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Amazon reveals Black Friday lineup, deals run from November 25 - 29
Now that ThirftyNerd has found Amazon's gaming lineup for its five-day Black Friday Deals Week, you can properly prepare for the dates and times you'll be sprinting through digital checkouts. The sale will run from November 25 - 29, with its first deal launching at 12:10pm Eastern Time. Unfortunately, the prices for each offer have not been shared, but they'll probably all sell out in minutes anyway. Because Black Friday. Amazon's November 25 lineup will include deals on Xbox 360 and PS3 copies of Borderlands 2: Game of the Year Edition, DmC: Devil May Cry and Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition. The Xbox 360 version of LEGO: Lord of the Rings will also be offered. November 26 will bring with it the Nvidia Shield, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the Wii U, MLB 13 The Show and 4 GB memory cards for the Vita, and Xbox 360 and PS3 copies of Street Fighter X Tekken. On November 27, PS3 and 360 copies of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, Dead Space 3 and Remember Me will be available. Vanilla Resident Evil 5 will be up for grabs for Xbox 360 owners, but PS3 users will instead have a shot at Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. The Xbox 360 version of Red Dead Redemption: Game of the Year Edition will also be offered, as will Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask for the 3DS.
GameStop sales up 18.8 percent, owing primarily to GTA, Nintendo handhelds
The third quarter of the financial year was a profitable one for GameStop, with sales jumping 18.8% to $2.11 billion and net earnings increasing by 45.3% over the prior year. Key to this growth was the release of Grand Theft Auto 5, a game we awarded 4.5/5 stars. According to GameStop's latest financial report, new software sales increased by 43.1% during the quarter. Hardware sales are likewise up, with the Nintendo 3DS and 2DS handhelds cited as the impetus for a 15.3% gain over last year. The one dark spot in GameSpot's financial report is a quick note that pre-owned game sales fell by 2%. This however is handily offset by the gains of GameStop's mobile and digital sales, which are up 14.4% and 8.6%, respectively. Riding these gains into the next-generation of gaming consoles, GameStop is confident in its position. "Our strong third quarter sales results give us great momentum as we enter the new console cycle," stated CEO Paul Raines. "Consumer appetite for the new consoles is very strong judging by last week's successful PS4 launch and the excitement for tonight's Xbox One launch event. Globally, we are executing our unique playbook to maximize our position of strength."
Grand Theft Auto 5's iFruit app arrives on Windows Phone
Grand Theft Auto 5's iFruit companion app is now available for Windows Phone devices, completing Rockstar's citrusey journey across the smartphone trifecta. The iFruit app allows players to customize in-game vehicles, and features a series of Tamagotchi-like minigames starring Franklin's Rottweiler partner-in-crime, Chop. The app originally hit iOS devices in September, followed by an Android release last month. iFruit is available as a free download.
Become a Beach Bum in Grand Theft Auto Online today
Grand Theft Auto 5 receives the free Beach Bum update for GTA Online today, and like a beach bum it's already getting comfy on Xbox 360 and PS3. The update's beached on the Xbox Games Store right now, while the PS3 version is accessible through a new title update that has started rolling out on both consoles, according to Rockstar. Beach Bum brings new vehicles in the form of dune buggies, camper vans, and off-road trucks, while new jobs include beach-based Races, Parachutes, Last Team Standings, Deathmatches, Survivals, and Gang Attacks. The update also brings new weapons with it and some more character customization options, allowing avant-garde citizens to mix up neon surfer ware with tribal tattoos - just go wild, man.
Grand Theft Auto Online's free Beach Bum update launches next week
Rockstar announced that its free "Beach Bum" expansion for the GTA Online component of Grand Theft Auto 5 will hit the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next week, adding a number of new vehicles, weapons, and missions to the multiplayer fray, along with a fresh batch of character customization options. GTA Online players will be able to kick back and soak up the rays as they mangle opponents in new beach-themed Races, Deathmatches, Parachutes, Last Team Standings, Survivals, and Gang Attacks. New vehicles include the BF Bifta dune buggy, the Canis Kalahari off-road truck, and the Bravado Paradise camper van. Also making an appearance is the Speeder speedboat, a fan-favorite watercraft that makes its return to the series after last appearing in GTA: Chinatown Wars. The Beach Bum expansion will hit the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live as a GTA5 title update on November 19.
