The long awaited rock band finally arived on 23 May, but there have only been a few people buying it, this is mainly because of the price. First of all you can’t buy it all together, fist you get the instrument pack (which contains the drums, guitar and mic) this will cost you £129.99 the you must buy the game seperately which will cost you £49.99. What that means is for the full experianceyou’ll have to shell out £179.98.

Now as if the price we are paying isn’t bad enough, wait until you see what America payed. They were able to buy the full thing in one pack (thats instruments and game) and all they had to pay was $169.99, that works out at only £86. Now while im having fun with maths i have worked out that £179.98 comes to about $355.

To it’s credit, Harmonix was quick to respond, mentioning that VAT was a huge factor in the ballooning price and citing the game was more than worth it.

According to research compiled by Nielsen Games:

the European Union is the second-largest videogaming territory in the world.

Gaming generated EUR 7.3 billion (USD 11.4 billion) in the European Union during 2007, compared with EUR 7.4 billion (USD 11.5 billion) in Asia and EUR 6.9 billion (USD 10.7 billion) in the United States.

The average age of a gamer in the UK is 33 – the highest out of the territories surveyed – and 42 per cent of UK game players have children.

Across Europe, 81 per cent of parents say that they enjoy playing games with their children.

Of those polled, 72 per cent found gaming “a fun way to spend time” – compared to 68 per cent for television and cinema – and 57 per cent believe that gaming “stimulates the imagination” – compared to 48 per cent for movies and 35 per cent for television.

The research also revealed that 93 per cent of Europeans recognise the PEGI age rating labels.

Lol, they may well recognise them but I guarantee at least 93% of that 93% do not understand them – I know I don´t. ELSPA managing director Michael Rawlinson went on to say:

This research confirms what the industry has realised for a long time – gaming is now enjoyed by an incredibly diverse audience. And the UK is a particularly mature market – we have the oldest, most passionate gamers across Europe. The fact that gamers are growing up and enjoying gaming with their children illustrates the enduring nature of the medium. It’s fair to say that, compared to other forms of entertainment, games are doing well.

OK I think they´re in the general ball park for this but when you do a survey to reflect the habits of 500,000,000 people I think you need to survey more than 6,000 people and if you limit the age range of people you interview to over 16´s then its gonna give you an average gamer age of 33.

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot, speaking with Next-Gen, thinks he knows why the first Beyond Good & Evil didn’t do too well. Thinks he knows how to fix that for the sequel: make it easier.

We saw with Beyond Good & Evil that so many customers were extremely happy with the game. We had a different audience at that time. We had more core gamers than casual gamers than we have today.

We think the game was probably a little too difficult for the general gamers at that time. We’re going to make it more accessible and make sure that it’s really done for the new generation that’s come into videogames.

If you ask me they just didn´t market it enough – its an obscure enough game to begin with so you have to advertise and as for making it easier then I´m starting to lose interest.

Valve have just announced Steamcloud – a new element to their game download service that will allow the company to store your user data online. Saved games, keyboard configurations and preferences. So if you’re playing on one PC and move to another (say, you’re playing in a cafe, or buy a new PC), you can keep all that stuff.

Also announced were some extra services Valve have in store later down the line, like driver auto-updating, and a means for Steam to check your PC, check that game you want to buy then give you a fairly conclusive answer on whether you’ll be able to play it or not.

So not ground breaking stuff but certainly useful – should help them potter along and collect a few more clients.

As if Force Unleashed wasn’t enough, LucasArts are bringing a game of the animated Star Wars series, The Clone Wars, to Wii and DS.

This game will hopefully follow Anakin and  Obi-Wan through the Clone Wars and fill in some of the gaps between episodes 2 and 3 for us people who can’t be bothered to go and buy all the DVDs.

There’s no official confirmation yet but apparently there’s an advert for it in the instruction booklet for Lego Indiana Jones.

Hammer creative has been honored with the award for the years “Best Video-game trailer” at the “9th annual golden trailer awards” for their “The Simpsons Game: Medal of Homer” trailer. This win marks the third year in a row that hammer creative has garnered this prestigious award, and is preceded by best video-game trailer for “The Godfather: The Game” and “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent”.

It must have been quite difficult to choose what would win the best video game trailer because quite frankly all the simpsons game trailers were amazing.

Wow, with all the excitement of wearing a straw hat and playing Rock Band i’d almost forgot about the Nintendo Channel release.

The Nintendo Channel, which will be downloadable tomorrow avaliable from the Wii shop channel for free, allows you to download trailers and videos about upcoming games.

Now, for the best part – from the Nintendo Channel you can download demos of DS games and transfer them wirelessly to your DS. Just like those DS Download stations that allowed you to download demos and patches for existing games.

Well with the amount of crap DS cash-in titles there are out there this may help people find good ones without having to buy them. Hopefully we may also be able to get other downloads such as new content for games and maybe even updates for older DS titles.

2K Games have just dropped the official press release for BioShock for the PlayStation 3 and its going to be better than the 360 version. Really? Will it have trophies or achievements? No, then I think not

Since BioShock for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows won countless 2007 Game of the Year awards, we are excited to see the impact of this stellar title for the PLAYSTATION 3 system when it debuts this fall. Over the coming months we look forward to revealing the new features and content that will make this a must-have game for its new audience, as well as for those who enjoyed it on the other platforms.

New features and content? What are they – tell me NOW!!!!!!! I´m gonna hold you to this – don´t you dare bring me a ported copy of the game without any new features.

It’s official: At Ubisoft’s Ubidays 08 event in Paris, CEO Yves Guillemot unveiled a trailer for the company’s next project: Beyond Good & Evil 2. I don´t have the trailer just yet but I do have some screenshots for you viewing pleasure. As I´ve said before I never played the original but I´ve heard great things about it and it´s one of those titles I just absolutely know to my core that I´m going to love – whether anyone else will is a completely different matter.

Click the more button for more pictures. (more…)

Hah, of course you should. You should also be able to ensure that your Prime Minister isn´t a snivelling worm but that´s just life… or is it?

If you get past the whole ‘you´re an on online game company – of course you want people to play games while at work’ thing, then I think they may just have a point. Online gaming, social networking, texting and that kind of thing are all forms of grooming, like we´d have done years ago as apes when we´d pick flees out of one anothers fur and eat them. It helps maintain the social bonds of the group and increase happiness and an increase in happiness can only improve work productivity (in most jobs at least). The worry most companies have is that employees will sit all day on Myspace or facebook.