A selection of links, hand-picked by the Guardian games writers.
Forced student labour used to build PS4s at Foxconn - report | MCV
Electronics manufacturing giant, Foxconn, has reportedly been using student labour to assemble and pack PlayStation 4 consoles:
GamesInAisa cites reports emerging in China claiming that "thousands of students from an IT engineering program at the Xi'an Institute of Technology are being forced to work at Foxconn's Yantai plant assembling the Sony PlayStation 4".
It is claimed that what is being advertised as an 'internship' is in reality nothing of the sort, with students instead being given jobs on the manufacturing line
The report adds that: "Students have been told if they refuse to participate, they lose six course credits, which effectively means they will not be able to graduate" and that "students say that their working hours are exactly the same as regular workers – the only difference is that unlike the workers, the students aren't being paid".
Sony issued a statement to MCV, claiming that Foxxcon, "fully comprehend and comply with this 'Sony Supplier Code of Conduct'." However, Foxconn seems to have admitted the use of student labour to digital news outlet, Quartz:
Foxconn told Quartz that after an internal investigation it determined that the XIT students at its Yantai factory complex were assigned to night shifts and overtime, in violation of the company's policies. "Immediate actions have been taken to bring that campus into full compliance with our code and policies," the company said in a statement, including "reinforcing the policies of no overtime and no night shifts for student interns, even though such work is voluntary, and reminding all interns of their rights to terminate their participation in the program at any time."
Foxconn is of course well-known for its manufacturing work on Apple products and has been the subject of much controversy, regarding alleged poor working conditions and long hours.
Xbox One expected to outsell PS4 - UK retailer | GamesIndustry International
A bunch of the specialist game sites picked up on this TrustedReviews piece, interviewing Jonathan Marsh, head technology buyer at John Lewis. Lewis had this to say about the forthcoming next-gen console war:
"We are expecting more interest in the Xbox One," Marsh said. "We are stocking both the PS4 and the Xbox One but if we were to back one, we are thinking that Xbox One will appeal a bit more to our customers in terms of the experience it creates."
Marsh also cited the Xbox Live service and the Xbox One's lineup of launch software as factors working in Microsoft's favor, saying the games should hold considerable appeal to the store's customer base "based on what we've experienced in the past."
Interesting. After all the controversy at E3, the dust has settled and apparently its now down to good old games, price and services...
Can Nintendo Do Free-to-Play Right? | IGN
Nintendo is introducing free-to-play mechanics to the 3DS with its baseball-themed mini-game collection Darumeshi Sports Store. The company is bringing some new concepts to the controversial model:
Haggling the price down is a fascinating idea - a defiantly untraditional, very Nintendo take on micro-transactions. And with the ability to earn money-off vouchers by filling up your card with stamps, the more you play and the better you do, the stronger your chance of getting the other games much cheaper. It's not an approach that would work for every game, of course, but it's one of the most unique ways to approach freemium gaming I've seen so far.
If anyone can bring charm to F2P it's Nintendo.
Spec Analysis: the Steam Machines prototypes | Eurogamer.net
Roch Leadbetter provides a characteristically robust and in-depth analysis of Valve's living room PC offering:
CPU-wise, Valve hasn't skimped in its prototype line-up - for the most part. We're looking at the latest Intel "Haswell" parts, specifically the 3.2GHz quad-core i5-4570 and the 3.5GHz i7-4770. These are highly capable processors, but with a price-tag to match. Compare and contrast with AMD - its current enthusiast flagship, the FX-8350, is around £80 to £100 cheaper than the 4770K, and actually matches or even beats it on highly threaded games like Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4, where it easily beats the similarly priced i5-4570.
Leadbetter says you could build your own for a similar price, but it's the form factor and cool controller that give it special appeal.
AusGamers Titanfall Interview with Respawn's Abbie Heppe | AusGamers.com
The Titanfall community manager speaks about how she hopes the game's enthusiastic reception will prompt more new IP in the coming year:
I know people want what is established and what's known, but I hope that if nothing else, it encourages larger scale new IP. It's so cool to be able to work on something new and different, and also to just have that kind of freedom. It's hard to have that freedom. That's the other side of it though: it's really hard to have that freedom. Because when you can kind of do anything, and there's competing ideas within the studio, so see this giant world in front of you where you can do anything, but then you have to be able to scale that back and take something out of that. It's not easy, and so I see why doing stuff in a franchise way is… I don't want to say easier, but you already have your world established for you, and a lot of that stuff is hard.
Can't help but think it's only going to get harder at the major studios as team numbers rise and middle management fattens.
To Oddworld and back: Why Lorne Lanning quit games and returned with a plan | CVG UK
Fantastic interview with Lanning, a charismatic and likeable industry veteran, about Oddworld and what he's working in now:
"I'm working on some stuff, at a design level, that is going to be more traumatic. I'm not sure I'm going to able to make it. I'm designing stuff and I'm like, wow, this might be really intense, at a basic core level. I'm really trying to think it through. But part of me wants it. That intensity"
Go for it, Lorne!
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