results for the first half of 2010, revealing an 11 percent increase in global sales and iTunes App Store revenue growth of 82 percent. Gameloft's financial statements report that ...

2K Game's Mafia II debuted on top of the UK sales charts for the week ended August 28, pushing last week's strong debut title, Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days into second place. Tracking firm Chart-Track announced that Mafia II ...

High Moon Studios revealed it used Scaleform's GFx technology for the user interfaces in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Activision's Transformers: War For Cybertron. The company says High Moon used Scaleform's GFx to speed up the development ...

Microsoft is releasing a new controller for its Xbox 360 console later this year that features a subtle redesign. Beyond a matte silver finish and a uniform gray color scheme for the buttons, it addresses user complaints about the old ...