So, do you like drinking Dr. Pepper while you’re playing your EA Games? If so, you’re going to really enjoy this piece of news.

Electronic Arts and Dr. Pepper have entered into an agreement that will see Dr. Pepper providing codes for exclusive DLC for EA Games throughout 2010, starting with The Sims 3.
If you’re a Sims 3 fan, you can grab codes from Dr. Pepper that will unlock one-of-a-kind beach party items, or everything you need for a perfect tailgating party.

Tony Jacobs, Vice President of Marketing for Dr Pepper, said,

“The first-of-its-kind partnership with EA will give Dr Pepper fans an unrivaled experience by adding exclusive value to their games such as new levels and items. EA is the only media company that could reach our target audience with the breadth and depth of titles for gamers on any gaming platform.”

Honestly, these types of arrangements are going to become more and more prevalent in the future. As gaming becomes more and more accepted by mainstream marketers, there will be more tie-in opportunities to reach gamers as a market. This will end up being good for the industry, and good for individual gamers as well, as it will give us more opportunities to get cool little add-ons for our games like these.

You can check out the full text of the press release after the break.

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In the past year or so, we’ve seen some big mergers and acquisitions in the gaming industry. Activision and Blizzard’s merger was the big news, but there have been others. Today, another newsworthy acquisition was announced.

ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, has acquired id Software. This acquisition puts franchises like Fallout 3, Oblivion, Doom, Quake, and RAGE under one roof. The best news out of all of this is that all of the principals at id Software have signed long term contracts, meaning that id will continue to operate under the same management going forward.

In discussing the deal, id Technical Director and industry icon John Carmack said, “This puts id Software in a wonderful position going forward. We will now be able to grow and extend all of our franchises under one roof, leveraging our capabilities across multiple teams while enabling forward looking research to be done in the service of all of them. We will be bigger and stronger, as we recruit the best talent to help us build the landmark games of the future. As trite as it may be for me to say that I am extremely pleased and excited about this deal, I am.”

So, what sort of speculation can we make because of this deal? Bethesda games driven by id engines? That would seem to be a logical step, wouldn’t you think? What do you think this news means to the future of the two companies?

You can read the full text of the press release after the break.

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If you haven’t heard yet, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has threatened, in a roundabout way, to drop his company’s support for PS3 if Sony doesn’t consider a price cut.

According to MCV, Kotick said in an interview,

“I’m getting concerned about Sony – the PS3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don’t make it easy for me to support the platform. It’s expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation.

They have to cut the price, because if they don’t, the attach rates are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony. When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console — and the PSP too.”

That’s a big shot fired across Sony’s bow. So, will Sony take him seriously, and how will they respond?

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InFamous is an action packed trip into a familiar genre with an interesting twist. You start out as Cole McGrath, a poor schmuck who has a mysterious delivery package blow up in his face, leaving him with burgeoning electrical based powers and everyone else in a six block radius with a slight case of death. You emerge from your baptism by fire, crawl out of the blast zone and run for your life guided by your buddy Zeke as the police force hunts you down.

Once you reach the relative safety of your roof top penthouse, the game truly begins throwing you into a grand conspiracy masterminded by a clandestine mystical organization. As you unravel the mystery, you can either fight your reputation as the bringer of the apocalypse or revel in the new coolness that is you and start building your own evil empire.

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Like many other people, I was very interested in seeing the ‘official’ unveiling of the PSP Go during Sony’s E3 press conference. Of course, we’d all seen it before the conference started, but I still wanted to see the official reveal.

My first thought was that other than the size of the unit, the PSP Go really wasn’t all that different from the PSP I already own. Over the weekend, I read an interesting article on Ars Technica, where they reached a similar conclusion. I thought I’d share it, as it tracks closely with my early impressions of the system.

The bigger news, according to Ars Technica, is the news that Sony is moving all their PSP distribution to digital, as well as on UMD. However, there’s no reason to buy the new handheld to take advantage of this move to digital. After all, with the right Memory Stick, I can download all these nifty new games onto my existing PSP. So, how will the PSP Go do at retail?

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So, you may remember that I mentioned the tumble that game sales took in May. Well, it should be no surprise that Microsoft is looking at the massive drop in Wii sales and seeing an opportunity there.

