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Here are the App Store's 10 biggest money makers of 2013
Apple's tagline for the App Store has long been "there's an app for that," emphasizing the wide array of app categories available. But when it comes to spending money on the iPhone or iPad, Distimo's 2013 Year in Review report shows that games are continuing their utter App Store dominance. Of the 10 top grossing apps in the marketplace for 2013, all 10 of them are games. If you've spent any time on the App Store this year, you'll likely be able to guess at least a few of the games on the list: Clash of Clans Candy Crush Saga Hay Day Puzzle & Dragons The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North Minecraft - Pocket Edition Modern War The Simpsons: Tapped Out Big Fish Casino It's also worth noting that nine out of the 10 top grossing apps are also free-to-play, with Minecraft being the singular exception. This isn't particularly surprising, considering that the vast majority of new games on the App Store are embracing the in-app purchase model with the fiery passion of a thousand stars.
Report: 'Threshold' updates to unify Windows, Xbox One platforms
Microsoft is planning to make strides toward one ecosystem for all its platforms with "Threshold," the codename for a series of individual platform updates that will more closely unite Windows Phone, Windows PC and Xbox One. According to a report on ZDNet, "Threshold" will include updates to all three platforms that will "advance them in a way to share even more common elements," with the goal being for all platforms to ultimately share one storefront. Microsoft is also working to bring parity to developer tools across all three platforms, in the hopes of attracting more multi-platform applications. The codename "Threshold," while likely chosen due to the initiative's goal of removing the boundaries between Microsoft platforms, also has a coincidental link to the Halo universe. It's the name of the planet you'll see in the distance beyond the original ring-world in Halo: Combat Evolved.
Report: Mario and Luigi: Dream Team 3DS XL bundle incoming
Nintendo is preparing a new 3DS XL bundle, including a pre-installed copy of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and a branded handheld, according to the leaked Target circular posted by GameTrailers. The $199.99 bundle will go on sale starting December 1. The game's story centers around yet another Peachnapping and two alternate realities: the lucid world and another inside of Luigi's dreams. The brothers Mario work together across these two worlds in order to save Peach and an indigenous race of sleepy pillow-like creatures. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team has sold over one million copies since its debut in August. In our review, we said Mario & Luigi: Dream Team "does a lot of things right, and is a satisfying detour for a franchise that is risking too much predictability in its main guise."
Report: LEGO The Hobbit slated for 2014 release
The LEGO games series may build up a tribute to The Hobbit in 2014, according to alleged promotional materials posted by Brickset forum member sidersdd. The images suggest the adaption will involve series developer TT Games and will reach the Xbox 360, 3DS, Wii U, PC and PlayStation devices. The materials also include a link to LEGO's Hobbit website, but as of this time of writing, there is no announcement on the page that correlates with the posted materials.
Report: Gamestop circular shows Zelda 3DS coming stateside
It's that time of year again, when caveman artifacts paper advertisements are once again relevant to our hyper-connected little corner of the world. Gamestop's Black Friday circular has purportedly leaked, containing within its pages confirmation that Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds-themed 3DS XL bundle will be available in the U.S for $219.99. Considering that the bundle (originally announced only for Europe) is headed to Australia exclusively through EB Games, we see no reason why it shouldn't/couldn't make it here in time for the annual post-Thanksgiving carnival of souls. We've reached out to Nintendo for official confirmation and will update with any new information we can scrounge up.
Report: Pokemon X/Y glitch affecting Lumiose City saves
Some players have encountered a game-breaking bug in their copies of Pokemon X/Y. At least two videos of have hit YouTube already and the cause seems to be loading a file where the player has saved in Lumiose City. The game locks up when loading the file, so if you're currently playing you may want to avoid saving within Lumiose City. Lumiose City is the main metropolis of the Kalos region in Pokemon X/Y. In the center of the city stands the Prism Tower, which serves as its symbol and prime example the city's design was heavily inspired by Paris, France. We've contacted Nintendo to confirm the company is aware of the situation and working on a fix. We'll be sure to update this post with Nintendo's response when we get it.
