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The UK is getting an all-game show streaming service
There are quite a few subscription video on demand services out there these days and there's about to be one more. A trio of media execs have come together to form InQuisiTiVe Media and will soon launch a subscription service all about British quiz shows. IQTV is scheduled to launch in the UK this July and will offer over 100 quiz show titles including Mastermind, Celebrity Mastermind, The Weakest Link, Countdown and Only Connect. Deals with BBC Worldwide, Banijay and Channel 4 will allow it to have an ongoing stream of new episodes. InQuisiTiVe Media was launched by former Zodiak Media CEO Marc-Antoine d'Halluin, former Lovefilm exec Nick James and Rod Henwood former head of the Harry Potter digital platform Pottermore.
Illustrated 'Harry Potter' novels come to iBooks
Apple fans are used to getting the latest and greatest before others, from apps all the way through to, uh, U2's latest album. But, they've also had to learn how to be patient, for instance, when it took several years before the Beatles released their back-catalog onto iTunes. That's why it's a red letter day for Harry Potter fans, since Apple has signed an "exclusive" detail with JK Rowling's people. For the first time, the digitally-enhanced versions of the world-famous novels are available on iBooks complete with high-quality illustrations and animations. The texts are still on sale at the official Pottermore website, but should you want to read them on your iPhone or iPad, you can grab each one for $9.99 a pop.
'Harry Potter' comes to Oyster's all-you-can-read book service
If you're the sort of Harry Potter fan who can't help but read the series again and again, Oyster has a treat in store. The all-you-can-read subscription service has teamed up with Pottermore to carry all of the Harry Potter books, including the Hogwarts Library collection. There's even a little treat the first time you start reading -- rather than pick from one of the humdrum standard themes, you choose your favorite Hogwarts house (Slytherin, obviously). You probably don't want to sign up for Oyster's $10 a month service just for the sake of reliving Harry's school years, but it's potentially cheaper than purchasing the series on top of a slew of other books.
Barely Related: The Little Prince trailer, Serial winds down
Remember when "squee" was a thing? Is it still a thing? Because we're feeling a little bit like doing that today. Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs. Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.
Best of the Rest: Jess' picks of 2013
Team Joystiq is barging into 2014 with a celebration of last year's best games. Keep reading throughout the week to see our assembly of ingenious indies and triple-A triumphs. Skulls of the Shogun I have a pre-existing penchant for human skulls as decoration, so maybe that's why Skulls of the Shogun still resonates so deeply with me, despite it launching way back at the beginning of the year – before GDC, before E3, before Gamescom, before the reveals and launches of two next-gen consoles, before the holiday madness. Through all of that, Skulls of the Shogun remains a purely joyful, fun strategy game, complete with morbid humor, accessible mechanics and a lovely Saturday-morning cartoon style. Developer 17-Bit has a precise hand, and the team's attention to detail and flow makes Skulls of the Shogun sing across platforms: Xbox 360, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Steam and iOS. Skulls of the Shogun started the year off in the right way for me, so it's fitting to give it another nod at the end of 2013. Cheers, skull-chewers.
New Wonderbook trailers walk with dinosaurs, encourage homebrewing
These new trailers for future Wonderbook games Walking with Dinosaurs and Book of Potions show what appear to be happy, well-adjusted children enjoying Sony's augmented reality peripheral, but if you look closely you'll discover a terrible secret. That's right, these kids are augmented reality fabrications themselves! Horror of horrors! Tremble as your fragile grip on reality is shattered! Okay fine, that's not even the least bit true, but this dinosaur thing does look pretty educational, even if these kids are overselling their zeal. We're not so sure about teaching children to drink strange foaming liquids they've mixed together themselves, though.
Accio Harry Potter fans: Pottermore lives on in PlayStation Home
Pottermore, the official online, social universe for Harry Potter lore, is now a part of PlayStation Home. Pottermore in PS Home expands upon features in the browser version – including dueling, collecting trading cards and exploring Diagon Alley – and adds new activities, such as trivia, riding the Hogwarts Express, and a four-player mini-game called Book Herding.Pottermore in Home can link with online Pottermore accounts via the Navigator App, allowing players to trade cards. PS3 players already got a taste of Pottermore in Wonderbook: Book of Spells, which we found to be a moderately thrilling experience, even for someone who isn't techically a "young adult" anymore.
