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Windows 10 is used on over 900 million devices
Windows 10 is now being used on over 900 million devices. Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi tweeted about the milestone today, saying that Microsoft added more new Windows 10 devices in the last 12 months than ever before.
THQ Nordic says a new Saints Row game is 'deep in development'
THQ Nordic had plenty of updates about upcoming games from its sprawling empire in its latest earnings report. Perhaps the most notable is that its Volition studio is "deep in development" on a new Saints Row game. It didn't offer any information on when to expect the next entry in the popular series, but it'd be the first full title since Saints Row IV in 2013.
Sony has sold over 40 million PlayStation 4 consoles
Sony has announced a new milestone in PlayStation 4 sales: 40 million. And it says it plans to sell another 20 million by April next year. Anyone with a basic knowledge of math could've worked out the milestone from the company's annual earning report last month, where it announced it had sold 17.7 million PlayStation 4s over the past year. Add that to 2014's 14.8 million and 2013's 7.5 million and that's -- you guessed it -- 40 million.
MotoGP 14 launches in Europe on June 20, U.S. release planned
Long-running motorcycle racing sim series MotoGP will make its PlayStation 4 debut this month in Europe, developer Milestone announced this week. Announced back in March, MotoGP 14 will be the first series entry to hit the PlayStation 4 alongside ports for the Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita and PC platforms. MotoGP 14 will feature more than 100 real-world riders and 18 playable racetracks across included Career, Time Attack, and online multiplayer modes. MotoGP 14 will launch in Europe on June 20. Developer Milestone notes that a North American version is in the works, and a release date will be announced soon. [Image: Milestone]
Terraria tops 1.3 million mobile downloads
Terraria, Re-Logic's 2D sandbox adventure game, surpassed a combined 1.3 million full-game downloads on iOS and Android. The game first arrived on iOS in August 2013 and on Android in September. Additionally, publisher 505 Games announced that Terraria recently achieved one million downloads in total across Xbox 360, PS3 and PS Vita, the latter of which arrived in December. Andrew Spinks, the creator of Terraria, first divulged plans for the game's sequel in October, but was careful to note that it wasn't in development at the time. Spinks later said he'd like to code Terraria 2 in a more portable language so he can bring the game to multiple platforms closer to its PC launch, though Nintendo's 3DS is likely not in the cards for the sequel. [Image: Re-Logic]
Kickstarter reaches $1 billion in pledges
Kickstarter backers have pledged over $1 billion to projects on the funding platform in the lifetime of the site, which first launched in late April 2009. That monumental chunk of change was pledged towards 135,344 projects, according to Kickstarter's perpetually-updated stats page. Of the money pledged, $859 million was deposited into 57,133 successfully-funded projects. The games category led the crowdfunding service with $215.82 million pledged, $189.89 million of which was invested into 2,945 successful video game and tabletop game projects (the games category includes both). Games were also fourth-worst among the categories in terms of their success rate, which Kickstarter listed as 35.15 percent. The big numbers offered by Kickstarter only say so much about crowdfunding as a whole. Our Crowdfund Bookie data found that $23 million was raised on both Kickstarter and Indiegogo in a six-month span last year, and that crowdfunded video game projects earn roughly $25,000 on average. Funding projects is one thing, but launching them is another, as previous research from Evil as a Hobby indicated a delivery rate of 37 percent for video game projects on Kickstarter. [Image: Kickstarter]
Alien-jamming basketball game NBA Rush downloaded one million times
Nearly one week after its launch on iOS, NBA Rush has been downloaded over one million times. This is according to a tweet from Other Ocean developer Frank Cifaldi. While the game's developer is listed as Renren Games on iTunes, Other Ocean handled its creation. NBA Rush is an endless runner game with action similar Temple Run (but with basketballs). Players control one of 90 real-life NBA players, each armed with individual abilities and power-ups, guiding them through obstacles and slam-dunking over aliens. The wacky, licensed arcade-style game is free to play.
Shroud of the Avatar raises $3 million in crowdfunding and prepares for Release 2
Shroud of the Avatar has hit a significant fundraising milestone and is throwing a party to celebrate. Richard Garriott announced that the title has crossed the $3 million mark and he will be hosting a late-night video hangout on Thursday, January 23rd to mark the occasion. In other Shroud of the Avatar news, the game will roll out Release 2 next week for select backers. Details of the release will be, erm, released on Wednesday the 22nd. If you haven't backed the game and want to experience Release 2, it will cost you $45. Portalarium also showed off the Founder Edelmann Village Waterfront Cabana, founder starter weapons, and the incredible cooking pot of prosperity.
