
MS replaces Xbox part
Microsoft will provide customers of the Xbox 360 wireless steering wheel with a free retrofit, after 50 reports that the video game controllers overheated and released smoke when plugged in, reports Xinhuanet.
This is the second Xbox 360 problem: in July, the company said it expected to spend more than $1 billion to repair hardware problems in the video game console. Gamers can register online to receive a "retrofit", which Microsoft would send with instructions "if necessary". The company would not say what replacement parts it plans to send to customers.
Some users have complained that there is a part within the wheel that may overheat and release smoke when using the AC-DC power supply.
Conduit Labs explores social gaming
Conduit Labs claims it has come up with a new way to merge social networking and online gaming, but the stealthy start-up isn't giving much away, reports Red Herring.
The company, which announced a $5.5 million round of funding from Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks, hopes to stand out from the crowd by creating a browser-based virtual world where friends can gather to play games, much in the same way they might hang out in the real world and play a game of monopoly or pick-up basketball.
"What we're basically building is a real-time social network, and it's all about what you want to do with your friends right now. You can play games with them," said Conduit Labs founder Nabil Hyatt.
In-game ads multiply
ABI Research says driven by the ability to dynamically serve advertising into video games connected to the Internet, in-game advertising on consoles will grow more than tenfold from $80 million in 2007 to $850 million in 2011, reports Media Post Publications.
The figure echoes trends found in recent research from Parks Associates and Yankee Group. Parks projected that total in-game advertising will grow from $55 million in 2006 to more than $800 million in 2012, with dynamic in-game advertising (in PCs and on mobile, as well as consoles) growing from 27% of the total to 84%.
Yankee said the in-game market will grow from $77.7 million in 2006 to $971.3 million in 2011, and that dynamically placed ads will cannibalise static in-game ads.
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