Archive for April 13th, 2006

Revolution Game Announcement - Ubisoft Gets There First

Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced the development of Red Steel, an exclusive first-person action title for the Nintendo Revolution (working name of the new Nintendo platform). Red Steel is set in modern-day Japan. Players will master both the ancient art of the katana and the sophisticated technology of modern firearms taking advantage of the emotion and immersive gameplay possible only with the Revolution’s remarkable controller.

“We’re honored to announce this exciting new franchise and we’re confident that Red Steel will be the must-have title for the Revolution when it launches,” said Serge Hascoet, chief creative officer at Ubisoft. “We have been working closely with Nintendo to take full advantage of the innovative controller to create a thrilling experience that can only exist on the Revolution.”

Red Steel will make its worldwide debut in May 2006 at E3 in Los Angeles. With the style and flair of a contemporary action movie, Red Steel will appeal to gamers who thirst for a new video game experience, as well as those who may have not previously considered picking up a controller.

“Nintendo is excited to have Ubisoft bring Red Steel to the Revolution launch lineup,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America. “Ubisoft makes some of the most innovative and critically acclaimed games in the industry and from what we have seen from Red Steel it is going to be a standout exclusive title on the Revolution.”

Ubisoft has a strong history of creating some of the industry’s top-selling video game franchises. To date, the Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Rayman franchises have each sold more than 15 million units worldwide and the Prince of Persia franchise alone has sold more than eight million units worldwide. The Red Steel brand will reflect this expertise and build upon Ubisoft’s past to invigorate the future experience allowed within the Revolution platform.

Ubisoft will disclose more specific information on Red Steel in the coming months and Nintendo will reveal more information about the Revolution and its unique controller at E3.

Add comment April 13th, 2006

Google Calendar Challenges Microsoft and Yahoo

Google CalendarGoogle has rolled out its online calendar tool which is available free to all users with a Google account.

The calendar can be accessed at www.google.com/calendar, although at the time of writing the service was suffering a lot of interruptions, presumably because of the interest generated by the launch.

It has a feature list roughly in line with what you would expect from a desktop-based calendar, including drag and drop and the ability to view your diary as a day, week, a month or, bizarrely, the next four days. It’s a thoroughly impressive piece of coding and it’s easy to forget that you aren’t using a software calendar.

Being Google, the calendar is tightly integrated with their other services including Gmail. In fact you can create entries directly from dates mentioned in Gmail emails.

The calendar can be exported to Microsoft Outlook if you decide to return to the dark side and you can import your messages in from other major calendar tools if you just want to give it a try. If you like you can create separate diaries, allowing you to keep work and home apart, but this seems like a slightly redundant feature to TechSmec.com. If you need to be reminded of things going on in your life you can elect to be notified of events via email, or if you are in the USA, via SMS.

This is not an obvious progression for Google, but it is certainly one which should shake up the market. Microsoft and Yahoo will be watching with interest.

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