CyanogenMod downloaded 10 million times as it begins to go legit
Though CyanogenMod has gotten plenty of ink lately for its Oppo N1 hookup and Google Play approval (and subsequent removal), it's still first and foremost a modding outfit. In fact it just crossed 10 million downloads of its custom Android ROMs, according to its latest stats. That marks a lot of folks wanting to re-skin their handsets, or give others like Samsung's Galaxy S (shown above) new life. That model, along with the Galaxy S II and S III were the most popular devices to mod, a reflection of their popularity and perhaps users' disdain for TouchWiz. It helps that you can now skip difficult command-line installs, thanks to OTA updates and new desktop and mobile apps. Now if you'll excuse us, we're going to install CyanogenMod's Android 4.2.2 ROM on our Galaxy S -- a device officially unsupported since the Gingerbread era.
Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 cracks 10 million sales barrier in just two months
Okay, we get it -- Samsung sells a lot of handsets and has the profits to show for it. But the company said that its new Galaxy Note 3 is far and away the most successful so far of its entire Note lineup, with 10 million units sold in a mere 60 days. That's twice the sales pace of the Galaxy Note II, and even pushing its sales champ, the Galaxy S 4, which took 50 days to hit that magic number. The Note 3 is available in 58 countries, but Samsung singled out China out as a particularly strong market due to the popularity of the S Pen and just launched two new colors there. Anyway, given those numbers, it's a safe bet nobody's using "the ph-word" as an epithet for the Note 3 anymore.
Steam rises to 7 million concurrent users over holiday weekend
There's nothing like a Steam sale to remind us how not-dead or un-unwell PC gaming is. Just as it did this time last year, Steam's holiday sale helped the Windows, Mac, and Linux client reach a new milestone: more than 7 million users logged in at the same time. Last year's milestone was 6 million, and our often unerring grasp of rudimentary math tells us that's a rise of 1 million across the year. Bear in mind that's concurrent users; the total number of registered Steam accounts surpassed 65 million at the end of October. Speaking of Steam sales, there's still time to pick up the weekend's new deals, with discounts from upon high for the likes of Torchlight 2, Fez, The Wolf Among Us, Metro: Last Light, The Witcher 2, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Shadowrun Returns, and pa-lenty more.
Star Citizen crowdfunding campaign reaches $30 million
Cloud Imperium Games's crowdfunding campaign for Star Citizen continues to barrel along and doesn't seem intent on stopping yet, as creator Chris Roberts has announced that the campaign has officially reached the milestone of 30 million US dollars. A new milestone means new rewards. Along with the announcement, Roberts included a gallery of concept art for the Gladiator ship "created to show how the rear-facing turret can be changed with different upgrades." In addition, Roberts revealed that players voted for a salvage ship in the $32 million "ship role" poll. As a result, the post unveils the first details of the Aegis Surveyor ship. Described as "an industrial-quality salvage ship," the Aegis Surveyor is perfect for retrieving the remains of some poor chump's wrecked ride. Lastly, Roberts reminds players that they can vote for the role $33 million stretch goal ship (right below the post, to boot), so to have your say, head over to the game's official site.
CyanogenMod 10.2 M1 release arrives with Android 4.3, 4.4 decisions likely weeks away
CyanogenMod is cranking out "Milestone 1" release builds for the 10.2 version of its software tonight, targeting a preview for over 70 devices if all goes well. Based on Android 4.3, the latest edition of the open source mobile OS project will bring a number of tweaks to the wide swath of hardware its developers support -- even when the original manufacturers sometimes don't. It's unfortunately shipping in the shadow of the just-unveiled Android 4.4 KitKat, but the team plans to polish and ship this version even as it begins work on the next update. If you're wondering which devices it will (or won't -- Galaxy Nexus?) support as it moves on to 4.4 you'll have to cool your heels, as decisions on that front are likely weeks away. As we've seen with previous milestone releases, this one is likely "good enough" for users to give a try, prior to the eventual release candidate and officially stable versions ship in coming days/weeks/months.
'Old School' RuneScape grows to 1M players, opens God Wars dungeon
The "Old School" version of RuneScape has proven to be a hit with players, growing to over one million users. Jagex trumpeted the milestone along with a new update to the game bringing back the God Wars dungeon. Executive Producer Phil Mansell thinks that this shows classic servers have strong appeal for the community: "Seeing RuneScape Old School hit the million player mark so soon after launch is a great milestone for the game, and our players have joined the celebration by voting for the game's most epic update to date." Over 89% of the playerbase voted for the inclusion of the God Wars dungeon, in which groups will face-off against four bosses for a shot at a legendary Godsword and other shiny gear. You can check out the dungeon video after the break. [Source: Jagex press release]
Tekken Card Tournament surpasses 5 million downloads
Tekken Card Tournament, Namco Bandai's free-to-play mobile/browser card battling thing, has been downloaded more than five million times, the pub/dev announced today. Namco Bandai didn't specify exactly how those downloads break down on a per-device basis, nor was any mention made of how many of your Earth dollars the game has amassed since its release last April. To put that milestone into perspective, Tekken Card Tournament broke one million downloads just four days after its release. At any rate, Namco Bandai is celebrating its accomplishment by applying a 40-percent discount to digital booster packs until 1 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, October 16 – assuming your pathetic excuse for a planet manages to survive that long. This is Parphalatoz the Abhorrent, wishing you a happy Canadian Thanksgiving and a terrible blight upon your cretinous species.