PSA: Entire Harry Potter series now available on Amazon's Kindle Owners' Lending Library
Fancy dipping back into the world of Quidditch and Dumbledore? Or maybe you shunned the whole Pottermania thing until now. Either way, if you own a Kindle, you can finally get up to speed without paying a spellbinding price -- thanks to Amazon's Kindle Owners Lending Library. All seven eBook titles are up for grabs in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. To get them, there's no need to wave your magic wand, instead just make sure your Prime membership is all paid up, and you're good to go. Magic.
Harry Potter e-book loaners coming to your Kindle, if you're Primed
Amazon will never run out of copies of Harry Potter e-books from its Lending Library. Thanks to a new agreement with Pottermore, on June 19th the entire seven-book collection will be among the 140,000 plus you can grab, provided, of course, that you're an Amazon Prime member. If you've forked over the $79 yearly membership fee, you'll have no due date or waiting, and all your highlights and bookmarks will be saved if you need to re-borrow. Unlike your local library, you can only take out one at a time, but at least you won't have to line up behind all the Muggles to get it.
PSA: Pottermore is no longer colloportus, open to muggles and magicians alike
It's been a waitus longissimus, but finally Pottermore has raised the portcullis to the rest of us muggles. You can sign up right now, after which you'll be allocated to your respective Hogwarts house, but it might take a few more days before you're fully initiated into the hallowed halls proper. Just don't tell Voldemort.[Thanks Daniel]
Daily Update for March 27, 2012
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Pottermore departing beta from platform nine (and three quarters) in April
The digital exploits of Little Whinging's most famous lightning-scarred resident is belatedly exiting beta next month. The six-month delay was prompted because the server platform couldn't handle the load of the million pottermaniacs who had early access. This led to the team behind the site summoning up a whole new backbone without the aid of accio. As well as the audio and e-book versions of the seven novels, the site's general opening will herald a fiery goblet of exclusive content, features and sounds. It'll be open to everyone, unless of course, you've tasted the blood of a unicorn -- then the only thing you can look forward to is being condemned to a half-life, a cursed life.
J.K. Rowling, Google to bring Pottermania to your e-reader
Having a hard time parting ways with a certain plucky, lightning-scarred orphan? J.K. Rowling feels your pain (as she counts her money) and has teamed up with Google to help you fall in love with the world of Hogwarts all over again -- e-book style. The voluminous tomes will be making their exclusive electronic debut through Google's eBooks platform as part of the Sony-backed Pottermore site launching this October. El Goog's open format plays nicely with "more than 80 ereaders" -- we're looking at you iRiver Story HD -- and can also be downloaded in app form for iOS and Android smartphones. But the integration doesn't end there -- under terms of the agreement, Google Checkout "will be the preferred third party payment platform" for all the site's Harry Potter knick knacks your credit limit will allow. It's ok, you don't have to let go of the dream just yet. There's still a little wizard inside us all.
What Harry Potter e-books mean for Apple
Unless you were somehow locked into a Petrificus Totalus for most of the previous day, you've probably heard of J.K. Rowling's Pottermore, an online extension of the Harry Potter universe that will feature games, information about the series not previously released in the books, and more. Of course, the headliner for the October launch of Pottermore is the planned release of all seven Potter novels (finally!) as e-books. Pottermore also deals a major blow to Apple, which will lose the right to sell the Harry Potter audiobooks when Pottermore launches, the Financial Times reports. Apple landed the exclusive deal with Rowling in 2005 to release the audiobooks on iTunes. Apple did not release a statement in response to the Pottermore announcement, the Wall Street Journal stated. While the books will be available for the iPhone and iPad, they won't be purchased through iBooks. Rowling said in her announcement that she did not want to be locked into a single digital format for her books. As such, the book will be DRM-free, an announcement that has a good many fans cheering, but is a kick in the teeth to companies such as Apple, Amazon and UK's Waterstone, which expressed its "disappointment" at not landing the books. Despite the lost sales to Apple and other e-book storefronts, Pottermore will deliver the interactive experience that iPad-formatted books can (and do) achieve. Users can navigate through the story of the first Harry Potter book while discovering extra material from Rowling that never made it into the books. Want to know the back history of Professor Minerva McGonagall? Pottermore's where you'll find it. When you get sorted into a house, you'll go to your own common room and learn information that's specific to the story role you've assumed. Want a different part of the story? Take on a different role. It's the marriage of text and interactivity that would be perfect for iBooks. If Apple had been able to woo Rowling to iBooks, it would have been the literary equivalent of landing