Codemasters has acquired the worldwide publishing rights to FUEL from Asobo Studios. FUEL is in development at Asobo in Bordeaux, France, for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The result of over four years of development, FUEL will present players with a no-boundaries playfield over 5,000 square miles in size. FUEL will have players competing across different terrain and executing stunts as they race dozens of two and four-wheeled rides.

FUEL is set in an alternate present in which whole swathes of the globe have been ravaged by the effects of climate change brought on by decades of environmental abuse. Oil prices have rocketed, and yet a new breed of racing junkie takes to the wastelands, pitting their grungy home-tuned vehicles against each other as they compete to win fuel supplies. To triumph means traveling the wastelands to challenge the best; from the tsunami-wrecked Pacific coast through the Nevada wastelands, including the Grand Canyon, snowcapped mountains, thick forests, arid deserts, abandoned lakeside resorts and more.

Bringing this vast, open-ended landscape to life is a dynamic weather system with full day and night transitions, sunshine, rain and everything in between, plus destructive tornados, sandstorms, thunderstorms, lightning strikes and blizzards.

Complete with the ability to go online to explore this massive world and compete in hundreds of multiplayer challenges, FUEL is coming in 2009.

The PC Gaming Alliance today unveiled the key findings from its first Horizons Report, an exclusive research study of the PC gaming industry worldwide. Speaking at the Games Convention Developer’s Conference in Leipzig, PCGA president Randy Stude announced that PC gaming was a 10.7 billion dollar industry in 2007, with retail sales accounting for just 30 percent of total revenues. According to the report, growth was largely driven by online revenues from Asia, the world’s largest market, which is approaching half of total worldwide sales.

Online PC gaming revenue led the way in 2007 with 4.8 billion dollars, almost double the worldwide retail sales numbers for PC games. Digital distribution sales approached 2 billion dollars, while advertising revenues from Web sites, portals and in-game ads accounted for 800 million dollars. Both are expected to grow substantially as major developers and publishers begin to adopt formal strategies to take advantage of new online opportunities.

According to DFC Intelligence, there’s even more room for growth as the broadband market matures: “Broadband-connected PCs are the key driver of growth for PC gaming. DFC Intelligence estimated that by the end of 2007, less than one-third of households in the top 20 markets for games had a high-speed Internet connection. That indicates there’s still plenty of growth to come,” said David Cole, an analyst with DFC Intelligence.

The closed beta for Perfect World Entertainment’s online game, Perfect World International, has launched. Perfect World International is the English-based international version of Perfect World II. The game offers an online world with three unique races and six different classes, all within a free-to-play business model. In addition, it boasts an in-depth character creation interface, quests full of lore and depth, and an extensive selection of customizable fashion items. Fans of PVP will also enjoy Territory Wars, in which guilds compete in battles to dominate certain parts of the world. The victors walk away with a great deal of reward in addition to the added benefits the conquered territory provides. For more, visit www.perfectworld.com.

Futuremark Games Studio has revealed Shattered Horizon, a new game in which players battle to survive in the aftermath of a catastrophic Moon mining accident that throws billions of tons of rocky debris into near-Earth space. In this multiplayer first-person shooter for the PC, teams of players experience realistic zero gravity combat while surrounded by the millions of asteroids now encircling the Earth.

Shattered Horizon puts the player in the spacesuit of a survivor from the Moon mining operation or one of the astronauts trapped on the battered International Space Station. With Earth surrounded by debris, there’s little chance of rescue or return. Desperate battles are fought and control of limited supplies means the difference between survival and death in the cold of space.

The official website is www.shatteredhorizon.com.

Advanced Micro Devices’s best-known business has been struggling lately, but the chip maker’s other unit seems to be keeping pressure on its chief competitor. AMD, which lags Intel in the market for microprocessors, diversified into computer graphics by buying ATI Technologies in 2006. It announced a new graphics card Tuesday that some reviewers are calling the most powerful on the market, helping to solidify the reputation of a business that has fallen behind rival Nvidia in technology and market share.

