Budget
Latest
EA puts faith in The Old Republic's lifespan and profits
With all the cries of doom and gloom against Star Wars: The Old Republic -- not to mention accusations of a wildly bloated production budget -- one may be led to believe that TOR will fail even before it sees the light of day. EA, on the other hand, is expressing a calm confidence in the game's potential longevity and financial success. According to Eurogamer, EA's CFO Eric Brown predicts that TOR will not only last over a decade, but will be profitable even if there are fewer than a million subscribers: "Our assumptions for break-even and profitability are not seven-digit subscribers. We think we can run and operate a very successful and profitable MMO at different levels. The key thing here is to really perfect the product. We're shooting for an extremely high quality game experience. We view this as a 10-year opportunity." Brown previously admitted that TOR is the single largest project in the history of EA, and industry analysts have predicted that the title would need at least a million subscribers to break even.
Lost Pages of Taborea: Save those pennies
Seeing players farm high-level dungeons can be a constant reminder that your gear sucks. If you really want to get into running instances and being the baddest of the bad, it's easy to feel pressured into spending money. Spending money isn't inherently bad. It's what makes the world go round. But it may behoove you to spend your hard earned dollars judiciously. I want instant gratification as much as the next bloke, but it isn't going to happen for me. I have bills and a limited income stream. I have to budget time and money. Everyone will have to do it someday, no matter what his or her income potential is. Runes of Magic offers periodic sales that the savvy gamer can take advantage of. This guide offers advice, reminders and tips for getting the most out of your money. Players play differently and want different things from RoM. I'm looking at these money-saving ideas with the basics in mind, but you should be able to easily adjust how and what you want to spend money on -- based on your personal income and game preferences.
Marvelous caps 3DS game development at $1.8M per title
During a recent investor call, Marvelous Entertainment, the publisher best known for its Harvest Moon games, revealed its budget range for 3DS game development. According to the transcription of the call's Q&A session (as translated by 1UP), a Marvelous representative said that, "while costs vary based on game content," the company would spend an estimated ¥50 million to ¥150 million ($600K to $1.8M) on the development of a single 3DS game. Currently, Marvelous has two 3DS projects in the works, a Harvest Moon game and a zoo sim called Animal Resort. Not surprisingly, Marvelous' 3DS spending money is significantly higher than the ¥4.4 million to ¥43.9 million per title (roughly $50K–525K) Japanese companies spent on developing (regular) DS games last year, according to data gathered by TGS sponsor and promotional organization CESA. More interestingly, Marvelous' ¥150-million cap for a 3DS game represents a figure more than double the cost of the last year's most expensive Japanese PSP title, which, while unnamed, cost ¥59.2 million to develop by CESA's account. (The cheapest PSP game cost its maker just ¥3 million.) If Marvelous' budget is indicative of other companies' 3DS game costs -- and, certainly, some of these guys are likely to splurge -- then developing for the platform could prove more expensive than for Wii, where last year's most expensive Japanese project topped out at ¥116 million. In an era when budget gaming is dominating the handheld market, and following the disastrous combination of costly PSP game development and rampant piracy, the 3DS could be as ill-fated as the 3D technology that requires you to wear glasses. Well, that, or it'll just "print money" ... in 3D.
LG Vortex puts a Verizon spin on budget Android -- yes, Bing's there, too
It's not exactly the Optimus T / S we saw hit T-Mobile and Sprint, respectively, but for all intents and purposes, it's a fraternal twin. The LG Vortex for Verizon brings with it Android 2.2, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 3G Mobile HotSpot capability, Skype, Swype, a suite of pre-installed carrier / manufacturer apps (e.g. VZ Navigator), and as you might've guessed from it being a non-Droid Verizon Android phone, Bing Search and Bing Maps. Despite being a later arrival, this one's actually the most expensive of the three -- $80 on contract after $100 mail-in rebate. November 18th, if you want to mark a calendar.
Microsoft to spend one billion dollars advertising Kinect and Windows Phone 7
Microsoft's serious about making Kinect a success. A $500 million kind of serious. That's the latest report, courtesy of the New York Post, on the change Steve Ballmer and company intend to drop to make sure that every living and breathing creature in the US knows about the controller-free controller this holiday season. That mirrors earlier analyst estimates placing the Windows Phone 7 marketing budget at a similar figure, which in total would amount to a cool billion dollars in advertising expenditure. We already know Microsoft's scooped the Old Spice Guy for WP7, but Kinect is getting the extra special carpet bombing treatment with Burger King, Pepsi, YouTube, Nickelodeon, Disney, Glee, Dancing with the Stars, People and InStyle magazines, and even Times Square all having a role to play in spreading the word. Yup, it's gonna be pretty hard to miss it.