the Beatles. Rowling is pointedly eschewing all major e-book sellers while boosting the e-book market at the same time. Apple won't get its 30 percent cut of the millions of Harry Potter e-books that are guaranteed to sell. At the same time, neither will Amazon, Waterstone or anyone else beyond Rowling's print publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic, which will get a share of the revenue, and Sony, which is a partner in the endeavor. Furthermore, Rowling's smart business move to hold onto her digital-publishing rights could spread to other top-selling authors that are already mainstays in iBooks. While not all authors have the financial might that Rowling does, it could tempt other authors, such as Nora Roberts, Suzanne Collins, James Patterson and the estate of Stieg Larsson, to reconsider their digital-publishing options. All of these authors are members of Amazon's so-called Kindle Million Club, those who have sold a million or more e-books for the Kindle, and they bring in a hefty chunk of change for Apple as well. If I could see anyone taking the Pottermore route next, it would be Nora Roberts. She's written more than 200 novels (including those published under the pseudonym J.D. Robb). She and her husband own Turn the Page, an independent bookstore in Boonsboro, Md., with two rooms filled with her books and merchandise based on her works. I can easily see her brokering some deal that keeps her print publishers, which include The Penguin Group, satisfied while retaining more control over her work and not forking over money to companies, such as Apple and Amazon, just for the privilege to sell through their online stores. Roberts, like most other bestselling authors, has her books released under the agency model where the publisher establishes the price and was largely adopted thanks to the iPad. The agency model caused bestselling e-books to rise to between $13-15 rather than the $9.99 many e-book users have come to expect. The cost of an e-book version of a mass-market paperback novel is roughly the same as the print edition, which makes e-book fans fume. Harry Potter e-book prices haven't been revealed, but it'll be interesting to see what Rowling charges. If she can undercut the agency model while retaining a larger share of the profits, it'll make the temptation to go it alone even bigger to bestselling authors. Or, even if she retains standard e-book pricing, the draw of having a DRM-free library accessible to any e-book reader is still attractive, as well as finally having a legal set of Harry Potter e-books. We're going to have to wait and see what Pottermore does before we can see any lasting impact on Apple. Of course, the loss of the audiobooks is a substantial blow; they are still making the bestselling audiobook charts on iTunes with "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" ("Sorcerer's Stone" for us Yanks) coming in at #10 in the UK store and #18 in the US store. There's no question that Pottermore will succeed. Avid Potter fans, myself included, won't care where the books are purchased from -- as long as they're finally available legally, in a format that's going to work for the growing plethora of e-book readers.
Pottermore officially announced, but what exactly is it?
Attention mudbloods, muggles, and wizards alike! We reported yesterday on the cryptic Harry Potter-related Pottermore, which -- according to a leaked memo -- was rumored to be an online game. Not but a short while ago, the big reveal took place via an announcement video from J.K. Rowling on YouTube. Is Pottermore really the big Harry Potter MMO that fans have been clamoring for? Well... maybe. Information is still scarce, with the unveiling of Pottermore's true purpose remaining just as cryptic as it has been since the discovery of the website. The new addition to the immensely popular Harry Potter franchise, according to the announcement video, is "the same story with a few crucial additions," the most important of which is you, the reader. Early reports claim that members of the site, which officially launches in October, will be able to join one of the four houses of Hogwarts and become wizards in their own right. Part social networking site, part online game, and all incredibly mysterious, Pottermore is certain to be a monumental addition to the world of Harry Potter. What exactly the experience will entail, however, remains to be seen. Keep a (mad-)eye here for more news as it develops, and apparate past the cut for the official announcement.
Leaked memo says Pottermore is an online game
We've been on mystical pins and needles for the past week as the countdown continues to tomorrow's full reveal of Pottermore, a mysterious website bearing J.K. Rowling's name. The Atlantic reports that a leaked memo making the rounds spells out the truth: Pottermore will be an online game of sorts. The memo "suggests that [Pottermore.com] is a sophisticated online game that contains clues to prizes that are hidden in the real world. These are an unstated number of magic wands secreted in Britain and America, and possibly other countries." This sounds more like an ARG -- alternate reality game -- than an MMO, although we're not prepared to rule out the possibility until all is said and revealed. The article mentions that this could be a marketing tool tied into Pottermore instead of Pottermore proper. Fans who'd love to see a Harry Potter MMO still have hope that this could be the real deal, but we won't know for sure until tomorrow's announcement.