AMD and Nvidia have long competed in making faster graphics processing units, which are used to render three-dimensional scenes in computer games, but their strategies have recently diverged. While Nvidia has stuck to trying to make the most powerful individual chips, AMD has shifted to designing chips that aren’t quite as fast but consume less energy and cost less to make.

HardOCP.com, a Web site for PC enthusiasts that tested an early version of the AMD card in July, said it has “shown spectacular performance already, and we are really excited as it can get better from here.” AMD is also offering a slightly less sophisticated two-chip card for 399 USD. The company offered another two-chip card in January, and Nvidia responded with one of its own, but it’s not clear how easily Nvidia can do that again with the current design of its GPUs.

Source: Wall Street Journal

The economy has been slow, but the video game industry isn’t suffering so far this summer. Sales figures for July are due out soon, and they’re expected to show that there’s been solid growth for that part of the entertainment industry. Industry trackers credit the rise in sales to titles like EA Sports NCAA Football 09 and Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 4. In addition, a continued strong showing by the three next-gen video game platforms, the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3, is fueling the industry’s growth. One analyst says video game sales so far this year have been extraordinary.

Source: NBC News

At least one segment of American video gamers isn’t just playing for fun; these “extreme” gamers are playing more than 45 hours per week, according to a new report from market research firm NPD. NPD surveyed more than 20,000 people aged two to 65 (two?) about their game-playing habits. Although these extreme gamers only make up a small percentage of America’s 174 million gamers — three percent according to NPD — that’s still more than 5 million players who are playing as much as they go to work or school. Are people who play this much addicted to video games? So far, doctors have been reluctant to make that diagnosis. Last year, the American Medical Association rejected a measure to classify video game playing as a formal addiction. Instead, it said more research is needed.

Source: ABC News

Warner Music Group, the world’s third-largest music company, said on Thursday that video game makers will need to pay more to license songs for music-based video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Warner Music chief executive Edgar Bronfman drew comparisons between MTV’s launch 25 years ago, Apple’s iPod launch five years ago and today’s video game companies like Activision, Blizzard and Harmonix. “The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small.”

Source: Reuters

Ubisoft will publish Armored Core for Answer, the newest addition to From Software’s mech-based combat franchise, Armored Core. The 13th installment in the series, Armored Core for Answer is scheduled for release on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in September. Here’s what Ubisoft is saying about the game:

“In the distant future, massive urban development and pollution have critically damaged the planet. There’s widespread fear that the end of the world is approaching. The League corporations, a military superpower, control the planet’s infrastructure and have forced most of the world’s population to live in huge aerial communities, called Cradles, to avoid contamination. The ORCA, a rebel resistance still residing on the surface of the polluted planet, have amassed a formidable arsenal and are mobilizing to attack The League’s bases to put an end to their iron grip on the planet. As a mercenary armed with cutting-edge military robot technology, choose your side and defeat the other factions by harnessing the power of the deadliest and most gigantic weapons ever created by mankind.”

Armored Core for Answer will be rated “T” for Teen for mild language and violence.

Electronic Arts and Paramount Digital Entertainment today revealed the first details of The Godfather II. Inspired by the film and Mario Puzo’s Corleone family drama, The Godfather II game goes beyond the film’s story by setting players in the world of organized crime in 1960’s Florida, Cuba and New York.

After being promoted by Michael Corleone to Don of New York, players expand to new cities as they build up their families through extorting businesses, monopolizing illegal crime rings and defeating new families in an effort to become the most powerful mob family in America. To help players manage their empire, The Godfather II introduces The Don’s View, a strategy meta-game that allows players to oversee the entire world as they grow the family business. Using the Don’s View, players will be able to build, defend and expand their crime rings while keeping an eye on the movements and plans of the rival families. Players will also learn to master the business of organized crime by building a family of Made Men, hiring crew, handing out orders and promoting their best men up the ranks.