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Nickelodeon and friends unveil more Npower gizmos
We've never been big fans of giving your tween some Nickelodeon-ized gizmo when you can simply hand down your current gear and use it for an excuse to upgrade, but apparently not everyone sees it that way. Nickelodeon, Viacom and Imation have jointly announced the latest line of kid-friendly Npower gizmos, which includes a digital voice recorder, a digicam and a webcam based on the "breakout hit" iCarly. Additionally, the outfit is churning out SpongeBob SquarePants-themed speakers, boomboxes, MP3 players and digiframes, and there's even a few Dora the Explorer toys thrown in for good measure. All the (inflated) prices and shipping details are down there in the read link -- we won't bore the uninterested any longer by fleshing it out here.[Via Electronista]
Palladia / MHD European launch slated for September
Europeans eagerly awaiting more high definition concerts (updated weekly, still) rejoice, as MTV is launching a European HD channel next month. Although it goes unnamed, based on the content mentioned (concerts, special music events and festivals) and the relaunch of Palladia (the station formerly known as MHD) happening at the same time we've been able to reach the surprising and stunning realization that they are pretty much one and the same. In addition to being underwhelmed by an incredibly limited amount of HD content in rotation at any given time, our HDTV-equipped friends in German speaking markets can look forward to Nick programs on the weekend. D-d-d-dora, Dora.
Nickelodeon creates new divisions for online worlds
$100,000,000 dollars buys you 5,000 online games and virtual worlds -- if you're Nickelodeon. The famous kids' cable channel has spent two years bringing these games onlines, and has plans for 1,600 more online games set in such properties as Spongebob Squarepants, iCarly, and Carrie the Caregiver. Current virtual words for Spongebob, NeoPets and a new property called, enigmatically, Monkey World, are being developed by the newly renamed Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group Virtual World Studios, previously known as NeoStudios. The new division is being helmed by current NeoPets senior VP and general manager, Kyra Reppen.$20,000 per online game. Not yet known is how many of those 6,600 games are re-skinned clones of Minesweeper and Tetris.
New release dates for THQ games including Lock's Quest
Gamefly's DS listings have been updated with a bunch of tentative release dates. A bunch of them are THQ games, leading us to believe that the rental service received some kind of communication from the publisher -- which makes the dates more believable. Lock's Quest, the new strategy/action/tower-defense game from Drawn to Life developers 5th Cell, is listed for September 17. The Nickelodeon stuff has dates too, if you're interested (Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition September 24, Naked Brothers Band October 15, Tak Mojo Mistake, SpongeBob: Globs of Doom, Back to the Barnyard: Cowlympics all October 22). Our Gamefly search has also revealed that THQ has picked up Mikoishi Studios' Drop Cast (website here) for U.S. release. According to the listing, it'll be out October 14. %Gallery-19901%
THQ announces a bunch of Nickelodeon stuff, for good reason
THQ has announced that their longtime Nickelodeon licensing agreement has resulted in $1 billion in sales and 50 million games sold. That goes a long way towards explaining why they think it's a good idea to release a game based on The Naked Brothers Band (though we would have preferred the Naked Brothers' producers' other show).The press release went on to announce 5 more Nickelodeon-based projects. Many of the games are Wii/PS2/DS multiplatform, but Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants and Back at the Barnyard: Slop Bucket Games are DS-exclusive, and the DS is getting a different Tak game from the other platforms. Score. The new announcements include: The Naked Brothers Band: The Videogame Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Tak Mojo Mistake SpongeBob SquarePants featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom Avatar - The Last Airbender: Into the Inferno
THQ's Nickelodeon games surpass $1 billion in sales
Hell, we imagine, might be a place where you're forced to plug The Naked Brothers Band art assets into the Random Kids Game Generator® year after year in the labyrinthine basement of some corporate complex, right until the bros age into drug-riddled obscurity and it's onto the next new thing to become a licensed game. The real burn comes after you learn that your pitiful existence is paying for the expensive habits of the suits, some 50 floors above you where fabled glass walls look out onto majestic horizons. Hell, it would seem, is THQ Inc.The publisher responsible for all that is Nickelodeon in the industry has confirmed that success makes for a better headline than hard-earned respect. THQ's long-term licensing agreement with Nickelodeon has paid off -- to the tune of $1 billion and growing! With no shortage of kids who eat, sleep, and pray for Nickelodeon, THQ has sold more than 50 million games of this stuff. And there's no end in sight.
