“Our work is already bearing fruit,” Howard said, according to the Associated Press. “We still have more work to do.”

After its second year of losses in the current fiscal year, which ends March 2010, Stringer said that Sony’s target is to turnaround their game business and have it be profitable by March 2011.

The company plans to use a two-prong strategy to achieve that goal. Sony believes they can improve profitability through cost reduction, becoming more efficient internally and getting internal divisions to work better together.

Sony also sees a growth in hardware, software and network services pushing sales up in the gaming division.

Stringer says that Sony’s PlayStation 3 has five key advantages: The incorporation of a Blu-ray player, the Playstation Network, PSP linkage, upcoming 3D games and their recently announced motion controller.

The Motion control, he said, uses the PlayStation Eye camera, can track depth, position and motion by “sphere, gyro and acceleration sensors” and vibration feedback and “rendition by light”.

Take this one, for example. It’s been put together by The Business Insider, and charts the decline in video game sales since 2007. As it says, it’s based on a year-to-year percentage change, so a dip means the industry was down on where it was at the same point the year before.

CHART OF THE DAY: Video Game Industry Not So Recession Proof After All [TBI, via 1UP]

A piece running on Yahoo! News Japan (translated by AltJapan) summed up the difference between Western and Japanese games: “There is a big difference in the way emotion is handled in Japan and abroad. Abroad, hero characters tend to be portrayed as powerful males, but in Japan squashed and cute little boys are the norm. The Japanese preference for see small-statured pretty-boys wielding big swords seems to be greeted abroad with a resounding ‘no way.’”

This paradigm does not hold true to sports game, the article notes. So when Japanese developers depict real teams and real players, the only option is to depict them realistically — and the vast majority of professional athletes are not small pretty boys!

Thus, Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer franchise is a big hit in the West, and ditto for EA Sports title FIFA 10. Neither title carries the cultural baggage pervasive in other genre games.

Fantasy and Football [AltJapan]

With more than 60 million active player across all of its Facebook, MySpace, Google, and iPhone games every month, social network game developer Playfish was ripe for the picking. Now they’ve been picked. EA has acquired the company for $US275 million in cash and $US25 million in equity retention agreements, with up to an additional $US100 million in variable cash consideration, pending the achievement of certain performance milestones through December 31st of 2011.

Playfish will now operate as a part of EA Interactive, a division of the company dedicated to web and wireless games. More than 150 million Playfish titles are installed and played around the world, with titles like Pet Society, of which I am a big fan, generating more than 1 billion play sessions a month.

“Social gaming, with its emphasis on friends and community, is seeing tremendous growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our participation in this space,” said Barry Cottle, Senior Vice President and General Manager of EA Interactive. “EAi has been successfully leading the charge for EA, and with the addition of proven expertise from Playfish, their broad consumer base and strong game brands, we’re moving ahead aggressively in our plans to lead in the category of cross-platform social entertainment.”

If there was any doubt that EA was completely serious about the social networking games space, this should get rid of it. This is an aggressive move into the growing industry segment that could only be topped by the acquisition of Mafia Wars creators Zynga, which I am fully expecting some major game company to announce any day now.

The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (iGEA) has revealed that for the nine months up to the end of September, sales are up 8.3% this year over last, according to official GfK figures. In 2008, Australian’s spent nearly $2 billion on videogame hardware, software and accessories. It looks like we’re well on track to surpass that figure this time around.

The majority of the growth has come through console hardware (up 10%), while software has accounted for a 5% increase.

“The rise of family entertainment as a genre continues to underpin much of the industry’s growth,” says Ron Curry, CEO of the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association.

“Christmas will see iGEA members delivering a number of highly anticipated games, along with some surprises, which should see sales surpass the records set in 2008.

“Australia’s interactive games industry continues to see healthy growth now that video and computer gaming has become as mainstream in popularity, as watching television or surfing the net.”

So, how about you? Have you found yourself spending more on games this year than last?