Ask Engadget: best gaming graphics card for under $150?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Dylan, who needs a serious frame rate boost at a serious bargain. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I was wondering what the best video card would be that I could buy on the market for cheap (the highest I would be willing to go is $150, and that is if I absolutely need to). I'm trying to make Dead Rising 2 (and similar) look good. By the way, my computer is running a Biostar T-series TA785G3 motherboard with a AMD Phenom II processor on Windows 7, for what it's worth. Thanks!" Look, not everyone can just go blow $400 on the latest and greatest overclocked slab of silicon, and the lower-end market has definitely been heating up of late. Got any solid recommendations for this fellow? Recommended places to buy? Drop a note in comments below -- we're sure your next deathmatch can wait ten seconds.
Motorola Citrus budget candybar outed by Verizon, sports Android 2.1 and Blur
Boy, Motorola must've been real busy lately. Sharing the Verizon limelight with the Droid Pro today is this new entry-level Citrus candybar, which is actually the WX445 we saw exclusively back in July. Sadly, said handset will still be shipped with a slightly disappointing Android 2.1 OS and Blur skin, but hey, we did say it's entry level, right? The good folks over at xda-developers will probably Froyo-lize the phone in no time, anyway. Not much else is known right now, but bear with us while we look out for more deets. Update: Okay, the press release is out -- check it after the break. The Citrus is hitting this quarter for an unannounced price (a low one, we'd presume), and one of its claims to fame is the fact that it's fashioned of 25 percent post-consumer recycled plastic and is both PVC and BFR free. Better yet, the phone's also given the CarbonFree certification by Carbonfund.org for its carbon-neutral status. Good on ya, Motorola.
MAG joins PS3 'Greatest Hits' library this week
Haven't picked up a copy of PS3's massively multiplayer first person shooter, MAG? If you wait just a few more days, you'll be able to get the Greatest Hits version for only $29.99. Available on September 28th, the budget re-release comes just in time for the big 2.0 patch, which adds support for PlayStation Move motion controls and a whole slew of online fixes and tweaks. Considering Zipper's upcoming game, SOCOM 4, won't be available until 2011, this may be a good way of satiating your tactical shooting urges. [Thanks, frank!]
Orange launches OLED-donning San Francisco, doesn't break the Android piggy bank
Oh snap! This is exactly what Nokia needs right now -- another cheap Android handset to gobble up its wallet-friendly stronghold. What we're looking at here is Orange's oddly named San Francisco, a £99 ($154) pay-as-you-go Eclair handset crafted by ZTE. Much like its humble sibling Racer, Orange's 4.6-ounce offering is loaded with a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 chipset, 3.2 megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM radio, and MicroSD expansion. Yet for the same price, the San Francisco somehow comes with a larger 3.5-inch 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen. This sure sounds like a tempting deal, but don't whip out your credit card just yet -- we'll give you a yay or nay once we've seen how the phone fares in real life. For now, check out the official promo video after the break.
Halo: Reach marketing campaign flexes giant robo-arm
What's gonna give Halo: Reach the best shot at topping Modern Warfare 2's $310 million in day-one sales? Marketing. Much to no one's surprise, Microsoft is splurging on its biggest game campaign to date, according to Advertising Age. While Reach's marketing budget has not been disclosed, it's expected to easily top Halo 3's reported $6.5 million bill. The ad campaign, which began in earnest with a big-budget plug ... for the multiplayer beta (way back in April), will continue to use live-action segments to attempt to forge an emotional connection with a broad audience across TV and the web. "We're trying to get people to connect back to their lives, not computer graphics or something overly sci-fi," Taylor Smith, director of global marketing communications for Xbox, told Ad Age. "Live action is a way to capture that." In particular, director Noam Murro (Smart People) has created three live-action short films that depict life on planet Reach before the Covenant invasion. Meanwhile, potential buyers will be urged to "remember Reach" as they consume Pepsi products. A renewed partnership between Microsoft and the snack-time mogul will put Halo branding on some 300 million Mountain Dew bottles and 30 million Doritos bags beginning next month. Of course, to top past efforts, Microsoft will expand the Reach campaign beyond these somewhat pedestrian reminders: Cue massive KUKA KR 140 robotic arm! The viral site RememberReach.com, which becomes fully operational at 3AM ET tomorrow, features a user-generated light sculpture of Reach's Noble Team, created by the robo-arm and some fancy camera equipment. Typically used to assemble cars, this KUKA bot has been outfitted with an LED and stationed in an undisclosed San Francisco warehouse. As detailed by GameLife, visitors will direct the machine to plot the 54,000 points of light that will form this Noble Team "monument." Bizarre. Halo: Reach launches on September 14.
