Epic Games CEO and founder Tim Sweeney expressed his opinion on the flagging state of the PC gaming industry. In an interview conducted by TG Daily, he pointed out the different problems the PC marke t is facing as well as some possible solutions the industry can take if it wants to make some headway against its rivals. You can check out the rest of the interview by reading our full article, accessible through the "read more" link below.

Now that it's a cool thing to have the most decorated MySpace account in the neighborhood, and playing a high-level World of Warcraft character makes you popular with the ladies, it is obvious that people love virtual communities. Even video game consoles nowadays want to conquer the online scene, but Habbo Hotel lead designer Sulka Haro doesn't think the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 will make it big as far as online socializing goes.

Haro told Games Industry in an interview, "PlayStation 3, Xbox 360...those are for people who are seriously into gaming." Given that, he believes something like Habbo Hotel won't receive success on consoles. One big problem, according to Haro, is the ability to type messages which becomes difficult on game controllers. He mentioned how USB keyboards can be plugged into consoles but people don't take advantage of it.

What of PlayStation Home then, which Sony is strongly pushing for? As Haro sees it, the much anticipated service is "a world with a US$ 600 entry ticket." Apparently, he didn't like Home's feel during the beta. He was quoted, saying:

...in the demo I saw, it was this pretty clean Sony world. You're able to buy a virtual Bravia television that does not break. That's kind of funny, in some sense, but a bit too clean. It was too polished, somehow... It didn't feel like I'd really call that place my home.

With all the talk about video games being a bad influence in general, it's good to hear about gamers actually stepping up to do the right thing - even if it means putting themselves in harm's way. Such was the case with Adam Mapleson, a quiet and gentle IT consultant who tried to prevent two armed robbers from making a clean getaway after a heist - and received gunshots to the chest at point blank for his efforts.

It's a typical case of an ordinary individual responding to the call of duty, really, even if it meant grievous bodily injury. Adam Mapleson was on his way to work when he saw two armed robbers, their faces obscured with scarves, assault a female security guard who was in the middle of reloading a cash machine.

Ignoring common sense and the instinct to run away from danger, he instead ran toward it - tackling both robbers in a mad dash to help the security guard. But even with the element of surprise, it wasn't long before things went completely downhill for our young gamer. Shots were fired, and Adam crumpled to the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

Thankfully, there's no bad ending in this tale of modern-day heroism. Recent news tell us that Adam's doing fine, recovering in a hospital bed, surrounded with loving family and friends. On the other hand, it's quite obvious that things didn't go as planned for the two robbers, with the stolen cash box having set off its security countermeasures: dousing its contents with indelible red dye, effectively rendering the money inside worthless.

An extraordinary feat of heroism from an ordinary human being, indeed. While some people can prattle on about a recent shooting and the culprit's already dubious connection to videogames, friends, family and even Adam himself states on his MySpace account that he's a true gamer at heart. Maybe this could shake some sense into those parties, but who knows?

One thing's for sure, though - Adam Mapleson saw what needed to be done, and he did it. Gamer? Yes. Hero? Definitely.

 

Electronic Arts' 2nd Burnout Bandslam has just been concluded, with over 5,000 bands from the U.S. and 2,100 bands from other locations participating. Two and a half million MySpace users took part in the initial judging with the final selection conducted by an expert panel. The two grand prize winners, "Never Heard Of It" (U.S.) and "Showing Off To Thieves" (UK, Europe), walked away victorious.

Winners of the contest will receive a demo recording deal with Virgin Records and EA. They also get a chance to have their song included in a future Burnout videogame. One Runner-Up band from the U.S. and from each of the participating countries across Europe will receive one Epiphone Les Paul Custom Guitar.

European Winner – Showing Off To Thieves
They clinched the top spot with their debut single "Everyone has their secrets". Driven by powerful vocals, incisive lyrics and crushing rhythms, their distinctly British sound has captured the attention of the people from MySpace.

U.S. Winner – Never Heard Of It (NHOI)
This independent band is considered on of the hardest working bands on tour. As of 2001, they have self-booked and financed 11 U.S. tours and even expanded their schedule to Europe and Japan. They have been asked to play The Warped Tour two years in a row. They have also started their own label called Unmotivated Records, put out a full length CD and got a nationwide distribution deal because of their extensive touring and fantastic tracks.

The full list of Runner-Ups:

• UK- Inuendo
• U.S. – The Sun Also Rises
• Denmark- Zenith
• Sweden- Anagoes
• Norway- Jeroan Drive
• Ireland- Boss Volenti
• Germany- More Than Crossed
• Spain- Avenue and Silhouettes
• Russia – Apshell
• Italy – Let Me In
• France - Kiemsa
• Holland – Note to Amy

The next Burnout is currently being developed for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 and you can expect a ripping soundtrack for the game. Another thing you might want to watch out for is Burnout Dominator for the PSP which will be out this April 27.

We know that everyone may be familiar with the online video game news site called Eurogamer. Now, this site recently put up a new community portal for -who else?- video game fans and players.

Basically, the portal is somewhat like MySpace, or Friendster for that matter, and Eurogamer itself is not ashamed to admit this. Community members will be able to set up their own page, update their profile, join and create user groups, and ultimately communicate with other members.

Eurogamer Managing Director Rupert Loman is quite happy with this development and mentioned that they are actually planning to launch the site in five different European languages later this year. He added that there is more to come but for now, they are quite contented with what they have,

The Eurogamers launch is the first step in our plan to offer new ways of interacting with gamers. The reaction to the site from our group of beta testers has been overwhelmingly positive, and we're looking forward to developing the site to its full potential.

