GameIndustry.biz posted an interesting article which highlighted the UK game industry’s contribution to games created for Microsoft and Sony’s motion controllers.

“Figures from GfK Chart Track reveal that some 42 per cent of UK sales for all Xbox 360 Kinect titles and 30 per cent of PlayStation Move games to date where made in Britain.” (read the full article here)

That’s certainly an encouraging statistic for all aspiring game developers in the UK. Especially since a certain large games company has threatened to pull out of the UK when it came to game development (you can read about it here and here).

Anyway, it’s nice to know that talent in Britain is still valued when it comes to game development for the latest hardware. So isn’t it about time we got that tax break everyone’s been gunning for? We had enough of an IT brain drain” to the US in the 1980′s and 90′s – you’d have thought we’d have learned our lesson by now.

I guess Matmi could always relocate across the pond – but it seems slightly ridiculous when we live in cyberspace, and someone’s got to get the UK out of debt. I think we may lend our support to The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA) – and you can too.

Game on! Jeff.

Apple has announced that downloads from its App Store have now passed ten billion. No, you didn’t just mis-read that. It DOES say 10 BILLION! That’s almost 3 billion more App downloads than there are people currently alive. What an incredible statistic. And they are not done. The company continues to grow, as do their profits.

30% of the revenue made from those 10 Billion apps go directly to Apple. If you add that to all the profits they make from their hardware sales, then you can pretty much say they have an un-limited amount of funds. No wonder they considered buying Facebook.

Here’s some more stats to boggle the mind:

“The iPhone firm revealed that around seven billion of those downloads had occured during the last year – following a record quarter in which Apple claimed $6 billion in profit.

“The ten billionth App was downloaded on Saturday 22 January, with UK citizen Gail Davis from Kent being awarded a $10,000 iTunes gift card for being the downloader in question. Her app of choice was Paper Glider.” (gameindustry.biz)

And this is where we’d like to say a well-deserved “Congratulations mate!” to Oli Christie at Neon Play. Oli – I remember the discussion we had when you were setting Neon up (and I hope some of what I had to say was useful…!) I’m a little green (maybe more than a little…) but it’s great to see your news – I’ll race ya for the 20th billionth download!

Which will probably only take until Christmas…

And well done to Apple too. Love them or hate them, you have to admire their success.

Enjoy, Jeff.

Our latest game “Escape to Plastic Beach” for the Gorillaz crosses the divide into reality – along with several other divides that we know of!

2D to 3D. Flash to Unity. Free-to-play to free MP3 download. Bruce Willis got his own virtual double as the bounty hunter. And the game crosses from virtual to reality and back again – several times – given that Gorillaz is a virtual band (which makes your brain hurts if you think about it too hard….).

But don’t do that! Play the game and let us know what you think. Here’s what lead singer Murdoc has to say on the subject:

“Hey! This is fan-tastic. Some top-notch gonk gaming company have made a Gorillaz game that you can play free online. It’s all based on Plastic Beach, and it features me, 2D and my cyborg Noodle! What’s even better is that if you pay the £1.50 for the last part, you get our new single “Superfast Jellyfish”, and that’s got ‘Super Furry’ Gruff and the De La Soul boys on it! El Caminos, Boogiemen, ghostly pirate ships, underwater chases, mines, fat cops and gun battles all wrapped up in some snazzy new gaming technology and a great new Gorillaz track too…I mean, what more could you want? Come n’ play with me and Gorillaz on Plastic Beach and see how far that gets you…”
He’s right – we think it’s pretty darned good too. There are months of our lives, a lot of our brain cells and an awful lot of Matmi magic in “Escape to Plastic Beach“.

And there’s still more to come. Prepare yourself to cross another chasm Matmi style in a few weeks time…. Enjoy, Jeff.

A new version of the development platform Unity has been announced, adding support for Android and the PlayStation 3, on top of the existing support for iPhone, Wii and the Xbox 360, as well as boasting numerous upgrades to the engine itself. (more…)

With all the talk of iPads and Androids, it’s easy to forget to forget that Microsoft has been in the mobile business for some time now, which is something that the company is eager to remedy with a new version of its Windows Mobile platform. (more…)