Anti-Aliased: Don't hate the playa, hate the developa
So I noticed something last week, in the comments section of my piece on UI design, that finally kicked me back into "endless rant" mode. It's a sentiment that I've noticed in the video game community at large for a while now, but I never really knew how to approach it until recently, thanks to my own life experiences with games. It's an idea that's pretty misinformed on how the industry works. It's the idea that the developers behind any given game are an idiots. According to commenters, they're all blind, non-gamer morons, bumbling around in the dark without the slightest sense of what game mechanics are actually fun. Why are these bumbling morons in the industry? Why don't they listen to the endless array of golden ideas that pop up on game forums? Don't they realize that these revolutionary ideas will turn every game into double-rainbow-crapping unicorns? Why haven't 15% of my readers (a totally accurate statistic, mind you) figured out how sarcastic I'm being at this point in the introduction? This week we're going after some of the common misconceptions about developers and game design, and how making a game as complex as an MMO is really never as easy as you claim it is.
ZTE Racer review
In a battlefield now abundant with Android handsets, there's only one easy way for a young smartphone brand to grab our attention: make a seriously dirt cheap handset. And we're not just talking about a free phone chained to a pricey 18-month contract (like the Vodafone 845); we're looking for a Pay & Go smartphone tagged with a standalone dumbphone price, so even the £200+ ($316+) "budget" HTC Wildfire and Sony Ericsson X10 Mini / Mini Pro are out of the question. This is where Three UK's ZTE Racer comes in: priced at just £99.99 ($158) or for free on various contracts, this Android 2.1 handset has quite rightly stolen the paper crown from the 845. But don't let that price tag fool you -- this 14.5mm-thick device still comes with a fairly modern 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 chipset (as featured on the Aria and X10 Mini / Mini Pro), garnished with a 3.2 megapixel camera (sans flash), HSDPA 7.2Mbps connectivity, 2GB microSD card, FM radio, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and a Skype app for free Skype calls within the UK. There is just one caveat: you'll have to live with a 2.8-inch QVGA resistive touchscreen. So, is this an immediate deal-breaker? Can the other features make up for this flaw? Read on to find out.%Gallery-98528%
Rogers announces plans for budget-minded 'Chatr' wireless brand
Well, it looks like Canadians will soon have yet another discount wireless brand to consider -- Rogers has just officially announced plans to launch a new budget-minded "Chatr" brand to compete with the likes of Wind, Mobilicity and Public Mobile. Yes, that's the same Rogers that already has the Fido discount brand, but it says that the "launch of a third brand mirrors many other industries like the hospitality and retail sectors and is designed to offer Canadians more choice." The official announcement follows some rumors and leaks that have been circulating as of late, which suggested that Chatr would initially launch in Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver on July 5th, although those details still haven't yet been confirmed by Rogers.
Budget compact shootout finds the best little digicams for your buck
Sure, we all like reading reviews of high-end compact shooters, like the Olympus E-PL1 and Ricoh's transforming GXR, but, when it comes to actually putting down the credit card most folks go with something a bit more... frugal. So, Digital Camera Resource Page has created the 2010 Budget Camera Shootout, which includes eight cameras in the $150 to $180 range with tiny cases and 4 or 5x zoom lenses. Contenders include the Olympus FE-4030, Samsung SL600, and Canon SD1300. It's perhaps no surprise that the PowerShot, long king of the budget roost, comes out on top, but we won't spoil the rest of the rankings, which do include some unexpected performances, and should enable your buying with confidence for this summer's shooting season -- without blowing your budget.