Rockstar doles out Grand Theft Auto 5 Stimulus Package starting today
Rockstar has begun dropping $500,000 in cold, hard, digital cash into Grand Theft Auto 5 players' accounts staring today, the studio announced. The money is meant to make up for Grand Theft Auto Online's rocky launch, and it should be applied to the accounts of everyone who played (or tried to play) Online in October. The Stimulus Package was delayed in late October, with Rockstar citing persistent bugs that it wanted to iron out before dropping the money in players' pockets. Now that the Stimulus Package has started deploying, it should reach all eligible players by Friday, November 8.
New GTA Online title update protects data from cloud outages
A new title update on PS3 and Xbox 360 is available for GTA Online. The update – which addresses cloud synchronization issues where players would lose progress, cash, online vehicles and their mods when cloud uploads failed – will trigger the next time you boot up Grand Theft Auto 5. In addition to the update, Rockstar says GTA Online players should get their first half of the delayed stimulus package money sometime in the next few days. The cash will roll out over the course of a full day, so don't expect the deposit to show on your Maze Bank account right away. Later this month, GTA Online will get its first content update: the Beach Bum content pack, plus job creation tools. The Beach Bum pack includes four new vehicles, two new weapons and over 300 items, while the job creation tools allow players to create their own custom race and deathmatch variants for use in GTA Online.
Grand Theft Auto Online stimulus package update coming next week
Rockstar Games announced that its planned "stimulus package" update for the Grand Theft Auto Online portion of Grand Theft Auto 5 will launch "early next week" for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. As part GTAO's stimulus package, players will receive a half-million GTA$ via two in-game deposits, the first of which will arrive when title update 1.05 hits next week. The update will be followed by the release of the Beach Bum Pack in November, along with a set of Content Creator tools. Next week's update was previously delayed as Rockstar sorted out bugs related to the saving of player progress, which arose as a widespread problem following GTA Online's launch in October.
Grand Theft Auto 5 ships 29 million units to retail
Take-Two revealed today that it has shipped nearly 29 million copies of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 since the game's launch last month. "The title received stellar reviews, shattered entertainment industry records, and has already sold-in nearly 29 million units to date," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said. "The extraordinary success of Grand Theft Auto V illustrates the positive momentum in our business and consumers' enduring appetite for the highest-quality interactive entertainment." Take-Two notes that sell-in numbers for Grand Theft Auto 5 already exceed Grand Theft Auto 4's lifetime units shipped in its first six weeks of release. Grand Theft Auto 5 earned the company $1 billion in three days, breaking the previous time-to-$1 billion sales record set by Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
GTA5 iFruit app brings dogsitting, car customization to Android
Rockstar Games has announced the Android release of its iFruit app, giving those not devoted to iOS a chance to groom a virtual Rottweiler on the go. As with its iOS incarnation, the Android version of iFruit is a free download. For that nonexistent price of entry, players are given access to an expanded, electronic version of the Grand Theft Auto 5 manual, direct links to the Rockstar Social Club, and two "games." The first is a simple series of menus designed for lightweight car customization. The second allows players to directly interact with their in-game dog by feeding him, playing fetch and engaging in one of three simple minigames. Once you've linked your Rockstar Social Club account to the iFruit app, any vehicle changes you make or new tricks you teach your dog will be carried over into the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto V. Downloading the iFruit app is as simple as visiting the Google Play store and tapping the "install" button.
GTA 5 getting beach vehicles and job creation tools in November
In addition to its announcement of a delay in issuing the "stimulus package" for GTA Online, Rockstar revealed that the first content update for Grand Theft Auto 5 will arrive in November. First announced in September, the Beach Bum Pack and first part of the GTA Online Content Creator will launch next month. The Beach Bum Pack offers four beach-themed vehicles, two new weapons and over 300 items. The content pack gives players more customization options like hairstyles and tattoos as well. Additionally, Rockstar plans to open the ability to create, publish and rate custom race and deathmatch jobs for use in GTA Online. Lastly, the developer noted that GTA Online Social Club weekend events will begin next month, granting players bonuses and "event crate drops" for participating.