What would be surprising would be for them to attempt to capitalize on that opportunity by launching a new console. Well, according to Sam Kennedy at 1UP, that’s exactly Microsoft’s plan.

In their Listen Up podcast, Kennedy was chatting with David Ellis of Microsoft, where they were discussing the new motion-sensing Natal technology, Ellis apparently let it slip that there will be a new XBox console next fall. Yeah, you heard that right. They’re planning another console launch in 2010.

Gamers will also be able to purchase Natal as an add-on for existing 360’s, which begs the question: Why launch another console now?

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One of the most disappointing problems with the video game industry is that we tend to churn through games so fast that a title released 6 months ago is likely to be overshadowed by newer releases. While in some cases this could be considered merciful in that really bad games fade quickly from notice, there is also a disappointing factor of forgetting our game history.

One of the premiere computer game historical archives, an abandonware website called Home of the Underdogs returned to life after going dark some time ago.

Gaming is a new hobby, it doesn’t have the legacy of other leisure activities but in many ways because of the evolving nature of technology and the cash driven nature of the industry it means that many games that could be considered foundational to the modern video game design are unavailable or obsoleted and incompatible with modern computing platforms. Consoles and computer games alike suffer from this and even though sites like Good Old Games (GOG.com) are stemming this trend with DRM free older titles like Fallout, Descent and Freespace there are still hundreds of titles that will never see the light of day because their publishers no longer exist or the rights are a mess.

I’m not a big fan of illegal activity but in some ways since the legality of older titles are in question often, I can only say I am glad to see that sites like Abandonia and it’s peer Home of the Underdogs served to preserve records and often copies of these faded titles for posterity. The Underdogs site was the victim of its own success for awhile, with the hosting fees and a lack of continued energy forcing the original founders to surrender the website to the eternal darkness of a 404 error.

If you’re a classic gamer looking to relive your halcyon days you might want to check out Underdogs.

The latest NPD numbers are out now, and it’s official: the industry is taking a major hit compared to last year. Total sales in May were $863 million, down 23% from last May. The 2009 year-to-date totals are down 7% from a year ago.

According to The Wall Street Journal, total videogame spending dropped below $1 billion for the first time since August 2007. The most significant drops were in console sales, with the sales leading Nintendo Wii dropping 55%.

But it’s not all bad news. Since the sales figures for this month largely met the expectations of industry analysts, there is speculation that the recent contraction in the industry should end by August. Also driving these predictions is the fact that there are a number of high-profile games coming to retail release dates, starting with the Sims 3 this month. We can still look forward to games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age, and Brutal Legend to drive sales up later this year.

In all honesty, no one should be surprised by these numbers. After all, last May saw the release of one of the most highly anticipated titles of the year, Grand Theft Auto 4. That title alone drove more sales than the top two sellers for this May combined. Nevermind that had it hit its intended release date, it would have already been on store shelves for months at that time. 2008 was a phenomenal year for videogame sales, but in today’s economy, every industry is taking hits. Videogames may recover faster, because they allow consumers to stay home, and are one of the more cost efficient methods of personal entertainment.

I don’t think it’s time to panic yet, but if there isn’t a turnaround by August, then you may have to worry a little bit.

Despite the huge number of copies pirated P2P before the release, Sims 3 is raking in the profits with 1.4 million sales for the PC and Mac the first week. The figure makes Sims 3 the best selling EA game for the PC ever. Play created content is also churning out at an amazing rate. Fans have already snagged 7 million downloads of custom content from the Sims 3 Exchange.

I’m playtesting Sims 3 right now, and have been able to find new dlc for the game already on several free sites including Mod The Sims and Parsimonius. There are many sims and patterns to be had and even a few global mods already up. For those of you who are new to this god game, you can find more details on Sims 3 from the EA press release after the break.
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Well, I have to admit that I was less than excited about E3 this year. After all, I was there in 2007, when the conference moved to a smaller format and a different venue. That year, and in 2008, the conference felt smaller and less important. Many of the ‘announcements’ we were receiving were things we had already reported on weeks before, and we’d even seen many of the trailers before.

Shawn mentioned all of this when he was talking about his PrE3 Blues. I mentioned then that I was unfortunately agreeing with him.

So, in the face of this crazy E3 week, how do I feel now?

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