In-Game Autolog Feature Challenges Friends and Frenemies to Compete for Top Spot

Australia, Nov 02, 2010 — Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced that the multi-million dollar global marketing campaign for Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit will be anchored by an online and broadcast TV advertising campaign starring pop culture icons Kevin Dillon and Jerry Ferrara. The two actors play the roles of parking valets frustrated by their inability to hit the open road in the many exotic performance vehicles that pull up to the five-star hotel where they work. In the fiction of the campaign, these friends/frenemies can only live out their fantasies of reaching 200mph by playing Need for Speed Hot Pursuit and besting each other’s top scores.

These witty and edgy commercials capture the rebelliousness of battling as a cop or a racer in Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. The first three of the five videos are now live on http://www.needforspeed.com and http://www.youtube.com/needforspeed with the final commercial being broadcast on major television networks throughout the holiday season beginning November 5, 2010.

A demo of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is now available for download on Xbox LIVE(TM) Marketplace and the PlayStation(R)Network.* The game will be available at retailers on November 18 in Australia on the Xbox 360(R) videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation(R)3 computer entertainment system and PC. Need for Speed Hot Pursuit will also be available on the Wii(TM) and is being developed by Exient.**

For more of the latest news and information on Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, please visit http://www.needforspeed.com, “like” the game on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/needforspeed and follow the game on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/needforspeed.

Enter to win tickets to the decadent Hollywood-style party at take40.com

Jamiroquai is the headline act at what is set to be Sydney’s most glamorous summer party event, the Take 40 Stars of Summer party presented by SingStar®, where Jay Kay and his band will perform live to Australia’s celebrity set and just five lucky Take 40 and PlayStation® fans.

In Sydney promoting their latest album ‘Rock Dust Light Star’ (out now), Jamiroquai will perform current single White Knuckle Ride, along with other hits from the new album and some past fan favourites, making the Take 40 Stars of Summer party, presented by SingStar, the must attend event of the season.

The summer launch party will take place at a luxurious Point Piper address that will transform into the PlayStation Mansion for the evening. The exclusive harbour mansion party will showcase the magnificent Sydney Harbour as a backdrop, adding to the glamour and ‘money can’t buy’ experience.

Take 40 Australia, a multi-platform entertainment brand now in its 27th year, prides itself on delivering the biggest and best of pop culture and bringing fans closer than ever to the hottest stars in the world. This event – a rare chance to catch one of the decade’s most enduring chart superstars in uniquely intimate surrounds – will be no exception.

PlayStation’s famous singing sensation SingStar, is proud to present the Take 40 Stars of Summer event. One of Australia’s favourite party games, SingStar is hotting up this summer; now fans can strut their dance moves or strum their stuff while demonstrating vocal pitch, tone and rhythm with the new SingStar® Dance and SingStar® Guitar editions exclusively on PlayStation®3. Friends will have fun singing off to the world’s most sought-after SingStar and SingStore tracks from international artists.

Take 40 fans can enter at take40.com for the chance to win tickets for themselves and four friends, including flights to Sydney, accommodation, spending money and PlayStation 3 consoles, along with the just launched SingStar Dance, PlayStation®Move Starter Pack and a SingStar Wireless Microphone Pack.

THE house party of the year, guests will be served exotic cocktails as they party poolside, mingling amongst A-list stars and glamorous hostesses as they enjoy the only VIP party performance Jamiroquai will give in Australia.

Details – Take 40 Stars of Summer Party supported by SingStar:
Date: Saturday 20 November 2010
Time: 4.30pm
Location: PlayStation Mansion in Sydney’s Point Piper
Tickets: Enter at take40.com between October 29 – November 15 2010
Those who miss out on the rare tickets won’t miss out entirely with Jamiroquai’s performance forming part of an exclusive ‘Take 40 Live’ broadcast on free-to-air and pay TV. Stay tuned for dates to be confirmed.

www.jamiroquai.com

New Album ‘Rock Dust Light Star’ – Out Now

The “Extreme Sports” App Now Available On The App Store!

Established developer Gourmet Pixel in collaboration with Extreme International has released “The Extreme Sports” app on the App Store. In essence, the Extreme Sports app is a real-world, socially connected, extreme sports tracker with a plethora of fantastic features and options:

Ø Find extreme sports places

Ø Log sessions

Ø Compete with other users

Ø Win awards

Ø Rank in global charts

No matter which country you are from, or where you are currently based, there are places all over the world where you can experience real-life Extreme Sports. With this app at your fingertips you can pinpoint events nearby from an impressive list of over 40 activities such as skateboarding, mountain biking, bungee jumping, snowboarding, skiing and 4×4 driving to name but a few! The Extreme Sports app allows you to log session data such as g-forces, altitudes, inclines, speed, spins and a lot more, and if you find yourself in a situation where you need to enter a new extreme sporting event, you can easily add your own location and activity!

