Martyn Brown co-founder of Team 17, is set to run the currently nameless studio. The goal for this new studio is to duplicate the success that Activision had with its recently released Skylanders: Cloud Patrol iOS app and bring more Activision properties to the mobile market.

Richard Wilson the CEO of TIGA a UK gaming trade association released the following statement after the announcement:

“This is a massive vote of confidence in the UK games industry and demonstrates that TIGA’s successful campaign for Games Tax Relief is already bearing fruit. We have the talent, we have the tax breaks and now we are winning the investment..This is a terrific day for the UK games industry, for people looking to work in our high technology, high skilled industry, and for the UK economy. We are back in the game.”

This is not the only good news that the UK games industry has had as of late, as the serving government finally delivered on the much promised tax break for games developers.  While the news may not seem that relevant for readers across the pond in the good old US of A, remember that Rockstar North (about an hour or so away from where I sit right now) is here. While it is probably one of the safest developers in the country, should the UK become uncompetitive then you may never see Grand Theft Auto V, VI, VII etc.

Source: DigitalSpy

We’re in the thick of what is generally considered the competitive StarCraft (and gaming in general) season, a notion mostly determined by the fact that the MLG’s Spring season is currently ongoing, and the e-sports scene has probably never been bigger. With thousands turning out for MLG tour events and thousands more tuning in to the likes of the IGN Pro League, it’s not hard to see the potential for mad cash.

Hence Red Bull’s latest foray into the competitive gaming scene with Red Bull Battlegrounds. The transmedia company once known for its energy drinks has turned its rutilant bovine eye towards e-sports and is bringing an elite invitational to Austin, TX, this weekend from May 25 to May 27 at Austin City Limit’s Moody Theater.

There will be 16 professional SC2 players in attendance including Team Liquid’s TaeJa, Team EG’s HuK, and more. Saturday will be round-robin play from 1pm to 10pm and Sunday will be the playoffs also from 1pm to 10pm. You can catch all the action at either Day[9]‘s live page or the Red Bull LAN page.

Friday will be an open house event from 8pm to 10pm with the opportunity for fans to meet with players and casters with panels and Q&A events.

Oh yeah, and I’ll be there.

For more information, you can check out Day[9]‘s post at Team Liquid, Austin City Limits, or Red Bull LAN.

The app will offer live streaming HD feeds of sporting events such as the tennis at Wimbledon, Formula One and the Olympics, as well as on-demand content.

In a statement  Sony said:

“Throughout the London 2012 Olympics Games, the BBC Sport app will give audiences access to 2,500 hours of content and up to 24 simultaneous live events, all in HD..The application has been designed specifically for the ‘big-screen’ to deliver an ultimate home entertainment experience. The principal purpose is to deliver live sporting events where there are simultaneous activities or multiple camera angles.”

It is worth noting that in order to legally watch live content – even if it is streamed requires a TV licence whereas if it is not live content or is on a delay then a TV licence may not be required.

Source:  CVG

Luckily, all hope is not lost. Although you’re going to miss out on what’s happening on the show floor, many of the press conferences are usually streamed over the internet. On top of that, last year, Sony streamed their press conference over the PS3′s Home. This year Microsoft is going to hop on the bandwagon and stream their conference over Xbox LIVE.

If you’re interested in seeing what announcements Microsoft will have, tune in on Monday, June 4th at 10:00 a.m. PST. Sony will be live at 6:00 p.m. that evening.

Source: GiantBomb

When was the last time you bought a console for under a hundred dollars and still had years of support in front of it? Never? You are right. With such a cheap price up front though, there has to be some kind of explanation for such a deal, right? Exactly! For those of you who haven’t heard the rumors from The Verge, Microsoft might launch a Xbox 360 bundle with the Kinect for only $99 upfront with an additional monthly subscription fee for two different Xbox Live Gold accounts, giving real competition for platforms that feature streaming services such as Roku & Apple TV.

What does this mean for average consumers and gamers? Like many would think right away when they hear this, Microsoft is going make a large amount of money off of this. It only makes sense, right? According to Eurogamer, consumers will only be spending an additional $50 over the two years of contracted subscription time. If you buy everything upfront, it’ll only cost you approximately $420 before taxes but if you were to purchase the bundle and go through the contracted period you’ll pay about $460 before taxes.