Report: Enhanced Final Fantasy 6 coming to iOS, Android
An updated version of Final Fantasy VI will make its mobile debut on iOS and Android this year, according to Square Enix producer Takashi Tokita. "The battle systems have been altered for the other [mobile remakes] for Final Fantasy and VI will be the same," Tokita tells Kotaku. For instance grinding was an issue and people had to spend a lot of time leveling up. Now on the mobile devices the battle systems have been adjusted so you don't have to fight as much and can enjoy the game for what it is." Tokita says the graphics will get a touch-up for the mobile release. Final Fantasy VI, which was originally launched in 1994 as Final Fantasy III in North America, takes place within a steampunk world that changes based on player choice. No pricing was mentioned for Final Fantasy VI on mobile but, if previous Square Enix games are any indication, it'll fetch a tidy sum of Gil.
Interbrand: Apple now most valuable brand, worth estimated at $98.3 billion
Coca-Cola's 13-year tenure as "Best Global Brand" is over, however the new leader shouldn't really surprise you. Apple knocked Penelope Cruz's favorite soft drink from the number one spot on Interbrands' annual valuation report, but after posting massive revenues time and again -- including a company-record $54.5 billion in January -- this isn't too startling. Cook and friends started their ascent at the eighth spot in 2011, and climbed to second place in 2012 before stealing the top prize in the latest list. Interbrand pegs Cupertino's brand valuation at $98.3 billion, which isn't exactly pocket change. Don't cry for the Sprite-maker though, it's still on the podium according to The New York Times, but behind another tech-powerhouse: Google.
Report: Day of the Tentacle remake '80 percent' done before LucasArts shutdown
A remastered Day of the Tentacle seems doomed to lie at the bottom of the ocean, despite being "80% done," according to a Kotaku source. A source reportedly "close to the project" told Kotaku that Day of the Tentacle was being remade with updated art and cutscenes, much like when its 90s adventure game sibling The Secret of Monkey Island got the same treatment in 2009. Although Kotaku's source referred to the Day of the Tentacle remaster as a "dream project" for many employees, the game was never technically greenlit, meaning even if it had been 100% completed, even if Disney hadn't shut down LucasArts, there's no guarantee it would have been released. And thus, the LucasArts Sadness Train keeps on rolling. Choo choo-awww.
NPD: 'Almost' as many kids gaming on mobiles as consoles, computers
Information broker The NPD Group's "Kids and Gaming 2013" report found that children aged 12 to 17 are spending seven hours per week on mobile gaming, up from five hours per week in 2011. The report studied the gaming habits of children aged 2 to 17. While more children still use computers and consoles for gaming, the report notes there are now "almost" as many kids playing on mobile devices as there are on the more prominent platforms. Liam Callahan, an industry analyst with The NPD Group, said in the report that "kids are engaged as less expensive tablets and an increasing amount of hand-me-down phones create greater accessibility to these platforms than before." The report's findings were gathered online from a sample of female adults, aged 21 to 60, that are part of NPD's online panel and house children between the age of 2 to 17. The report is based off the answers of 3,842 children and, in the case of younger children, answers provided by adults on their behalf. [Image credit: Flickr user 'Nearsoft']
Report: Prey 2 reboot in development at Arkane Austin
The Austin, TX branch of Dishonored developer Arkane Studios has begun pre-production on a reboot of Prey 2, according to a Kotaku report citing supposedly leaked internal emails written by Arkane Studios' creative director, Raphael Colantonio. "Austin has officially been green lit for its own project," one of the emails reads. "Doing a new IP was not a possibility because it's adding risk to the challenge of growth, so after going back and forth with Todd, Harvey, Ricardo, we decided that Prey 2 presented an interesting opportunity if we could reboot it. Zenimax accepted our pitch which was 'the spiritual successor to System Shock 3.'" According to the report, this project is a new attempt at developing Prey 2, completely unrelated to the troubled efforts underway at Human Head Studios. Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines had previously said that Human Head's work on the game was "not up to our quality standards." We've contacted Arkane for comment. [Image: Human Head Studios' Prey 2]
Microsoft reportedly funding Blake's 7 remake for Xbox Live TV content push
According to the Financial Times, Britain's other blockbuster sci-fi series may finally be remade, thanks to Microsoft's growing interest in television. Blake's 7, the Terry Nation-created show about a band of renegades fighting for survival, is believed to be part of Xbox Live's push for original and exclusive TV content to rival both traditional media and services like Netflix. Persons familiar with the matter have claimed that after cable channel SyFy withdrew its funding, Steve Ballmer and former CBS Chief Nancy Tellem opened up Microsoft's secret checkbook. Naturally, none of the parties are willing to confirm the deal, but that won't stop us humming the classic series' theme for the rest of the day.