Drawn to Life: SpongeBob Video Pants
It's a credit to the original Drawn to Life's concept and quality that we're still interested in the follow-up despite 5th Cell's absence and its attached license -- SpongeBob SquarePants. IGN previewed the customizable platformer, and while it doesn't revolutionize the draw-your-adventure formula, it's a "polished, Nickelodeon-ized" take on it. We've never played any games from Alton, the developer taking the reins from 5th Cell, so we'll have to try Drawn to Life: SpongeBob SquarePants Edition ourselves before developing an opinion with any firmness to it. Word has it, a two-player versus mode will be included, so look forward to pitting grotesquely phallic avatars against crude renditions of cartoon characters -- Donatello, Heathcliff, skies the limit!See also: DS Fanboy Review: Drawn to Life
Virtual Worlds 2008 overview
The 2008 Virtual Worlds conference has come and gone, and the aftermath is gracing news sites all over the web. In a particularly in-depth article at Virtual World News, we get a first hand account of what went on. It's a no-brainer that the majority of business attendees focused on how to make money in virtual worlds. The Wall Street Journal calls this "virtual business 2.0", which is basically a few buzz words thrown together in an attempt to look hip and cool. We're certainly not saying that business has no place in a VW, but it can become a scary thought, ultimately.Another prominent avenue explored at this event is that of children's virtual worlds, which are becoming increasingly popular. Neopets, Nickelodeon, Barbie and Dinokids were all on-hand to make sure their piece of the pie was well-represented.
Gaming with Nickelodeon fame
Today, at 5:00PM eastern (2:00PM pacific), Xbox Live Game with Fame gets a healthy coat of orange paint going Nickelodeon with two Nick stars gaming it up with fans. Roxy Hunter's own Aria Wallace and Zoey 101's Victoria Justice will be on Xbox Live playing Guitar Hero III and DDR: Universe 2 under the gamertags NickGWF1 and NickGWF2. So gather the kids, gather the adults, shoot a few friend requests and show those Nickelodeon stars how brutal Xbox Live can really be. Do us proud.
Nickelodeon's 1600 games and what it means for MMOs
Word's been floating around the gaming news space that Nickelodeon has put up a gigantic order for online games in their content space: they want to add 1,600 titles to their library, including some created by users. Obviously not all of those are MMOs (if you've ever spent any time around a kid in a browser, you'll have seen all the crazy flash games there are out there for them), but Nickelodeon's stable does include Neopets and Nicktropolis, both of which are super-casual virtual worlds.Basically, online gaming for the youngster set is huge, and only growing bigger. And while what they're playing now isn't too exciting (most of it is all clones of each other, with not much more social interaction than chatting between minigames), today's AddictingGames.com players are the MMO players of tomorrow.Think 10 million players is a big number for WoW to hit? That's nothing compared to the flood of young online gamers coming up right now. To them, there's no difference between online or offline games -- games are online and social, and Nickelodeon's big order only means there are going to be more and more of them.
Nickelodeon to bulk up online game library
MTV-owned Nickelodeon recently announced plans to add a whopping 1,600 Flash games to its network of web sites. That might sound like a lot, until you consider that the children's network already controls roughly 5,000 web games that reach over 20 million users every month.Sure, a good proportion of those games are probably Space Invaders clones found at the acquisition AddictingGames.com. But the Nick portfolio also includes some deep, popular virtual worlds like Neopets and Nicktropolis, and the company has announced they'll be creating three more kid-focused, web-based MMOs in the future. When exactly did the first kids network become the first kids gaming network?
THQ earns more sales, less profits, lots of licenses
For its third fiscal quarter through the holiday season, publisher THQ saw their sales boost to $509.6 million but profits down to $15.5 million (via Gamasutra). Comparatively, last year they had $475.7 million in sales (a 7% raise) and $62.1 million in profit (a 75% drop). THQ also had $27 million in non-cash charges due to the cancellations of Juiced and Stuntman.Big sellers include THQ's licenses. Life to date sales from Nickelodeon projects total $1 billion, and WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 enjoyed a whopping five million in unit sales -- behold the power of licensing.
