Toysrus.com/Amazon.com is selling exclusive PlayStation 2 (PS2) Ali videogame package including console, extra controller, pair of Everlast boxing gloves with Muhammad Ali’s autograph on one of them, Electronic Arts games. Muhammad Ali Signature Series Video Game Pack is being sold for limited time at $799.99, Toysrus.com said.
Citing data from NPD Group, Microsoft said its Xbox “had the best-selling videogame console launch on record after 2 weeks of sales.” One report said Microsoft had been able to sell more than 560,000 console units in first 2 weeks, also attributing data to NPD.
Mobile Games Interoperability Forum (MGIF) will hold its first Supporters Workshop Tues. in London. MGIF was started in July 2001 by Ericcson, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens to define mobile games interoperability specifications and application programming interfaces they said would enable game developers to produce and deploy mobile games over wireless networks.
Infogrames started shipping Game Boy Color title Nsync Get to the Show at $29.99. E- (Everyone) rated game was developed by Stunt Puppy Entertainment. Title follows Nsync Hotline Fantasy Phone & CD-Rom Game still shipping at $39.99.
Ames will close 54 stores in 10 states by Feb.-March as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy protection. Rocky Hill, Conn., retailer, which has operated under bankruptcy protection since Oct., will start liquidation sales at outlets Dec. 30. Hardest hit will be Pa., where 18 stores will shut. Closings are most recent Ames has made since Nov., when it shut 16 outlets. After closures, Ames will have 333 stores in Northeast, Mid- Atlantic and Midwest markets.
Amazon.com purchased Egghead.com’s assets in bankruptcy court for $6.1 million, acquisition that’s likely to further expand its CE business. Online retailer bought Egghead’s URL and other intangible assets and earlier this week and started redirecting customers from former egghead.com Web site to Amazon’s CE store. Amazon acquired assets because of Egghead’s well-known brand name and potentially to add new customers, spokeswoman said. Egghead.com, which filed for bankruptcy protection in Aug., had stopped selling CE, PCs, peripherals and software in Oct., shortly after Fry’s Electronics pulled plug on its proposed acquisition of company. Fry’s later bought e-tailer Cyberian Outpost. Relaunched Egghead site will be similar to those Amazon hosts for Target and Borders, company said. Latter 2 retailers have their own co-branded sites within Amazon.com that carry some unique product and content. Amazon will acquire Egghead’s customer information as part of sale, but doesn’t plan to use it, Amazon spokeswoman said. Sale represents end of road for Egghead as independent company. It got its start in 1984 as PC software retailer and at one point operated more than 200 stores. But Egghead shut its bricks-and-mortar outlets in 1998 and morphed into Internet-only retailer. In 1999 it merged with Onsale.com in $400 million deal that saddled it with debt and proved its undoing.
Public awareness, not tougher laws or more technology, is what’s needed to protect copyrighted works on Internet, several speakers said Tues. at Business Software Alliance Global Tech Summit. Instead of Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions, or yet-to-be-introduced proposal by Sen. Hollings (D-S.C.) to require govt. standards for digital rights management, there should be massive, effective education effort to get people to take copyright laws seriously, several speakers said.
GM, Hughes and EchoStar filed applications at FCC for approval to transfer control of licenses to merged company, companies said, outlining plans and goals of merger. There wasn’t much new in filings, which presented familiar EchoStar positions for antitrust approval of DBS merger despite opposition from Congress and broadcast industry. Primary factor was much- repeated premise that Hughes-EchoStar merger would provide many benefits for consumers, including more choices, better programming, competitive prices, viable alternative to cable. EchoStar also promised improved DBS service to Hawaii and Alaska. “There will be no anticompetitive multichannel video programming distributor market effects with the proposed transaction” filing said.
NGame signed agreement to distribute wireless games from S. Korea’s Opentown, latest move by company as it seeks to expand business beyond in-house development of titles. Goal is to have wireless game publishing and distribution agreements represent 90% of revenue by mid-2002, up from 50%, Business Development Dir. Javier Bonnemaison said. Under most recent agreement, nGame has rights to distribute Opentown titles outside China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Opentown has exclusive on nGame titles for Korea and Taiwan. As part of pact, Opentown is expected to supply more than 50 games, including next-generation titles based on 3G wireless platform. NGame, which supplies games for Tellus Mobility in Canada and Sprint and AT&T in U.S. also has begun licensing program for its content authoring software and game platform technology. It signed licensing deal with The Games Kitchen and expects to have another 19 software developers on board by mid-2002, Bonnemaison said. “It’s much better to become a publisher partner” as opposed to being only game developer, he said: “You become a publisher and as long as you ensure quality, it’s more profitable.” NGame has developed range of titles internally including Rat Race, Air Aces and most recent release Top Gun. It has claimed to have more than 250,000 registered users, half of them in U.S. In addition to Sprint and AT&T, nGame’s Connected Games Server hosts content for Carphone Warehouse’s wireless portal Freeserve, Mivia, Yahoo.
Displaytech has cut more than half its work force in shifting increased production responsibility to OEM supplier Miyota and moving some focus to development of single panel 0.78W microdisplay for rear-projection TV applications.