MMO Roundup: Family Guy, Harry Potter, and more
Sometimes you'd like to know that there are other MMOs out there, right? It's not all WoW, all the time! Our sister site Massively can provide you with everything you need to know about all of the other MMOs around -- past, present and future. Fox unveils Family Guy Online ... really Yeah. You're seeing that right. Family Guy Online. It may be a bit early to say, but we can probably add this one to the list of worst MMOs ever in advance. Details are scarce at the moment, but Fox has already set up a social media presence and a pre-beta website. Is Pottermore the upcoming Harry Potter MMO? The Harry Potter fanbase was abuzz yesterday as a mysterious new website was launched. The site itself is rather bare, merely sporting the words "Pottermore: Coming Soon" and J.K. Rowling's signature underneath, but there's reason to believe that this may be connected to an online game ... or just a social hub for Potter fans. The Perfect Ten: Shapeshifters Enjoy playing a druid in WoW? Wondering what other MMOs feature shapeshifting classes or effects? From RIFT to Guild Wars to City of Heroes, this week's Perfect Ten has what you need. Is Turbine working on a console MMO? Internet scuttlebutt has it that Turbine is cooking up a console MMO codenamed Project Hendrix. A posting at GameSpot cites a Turbine job listing that seeks an engineer for an "unannounced online console project." Turbine's console aspirations are nothing new, as studio VP Craig Alexander hinted at such desires as early as 2009. Massively Speaking episode 153 Massively Speaking, Massively's MMO podcast, returns this week with Shawn and Rubi reminiscing on E3 through this year's awards. Other topics include the LulzSec DDOS attacks and Fallen Earth's acquisition by GamersFirst. They also read through a listener email and clarify their annoyance at kill-10 quests. Massively's week in review Don't let WoW Insider do all of the talking when it comes to Massively's best content of the week. The Massively staff themselves have picked out what they think is the best content their site has to offer in their own weekly roundup.
Rumor: Turbine working on console MMO?
Internet scuttlebutt has it that Turbine is cooking up a console MMO codenamed Project Hendrix. A posting at GameSpot cites a Turbine job listing that seeks an engineer for an "unannounced online console project." The article also mentions the resume of one Josh Phelan, a Turbine employee who apparently mentioned the Hendrix title in his online resume (which has since gone dark). Turbine's console aspirations are nothing new, as studio VP Craig Alexander hinted at such desires as early as 2009. Commenter speculation links the job listing to the mysterious Pottermore title, and given Turbine's acquisition by Warner Brothers (which also owns the Pottermore trademark), it's not unreasonable to suspect that the sorting hat could be getting ready to assign a Potter MMO to House Turbine. Check out the details on GameSpot and let us know what you think in the comments.
Rumor: Is Pottermore the upcoming Harry Potter MMO?
The Harry Potter fan base was abuzz yesterday as a mysterious new website was launched. The site itself is rather bare, merely sporting the words "Pottermore: Coming Soon" and J.K. Rowling's signature underneath, but there's reason to believe that this may be connected to an online game. It gets interesting when you look at Pottermore's trademark page, which lists the trademark as being owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and describes the product as follows: Providing multiple-user access to a global computer information network; providing on-line chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among users in the field of general interest; providing on-line communications links which transfer the web site user to other local and global web pages; providing on-line facilities for real-time interaction with other computer users concerning topics of general interest. The Guardian notes that Pottermore could stand for "Potter Multiplayer Online Role-playing Experience," among other things. An editor at HPANA was one of the few to get a glimpse of the full site, commenting, "It is breathtaking in scope, detail and sheer beauty." Meanwhile, on YouTube's JKRowlingAnnounces channel, a timer is counting down to an announcement as to why "the owls are gathering" sometime on the 23rd. Of course, a Harry Potter MMO has been heavily rumored for some time now, perhaps in association with Turbine (which is owned by WB). It's a tenuous connection but a possibility as well, so we'll be keeping our eyes on the site to see what transpires! [Thanks to reader Alen for the tip!]
