EA Sports wants its 2014 World Cup game to appeal to all, not just FIFA fans
“We don’t have limitless resources. We wanted to bring the game to as many people as possible and right now that was the 360 and PS3.” That’s what 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil’s lead producer Mat Prior had to say about the title not launching on Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Which is to say, EA’s leaning on console-adoption numbers as the primary reason for the lack of a proper game on Microsoft’s and Sony’s newest consoles. Instead, EA Sports plans to bring some “engaging” World Cup-themed content to FIFA 14′s Ultimate Team mode, in the hopes that’ll be enough to satisfy disappointed Xbox One and PS4 owners.
If you look at the numbers, EA Sports’ decision becomes clear. Currently, neither the Xbox One nor the PlayStation 4 has reached the 10 million mark in sales, and the two aren’t available everywhere. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 can be found in many homes across the globe, including a large number of developing countries. “Emerging markets were important to making this decision,” Prior told Engadget. “We wanted to create the best game we could that could reach as many people as possible.” For those who own a last-generation system, this is great news, since the team behind 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil was given the task of “setting a laser focus on building the highest-quality game” for these two consoles. And it shows.
By placing all its eggs in one basket, EA Sports was able to create a game that’s visually stunning, with fully rendered 3D crowds and a detailed presentation meant to evoke a real-life World Cup. “It’s the most atmospheric game we’ve ever made,” said Prior. Naturally, you can expect to see improved gameplay in comparison to FIFA 14 and many different game modes to choose from, both online and offline. This was also part of the reason the publisher made it a standalone title and not downloadable content, as was the case for the last country-focused game, UEFA Euro 2012. “We wanted it to be for people who haven’t played FIFA before,” Prior said. “The World Cup is such a massive event that it needed to have its own game and DLC wouldn’t have allowed it to have all the features it does.”
“We wanted to capture the fun, excitement and atmosphere to resemble the World Cup.”
As part of its efforts to appeal to the masses, 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil has a new Beginner Mode, which aims to make it easy for anyone to pick up a controller and face very little challenge from the AI. And then there are modes like Online World Cup, Road to Rio, Captain Your Country, Story of Qualifying and Scenarios, all of which you should be familiar with if you’re an avid FIFA player. Yes, EA is hoping to “attract casual gamers” and to “reach the 50 percent who don’t play FIFA,” but that doesn’t mean hardcore fans of the franchise won’t enjoy it. It’s still classic FIFA, with an added touch of Brazilian lifestyle transmitted into the game.
Amazon buys popular comic book app platform Comixology
There’s nothing quite like taking a massive, heavy library of beloved books and shrinking it into an e-reader. Amazon, having already accomplished that with its tremendously popular digital book service, is now targeting the comic book market. The company is purchasing Comixology, a digital comic book service with hundreds of millions of users and apps for all of your devices.
Comixogy CEO David Steinberger is quite fond of the agreement, the terms of which were not disclosed (we’re assuming it’s at least $3.50 — comics these days are awfully expensive). “There is no better home for comixology than Amazon to see this vision through,” Steinberger says in the announcement. “Working together, we look to accelerate a new age for comic books and graphic novels.” It’s just a wild guess, but we’re expecting the first such “acceleration” will involve integrating Amazon payments and the Comixology userbase over to Amazon. It’s not yet clear if Comixology brand will stand on its own (Amazon already sells single issues and graphic novels on Kindle), but we’re asking the company for more, but don’t expect to hear much — the deal hasn’t closed just yet, but it’s expected to in the next few months.
Update: We heard back from Amazon — join us below for more.
As expected, Amazon’s only saying so much about its plans for Comixology. We asked whether it’s potentially headed to Amazon Prime, and were given a no comment. As far as Kindle integration though, that’s a given. “We expect we’ll find ways to make both comiXology and Kindle work better together,” a rep said. Amazon will retain the comiXology branding as well.
