Daily News Spin — April 26, 2001 (Thursday)

Rune: Halls of Vahalla ships

The $20 Rune add-on should be in stores soon, according to Gathering. The expansion is geared towards multiplayer games and includes two new play modes: Headball and Arena and new characters. There will be 33 new maps available.

Gee, sounds like stuff that a lot of players get for free with other games via fan mods.

The desperate Internet turns to pr0n!

The rebirth of PC Accelerator as a pay-to-view website promises that they "...will proudly show tits and ass (not ours, thankfully)." They want $5 per month.

Meanwhile, Salon has also launched a premium service to complement their free site. For just pennies a day you can get extras, including porn with Salon's "Premium-only galleries of erotic art and photography in Salon Sex". Salon's a little bit cheaper -- $30 per year.

At least Salon has a huge readership to draw upon and still offers free content. PCXL isn't giving any sample articles away for free. Thanks Rob!

Top ten sellers

We haven't done one in awhile, and this one's got a few fresh faces. Here's NPD's list for the week ending April 14th.

1. The Sims House Party Expansion Pack
2. Black and White
3. The Sims
4. Tribes 2
5. The Sims Livin' Large Expansion Pack
6. Roller Coaster Tycoon
7. Lego Island 2
8. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
9. Road Thrills
10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Universal Studios becomes game publisher

It's the Attack of the Hollywood Studios !!. Universal has decided that there's good money to be plucked from us gaming rubes. Maybe they have a better understanding this time, though. IE has the story:

During the interview, Wilson [president of Universal Interactive Studios] also commented that UIS would not fall into the trap that other Interactive Studio groups have by creating the poorly-made "see the movie, play the game" products. "We are focusing on producing high-quality games based on great franchises," said Wilson. "We will also introduce a handful of new franchises every year for the next couple of years and growing them without overexposing."

Let's hope they focus on quality and remember that games are different from movies. We know Margot Kidder is willing to work cheap now, but try to resist the impulse.

Ubi Soft likes PS2, Gamecube

Daily Radar is running a story saying that Ubi Soft is putting their console eggs in two baskets.

A company representative said that as of today, of the 160 projects currently in production, about 20% are for PlayStation2. In fact, of the 70 projects underway for next-generation consoles, almost half -- 35 -- are for PS2, while 19 are for Gamecube. Just five Xbox games are in development. There are also 11 Game Boy Advance titles in progress.

What's interesting is that it looks like Ubi Soft is still committing to a healthy number of PC titles. If the 90 unnamed projects aren't console titles, many must be PC games.

Major dailies look at next gen consoles

USA Today has a pretty in-depth look at the Xbox.

Inside Xbox central � a complex of four office buildings 4 miles east of the main Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash. � managers and staff exude a giddy sense of fait accompli. Xboxers favor T-shirts, baggy trousers and body piercing more readily than their cross-town compatriots.

The isolation is intended to make a point: This latest Microsoft assault squad must drill into software for pleasure, not software for productivity. "Games. Games. Games. Games. Games. It's all about the games," preaches platform and third-party manager J Allard. "I'm superconfident because I've played 30 games on a system that's going to ship in 6 months. Ask anybody who's done a console if that's ever happened before. The answer is no."

Meanwhile, the New York Times (via Yahoo) has a look at all three sytems -- PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox.

"It kind of makes you crazy," said Rodney Smith, a 27-year-old video game player who was one of the first people to buy last holiday season's hard-to-find PlayStation 2. Mr. Smith, who lives in the Bronx and works at a Starbucks coffee shop in Manhattan, said he was taking a hard look at whether to buy an Xbox when it was released in the fall. "It comes down to one thing," he said. "You want to have the best machine that can play the best games."

Civilization III screenshots

We don't make a habit of linking to screenshots, but we know there's a lot of interest in Civilization III. PC Gameplay, a UK mag, has a couple of screenshots here.

We spotted this at Stomped.

THQ has lowered earnings

The good news is that they still made money. The bad news is, just not as much as they did for the same period their previous fiscal year.

THQ reported first quarter income of $860,000 on revenues of $59.33 million in the first quarter. Last year they had income of $3.95 million on revenues of $70.39. THQ is blaming seasonal lulls.

Worlds.com patents virtual 3D space

This is one that lawyers may be tussling over at some point. Worlds.com has patented 3D scalable server technology that may be applicable to "multi-user games, e-Commerce, web design, advertising and entertainment areas of the Internet", according to this Gamasutra story.

The technology provides a highly scalable architecture for a three dimensional, multi-user, interactive virtual world system. In its most broad embodiment, the patent allows multiple users to interact in a three-dimensional, computer-generated graphical space where each user executes a client process to view a virtual world from the perspective of that user.

Sounds a lot like what happens in a game like EverQuest, doesn't it? Thanks Chris!

3am

The official Shadows of Luclin EQ expansion site is open for business. They have some new screenshots, including some of the high elf chick who graces the EQ box. We're happy to report that her breasts are even more realistic looking.

PC Gamer has posted online their top 10 weirdest games of all time.

Infogrames has grabbed the rights to make games based on the Survivor series. Bah, let's vote Infogrames off the island.

Sports teams that sold naming rights to their stadiums to dot coms may have to restructure deals as the dot coms go out of business, according to this story.

"It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better ... while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more."

- Woody Allen, from Side Effects

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