UK govt cancels plans for video game tax relief
TIGA's years-long campaign to bring tax relief to the UK video game industry has come to a rather disappointing conclusion. Chancellor George Osbourne (pictured above) revealed the nation's budget plans earlier today during a speech at Westminster, announcing that "planned tax relief for the video games industry will be canceled." According to TIGA CEO Richard Wilson, this surprising omission flies in the face of "pre-election pledges made by the Conservative Party and by the Liberal Democrats to support and introduce Games Tax Relief." GamesIndustry.biz points out that Osbourne's proposed budget still benefits smaller, start-up developers in select parts of England, who will receive exemptions for £5,000 (about $7,400) of National Insurance contributions for each of their first 10 new hires; though this doesn't come close to the sweeping tax reform promised to the UK games industry just a little over a month ago. [Image credit: Auto Express]
The Anvil of Crom: Completionism and avoiding the F2P plague
I'd like to start this week's column with a disclaimer: I expect to get a lot hate for what follows. A few of you might agree with me, and that's great, but as something of a traditionalist (both in and out of gaming), I'm used to my views being unpopular when measured against current trends. And let's be honest, nothing is currently more trendy, in vogue, or bandwagontastic than F2P when it comes to MMORPGs. F2P, or more accurately, F2T (free-to-try) is sweeping over our industry like a ravenous zombie horde, sucking brains, wallets, and customer common sense right out the window due to its insane profitability and a glitzy PR assault. Right now, in fact, someone, somewhere in the Funcom offices is no doubt running the numbers on whether or not tacking a cash shop onto Age of Conan makes financial sense. They may even be contemplating pulling a Turbine and going completely F2T. I mean, how could they not be considering it? With subscription-based games dropping like flies, it's only a matter of time before every game on the market is engaging in Sony-style double dipping (yes Cryptic and now Icarus do it too, but frankly the alliteration just wasn't there). Hit the jump to learn why F2T isn't as great as you think.
Ask Engadget HD: Home theater on a $2,500 budget?
Keeping with our recent theme of more frugal home theater efforts, this week our question is similar to the pie in the sky dreams of a few weeks ago, but with a very down to earth monetary restriction. Our friend Thomas has space for a home theater setup, but not a lot of cash to use to fill it up. We'll let him tell you how it is: We are currently in the process of finishing our basement. We have a nice wall for a flat screen, two small basement windows, dish, Blu-ray, and about $2500 to spend on a "home theater" (albeit a smallish one). If I want a HDTV and surround speakers - how should I go? Or am I not considering something else I should be? This is definitely a theater on a budget. This is your mission if you choose to accept it, spend Thomas' money and get a setup any of us would be proud to do some television watching, gaming or movie night with the family on. Over here we're all BeoVision all the time, so what the proletariat are using to watch Teen Cribs on is a mystery to us. Got a burning question that you'd love to toss out for Engadget HD (or its readers) to take a look at? Tired of Google's blank stares when you ask for real-world experiences? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your inquiry could be next.
Sony Europe launches 'PSP Essentials' budget line
Sony is encouraging European PSP owners to take a trip through the console's back catalogue, with a new line of budget games priced at just €9.99. The new "PSP Essentials" line is launching June 2 with a selection of 20 games, including Daxter, Patapon 2, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, LocoRoco and more. They'll be available at the same price on UMD and as downloads on PSN. In the PlayStation Blog post announcing the line, SCEE's Mayumi Donovan indicated that in addition to these 20 games, "there will be more games to follow." The line is slated to launch in Australia and New Zealand later in 2010. See the launch lineup after the break.
Vodafone launches its first, underwhelming Android handset (video)
If we know you at all (and we think we know you pretty well) you'll probably be amused and titillated to learn that Vodafone has announced that its first Vodafone-branded Android phone will be available this May. The Vodafone 845 -- which we first saw in an FCC filing a couple weeks ago -- certainly is, in the UK idiom, a "budget blower." Featuring Android 2.1, a 2.8-inch (240 x 320) touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera, 128MB RAM, and 512MB storage, there is nothing too terribly wild here, but you know what? Sometimes a company just needs to hit a comfortable, middle-of-the-road benchmark. The kids at the UK mobile website Fone Home have a handsome gallery for you to check out, so do hit that via to get rolling... but not before you peep the video after the break. Update: OK, maybe the title of this post was a little misleading. We meant to say that this is the first Vodafone-branded Android handset -- as you're probably well aware, this carrier is certainly no stranger to the beloved open source OS. %Gallery-91980%
The Daily Grind: Are MMOs becoming too big-budget?
When it came out that Warner Bros had purchased Turbine Entertainment, the incident was not always received with smiles, but very few players were surprised. Trends have been set for big titles, budgets have been released, and they paint a picture of games that are further and further removed from the fairly low-cost initial developments that started the industry. Star Wars: The Old Republic could well be one of the most expensive games ever, judging by their alleged expectations for subscribers. And while all this money produces some gorgeous games, we've seen what happens when a game launches without the numbers to support it. Expectations about performance rise, and the battle for dominance in the MMO market is no little affair -- Electronic Arts, Sony, NCsoft, Square-Enix, and now Warner Bros are throwing quite a bit of money into the ring. So what do you think about the growing budgets and stakes being thrown into our favorite genre? Is it a good thing that results in better overall games? Or is it choking out smaller studios that have to compete with games that can afford a much larger staff and development team?