Japan “is the cradle of our industry,” Moore writes, but “one of the frustrations of being an American company attempting to do business in Japan is the insularity of the industry that defends locally-made content and looks down on games from abroad.”

Moore mentions his experience with Japan while at Microsoft and acknowledges that factors such as genre, gameplay and art design have been factors in making a breakthrough. But, “with simulation sports games, these issues would seem much less relevant – it’s typically about the gameplay. So you can imagine my disappointment every year as we struggle to break through in Japan with our outstanding FIFA franchise.”

He goes on:

It is clear we still have work to do in Japan to more fully understand what drives that gamers attraction to sports titles. Let me be clear on this. I recognise that there are many factors that contribute to a gamer’s decision to purchase (or not) a particular game, I’d just hate for the gamers in Japan to not get as much enjoyment as the rest of the world out of the best sports game of this console generation.

Honestly, Moore could also be saying the same thing about FIFA’s acceptance in the United States. Granted, it sells much better here, but the U.S. is also very hidebound to its domestic traditions, especially the big four of major team sports. Soccer, football, kick-ball, however you call it, is a relatively new sport to Japan no matter its popularity. The J. League (1992), Japan’s top tier association, has been around about as long as the MLS (1993). Maybe an MVP Baseball for Japan’s Central and Pacific Leagues? Hell, I loved MVP in the States, I’d play that.

It might be a little nearsighted to chalk this up to insularity. It could be other things, such as sports preference and the tradition sports games have in Japan with which I will confess, I don’t have much familiarity. Whatever the case, it’s clear EA Sports is not exempt from his company’s efforts in that market.

FIFA in Japan [Peter Moore's Official Blog]

Here’s Takeuchi discussing the winter 2009 Lost Planet 2 with Edge magazine’s interviewer. Note that Lost Planet 2 is designed to be played in co-op and supports online play. And note that online gaming isn’t very popular in Japan.

Edge asks: “Sticking with co-op, do you find it strange that Japan has one of the best broadband infrastructures in the world but online gaming is yet to really take off on consoles?”

After mentioning the rare popularity of co-op Monster Hunter and online Final Fantasy XI, Takeuchi says:

I just can’t understand why Japanese gamers are so reluctant to play networked games. I find overseas players to be more curious — they go towards what they think looks, sounds or feels fun by themselves. In Japan, I have the feeling users are just waiting for us to guide, to feed them with fun things. The problem is that the online experience is something that requires users to make a move first. Nobody is going to open the door for you. You need to decide to go into it by yourself. I want to create in Japanese gamers that curiosity for going online. Because of course you can enjoy the game alone, no problem, but as soon as you are with a friend coordinating, you enter into a whole other dimension.

That interview runs in the new Edge issue, which covers the 2009 Tokyo Game Show and offers that new spin on the familiar topic of the modern struggles of the Japanese gaming industry. The issue is available in the U.K. and available to U.S. subscribers (like me) now.

Jun Takeuchi Q&A [Edge Magazine Issue #208[

Variety reports that the guild members who work this contract – covering 70 games publishers and all the industry heavyweights – shot it down by nearly 2:1, in defiance of the SAG board’s recommendation that it be approved. In particular, SAG’s Hollywood caucus considered atmospheric work – one actor performing 20 different characters of up to 300 words at a daily base rate – a “major reduction” from the current collective bargaining agreement, Variety said.

When all’s said and done here, this doesn’t matter as much as the star power of the SAG name would indicate. Union work accounts for roughly 25 percent of video game voice work. Also, the board of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists gave an “an overwhelming and strong” endorsement that its members approve the contract.

SAG Rejects Tentative Video Game Deal [Variety]

We’ve contacted Idol Minds for comment but have not yet heard back.

The layoffs at the company, based in Louisville, Colorado between Boulder and Denver, have been coming in waves we’re told, with the latest impacting 17 employees. Our sources tell us that in total, 26 of the staff of once 46 have been let go.