Report: PS4 reserves 3.5GB of RAM for the OS
Nearly half of the PlayStation 4's onboard RAM is reserved for the console's operating system, according to a report from the hardware sleuths at Digital Foundry. Sony documents supposedly reveal that 3.5 gigs of RAM are dedicated to functions of the PS4's streaming-friendly OS, leaving 4.5 gigs for video games to use exclusively. "Sources close to Sony," however, indicate that it may be possible for developers to requisition up to one additional gig of space, provided the operating system can spare it at the time. This may also be a luxury most easily used by first-party developers during the early life of the console. This places the PlayStation 4's off-limits memory allotment within shouting distance of the Xbox One's, which is said to be three gigabytes. Both consoles ship with eight gigs in total, though the type of RAM installed in each console does vary: faster GDDR5 in the PS4, and DDR3 in the Xbox One. For comparison, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 each have 512 megs of RAM, because they were hewn from driftwood by cave people in the days before time.
White House telecom advisor brings together privacy code of conduct for apps
The White House's main telecom adviser, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), has issued a first draft of a mobile apps code of contact, with the goal of giving consumers more control of their privacy. It facilitated its creation over several years by stakeholders like privacy advocates, app developers and gatekeepers like Apple, Google and Blackberry. If adopted, publishers will be required to provide "short form notices" telling consumers whether or not their data is being collected and how it's being used. Such data would include biometrics, browser history, phone or SMS logs, contact info, financial data, health, medical or therapy info, user files and location data. The document was backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, though it wasn't crazy about the amount of time the process took, saying that "comprehensive privacy legislation" was also needed. It's worth noting that major app store operators already agreed recently to put new privacy policy standards in place that conform with California's Online Privacy Protection Act. There's also the irony of the US government pushing for more consumer privacy, while perhaps being the largest abuser via PRISM. Dig into the source for the full read.
ARM sees more double-digit growth in Q2 2013, takes big hit from patent litigation
This UK chip designer is accustomed to steep growth in demand for its Cortex mobile processors, and although we've seen hints that it faces new challenges ahead, for now it's mostly all gravy. Revenue in Q2 2013 soared 26 percent year-over-year to £171.2 million ($264.3 million), while profit before tax was up 30 percent £86.6 million (in "normalised" terms). Mobile devices remain the largest market for the company, but embedded devices (including wearables, Raspberry Pi and printers) is the fastest growing segment, expanding by 25 percent in the last year. The future continues to look rosy for ARM, with new Samsung Exynos 5 chipsets arriving based on ARM's Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A7 cores in big.LITTLE configurations. The only hint of negativity in the earnings report was a huge expense of £41.8 million incurred by a patent attack from an unnamed "third party", which was probably MIPS (see More Coverage), and which contributed to a much lower IFRS profit of £15 million -- although this represents ARM's contribution to a "full and final settlement," which presumably means it's a one-off thing.