Disney investing a cool $100M in virtual worlds
Onling gaming sites Club Penguin and Webkinz have apparently been doing so well that Disney has decided to invest in a deluge of cute, adorable virtual worlds. They plan on creating up to ten (yeah that's right, we said ten) virtual worlds that will tie into different properties. We already know about the as-of-yet unnamed Cars game Disney is making, that's just the first of many. The brand new virtual world is Pixie's Hollow and this one is based on Tinker Bell. The game is being developed with creative input by the same people responsible for Disney's theme park rides. The game is scheduled for debut this summer, just in time to help build buzz for the upcoming Tinker Bell feature film in the fall. Considering that Disney is a $35.5 billion dollar company, these virtual worlds are definitely a small investment overall at $5 to $10 million each; at least in comparison to a big-budget MMO.All in all, it would seem that Disney is rather serious about this method of entertainment and rightfully so. With plans to make ten games, an easy prediction is that we'll see plenty of new releases over the coming years. What isn't an easy prediction is guessing just how well this endeavor of theirs will work. Disney is only the latest company to join the likes of Mattel, Nickelodeon and Lego -- just to name a few -- looking for some of that pie. It should be interesting to see how this market expands over the next couple of years, now that it's starting to get crowded.[Via Virtual Worlds News]
Microsoft touts family focus with cartoon downloads
Think Nintendo has a stranglehold on the family-friendly console maker moniker? Microsoft would like you to think again. A new press release from the Xbox 360 maker touts the availability today of 100 downloadable cartoons from Warner Bros. and Nickelodeon properties on the Video Marketplace, as well as the impending launch of Shrek and Spongebob-licensed games for Xbox Live Arcade. Add in the recent branding of the new Xbox 360 Arcade as "the console for families" and a Microsoft-sponsored "family fun day" event in Times Square's Toys "R" Us today and you have a major push into the Big N's family-oriented turf.This isn't the first time Microsoft has tried to extend its reach past the hardcore Halo fans, but in the past innovative family titles like Viva Pinata have had trouble making inroads against big-name hardcore games like Gears of War. Will this latest push broaden Microsoft's image or is the 360 destined to be known primarily (and inaccurately) as a first-person shooter system. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
New family content headed to XBLA and XBLM
In an effort to bring in the youth and parent markets, Microsoft just announced plans for releasing brand new content from Nickelodeon and Warner Bros. to the Xbox Live Marketplace as well as announcing two new children's based XBLA games.Starting today, you'll be able to get 50+ episodes of Warner Bros'. "Looney Tunes" via the (US only) Video Marketplace. The episodes included feature the standard "Looney Tunes" greatness and a few episodes are even available in Spanish (double w00t!). Nickelodeon made the announcement that, starting today, exclusive content from their show "The Backyardigans" and episodes of "Blue's Clues" and "iCarly" will be available for purchase off the Video Marketplace. Finally, two new XBLA games were also revealed today both capitalizing on the popularity of children's animated figures. SHREK-N-ROLL and SpongeBob SquarePants: Underpants Slam will hit the Arcade soon'ish.Oh, and don't worry about us fanboys. We will not be blowing all our cash on television episode downloads this week, because we so outgrew our obsession with "Blue's Clues" like ... totally months ago. Seriously, we don't like that adorable and laughable blue dog at all. Really ...
Xbox Live Marketplace adding HD Looney Tunes episodes
We'll admit it, we had an idea Microsoft's just-announced Xbox 360 Arcade was coming. What we didn't expect was that it would be accompanied by a flood of family-friendly content headed to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. Along with standard-def content from Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. will make 50 high definition episodes of Looney Tunes available for download. Of course, owners of the new Arcade unit won't be able to download the shows without a HDD, but why sweat the details (like pricing, which wasn't mentioned)? The new content hits "starting today", but doesn't appear to be up just yet, so keep an eye out for Acme-brand items landing on your HDTV.
