News (Page 3893)

The winners of the Dare to be Digital competition for Scottish third-level students have been announced, with an innovative team-based RPG title and a quirky adventure game set in a zoo taking the top prizes.

Sony's PlayStation 2 passed another milestone on Saturday as the worldwide cumulative shipping figure surged past 60 million units, eight months after the company shipped its 50 millionth system.

French publisher Ubisoft has announced a new rebranding initiative which sees the company adopting a new corporate logo and dropping the space from its name - all amidst a flurry of marketing nonsense, naturally.

Sony's Eye Toy: Play has racked up another week at number one in the UK sales rankings, while key new releases including Chaos Legion, Pirates of the Caribbean and Otogi performed disappointingly.

One of the world's largest publishers has shaken the widely held belief that the platform holders will cut console prices stateside before Christmas by stating that it no longer believes this to be the case.

Following the announcement of a pack featuring Grand Theft Auto 3 and its sequel, Vice City, for the Xbox this Christmas, Take-Two CEO Jeffery Lapin has clarified the situation regarding console exclusivity for the franchise.

Publisher Eidos looks set to join Acclaim in dropping support for the GameCube, with CEO Mike McGarvey announcing that the company will not be creating Cube SKUs of its key titles for 2004.

The public beta test of broadband games-on-demand service Steam will end on Tuesday evening Pacific time, and the first full version installer will be made available on Wednesday morning at 11am PDT via www.steampowered.com, Valve Software has announced.

The forthcoming N-Gage mobile game deck is to receive a limited release in Japan, according to comments from a Nokia representative speaking at a conference in Tokyo.

Publisher Atari has filed a statement of its intent to sell nine million shares of common stock in a move aimed at raising $35 million of new capital to clear some of the company's debt.

Japanese giant Sony is seeking people with handheld development experience to work in production roles on titles for the PlayStation Portable, as third party studios prepare to receive the first batch of PSP dev kits.

A new release schedule for Microsoft's Xbox reveals that many key titles for the console have slipped even further into 2004, leaving the system's Christmas line-up looking almost as sparse as the GameCube's.

The latest figures from Japan show the GameCube marginally outselling the PlayStation 2 thanks to the release of Namco's RPG Tales of Symphonia - while Xbox sales have once again fallen behind the PSone.

Both Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox are set to see price cuts in the coming month as the battle for Christmas sales dominance kicks off earlier than ever - with both companies also planning a range of other promotions.

Publisher Eidos has announced its final results for the financial year ended June '03, revealing a return to full-year profitability and rising turnover with four key titles each selling over a million units.

Sports Interactive, the London-based development studio behind the hugely successful Championship Manager football management games, has announced that it is to end its publishing relationship with Eidos.

Developer Valve has revealed that it plans to offer a $9.99 monthly subscription system to purchasers of Half-Life 2, as well as releasing three separate versions of the game - which has now apparently slipped to November.

Contrary to earlier reports, development studio Asylum Entertainment has not been forced to shut down and work continues on several projects - although the cancellation of a Lego project has caused some layoffs.

Publisher Take-Two Interactive has acquired TDK Mediactive in a $22.7 million transaction which firmly cements the company's position as the number two independent publisher.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that two more UK development studios have shut their doors for the last time - with another Kaboom Group studio, Silicon Dreams, and London-based Asylum both allegedly going under.

UK-based dev tools specialist SN Systems is set to begin offering its ProDG development kits for the PS2 and GameCube on a 180 day rental basis in Japan, in a move aimed at increasing uptake of the tools.