Report finds lack of mobile contract choice in the US, better value in Australia
This may come as a shock to our Australian readers, who are so used to getting ripped off, but who are we to argue with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development? In a study of smartphone contracts across 12 countries, it found that Australia consistently offered the best value, whereas the US and Canada penalized low-usage customers and offered just average value to the rest. Admittedly, the analysis had to set some severe parameters in order to benchmark across so many different markets and pricing models, including focusing on two handsets (the 16GB iPhone 4S and Galaxy S II) and a single month of data (February 2012, which was before the anti-subsidy trend began in the US). In any case, bear all that in mind as you read on for a summary of the report's main conclusions.
FAA planning to let you use your gadgets in flight
I know those flight attendants are just doing their job, but I've always resented being made to "turn off" my iPhone and iPad during pre-flight announcements. Ever since Mythbusters disproved it, I've never believed that there was a problem between my iPad's wireless connection and the airplane's signaling (especially in Airplane Mode, which is what it's for, right?), and I've always secretly suspected that turning things off was just a ploy to make me rewatch those safety instructions yet again. Now, finally, it looks like the FAA is ready to relax those rules, after another report saying that there are no issues between consumer wireless devices, and airplane tools. The regulations themselves date back to the 1960s, when wireless devices were indeed very different, and it's about time these rules were laid to rest. Note, however, that the report doesn't mention actual phone calls -- this change, if made, would only be about turning devices on and off, not full wireless interaction. Certainly, there are good reasons to keep flight passengers quiet and paying attention during pre-flight announcements, and if that's what this is all about, then they should say that. But the "wireless interference" story has always been bunk, and hopefully, if this report is finalized, we should see the FAA turn the rule around officially in a few months. [via @martinvars]
Zarhym explains Blizzard's player monitoring systems
Senior Community Rep Zarhym has taken to the forums to wax lyrical about the ways Blizzard monitors player behavior in WoW. He's responding specifically to player concerns about the reporting system, and how it doesn't allow a specific option to report griefers who do things like start an encounter in the Raid Finder and then leave. The OP asserts that this indicates that Blizzard just doesn't care about this sort of behavior. Zarhym steps in to clarify that, firstly, Blizzard definitely cares about that sort of action. They care so much, in fact, that since Wrath of the Lich King, when the Dungeon Finder first appeared, Blizzard has had, and augmented, a system to monitor exactly that sort of behavior. Of course, as with any system designed to automatically punish players, which could potentially be gamed, they can't go into great detail about the workings of the system itself. But what it essentially does is monitor vote-kicks initiated, vote-kicks received, early departures and the like, and penalizes the player with more onerous deserter debuffs and such. Hit the break for Zarhym's post in full.
May NPD: 3DS steals top console spot
The Nintendo 3DS finally edged out the Xbox 360 in May 2013 as the best selling console across hardware and portables, according to the NPD's monthly report on the retail sector. In what the NPD claims was a slow month overall, the 3DS landed three different games on the top 10 (including Donkey Kong Country Returns at number three, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon at number five, and Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes at number 10), and saw a sixty percent growth in software sales overall since last May. 3DS hardware sales were only even year-over-year, but that was enough to finally supplant the Xbox 360 as the top-selling platform. The other consoles didn't fare quite so well, with Injustice: Gods Among Us keeping the top spot for video game sales. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 jumped back up into the number two spot, and Battlefield 3 reappeared at number nine. Metro: Last Light had a relatively successful showing in the number six spot, while Trion's Defiance MMO fell right off the list, after starting off at number five in April. Accessories saw a six-percent drop to $115.3 million, according to the NPD, with most of that money coming from Skylanders.
The Drama Mamas guide to coping with trolling and profanity
It's the last straw: After a long day toiling in the salt mines, you come home to settle in for some stress-relieving World of Warcraft, only to find yourself transported back to The Barrens –- not only the latest patch's Battlefield Barrens, but the trollish Barrens-style general chat you've come to loathe. Your chat box is scrolling ceaselessly with "Douchebag this!" and "$%^& that!" and you can see that any hope of a restful evening is slipping inexorably beyond your reach. What's a poor profanity-pelted player to do?
