AMD in the clouds

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas, AMD president and CEO Dirk Meyer and OTOY CEO Jules Urbach unveiled a plan to revolutionise the deployment, development and delivery of HD content through the “AMD Fusion Render Cloud”, a massively-parallel supercomputer, according to Business Wire.

“Today, AMD is pleased to announce a new kind of supercomputer unlike any other ever built,” said Meyer, during AMD's Industry Insider Series keynote at the Las Vegas Hilton Theatre, where AMD was joined on stage by industry luminaries such as Lucasfilm, Dell, HP and Electronic Arts.

Gaming companies can use the AMD Fusion Render Cloud for developing and deploying next-generation game content, to serve up virtual world games with unlimited photo-realistic detail, and take advantage of new delivery channels.

This should be a good year for Halo fans, with two new versions of Halo set for release within the next 12 months, reports Information Week.

Most immediately, Halo Wars will ship to retailers on 28 February, according to a Microsoft executive, who spoke at CES 2009, in Las Vegas.

Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division president Robbie Bach noted that Halo Wars is the first T-rated version of the game. T-rated games are deemed suitable for teens 13 and older by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 were rated 'mature'.

Ziff Davis has sold its 1UP division to Hearst's UGO Entertainment, and is shutting down long-running print magazine EGM in the process, states Gamasutra.

According to a Ziff Davis Media statement received by Gamasutra, the sale includes 1UP.com, Mycheats.com, Gametab.com, and GameVideos.com. Specific financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In association with the move, Ziff Davis Media's EGM Magazine, a consumer game print mainstay since 1989, will be discontinued. The January 2009 issue will be the final printed issue.