Over one billion podcast subscriptions through the iTunes Store
Are you addicted to podcasts? If so, you're not alone; both bite-sized and long form talk shows on iTunes have absolutely blown up since they were introduced on the service in 2005. Just how big have they gotten? Today Apple announced that the service has passed 1 billion podcast subscriptions. To celebrate the occasion Apple is holding a special promotion in the podcast section of iTunes highlighting some of the most popular shows ever to appear on the service. In the top slot of the new promotional page - under the "Classics" section, of course - is NPR's beloved "This American Life." No surprise there. If you're not yet initiated into the world of podcasts, TUAW's Daily Update and TUAW TV Live are great places to start. You know, if you're into Apple chatter and whatnot. [Via Macworld]
Apple celebrates 1 billion podcast subscriptions
Just over eight years ago, Apple introduced podcasts as an integral part of iTunes, and along the way, it helped shape how we consume information and entertainment. Now, the company's announcing a rather significant milestone in the field: something to the tune of 1 billion subscriptions. Of course, the road to this achievement has been marred with some unpleasant bumps, but today's all about celebration. In that spirit, Apple's highlighting some of its most popular podcasts of all time, such as This American Life, TWiT and All Songs Considered, along with up and coming programs such as The Alton Browncast. Granted, it's not quite the fanfare as you'll find when Apple celebrates App Store milestones -- the most recent being 50 billion downloads -- but it's hard to get bent out of shape given all the free content. So grab your earbuds and do some celebrating. Cupcakes are entirely optional.
Verizon 4G LTE reaches 500th market, initial network build-out now complete
Verizon was the first US carrier to launch (and famously fumble) its LTE rollout back in 2010, but its long road to 4G nationwide coverage has finally come to a near close. As of today, the operator's LTE footprint now blankets more than 298 million people in 500 markets across the US, with Parkersburg, West Virginia claiming that 500th market distinction. It's a milestone Verizon managed to achieve in a little over two years' time, as the company's Chief Network Officer Nicola Palmer was quick to point out. The completion of this initial LTE rollout also brings Alaska into Verizon's coverage map as early as next month -- a territory that, before today, didn't even have 3G -- marking the carrier's network as available in all 50 states. With a full LTE expansion, however, comes network congestion problems, as subscribers in major cities like New York are already starting to experience. Palmer assured us that solutions are currently underway to shore up capacity in these LTE markets. Verizon's AWS holdings, in particular, should serve to augment LTE reception in select areas starting in the second half of this year. The same goes for small cell site deployment, which Palmer stressed is an LTE-only initiative. News on the carrier's plans for LTE-Advanced remain just as vague as ever, with Palmer positioning the standard as yet another tool to enhance current LTE capacity. Unfortunately, she wouldn't commit to a timeframe for LTE-A nor address concerns about the potential for new pricing tiers when it does eventually launch. Still, Verizon subs will at least have VoLTE (voice over LTE) to look forward to next year -- that is, when it eventually clears the company's rigorous lab and field testing.
Apple marks 50 billion downloads from the App Store
You think 50 billion is a big number? It's certainly a bit bigger than some other numbers that spring to mind, such as 48 billion, and that in itself gives Apple something to celebrate. As is customary with these App Store milestones, whichever lucky jackanape triggered their download at just the right millisecond will receive a gift -- a $10,000 iTunes voucher, no less -- while 50 runners-up will get $500-worth of credit each. But none of that is the really big, big news. What matters here is the rate of growth, which seems to have accelerated during the course of this year. It took 14 weeks for the App Store to get from 40 billion to 45 billion downloads between January and April, but less than 4 weeks to get from 45 to 50 billion. Now, we're totally dependent on Apple's internal stock-takers, not to mention an erratic ticker ("for illustrative purposes only"), but if those numbers are even remotely accurate then they represent something of a popularity surge. Update: Apple has issued a press release (available after the break) for the 50 billionth download, performed by Brandon Ashmore downloading Say The Same Thing and snagging a $10,000 App Store gift card for it.
Sina Weibo passes 500 million user mark, how's your site coming along?
Remember those halcyon days last November when Sina Weibo passed more than 400 million users? Well, a mere three months later, and the microblogging site can now boast that it's got 503 million compulsive over-sharers. To put that figure into perspective, were "Chinese Twitter" to be its own country, it would be the third most populous nation on Earth. While it should be celebrating such figures, there's a few signs of trouble on the horizon, as local rival Tencent's WeChat hit 300 million users last month -- not to mention some disgruntled former users inviting people to switch to Twitter.