As everything hasn’t been set in stone yet, Microsoft isn’t confirming or denying that these previous statements maybe true; just that they, “don’t comment on rumors or speculation”. As I asked before, what does this kind of deal mean for gamers? For someone in my situation that has a failing Xbox 360 with no Kinect while not making that much money, this kind of offer intrigues me as I wouldn’t want to spend all my money up front. As I only use one gamertag though, I’d see $100 of that money go into mid-air. Perhaps if Microsoft offered multiple options for how many Gold accounts could be contracted, I’d be more willing to see the part in which this actually is a genuine good deal.

How would average consumers see this bundle as an entertainment consumer, instead of a gamer though? As comparing the price of a cable box to a Xbox 360, it might just be the enticing offer that movie and TV lovers have been looking for to combat the traditional markets of cable and satellite providers. Lowering the price from $95 a month according to Answers.com for a traditional urban apartment to Microsoft’s monthly fees for the bundle with Netflix and Hulu being is about $50, the answer is simple. This move by Microsoft will take a chunk out of the cable market and we’ll only see the margin grow until ‘gamescom 2013′ when we’ll likely hear a first announcement for the next Xbox.

The only thing that could break your possible $45 of savings a month is a potential program that Hulu is looking into. Reported by MobileDia this afternoon, Hulu is looking into forcing subscribers to have login information from their cable company to use their service as an accessory instead of a replacement. There is no word on Netflix doing this but Netflix has been steadily losing support from larger networks to keep their content on the original TV streaming service.

This $99 Xbox 360 with Kinect bundle could mean a revolution in the living room as long as the support of applications like Netflix, HBO Go, YouTube, SyFy, VEVO, Hulu & MSNBC. Control of what you want to watch in your living room could be at hand for a margin off of the traditional price, but we have to wait until the announcement that’ll probably be coming right before E3, which will happen around the beginning of June.

I’ve been playing with Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite, and it’s time I tell you what I think. Is it a dud or a must have for any tablet or smartphone user?

For those of you that don’t know what’s so special about the GoFlex Satellite, it’s a Wi-Fi portable hard drive. One that has 500GBs worth a space. With any iOS or Android device, you are able to pretty much stream any of your media library over the Wi-Fi from the GoFlex Satellite to whatever you’re using. You can also access files that are on the GoFlex Satellite and copy them from the Satellite to whatever you are using.

The Seagate GoFlex Satellite is a pretty simple device. It’s just a tad bigger then your standard USB powered HDD; this is to store a battery that’s reported good for up to 7 hours. It, of course, also has Wi-Fi hardware inside of it that allows you to connect to it through Seagate’s GoFlex Media app. To keep internet access to your device, you can connect your GoFlex Satellite to another network and then piggyback its connection to your device. This is a nice and very important feature to have because without it, if you were connected to the GoFlex Satellite, you wouldn’t have any internet on your device. Also packed in with the GoFlex Satellite were the cables necessary to connect it to your computer via USB 2 or USB 3. A USB power cord (so you can charge it without having to connect it to your Mac or PC), and an car charger adapter (for those long drives) are also included.

So how well does is work? Seagate’s GoFlex Satellite almost hit a homerun with this HDD. The only flaws I could find happen to be with the GoFlex Media app and not the HDD itself. Yes you can stream videos, but ONLY iOS friendly videos. This means no .avi’s or .mkv’s, two well known and widely used formats in the video media world. You can, of course, convert your media to .mp4′s or .m4v’s, but who really wants to do that? Certainly I don’t, nor would I want to when I can play just about any type of file already on my iPad with apps. Another really big flaw for me was how I can’t move files from my iPad to the GoFlex Satellite. Their file transfer system only works one way. I think it would be great to be able to move some of my documents from Pages, or photos that are on my device to the GoFlex Satellite. The fact you can not do it only baffles me; it seems like such a common sense type of thing. The only reason that I could see as a legit reason not to include this option is if Apple won’t allow it, but as other apps have allowed me to do similar things, I’m not sure if this is the reason. These two issues are the only two problems I have with the GoFlex Satellite, both of which seem that they could be fixed through an update of their app.

