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Report: Apple set to relocate its Tokyo headquarters
Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is all set for a planned move with its Tokyo headquarters. The company will relocate its Tokyo, Japan-based offices from the ward of Shinjuku to the slightly trendier neighborhood of Roppongi Hills. The building Apple is moving to also contains offices for Goldman Sachs and Barclays, as well as an art museum, apartments, a hotel and a private club. Bloomberg also says that rent in Tokyo has been dropping since around 2008, and the lower prices make it a great time for Apple to make this move. Apple's spokesman in Tokyo declined to comment on the move, but sources there say the company's current lease will be done in June, so the move should be all complete by then.
Mists of Pandaria Beta: Transferring wealth between servers with battle pets?
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Gold Capped, in which Basil "Euripides" Berntsen and Fox Van Allen aim to show you how to make money on the Auction House. Check out Basil's re-reboot of Call To Auction, and email Basil with your questions, comments, or hate mail! Note: This article is about the Mists of Pandaria Beta. There is no guarantee that this functionality will exist in the live version of MoP. The new pet battle system in Mists of Pandaria is going to be one of the most exciting new features for a lot of people; however, a potentially unintended consequence of the way it's currently implemented is that by selling pets on one realm that you bought on another realm, you will be able to transfer wealth between servers or factions. Orkchop wrote me an email that got me investigating: All these pets are bound to your account, across all servers, across both factions, and can be sold. You can log on to your level 90 main, buy some pets, learn them, then log on to another server, create a level 1 and go sell those pets at auction. All without touching the neutral auction house and its fees.
Team ICO moving to main Sony offices in Japan
Studio head Fumito Ueda of Team ICO (the folks behind the much-awaited PS3 title The Last Guardian) tweeted that the developer is moving offices in Japan this week, into Sony Computer Entertainment's main building in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo. Ueda said that the move was part of a "major reformation of our development environment," designed to set up Team ICO for even bigger and better things in the future. Here's hoping the move goes well. Just be sure, guys, that the first box you open says The Last Guardian on it, so you can get that title out and into our hands. That box that says "Failed Colossus Ideas?" That one you can leave taped up for the time being.
Nokia Q&A reveals more MeeGo details and tablet plans -- says Android 'risk of commodification was very high'
The Steve show just ended with both Elop and Ballmer hosting a very informative media Q&A following the reveal of Nokia's plan to use Windows Phone 7 as its "primary smartphone platform." Here are the highlights: No specific announcement for when we'll see the first Nokia Windows Phone. Ballmer mentioned that the engineering teams have spent a lot of time together already. Elop also confirmed that Nokia is a Finnish company and always will be -- they will not be moving to Silicon Valley or anywhere else. Ballmer said that the partnership is "not exclusive" but some things that Microsoft is doing with Nokia are "unique" allowing Nokia to differentiate itself in the market. Elop added that it's important for the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem to thrive, which means that multiple vendors must succeed. Elop didn't believe that Nokia could create a new ecosystem around MeeGo fast enough. Nokia will "substantially reduce" R&D expenditures while increasing R&D productivity moving forward. Nokia did talk with Google about adopting Android but decided that it "would have difficulty differentiating within that ecosystem" and the "commoditization risk was very high -- prices, profits, everything being pushed down, value being moved out to Google which was concerning to us." Microsoft presented the best option for Nokia to resume the fight in the high end smartphone segment. Elop clarified that MeeGo will ship this year but "not as part of another broad smarpthone platform strategy, but as an opportunity to learn." Something that sounds very similar to position Nokia took with its so-called "experimental" Maemo-based N900 last year. After the first (and apparently, only) MeeGo device ships this year, the MeeGo team will then "change their focus into an exploration of future platforms, future devices, future user experiences." Trying to determine the "next disruption" in smartphones. Responding to "hope for a broad MeeGo-based ecosystem," Elop said that Nokia simply wasn't moving fast enough to effectively win and compete against Apple and Google. Windows Phone makes it a "three-horse race," something that Elop says is pleasing to the carriers he's been speaking with. Nokia has different options for its tablet strategy including using something from Microsoft or something that Nokia has developed internally.
