Ubisoft starts 'Uplay Passport' in effort to profit from used game sales

Ubisoft has announced their "Uplay Passport" this week, a system similar to EA's and Sony's "online passes."

The online passes work to profit from used game sales, a market the publishers have been looking to act upon for over a decade.

EA started the online pass system in 2010 with the introduction of Mass Effect 2. The first owner of the game pays full price from retail and has access to online and all features. If that consumer then wants to sell the game online or back to the store, the second buyer will need to pay $9.99 to the publisher to access online multiplayer and other features, on top of the price they paid for the game.

In this way, the publisher can "double dip" on their games, leading to extra revenue.

Ubisoft's first title to use the system will be "Driver: San Francisco."

Uplay will "provide players with access to bonus content, exclusive offers, and online multiplayer play for many of Ubisoft's popular core games," for a price of $10.

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The Binding of Isaac bound for Steam this August, new screens bound for right now

Team Meat's Edmund McMillen just loosed a few more details and screenshots for his recently announced rougelike The Binding of Isaac. McMillen had previously hinted that Isaac would take some of its design cues from his "favorite game of all time," and judging by these screens, he wasn't kidding.

Isaac will be a mix between roguelikes, twin-stick shooters of yore, and The Legend of Zelda. The player uses Robotron-esque controls to navigate randomly generated dungeons in a "semi RPG world" littered with power-ups and items. These items have replaced a traditional leveling system according to McMillen, and as your character progresses they will "change into a monstrous powerhouse not only in stats and abilities but also in appearance."

In its current iteration, the game spans "3 chapters, 6 bosses, 36 enemy types, 4 unlockable characters and tons of dynamic happenings," however the team hopes to push those figures even higher before the game hits Steam this August. While no price-point has been set, McMillen maintains that it won't break the bank.

Oh! And there are flies that poop blood at you. Sounds about right.

Gallery: The Binding of Isaac reveal (07/16/11)

The Binding of Isaac bound for Steam this August, new screens bound for right now originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blog Post: 100 BarrelFish O/S on the Wall, take one down, 99 BarrelFish O/S on the Wall!

Just makes you hum that famous old song doesn?t it?  But what is odd, is that to read the interesting non-Microsoft papers requires that you join ACM and then you can read them, as far as I can tell.  Which seems to me to be insane as an author, those kinds of research papers should just be free, who wants to pay to read them?  Well if you want to read one of these non-Microsoft papers, for instance the:

?Efficiently correlating complex events over live and archived data streams?

Would cost $15.00 for you to buy the article from ACM.  Might be worth it.

Well I would, and one of the perks for working at Microsoft (and many other companies) is that they pay for the access to the digital subscriptions.  If you work at one of those companies and you don?t use this benefit then you should consider it.

If you want to join the fish in the barrel, or read what folks are saying you could sign up and go to:

You should consider signing up for the mailing list.  Keep in mind that this is a research project so the code inside of the O/S might not meet your quality standards. 

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Report: GameStop to earn $1.5 billion in sales by 2014 by stealing from Steam

GameStop is expected to triple its sales over the next three years, from a projected $500 million in 2011 to $1.5 billion in 2014, thanks to its fledgling digital strategy. This includes GameStop's digital distribution service, Impulse, which it acquired this year, and the addition of former Microsoft Game Studios VP Shane Kim.

Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian said in an investor report that GameStop plans to take "a meaningful share from market leader Steam" with Impulse. GameStop is looking to begin its digital regicide with a strike on Battlefield 3, according to the report: "The upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam. Given Steam's dominance -- and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application -- publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative."

EA's list of digital retailers for Battlefield 3 is currently down, leaving Impulse's inclusion and Steam's dismissal offically unconfirmed, for now. We have contacted Sebastian and EA for clarification. One thing that is confirmed is GameStop's bravado in the digital realm, but that may also only be for now.

Report: GameStop to earn $1.5 billion in sales by 2014 by stealing from Steam originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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David Rosenberg: The Disappearing Recovery

Fri 15 Jul 11 | 07:00 AM ET ~~~

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Citigroup's CEO Discusses Q2 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Citigroup (C)

Q2 2011 Earnings Call

July 15, 2011 11:00 am ET

Executives

Vikram Pandit - Chief Executive Officer and Director

John Gerspach - Chief Financial Officer

John Andrews - Director, Investor Relations

Analysts

Jason Goldberg - Barclays Capital

Peter Ganucheau

Ed Najarian - ISI Group Inc.

Ron Mandle - GIC

John McDonald - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.

Betsy Graseck - Morgan Stanley

Guy Moszkowski - BofA Merrill Lynch

James Mitchell - Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Moshe Orenbuch - Cr�dit Suisse AG

Gerard Cassidy - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Glenn Schorr - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd.

Unknown Analyst -

Michael Mayo - Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc.

Matthew O'Connor - Deutsche Bank AG

Presentation

Operator

Hello and welcome to the Citi Second Quarter 2011 Earnings Review with Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach. Today's call will be hosted by John Andrews, Head of

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