Overall I was very surprised by how well the Seagate GoFlex Satellite worked and performed. I plugged it to my Mac, threw some videos on it, and then it was ready to go. I’ve tried it around the house, and on a trip down to Boulder. Actually to be honest, my daughter tried it on the trip down to Boulder and it worked great. The Seagate app connected right to the HDD and it showed me all the videos that I threw on it. Each one played pretty much instantly and without any issue. I could easily see myself using this on any type of commutes, vacations, or even just around the office. The fact that I can connect up to 3 devices up to the GoFlex Satellite just makes it even more appealing. All of a sudden, I’m watching a movie, my daughter is watching one of her Disney shows and my wife can still watch whatever she wants to. That would be so awesome for any of our vacations when we have our downtime.

Steve’s Final Say: If you have kids, and they have any iOS or Android device, this is really a must have. Just think of all the quiet time you’ll get on any trip as they have access to their movies or tv shows. If you go on trips yourself, or commutes where you watch tv shows or movies, this again, is really a must have. Free up your iOS or Android device and keep your media on this, and then just connect it to whenever you want to watch your media. The GoFlex Satellite really does work great and it’s so simple to use.

Edit: There has been a firmware update that now allows up to 8 people to connect wirelessly to to GoFlex Satellite.

(we have) started making a variety of movements for the new title(s) in the series (and we will) be able to make an announcement pretty soon.

Nomura offered some fuel for speculation by ruling out a sequel to 2010′s PSP release Birth by Sleep and also confirmed that there are no plans to release a Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts 3D,which has been common in previous games in the series. However this doesn’t necessarily mean Kingdom Hearts 3 is in developement, as it could as easily be another Nintendo Handheld game, a new title and the first on the PS Vita, an iOS title or perhaps even a launch title for the Wii U?

Since the Kingdom Hearts first launched 10 years ago there have been several new Disney franchises launched(Pirates of the Caribbean, High School Musical etc) as well as new major company acquisitions like Pixar in 2006 and Marvel last year.  This opens a whole new realm of possibilities,  just as Kingdom Hearts has levels based around Disney movies, this new game could have levels based around comics; a level for X-men, Spider-Man. Avengers, Fantastic Four etc each with their own villains. You could easily just re-skin the first two games with Marvel characters and it would sell.

Kingdom Hearts 3D is out in July 2012 in both UK and North America.

Source: DigitalSpy, CVG

Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise Part 2

Concluding the trilogy, Dark Horse has also announced a September 26th release date of Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise Part 3.

The first volume of The Promise has enjoyed impressive sales and reception. As a fan of the TV series, I enjoyed it quite a bit myself, but with no conclusion it forces you to pick up the next volume. I’m eager to see how The Promise ties-in with the new Avatar animated series The Legend of Korra, which is raising numerous questions about what happened before it. If the next two installments of The Promise continue to find an audience, perhaps a comic series of The Legend of Korra is in the cards.

Source: Dark Horse Comics

I’ve always thought Valve’s games would make some really awesome-looking figurines. And yet, despite my immense love for Team Fortress 2, there is no way in hell I’d pay near $400 for one of Gaming Head’s interpretations of the zany classes from the online FPS. They’re beautiful and artfully detailed, but, I mean, c’mon. Now Valve has partnered with threeA toys to bring the adorable pals from last year’s masterpiece Portal 2 into the real world with the figurines shown above.

Sadly, it was just the prototypes for the figures that were recently shown off at the ReVenture Art Show in Hong Kong, so no price, official size, or release window has been announced yet. I’m just hoping this is more of a mass-market deal than the extreme niche and high price of Gaming Head’s figures. Because, despite the amazing detail, I’d rather something cheaper and perhaps less professional-looking than something I’ll never buy in the first place. So stay tuned here at Platform Nation for any further news relating to the cool little Portal figures, and let us know how much you’d be willing to fork over for ‘em!

Source: Gaming Heads and Game Informer

The legal system is a slow lumbering brute so a final decision isn’t expected until later this year.

What does this mean for the consumer? Nothing really, if Microsoft are infringing Motorola Mobility’s patents then in theory the console could be banned from US stores, however more likely a deal will be made to license the technology either from Motorola Mobility or Google who are in the process of purchasing the company.

Source: DigitalSpy, BBC News, AFP