God Of War Sneakers

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Kratos expanded his commercial empire by getting his image on the side of Slurpees for the launch of God of War III and Sony has been looking to expand the commercial reach of the PlayStation brand. So these sneakers, while merely a very well done custom job by a fan, could be a great way for future branded products.

Source: pattersonart.deviantart.com

Tron: Evolution Gets Collector’s Edition, Light Cycle

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Disney Interactive today unveiled a Collector’s Edition for Tron: Evolution. Available for both PS3 and Xbox 360, the Collector’s Edition will cost $129.99 and come with the game, a light cycle model replica and a display case.

“Tron has proven to be a franchise that inspires loyal fans and collectors and will continue with the holiday’s new entries,” said Disney Interactive Studios’ Craig Relyea. “This collector’s edition will give fans of Tron: Evolution and the Tron movies a great opportunity to not only get the game but also a unique Tron collectible.”

Here it is for PS3…

… and Xbox 360.

 

Valve Exploring Movie Making

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Half-Life 2 is often referred to as the magnum opus of Valve and sometimes of gaming in general. While Half-Life would seem like a natural choice for a movie studio, Valve s CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell says that’s probably never going to happen.

“As a WoW player, I would much rather that the WoW team made the movie, right? Than anybody else. I like Sam Raimi, I’ve been a fan ever since Evil Dead came out, but I would rather see Blizzard making the movie,” said Newell. “We think that customers are like, OK, we re kind of sick and tired of the way you guys are slicing and dicing the experience of being a fan of Harry Potter, or Half-Life, or The Incredibles, and you need to fix it. And the people that fix it will be rewarded, and the people that don t will be on the rubbish heap of history, or whatever the phrase is.”

“Where we got into this direction was after Half-Life 1 had shipped,” explained Newell. “There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make a Half-Life movie and stuff, so they d bring in a writer or some talent agency would bring in writers, and they would pitch us on their story. And their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of.’

‘That’s when we started saying ‘Wow, the best thing we could ever do is to just not do this as a movie, or we’d have to make it ourselves.’ And I was like, ‘Make it ourselves?’ Well that s impossible. But the Team Fortress 2 thing, the Meet The Team shorts, is us trying to explore that,” he added.

Source: PC Gamer

Google, Yahoo And Others Sued By Microsoft Co-Founder

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Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit naming AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube. The co-founder of Microsoft alleges that they have violated his patents for search, multimedia, screen pop-ups and database management.

Allen’s company, Interval Licensing, holds patents originally produced by Interval Research, a company founded in 1992 by Allen and David Little. The patents produced by Interval in research information systems, communications and computer science formed some of the foundations of the Web as we know it, at least according to the release by Interval.

Xbox Live Gold Subscription $59.99 On November 1

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Microsoft today announced that it ‘s raising its $49.99 Xbox Live Gold subscription account by $10. All of the features of an Xbox Live Gold account, primarily multiplayer but also integration with Facebook, Twitter, last.fm and Netflix movie streaming, will now cost $59.99.

This price change, which also affects Canada, Mexico and the U.K. will be effective November 1, 2010. It is possible to lock in the current subscription rate now by renewing, and current Xbox Live Gold members are encouraged to do so.

While there will likely be a backlash from gamers, special deals are expected to smooth over the initial transition period.

Source: Major Nelson

NITDroid Assimilates Nokia

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For people that like Nokia phones but aren’t fond of the operating system, there’s hope. A fan project called NITDroid lets users install Android on certain Nokia handsets.

“Nokia’s hardware is fantastic but their software is suboptimal, slow, buggy and not always the best user experience,” says Terrence Eden, a U.K.-based mobile consultant. “Android is a much better software environment for Nokia hardware than what Nokia provides.”

“Successes include installing Android 1.6 on a Nokia N810 and Android 2.2 for the Nokia N900. On the N810, everything is pretty much functional. It isn’t a phone so there’s no call functionality to deal with,” says Eden.

Some issues still persist with certain versions and Eden says the change is not for everyone. “It’s not something anyone off the street can do,” he says. “It’s a bit like installing Linux on the PC that you bought off Best Buy.”

Source: Wired {link no longer active}

Nintendo Dropping DSi Unit Prices

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Nintendo has announced that the price of the DSi and DSi XL will drop $20 to $150 and $170 respectively on September 12. The price of the DS Lite will remain at $130.

“We know shoppers want to get the maximum value out of every dollar they spend,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Our new Nintendo DSi prices make it easier than ever for consumers to access the tremendous variety of games, applications and social tools on the Nintendo DSi and Nintendo DSi XL systems.”