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Re-Kinect with “Playful Learning”

Joshua Moris
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Microsoft is pushing forth the concept of playful learning. This innovative concept provides an experience for children to learn while connecting family at the same time. Microsoft is joining forces with Sesame Workshop, National Geographic, and Disney to create a new wave of games for the Kinect.

In spring 2012, we are to expect this new wave to come to fruition along with a joining of family values. The Kinect is a perfect platform to bring kids and adults together while offering learning moments and life-like interactions. Some titles to keep an eye out for are as follows: Kinect Sesame Street TV, Kinect Nat Geo TV, Project Columbia, and Rush.

Even though I am not a parent, I firmly believe that parents should be proactive in their children’s gaming. Many games are not suitable for younger children, and some parents may not fully understand the responsibility of buying game consoles. If you are curious about ESRB Ratings or tools to understand games, please check out GetGameSmart.com.

Whether or not you own an Xbox 360 Kinect, the possibilities for educational and family connections are becoming more prevalent. If you feel disconnected from your little gamer, there are ways to re-Kinect. Check out Xbox’s updates for “Kinect for Kids” to see the latest games and fact sheets.

World of Warcraft Annual Pass subscribers to receive Diablo 3 free

Travis Bruno
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Blizzard may have just announced their Annual Pass for World of Warcraft but they have already thrown another bone to people who were on the fence about subscribing to the service. Blizzard has just announced that anyone who uses the World of Warcraft Annual Pass will receive a free copy of the upcoming title Diablo III with apparently “no strings attached.”

This news comes from Blizzcon 2011 as Blizzard President Mike Morhaime was giving a presentation on stage PC Gamer says. This is a huge bonus to people who already would probably subscribe to the service without any other motivation than making sure they can play WoW all year long without any interruptions. Stay tuned for more news from the conference following soon.

Blizzard announces World of Warcraft Annual Pass

Travis Bruno
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At BlizzCon today, the company revealed that they would be creating a new way to pay for the largest MMO of all time. The company revealed that they were creating what they call a World of Warcraft Annual Pass. This news was announced by Blizzard’s President and CEO Mike Morhaime during the opening ceremony of the event.

The Annual Pass will simply be a one chunk purchase of a year long subscription to the popular MMO rather than a monthly billing cycle. With subscription to the service you will obtain the new in-game World of Warcraft mount, Tyrael’s Charger as well as access to the beta of the Mists of Pandaria expansion when it is available.

Currently there is no word how much it will end up costing, or if it will be any cheaper than just taking a monthly billing cycle. Or of course, you can buy it for the World of Warcraft lover in your family and never see them again for one more year.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion announced

Travis Bruno
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World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion announced

It was only a matter of time before another expansion pack was announced for the largest MMO of all time, and today that day has come. At BlizzCon 2011Blizzard announced in front of 26,000 fans that they would be releasing the fourth expansion to World of Warcraft named the Mists of Pandaria.

This expansion will promise to deliver the next “phase” in the development of WoW and bring with it new quests, raids, PVP, instances and professions. A list of new features was created by Joystiq with the major points of the update that will be released sometime in the future. Hopefully a release date will be announced as the days go by and BlizzCon rolls on.

There will be a new talent system added to the game, a Pandaren race added, the region of Pandaria opened up, a new Monk hero class, a dungeon challenge mode, a level cap raise up to 90, PVE scenarios and a much wanted pet battle system.

Rumours Suggest Staff Cuts At 2K Marin Australia

Joshua Spudic
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In what seems to be more nails being hammered in the coffin of the Australian games industry, rumours have found their way to Kotaku Australia and reveal that Australia’s arm of 2K Marin has suffered up to 15 redundancies. The studio, based in Canberra and twinned with 2K Marin in California, had been working on XCOM for 2K Games. They had also worked on Bioshock and it’s sequel, Bioshock 2.

The reports suggest that this is the extent of the damage suffered by the studio. Redundancies, however, are never a good sign. Let us hope that those still there do not lose their jobs. For those who have, then I hope they find work soon. No comments on the staff cuts have been made by 2K Marin. This follows the closure of Kennedy Miller Mitchell (KMM), developers of the video game for Happy Feet Two, last week.

With the run of closures and redundancies from studios with links to the big boys, it seems that our industry is pretty much dead. Sure, we have success stories with the mobile platform, but is it a long term solution to Australia’s problems? I think not.

Hulu Plus Coming to the 3DS & Wii!