November brings updates to Final Fantasy XIV's travel and questing
The Final Fantasy series as a whole has been marked by a surfeit of crystals, and Final Fantasy XIV's Aetheryte is heir to the tradition. Floating just above the ground, these crystals serve as both a nexus of quests and a point of transportation. Both of these functions are getting a distinct boost with the pending November version update set for the 24th. Teleportation costs are being reduced for both the major cities and three player-selected "favorite" camps, allowing players to zap from place to place faster. Return costs are also being reduced to 1 anima, allowing players who are either lost or in a dangerous region a quick option to get to safety. Meanwhile, levequest functionality at crystals is being improved, with players able to scale the difficulty of a given levequest downward once the quest has been started. This goes hand-in-hand with adjustments to the strength of enemies found in guildleves and improvements to the rewards of leve-linking, giving players more incentive to try to push themselves to the limits of what they can accomplish. The changes should be welcome boons to Final Fantasy XIV players, allowing easier movement and questing under all circumstances.
Naughty Dogs getting new home
Making a critically acclaimed title (that also sold its fair share of units) is one of the best ways to upgrade your digs as a game development studio. Naughty Dog is enjoying just such a reward right now, as the company's blog recently announced a move to a "killer new studio," presumably expanding after the continuing success of last year's Uncharted 2. ND co-prez Evan Wells said the March 1 move "positions Naughty Dog perfectly to adapt to the demands of developing PlayStation games that continue to raise the bar for our industry for the next decade and beyond ," while main community man Arne Meyer notes, "significant upgrades to help us keep developing cutting-edge, award-winning games" are a big part of the equation. In addition to the neat image you see above, the Dogs have uploaded a photo set of the new space to Flickr, with a promise to keep fans updated via the ND blog. Good luck with the move, folks!
CrazyKinux answers EVE Online questions for WoW players
If you're a World of Warcraft player looking for something completely different, head over to CrazyKinux's blog and read what he has to say to WoW players looking to make the move to the alien beast that is EVE Online. It reads a bit like one of those articles designed to ease PC users into a transition to Apple's Mac computers.EVE blogger, Drone Bay podcast co-host, and former Massively contributor CrazyKinux covers many of the bases, noting many of the strongest differences (skill-based instead of level-based character advancement, everyone is on one server instead of scattered between hundreds of small servers, etcetera). He also links to several articles written by him and others that are helpful to newbies.It's a fantastic post -- a perfect starting point for anyone considering the switch, or even for folks just curious about what EVE is all about. CrazyKinux ends on a pretty funny quote, too: "EVE is like a sandbox with land mines. Deal with it." But don't let that scare you. Really. We named it our #1 Sci-Fi MMO a while back; admittedly that's not saying much, but it ought to count for something, right?
"Paper" Mario comes to life in art project
Dude. Remember that time we went to Tim's house and got like TOTALLY baked off his special stash and we busted out the NES and we thought the controller was, like, making the TV move around the room? Do you? Man, that thing was REAL. I like totally saw it on the internet man!Man, I'm telling you I'm SO not high right now. This thing was REAL. It was, like, on this motorized track or something, so when you pushed the buttons on the d-pad the whole TV, like, slid down this track. But there was this Mario level in the background, so it was like the paper Mario cutout on the TV was REALLY moving through the level. Like REALLY. Dude, you could even make Mario jump and hit motorized boxes with mushrooms and stuff. By the way, Tim scored some awesome mushrooms this weekend. You got to try them, man.Man, don't even try to tell me I'm imagining this thing. I've got the video right here below the break. You watch it while I go scrounge up some Cheetos, man. I've got some serious munchies.[Via Engadget]
Games Convention can't leave Leipzig until 2009 and probably won't
A little more information is coming out about the rumor from early July that the Leipzig Games Convention may be moving in 2008. According to GI.biz, it couldn't even leave until 2009 anyway and would require the permission of the event's organizers -- the Leipziger Messe. The brand is owned by Leipziger Messe, so a change in location or design would require the permission of the organization.According to a representative from Leipziger Messe, the rumor actually got started because their contract for the convention center expires in '08. They say that contracts are negotiated in terms of years, so they just have to renegotiate their contract for the grounds past '08. Unless there's something that the Leipziger Messe is hiding, it looks like they plan to stay in Leipzig with the Games Convention for years to come -- not like it hasn't been successful.