GTA Online stimulus package delayed, persistent bugs to blame
Grand Theft Auto Online players will not be receiving a $250,000 infusion of virtual cash this week, despite Rockstar announcing such plans only a few days ago. That $250,000 deposit marks the first half of a payout designed to soothe the rage of players after the rocky launch of Grand Theft Auto Online earlier this month. Four days ago Rockstar claimed it would be issuing these piles of virtual cash to players this week. That never came to pass, and now Rockstar has offered another announcement regarding the stimulus package. "We know many of you are anxiously waiting for us to show you the GTA$ Stimulus Package money we announced a couple weeks back," reads the Rockstar Games website. "As mentioned in that post, we of course want to ensure that game progress loss issues are sufficiently sorted before distributing the GTA$ to everyone. We have a few more tweaks and fixes to make in a new title update that will hit sometime next week and then we will distribute the cash." Rockstar has offered no word on when we can expect the newly-delayed payout.
Purported Grand Theft Auto 5 PC torrents serve up malware instead
A PC version of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 does not currently exist, nor has it been announced. Keep this in mind if you happen to stumble across a supposed "leaked" copy of the game for Windows, as one such torrent has infected thousands of PCs with malware. The alleged PC version of Grand Theft Auto 5 offered up in a public torrent is around 18 GB in size and has been falsely verified as legitimate, making it seem like the real deal. Once the download completes and the installer is launched, however, malicious software is deployed without the user's knowledge. Torrenters are then instructed to fill out a series of online surveys in order to claim a nonexistent registration key, lining the pockets of scammers in the process. WCCFTech notes that the torrent in question has been downloaded thousands of times, likely compromising thousands of unsuspecting victims. Don't let your hype for a PC release for Grand Theft Auto 5 override your common sense, as the consequences could be dire.
GTA Online players to see $250,000 payout this week
Apparently crime does pay, as Rockstar is rewarding Grand Theft Auto Online players with the first installment of a $500,000 in-game payout later this week. This sudden infusion of $250,000 serves as a mea culpa for the rocky GTA Online launch. Reports of players going missing and cars vanishing appeared frequently following the game's debut, and while Rockstar has issued patches to amend these issues, the company has also decided to reward player patience with a fat stack of virtual bills. As far as when your character might receive his or her cash, that remains unknown. Rockstar tweeted its plans this morning, but offered no more specificity than, "sometime this week." In the meantime, make sure you qualify for the handout by reading through these eligibility guidelines.
GTA 5 extends (hit and) run as UK No. 1
Considering we're knee-deep in silly season, it's surprisingly quiet in the UK charts this week. Grand Theft Auto 5 makes it two weeks in a row and three in all as the country's best-seller, despite a 31 percent drop in sales from last week. Meanwhile FIFA 14 holds on to second place, and below those two it's practically an unchanged top ten. Still, there are some nuggets of interest to unearth. The biggest mover and shaker is Skylanders: Swap Force, the third major outing in the ridicu-lucrative toy-based series. While it doesn't move and shake enough to displace the top two, it debuts in third place ahead of Pokemon X, Y and Beyond: Two Souls. UK sales compiler Chart Track offers a couple of interesting stats on Swap Force, the first that it sold 35 percent less than previous entry Giants. As for the second, have a guess which of the game's gajillion platforms earned the most sales. If you said the Wii - with 37 percent for the record - give yourself a pat on the back and at least one sprinkled donut. Move outside the top ten and you immediately find Sonic: Lost World, just missing out in 11th. That's a combination of the significantly different Wii U and 3DS games, and a peek at the individual formats chart shows the console game in 15th and its handheld sibling in 28th. The blue blur's new adventure doesn't roll into North America until next week on October 29.
Grand Theft Auto 5 now available through Xbox games on demand
Crime opera blockbuster Grand Theft Auto 5 is available now digitally through the Xbox Live Marketplace for $59.99, same as the hard copy. Reasons to purchase the game digitally instead of going to the store: all the reasons, the world is scary. So very, very scary. There's sharknadoes out there! Just saw a documentary on it recently. You could always order from Amazon and save three cents. Or, you know, while debating this, the download could be starting. As a general reminder, GTA 5 is already available digitally through the PlayStation Store.