Filed under: Software, Mobile, Amazon
Source: Amazon
Twitter introduces pop-up notifications on the web
It’s been a week full of announcements from Twitter: first the social network debuted a new (arguably Facebook-like) profile design, and today it’s officially introducing real-time notifications on the web. We first saw the pop-up alerts in late January, but it appeared to be an experiment visible to just a handful of users. Now — or, more accurately, “over the coming weeks” — any time you’re logged into Twitter.com, you’ll see a notification window alerting you to any replies, retweets or other activities. Conveniently, you’ll be able to favorite, retweet and reply to interactions directly from notification windows. Of course, if your Klout score is through the roof and you receive a new notification every second, you’ll be happy to know that notifications can be disabled.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Twitter
This robot printer runs around the page laying down ink
Most pocket-sized printers are really shrunken versions of what you’d see on your desk. Rather boring, don’t you think? Zuta Labs’ upcoming Pocket Printer robot may liven things up a little. Instead of using an old-fashioned paper feed, it runs over the page laying grayscale ink. This Roomba-like approach isn’t just a party trick, though. Besides leading to a very portable design, it lets you print on any size page you like — if you need to get a legal form while you’re at the coffee shop, you can.
Zuta Labs is crowdfunding the printer to get it off the ground. If you’re interested, you can pledge $180 to reserve an early bird unit; it will cost you $200 if you’re late to the party. The Pocket Printer won’t ship until January if it makes its funding target, but patience may be a virtue if you want a printer that doesn’t sit still.
Filed under: Peripherals, Robots
Via: SlashGear
Source: Kickstarter
Inside the UberPITCH ‘Cash Cab’
When Matt Oscamou headed out to Starbucks Wednesday afternoon, he had no clue he’d be leaving half an hour later in an Uber with a venture capitalist (VC) from Google. “My preparation window was not even seven minutes,” says Oscamou. He was one of several startup founders to cruise around town with Google on Wednesday through an event called UberPITCH. The most “Silicon Valley” of promotions, six Google Ventures VCs got in the back of Uber SUVs and were on-demand for founders to request for mobile 15-minute meetings throughout the afternoon. It was a startup version of “Cash Cab” that made finding a potential investment as easy as requesting a taxi. Sort of.
Oscamou spent 20 minutes attempting to hail an investor, and was about to give up when he finally scored a ride with Google’s 84th employee David Krane (an unexpected trip he had just a few minutes to prepare for). “I was clicking that thing for a while where it said ‘No pitches available. No pitches available’ I figured there would be a lot of people clicking it, but I didn’t know how hard it was going to be.” Oscamou was one of the lucky ones who secured a ride. One founder reportedly tried over 500 times to request one of the high-stakes trips, another stood next to the Caltrain with a huge sign asking Uber to pick them (they eventually did), and a few that just couldn’t wait any longer just showed up outside Google Ventures’ office.
Armed with just a few product samples, Oscamou spent seven minutes talking to Krane about his startup Frontier Snacks, a bite-sized alternative to granola bars. “We drove around. I have no idea where we drove to, because I was like laser-focused on David,” he says. While the energy-bar substitute wasn’t quite the perfect fit for Google, Krane offered to introduce him to a few other investors who might be and help get the snacks (which are pretty delicious) into the kitchens on campus. That was enough for him to consider the whole experience a pretty solid win.
@rklau in action with #UberPITCH! pic.twitter.com/MvtRpxNBYf
– Uber Silicon Valley (@Uber_SV) April 9, 2014
On the surface the whole thing kind of reeks of being an Uber promo (Google Ventures is an investor in the car service), but Google says that some of the other riders might actually get an investment. “Several of the pitches I heard were very compelling,” says Google’s Rick Klau, who met with four companies on the back bench of an SUV. He says that all of the people he met with were very earnest about their businesses, and saw the promo as a great opportunity to get in front of some faces they might otherwise not. “Coming out of this, I’m looking forward to seeing where some of the conversations go.” Hopefully their next meetings won’t require seatbelts.
Filed under: Transportation
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