Dustin Spencer
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In a rather surprising announcement, Nintendo have revealed that they are planning to add Hulu Plus to both the Nintendo 3DS and Wii. For those unfamiliar, Hulu is an online service that lets users digitally stream popular television shows and movies at one low monthly rate.

Here are the official details from Nintendo themselves:

With Hulu Plus, Wii and Nintendo 3DS users will be able to instantly stream thousands of TV episodes – including the entire current season of popular shows like Modern Family, Glee, Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser, House and Grey’s Anatomy – from premium content partners like ABC, Comedy Central, FOX, NBC, MTV and many more. Hulu Plus also offers access to classic TV favorites like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, The Hills and hundreds of popular and award-winning movies. Hulu Plus is available through a separate subscription fee of $7.99 per month with limited advertising.

Not a bad move at all. Hopefully the portable version of Hulu will be just as competitent as what we have seen on consoles thus far, and considering how well Netflix works on the 3DS, execution shouldn’t be much of a problem. No date has been given for Hulu Plus on the Wii & 3DS as of yet except for “before the end of the year”, but stay tuned as once an official date is announced, we will be sure to bring you an update.

Nintendo’s November Firmware Update Revealed…

Dustin Spencer
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Nintendo’s pre-recorded press event for the Nintendo 3DS is now a thing of the past, but plenty of new details have arisen concerning the new firmware update that will allow for new functionality of the 3DS.

Arriving in November, this update will let owners on the 3DS system to record video in full 3D for the first time. These clips can be up to 10 minutes in length as well, so users will finally get to film their own footage and re-watch it in a whole new dimension.

Also detailed was a stop motion feature, which will allow you to take frame-by-frame snapshots and then combine them all into one full-motion video.

Finally, the Streetpass Plaza will be getting a much needed update as well, with a whole new Quest for the built in “Find Me” RPG, allowing two players to take on the monsters within the various dungeons. New puzzles featuring the likes of Donkey Kong will also be added into Plaza.

The whole conference was rather short, but you can check out Iwata detailing all these new goodies in the clip below.

New Type-0 Trailer Reveals Theme Song

Joshua Spudic
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There is a new trailer for Final Fantasy Type-0, a PSP game that may not see a release in the West due to the waning PSP market compared to Japan. In this trailer, what one would see is realistic deaths, gmapley footage of that exciting battle system and a character roll call. There is so much they are fitting in this game, so much that it will have two UMDs instead of one. It is one of the few games to actually use more than one UMD in Japan.

The trailer also features the theme song by Bump of Chicken. Entitled “Zero”, it is a great tune. Play the tralier to find out how great the song is. I reckon the music (not the lyrics since I don’t speak Japanese) fits the action on the screen. I’m sure it will be available on the official soundtrack.

Video source: Siliconera

Captain America’s 3DS debut gets a new Launch Trailer…

Dustin Spencer
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Captain America already made a huge splash in 2011 with an impressive release on consoles, but now the star-spangled hero is set to make his debut on the 3DS next week. To celebrate this release, Sega have now released a launch trailer for the game, showing off a bit of the action players can expect.

Aside from toned down graphics, this version looks pretty decent so far as it seems to execute the same beat-em-up/platforming elements that it’s console kin did so well earlier this year. The general narrative has also remained the same with the Captain’s main objective being to infiltrate the Hydra’s Castle and defeat the Red Skull’s army. Check out the launch trailer below for yourself and arm your shields, as Captain America comes to the 3DS on October 25th.

Sony’s Studios Gearing For Playstation 4?

Joshua Spudic
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Despite the numerous comments on how the current generation still has at least five years left, this hasn’t stopped several studios within Sony’s portfolio to start on preliminary work for several projects which may be available for the fourth Playstation console in the family.

According to Develop, a source revealed that there is work within Sony’s sixteen first-party studios on concepts for the next console. However, the identity of the studios have been disclosed, leaving some mystery of who is going to be presenting concepts. A target date, according to Develop’s source, would be no earlier than 2014. As for the moment, the Playstation 3, the Playstation Move and the Playstation Vita (which started development after the launch of the Playstation Portable, I might add) will be the main focus at least to 2013.

Over the year, Sony representatives, including SCE chairman Kaz Hirai, have denied any development on the Playstation 4, but it is worthwhile to point out that, at the rate of technological development in the 21st century, it would be no surprise that they are at the drawing boards and maybe testing some technologies out in Research & Development.

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