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EVE Evolved: Strategic resources for everyone!
The past four EVE Online expansions have mostly focused on adding small features and overhauling old game mechanics and content that were beginning to show their age. Crucible delivered dozens of small but highly-requested features and gameplay improvements, and Inferno and Retribution continued with overhauls of several aging PvP systems. Even Odyssey contained mostly small features and revamps, its biggest gameplay features being a new hacking minigame and a streamlined scanning interface. It's been several years since EVE has received a truly massive and game-changing feature like wormholes or a sovereignty revamp, but that may all be about to change! CCP recently announced its intention to start reaching for big ideas again, but this time set over a more realistic timeframe. If everything goes according to plan, the next five years could see the introduction of player-built stargates and true deep space colonisation. I wrote about the potential of this concept last week and looked at some of the big features we'd need to make it a reality, but I didn't really delve into my personal favourite idea for a potential future expansion: New strategic resources and player-created deadspace complexes. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how strategic resources could be used to get even individual players invested in something worth fighting for, and how player-created deadspace dungeons could be a great way to introduce them.
Microsoft doles out the dough to Nokia and Samsung, plans Mango marketing bonanza for year's end
Know who loves it when other OEMs call him big poppa? Ballmer, that's who. So much so that he's opened up the company's coffers to Nokia and Samsung for a holiday blitz of Mango marketing. Hold onto your hats though, it's no carte blanche access to Redmond's Gringotts. According to a report on Mobile Magazine, inside sources claim MS has set aside ₤28 million (about $44 million) for the endeavor, with about ₤20 million of that reserved for Nokia's first Windows Phone 7.5 handset. This joint marketing effort is reportedly a broader extension of the cooperative agreements all parties agreed to, ensuring future WP devices get the media saturation they deserve. So, keep your eyes peeled this upcoming winter. We have a feeling you won't be able to escape the commercial onslaught, anyway.
Samsung sells HDD division to Seagate for $1.375 billion
We're firmly of the belief that SSDs are our future and Samsung would seem to agree. The Korean electronics giant has just announced that it's selling its hard disk drive-manufacturing arm to Seagate Technology for a neat $1.375 billion in equal measures of cash and stocks. As a result, Samsung Electronics will own approximately 9.6 percent of Seagate and get to nominate one new member to join Seagate's Board of Directors, while the two companies have further agreed to deepen their strategic relationship with related cross-licensing and supply stipulations. Samsung will provision Seagate's solid state drives with NAND flash memory, whereas Seagate will furnish Samsung's PCs and consumer electronics products with hard disk storage. The deal is expected to complete in full by year's end and you can read all about it in Seagate's press release after the break. [Thanks, Pavel]
Nokia and Microsoft enter strategic alliance on Windows Phone, Bing, Xbox Live and more
It's happened. Former Microsoft exec and current Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has married his future and his past in the holy matrimony of a "strategic alliance." Windows Phone is becoming Nokia's "principal smartphone strategy," but there's a lot more to this hookup -- scope out the official press release just after the break. Microsoft's Bing and adCenter will provide search and ad services across Nokia devices, while Nokia will look to innovate "on top of the platform" with things like its traditional strength in imaging. Ovi Maps will be a core part of Microsoft's mapping services and will be integrated with Bing, while Nokia's content store will be integrated into (read: assimilated by) Microsoft's Marketplace. Xbox Live and Office will also, as is to be expected, feature on these brave new Microkia handsets. An open letter on Nokia's Conversations site, penned jointly by Stephen Elop and Steve Ballmer, sets out the foregoing details along with the following statement of intent: "There are other mobile ecosystems. We will disrupt them. There will be challenges. We will overcome them. Success requires speed. We will be swift. Together, we see the opportunity, and we have the will, the resources and the drive to succeed."