September NPD: Grand Theft Auto 5 sales boost industry [Update]
Good news, everyone! The NPD Group reports that the video game industry's performance in the physical retail sector was up by 27 percent year-over-year for the month of September: $1.07 billion this year versus $848 million last year. Predictably, the majority of that boosted income came from the industry's software segment, also known as "where all that Grand Theft Auto 5 money lives." New physical sales for console and portable software during September totaled at $754.3 million, a 52 percent increase over the $497.5 million earned during the same period last year. GTA 5 understandably tops the list of September's 10 best-selling games, followed by Madden NFL 25 and NBA 2k14. Hardware sales for the period brought in $183.2 million, which is 13 percent fewer millions than were earned in September of 2012. The Nintendo 3DS spent its fifth month as the best-selling thing in the segment, while Wii U sales increased "more than 200 percent" over August, though Nintendo abstained from providing specific numbers as to how many Wii U boxes that works out to. Meanwhile, the PlayStation 3 broke the Xbox 360's long-running streak and was the best-selling console for the period, largely thanks to the system's available Grand Theft Auto 5 bundle, according to NPD Group analyst Liam Callahan. The Accessories segment, which contains giftcards, digital currency vouchers, Skylanders/Disney Infinity figures and other various sundries, was essentially flat year-over-year, experiencing just a 2 percent increase in sales at $142.3 million. Update: Microsoft has chimed in, noting that it reached 80 million sales to retailers of Xbox 360 worldwide in September, with console sales hitting $401.2 million. Unable to say the Xbox 360 was the No. 1-selling console last month, Microsoft instead says that it remains the top console in the US in 2013. Clever phrasing, team.
Grand Theft Auto creator rebuilds the original game for 2013
1997's Grand Theft Auto was presented as a two-dimensional, top-down sandbox title, but Michael Dailly hopes to rejuvenate the franchise's humble origins in full 3D. Fortunately for Dailly, the original GTA world map was created in 3D. Most players would have missed this due to the game's 2D aesthetic, but a proper 3D map was the simplest method for the developers to show height in the game's buildings, and the only way to allow players to traverse bridges and tunnels. Its even possible to alter the game's code and play through the original GTA from a ground-level perspective, not unlike more recent entries in the franchise. Before you get your hopes up for a new, fully-fledged GTA entry hot on the heels of Grand Theft Auto 5, it should be mentioned that Dailly currently has no plans to implement Grand Theft Auto-style gameplay within his game, nor any definitive idea of what he'll do with this project once it's complete. Instead, his goal appears to be a simple proof of concept. As head of development at YoYo Games, Dailly has been using the company's flagship GameMaker software to rebuild the GTA engine, and if nothing else he hopes his remake will serve as evidence of what's possible with YoYo's software.
Complex glitch gives players infinite cash in GTA Online
If you're willing to swipe a motorcycle then navigate a complex labyrinth of menu screens, you could find yourself with a few million extra bucks in Grand Theft Auto Online. WikiGamesGuide posted the above video detailing a process that takes advantage of a glitch in how GTA Online tracks which vehicles you own and which you have already sold. By exiting into and out of a garage and selling a stolen motorcycle at just the right moment, you'll be able to repeatedly sell that bike over and over again, accruing as much cash as your patience for this convoluted scheme will allow. As VentureBeat points out, both Microsoft and Rockstar Games are aware of this glitch, and one member of the GTAForums claims that two of his friends have been banned for taking advantage of this exploit. According to that same poster, Rockstar is hoping to ban GTA Online accounts found to have been abusing this cheat "as a statement against these antics." We've reached out to Rockstar for more.
Artist wants GTA5 recalled for unlicensed use of his music
A law office representing music artist Daz Dillinger has issued Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games a cease and desist letter, in an attempt to block the sale of Grand Theft Auto 5. The complaint is over the use of two tracks released with fellow artist Kurupt under the group banner "Tha Dogg Pound." The letter reportedly claims Rockstar attempted to purchase rights for the "offensively low offer of $4,271.00" for his songs 'C-Walk' and 'Nothin' But the Cavi Hit.' Dillinger and his lawyers at the firm Kushner Carlson have given Take-Two 14 days to comply with their demands to recall and destroy any unsold copies of the game, or strike a new business deal for the use of the artist's music. Speaking with TMZ, Dillinger said the suit was about "respecting an artist's work." The artist noted that Rockstar neglected to do so and he "can't let them get away with it." Only days after launching on September 17, Grand Theft Auto 5 sales had surpassed $1 billion worldwide, according to Take-Two's estimates. Joystiq has contacted both Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive for a comment on the filing, but no response was issued at the time of publishing. [Image via Muzikosvirtuve]