Over its 11-year history Idol Minds developed and published a number of games including My Street, Rally Cross 2 and the Coolboarders franchise. But they’re perhaps best known for their pick-up-and-play, groan-inducing downloadable PS3 game PAIN.

In PAIN, gamers catapult a rag-doll avatar across a bustling setting, trying to rack up as much damage to both the landscape and the character as possible. Since it’s release in 2007, PAIN has also received a number of new downloads that add characters and settings to the Playstation Network game.

In a September 2009 job listing for a producer, Idol Minds writes that PAIN “demonstrates the current evolution of our company and its goals”.

“Our mission is to create a user-defined experience, build a community of users, develop on next generation hardware, and of course, have fun doing it!” according to the listing.

Our sources say the latest job cuts may be connected to “Sony budget cuts”. Sony is currently Idol Minds’ only source of funding, our sources tell us.

At the PLAY Conference this past weekend, I got to watch the man at work during “The Monetization Game” panel, which also featured Kai Huang — one of Guitar Hero’s masterminds — and ngmoco CEO Neil Young. Moore had most of the crowd-pleasing moments and more than a few fair points. But here’s a round-up of some of the things these guys said to get the crowd going:

Point One: Plastic and Digital
A big part of the talk centered around plastic peripherals. After all, if the fate of video games is to go all digital download, what’s going to happen to all those games that rely on plastic instruments?

At some point during the talk, the moderator asked if the market was saturated with plastic peripherals.

Moore answered, “We’re at the point of how much do you want to pay. How many people bought the maracas for Samba de Amigo? [Two people raise their hands]. But if you look at the ability of the industry to sustain the big box mentality — Guitar Hero, Rock Band — it’s going to be a challenge. The first time somebody puts a skateboard through their television set… To what extent is the user willing to pay?”

Then he took a dig at Wii Fit’s “bathroom scales” as compared to EA Sports Active’s awesomeness that doesn’t require an expensive peripheral. Later he went after Activision head Bobby Kotick about how if people stop buying Guitar Hero, he’ll be sitting on half the world’s plastic.

Fair point, but how are you going to get a guitar in the hands of everybody who wants to play Guitar Hero? Face it, cell phone interfaces just aren’t the same.

Point Two: Word of mouth marketing
The talk touched on marketing the multiple iterations of Guitar Hero. Huang explained that before the world was used to music video games, the franchise needed a lot of marketing to get people used to the idea of using a plastic guitar. But despite all the dollars dropped on celebrity commercials, it was word of mouth that got games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero into the mainstream.

Here’s how Young put it: “There’s two types of games. There are games you launch, [sell well], and then they go down. The second type of game just kind of chugs along, does a hundred downloads the first hour. Then a hundred and twenty-five the second hour, a hundred and forty the third hour. What you’re seeing is word of mouth happening in front of you.”

But Young develops games for the iPhone that publish updates to your Facebook where you’re one click away from downloading the game demo for yourself. So maybe word-of-mouth marketing works better for him because it’s all digital.

Ask yourself if you’re more likely to buy Uncharted 2 after reading Kotaku’s review of the game, or after reading Brian Crecente’s Facebook status updates about it.

Point Three: Dude, Where’s Your Xbox?
Early on in the talk, Moore mentioned that he recently bought a ROKU box to download movies at home. During the Q&A, a Microsoft employee got up and asked him — quite rightly — what happened to his Xbox 360? Then he asked a real question about how soon we could expect to be rid of physical media.

Young answered the first part for Moore: “It red-ringed.”

Then Moore said, “[The industry is] at least a decade away from saying goodbye to a physical disc. The more important question is what does the next generation of console look like?” Will it have a disc drive or just anInternet connection? Whatever it is, says Moore, it’ll probably be Microsoft that makes the jump first.

Well played, Moore.

Final Point: Chicks and Madden
Moore said that 85% of Madden users (note: not buyers) are male and 65% of EA Sports Active users are female. EA Sports wants to level these numbers out in terms of gender equality, but it’s not quite sure how to.

Ladies, any suggestions?

Image Cred