Lastly, Ubisoft pledged its full support to Eurogamers by promoting its latest Xbox 360 title Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW 2), which will also become available in Europe on PlayStation 3 (PS3) a little later.

 

Comic book-inspired game, Starbreeze's The Darkness now has an official release day. TalkXbox informs that U.S. should be seeing Jackie Estacado's game on retail come June 25th. For folks who are in Europe, the said date for you, is on the 29th of June.

What's amusing about the announcement is that it was delivered via MySpace.com. How did that emo/MySpace related forum sig that's been spreading go again? Oh yeah, it said something like: "90 percent of folks on MySpace are emo, for those of you who aren't copy paste this to your sig" ...or something like that. Perhaps given the moody and ominous title of The Darkness, Starbreeze felt that MySpace was very apt.

Think what you will about MySpace, you can't argue that medium/community's effectiveness. After all, who doesn't have one?

If you've got some musical talent and have been dreaming to make it big as a geek god/rockstar with your own geek palace and a virtual harem, Electronic Art's Burnout Bandslam is just the right thing for you.

Burnout Bandslam is a collaborative search by EA, MySpace, Virgin Records and Epiphone across United States and Europe for a hot new band whose track will be used for future Burnout videogames. Candidates will get a chance to showcase their best tracks in front of a global audience of 80 million MySpace users (they'll be later on asked to vote for their favorite track online).

Runners-up in the United States and Europe will win a top-of-the-line Epiphone Les Paul Custom Guitar and will receive a Virgin Records demo recording contract. The best prize here though is the chance to have their songs included in a future Burnout video game. The geek palace and virtual harem must come from other sources, though.

"Many of the biggest bands around the world have been first discovered through EA videogames, and now we are expanding the opportunity to unsigned bands through this year's Burnout Bandslam," says Steve Schnur, worldwide executive of music and marketing for EA, adding that "the Burnout videogame series is all about attitude and rebellion."

For those who want to view the Contest Official Rules, just check the read link below. No purchase is necessary, although eligibility restrictions apply. What are you waiting for, rock on dude!

Yeah, we're all familiar with this scenario already: indie, unsigned rock band gets big break by releasing a YouTube smash hit, thanks MySpace and free online downloading for getting their music out there. Well, here's something that's in that vein but is something a bit fresher, and is related to us gaming folks.

An article over at Yahoo! News reports that video games are the latest "new cool music space." Buzzwords aside, the report basically informs us that more and more artists are looking towards video games as a means of getting their music delivered to audiences.

A nice example of this would be the electronic dance group Young Punks. The group won a heap of new fans when a band track was picked for EA Sports' FIFA game.

Legendary music entity Nile Rodgers explains at this week's annual MIDEM global trade fair for the music industry that: "It's difficult to be introduced to new music without radio as it's the repetition that sells and what's more repetitious than a video game." Rodgers teamed up with Microsoft in 2002 and went on to churn out soundtracks for a string of video games that include Halo:Combat Evolved, Age of Mythology, Brute Force, and Outlaw Volleyball.

And all the "cool" people laugh at fanboys for enjoying game soundtracks.

From NPD's report "Kids & Digital Content" comes these very interesting information: even two-year old toddlers are now into videogames. The study looks closely at how kids between two and fourteen years of age acquire and use digital content for their computers, portable digital music and/or video players, cell phones, and video game systems.

NPD reported downloading and playing games is the most popular activity followed by watching downloaded movies, television, music videos or online streaming video content. The study says kids play games at an average of 44 minutes in one sitting.

By the time kids are 7 years old, more than one in 10 are downloading content in some form. In the 10-year-old age bracket, 22% of all kids included in the online survey are downloading. Half of all 14 year-olds included in the study were into downloading digital content.

How many kids with access to the Internet are actually surfing the net? The figure is a big 75%. Almost half of them are online and surfing the Internet without any assistance. Only 25% are surfing the Internet with their parents or someone else. The top sites visited by kids include Nickelodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network. MySpace and Yahoo! are also fave surfstops.

"Without a doubt, kids are digital content natives, seamlessly navigating between traditional and digital sources of media without missing a step," said The NPD Group. "To kids, there is nothing new or novel about digital sources of entertainment. The real challenge for marketers is to be one step ahead of their competition, providing the content and technology kids crave."

Talk about aiming high! Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's game developer group, said the company wants to create a YouTube-style sharing of XNA games. "Think about a Community Arcade, being able to share your own games with the whole community on Xbox Live," said Satchell.

XNA Express is a free download for coding games for Windows and Xbox 360. Well, it's entirely free on Windows, but sharing games and code with other 360 creators via the XNA Creators' Club requires a subscription service. It's also possible to move games directly from Xbox to Xbox. Eventually, however, MS plans to go beyond its territory and into the brave, new worlds we know today as YouTube and MySpace.

Can homebrew games really go that far? Satchell certainly believes so. "If you can give people a way to communicate, to talk about content, to rate it and express what's cool, then you start a virtuous cycle, because more people want to get involved, more people create content and more people comment on it."

He also thinks the venue will be a place where the next Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) and Toru Iwatani (Pac-Man) will be discovered. Satchell's says "I absolutely believe we will find new stars in this industry from that community. I know publishers will be watching for what's cool and who's doing it."