Nickelodeon's three new DMPs
It's not all just questionably-useful tween gear for Nickelodeon today -- the company is also releasing a line of DMPs that would be pretty tempting if they weren't festooned with giant pictures of The Naked Brothers Band and SpongeBob. The $40 SpongeBob player holds 500 MP3s and goes for 10 hours on the built-in rechargeable battery, while the $50 Fission Digital Music Player comes in SpongeBob and Naked Brothers varieties and features a motion-sensitive remix feature that allows you to tweak your tunes by shaking the player. The cream of the crop, though, is the $100 Fusion Digital Media Player (yeah, no hurried parents are ever going to confuse those names), which rocks a pretty nice QVGA screen with what appears to be fairly smooth video playback, 1GB of internal storage with SD expansion, and a selection of preloaded and downloadable games. Not bad -- except for the terrible, terrible shame. Check 'em all out -- including some hands-on shots -- in the gallery.%Gallery-7834%
Nickelodeon unveils an array of tween-centric devices
DigitalLife is all about the tweens today, and Nickelodeon isn't about to be left out in the cold -- the venerable network has paired up with Imation to release an array of brightly-colored gear for the budding young geek. In addition to a line of pretty-decent DAPs, it's a pretty broad array of stuff you'd be mortified to own if you're not 7, including Dora / Diego and SpongeBob-branded cameras in resolutions from VGA to 3.0 megapixels, a Dora the Explorer portable CD player, a SpongeBob 15-inch LCD TV and progressive-scan DVD player, and a whack-SpongeBob-to-snooze alarm clock. The best of the bunch appears to be the $100 7-inch picture frame, however, which has a pretty decent-looking screen. Check it all out -- along with some hands-on shots -- in the gallery.%Gallery-7833%
Nickelodeon and Imation unleash a slew of kid-centric technology
Want to get the kiddies indoctrinated into the fast-paced, high-pressure world of early-adopterism, but you're not quite sure how to do it? Let Nickelodeon (and partner Imation) help you out. The kids' network has just announced a line of new electro-toys aimed at your tots and tweeners, sure to elicit cries of excitement accompanied by the sound of money sliding out of your wallet. Here's a rundown of the extensive list of digital products the two companies will be bringing your way: Flash Jr. digital camera (available in both Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! models), $59.99 SpongeBob Squarepants Flash Micro Digital Camera, with USB connectivity, $21.99 SpongeBob Squarepants VGA digital camera, auto-flash, 1.1-inch color LCD, 8MB, $31.99 SpongeBob Squarepants 1.3-megapixel digital camera, auto-flash, 1.1-inch color LCD, 32MB, $49.99 SpongeBob Squarepants Flash Mega 3.0-megapixel digital camera, auto-flash, 1.5-inch color LCD, 32MB, $79.99 Invision 7-inch Digital Photo Frame (Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go! models available), $99.99 SpongeBob SquarePants Digital Music Player, stores up to 500 MP3s and WMAs, 10 hours of playback on a charge, $39.99 Fission Digital Music Player, $49.99 Fission Digital Media Player, does video, audio, and photos, plus has on-board games, $99.99 SpongeBob Squarepants 15-inch, LCD TV, remote, $299.99 SpongeBob Squarepants progressive scan DVD player, MP3 decoder, remote, $59.99 There you have it folks, the next pile of money you'll be blowing on junky electronics your children will outgrow or break in a few weeks. Life is good, ain't it?
MTV spending $500 million on games in next two years
MTV intends to spend over the next two years $500 million dollars in the video game industry. OK, seriously, maybe seeing the full line of digits will have more impact: $500,000,000. Eight zeros, a half billion dollars. This is big news and goes way beyond anything having to do with MTV's potential mega-hit Rock Band."We're putting well over $500 million behind building our games business across all of the brands in our portfolio ... I'd like to see more game applications on some of our current big brands across the music group," MTV chairman Judy McGrath said. It's still not absolutely clear if this money includes the $100 million already announced for MTV Network's Nickelodeon. This continues MTV's march across the industry having already acquired major properties like GameTrailers and Harmonix. No announcements yet where this money is going, but it's going to be very interesting to see MTV flex its financial muscle in the industry.
