Skyrim Steam’s Fastest Selling Game Ever
Fus, Roh, DOSH!
Bethesda’s massive open world role playing epic Skyrim has garnered yet another accolade to add to its collection, as Valve names the game the fastest selling title in the history of the Steam platform.
“Bethesda’s commitment to and understanding of the PC as a gaming platform shows in the great review scores, spectacular launch, and continued high player numbers that Skyrim has received,” said Valve’s director of business development Jason Holtman.
“We are delighted that Bethesda chose to use Steamworks to support Skyrim both at retail and digitally.”
Bethesda parent company ZeniMax claims that the game shipped a massive 10 million units across the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms, a shipping total that accounted for around $650 million in retail sales since Skyrim’s launch.
In the US market the PC version of the game even managed to outsell all other games by 3 to 1. ZeniMax noted “large retail reorders across all platforms” and “record-breaking digital sales”.
ZeniMax boss Robert Altman said: “We are gratified that Skyrim continues to garner high review scores and accolades around the world.
We are most grateful to our fans for their support and enthusiasm for the game, and their love of the hundreds of hours of gameplay it offers. We continue to strive to deliver the highest quality entertainment experience for everyone.
2012 will be another huge year for our fans, with the release of the Creation Kit, as well as exciting DLC which will add to the richness of this epic adventure.”
Battlefield 3 DLC Now Free to PS3 Users
Battlefield 3’s Physical Warfare pack can now be downloaded free of charge by PlayStation 3 users, developer DICE has announced. The controversial DLC pack was previously only available as a pre order bonus, causing fans to threaten to boycott the game as the DLC was thought to give some players an unfair advantage.
Where once before the pack was completely unavailable to some, today it is now fully available for all PS3 players completely free. The pack allows instant use of the higher-level DAO-12 shotgun if you haven’t unlocked it previously, along with some nifty flechette shells to fill it with. Additional gear includes a stealth-orientated flash suppressor for the SKS sniper rifle, as well as the Type 88 Light Machine Gun.
For the gearless of PC and Xbox platforms, the DLC will arrive “at a later date”, says the official Battlefield blog. Check it out for more updates in the near future.
New COD MW3 Game Modes Go Live
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has got a bit bigger recently, as Infinity Ward has added new gameplay modes to the popular shooter game, with care package infused Drop Zone out this weekend and some older playlists are converted to ‘Ricochet mode’, where friendly fire damage bounces back to the player it came from.
Additional content was also provided by Infinity Ward: Community Playlists. “This is where we will add popular or unique private match modes to the public playlists, so you can start ranking up on them!” Robert Bowling said in a post on the Call of Duty forum.
Here are the details of the new and tweaked modes.
Drop Zone:
Get to the drop zone to earn points, the first team to 7500 points wins the round, but that’s not all. As long as the Drop Zone is occupied, a care package will drop every 15 seconds, which ever team has the most members in the drop zone at that point “owns” the care package, but anyone can steal it. This is the only way to earn air support in this mode, all other pointstreaks are disabled. You’ll earn 20 points per team member, for every second they’re in the drop zone plus 20 XP individually for your time spent in the zone. Kills are worth 50 XP in this mode.
Custom Settings: Pointstreaks (besides those obtained through in-game care packages) are disabled.
Hardcore HQ Ricochet:
We’ll be adding Hardcore Headquarters to the Hardcore Team Tactical playlist.
Hardcore Ricochet:
We’ll be converting all Hardcore modes to Ricochet variant as a response to team killing. This means, any friendly fire, is applied to the attacker, rather than the victim. So choose your shots wisely and any attempt to team kill will simply kill yourself.
As a final note on COD MW3, a title update will be added today which addresses host disadvantage and lag compensation.
New Xbox Launch Points to 2013
Microsoft is currently on the march towards the next Xbox, according to CNET, with a new team leader being appointed by the company to handle the “design and experience” of the Xbox brand, allegedly working towards a 2013 launch for the franchise’s next console.
CNET’s sources have continually pointed to a 2013 launch for the new Xbox, pre-emptively referred to as the Xbox 720 or Xbox Next. The new team leader, replacing veteran brand overseer Don Coyner, was Emma Williams, who had previously worked on the console’s most recent Xbox 360 dashboard update.
Considering the sleek and modern approach to the new dashboard update, we hope the next Xbox, whenever it arrives, will look as stylish.
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