Ask Andru: Is Wii U really a next-generation console?

wiiu

Today we received a question about Nintendo’s upcoming console release, Wii U, with GeekWire reader Alex wondering why the company continues to release new peripherals for a console that’s seen better days. Question: What’s up with the Wii U? Why is Nintendo releasing yet another expensive peripheral for the aging Wii? Nintendo originally announced Wii… Read More…

Video-game maker Valve: ‘An economist’s paradise’

Yanis Varoufakis

Here’s a great weekend read. It’s the opening blog post in a new weekly series from noted economist Yanis Varoufakis, the “economist in residence” for Valve, the Bellevue-based company behind games such as Half-Life and Portal, in addition to the dominant Steam game-distribution platform. This makes perfect sense, actually. Gabe Newell, the Valve president, showed his… Read More…

DigiPen students launch Touch Tactics gaming project

Airship

If you ever wanted to visit the industrial-design aesthetic of 18th-century Europe and command some artillery and battleships, then some students from DigiPen Institute of Technology have just the game for you. They even have zeppelins. The independent project, dubbed Touch Tactics, is a turn-based online strategy game that will leverage Apple’s Game Center. It will be… Read More…

Man vs. machine: Valve game designer looks to defend world pinball title

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Update, 6/11: The results are in, and Cayle came in second in this weekend’s world championship. Not too shabby. “It came down to a tie-breaker at the end. It was truly exciting,” IFPA co-director Steve Epstein said on the phone this morning. The winner was Italian pinball wiz Daniele Celestino Acciari. Sixty-four of the best pinball… Read More…

PopCap goes native in Japan with new ‘Bejeweled Legend’

bejeweled

Seattle’s PopCap Games this morning released a new installment in its classic Bejeweled franchise, but this one comes with a different twist — and for now, at least, we won’t be able to play it here in the U.S. The game is Bejeweled Legend, for iOS and Android. The first product from PopCap’s Tokyo studio,… Read More…

E3: PlayStation gets a lift from Harry Potter and HTC

wonderbook

Sony surprised the audience at the E3 video-game show tonight with the announcement of Wonderbook, physical books that use augmented reality in tandem with the company’s PlayStation Move controller and PlayStation Eye camera to creative an interactive reading experience, bringing the book to life on the television screen. The company announced a partnership with Harry… Read More…

Book Excerpt: Why a car crash couldn’t stop Zynga from revolutionizing gaming

Mark Pincus

[Editor's Note: Seattle-area journalist Carol Tice is the co-author, with serial entrepreneur David Lester, of the new book How They Started: How 25 Good Ideas Became Great Companies. In this excerpt, reprinted with permission, Tice tells the inside story of how entrepreneur Mark Pincus and his business partners turned an idea into the social gaming powerhouse... Read More…

Solitaire, anyone? Classic PC games fare well vs. social apps, but user base is aging

solitaire

Grandma is still playing Solitaire on the computer, research confirms. A report from the Nielsen research firm says classic PC games such as FreeCell, Solitaire, Hearts, Minesweeper and other titles commonly preinstalled on Windows PCs are still being played by an average of more than 20 million people a month — an impressive number in… Read More…

Big Fish adds Silicon Valley investor Bill Lee to board

Big-Fish-Games

Silicon Valley investor Bill Lee, a backer of companies such as Tesla, SpaceX, Hootsuite and Zaarly, has joined the board of Seattle casual game developer Big Fish Games. The appointment comes a few weeks after Jeremy Lewis stepped down as CEO of the company, handing the reins back to founder Paul Thelen. Lee previously served… Read More…

Microsoft unveils new ‘Halo Infinity Multiplayer’ plan

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Halo is the franchise that introduced many people to the power of multiplayer gaming, and Microsoft will attempt to make new strides with a new experience called “Halo Infinity Multiplayer,” launching with Halo 4 on the Xbox 360 later this year. Microsoft unveiled the plan a short time ago, saying that the approach aims “to continue… Read More…

Republique tops $500,000 Kickstarter funding goal

Republique

A few weeks ago, we told you about Ryan Payton’s effort to get his new game, Republique, bankrolled on Kickstarter. Well, here’s the update. This past weekend, the company surpassed its $500,000 funding goal, bringing in $555,662 from more than 11,000 backers on the crowdfunding platform. The milestone is even more significant, since as we previously… Read More…

PS3 sucks less than Xbox and Wii in tough Q1 for consoles

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Sony reported its latest financial results overnight, and the numbers put the PlayStation 3 back atop the worldwide console market for the March quarter. But that ain’t saying much. In a sign of the current weakness of the game console market, the PS3 reclaimed the title despite seeing its unit sales decline to 1.9 million units,… Read More…

Microsoft gears up for live-action ‘Halo’ web series

Master Chief_Halo4_Forward_Unto_Dawn

It’s not a movie, yet, but Microsoft is planning to launch a new web series based on its blockbuster Halo video-game series, with real people playing the characters. A company representative confirms that Microsoft will be producing the live-action series, called “Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn,” in conjunction with the launch of the Halo 4… Read More…

Shadowrun Returns breaks through $1.5M on Kickstarter

Jordan Weisman

Shadowrun Returns, the revival of Seattle-area game designer Jordan Weisman’s classic franchise, broke through the $1.5 million mark overnight in pledges on Kickstarter. That’s more than three times the original goal of $400,000 in pledges — not the biggest Kickstarter project ever, but right up there with some of the most successful campaigns on the… Read More…

The new shape of Microsoft’s entertainment unit: More diverse, less profitable

xbox1

Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division has long been synonymous with the Xbox 360 and video games, which have traditionally represented the vast majority of the division’s business. That’s starting to change. For the first time, non-gaming products were responsible for more than 25 percent of the division’s revenue last quarter, based on GeekWire’s crunching of… Read More…

Hail to the Master Chief? Halo 4 launching on election day

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Microsoft announced plans this week to launch Halo 4 on Nov. 6, kicking off a new era for the blockbuster Xbox 360 franchise. If the date sounds familiar, it’s because there is another pretty big event also happening on that day: the U.S. presidential election. The coincidence has generated all sorts of conspiracy theories about… Read More…

Conan O’Brien visits Microsoft, tries out for Halo 4 role

conan

Microsoft yesterday announced a Nov. 6 release date for “Halo 4,” the next installment in the blockbuster video-game series for Xbox 360, which is being developed for the first time by Microsoft’s 343 Industries — the first Halo game to be made outside the auspices of the franchise’s original creators at the Bungie game development… Read More…

Sony’s Zipper closure ends an era for Redmond game studio

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Sony has decided to close Zipper Interactive, the Redmond-based game development studio founded in 1995 and acquired by the video game giant six years ago. The news comes as Sony closes out its fiscal year, with an estimated loss of $2.7 billion. Zipper is known for franchises including SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALS and MAG, and had… Read More…

Bungie closes its Halo database with an epic infographic

haloplaytime

Just how big are the Halo video games? Well, we’ve spent a combined 235,182 years playing them online — enough time to travel across the Milky Way, and back, at the speed of light. Halo gamers have killed each other more than 136 billion times, assisted each other 43 billion times, and collected more than 79… Read More…

Seattle schools to offer digital animation, game courses

SPSskillsdragon

Budding digital animators and game programmers will soon have another option for learning those skills — through Seattle Public Schools’ new Skills Center. Applications are now being taken for the Skills Center, which will offer high school programs in Aerospace Science and Health Science, as well as a Cisco/Microsoft IT Academy for those pursuing careers… Read More…