By logging your personal activity sessions you can compete with other Extreme Sports enthusiasts from all over the world! The Extreme Sports app has 3 tiers of awards (Badges, Trophies, and Titles), and competing for virtual trophies is an awesome way to constantly improve your own health and fitness! Be careful though; if you don’t strive to perfection someone else might come along and beat your performance and lay claim to your trophy. The built-in charts allow you to compare your performance against others in a particular field of sports or country, and takes into account not only how many trophies you have won, but also how many badges, what title, and how long you have held them for, and a lot more!

The technology is built upon Gourmet Pixel’s new “Movement” platform which allows activity data from around the globe to be centrally synchronized.

The Extreme Sports app is available from the App Store here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-extreme-app/id371429580?mt=8

Additional information about the Extreme Sports app is available by visiting http://theextremesportsapp.com. Journalists interested in a promo code should contact press@indiedeveloperconsulting.com. A limited number of promo codes are available to the media.

About Gourmet Pixel

Building on more than ten years of experience in online design and development, and more than five years in mobile development, Gourmet Pixel (www.gourmetpixel.co.uk) is one of the UK’s best Apple iPhone™ and Apple iPad application developers. Formed in 2008, just as Apple unveiled their SDK to 3rd party independent developers, our apps are sold and enjoyed on a global scale. Creating in-house Apple iPhone™ applications since the outset, we also work with large brands to help bring their content to this innovative new platform.

About Extreme Group?

The Extreme Sports Company (www.extremeinternational.com) was founded by Al Gosling in 1995 and is a pioneering brand management and licensing company that owns the Extreme brand, one of the world’s most unique sports lifestyle brands. We started The Extreme Sports Channel (www.extreme.com) which delivers our brand authenticity, credibility and massive exposure 24/7 across the 58 countries and 48 million homes it broadcasts into. From this we run our portfolio of long term licensing partnerships with market leading companies and operate a number of fast growing businesses across the media, consumer products, and service sectors. Today we are driving and developing Extreme Hotels and Parks (sports based hotels and theme parks), Extreme Drinks, Extreme Element (sports courses and experiences), Extreme TV and Extreme State Apparel. Our vision is to inspire our consumers to explore and experience the sports and way of life that is the Extreme brand. Our mission is to build Extreme into one of the world’s leading sports life-style brands.

IBM survey finds Aussie workers think organisations should offer more collaboration tools to increase flexibility and reduce workload

Sydney, Australia – 02 November, 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that nearly half of Australian office workers find irrelevant and unanswered emails are a key contributor to workplace stress. As many as 45 percent of the 629 surveyed respondents, all of whom are in a management role, agree that having too many irrelevant emails in their inbox makes for a stressful workplace, with 7 percent finding it very stressful; whilst half of respondents agreed that unanswered emails are also contributing to workplace stress.

When questioned about the need to constantly respond to emails, 48 percent of workers found this stressful, and in organisations with more than 500 employees this rose to a high of 54 percent, indicating employees in larger companies are struggling to deal with higher volumes of email.

The survey shows that whilst email remains the most commonly used collaborative tool in the workplace, with 97 percent agreeing as such, email is often overwhelming or used in the wrong way, leading to avoidable workplace stress.

James Gorry, Business Unit Executive, Lotus Software, IBM Australia and New Zealand, commented on the findings, “Australian workers are looking for alternative ways to work more productively, and to find tools that can help alleviate workplace stress, rather than increase it. It is clear that Australian organisations are missing an opportunity to encourage the adoption of enterprise grade social networking tools, alongside the old favourites including email, as these technologies can both increase employee morale as well as drive a more efficient workforce.”

Email remains the preferred communication platform, but some managers guilty of using it in the wrong way

Despite the many alternative forms of communication, unsurprisingly email remains the preferred communication platform. The majority of managers (58 percent) still regard email as the most preferred form of business communication, followed by face to face meetings (23 percent) and telephone (15 percent). Examining the results by age group, Generation Y* in particular prefers email (68 percent), suggesting a strong reliance on this form of communication.

Predictably, the study also found that communication blunders in the office are commonplace, and another contributor to stress. Nearly three quarters (71 percent) of workers admitted that they have sent an email to the wrong person by mistake, and nearly half (47 percent) admitted hitting ‘Reply to All’ instead of ‘Reply’ or the opposite at sometime in the past. As many as 59 percent of managers have tried to recall an email but it was too late, and 49 percent have said something in an email which they have later come to regret.

Perhaps more worrying, the majority of respondents admitted that they have deliberately chosen to hide behind email, with 68 percent acknowledging they have sent an email when a phone call or a face to face meeting would have been more appropriate. As many as 52 percent admit to this kind of evasion on more than one occasion with men (56 percent) being more prone to this tactic than women (47 percent).

Current usage of alternative collaboration tools

Exploring the current usage of other collaboration tools in the workplace, the study found the following tools were used by some:

· Group calendars (69 percent)
· Shared directories (60 percent)
· Instant messaging (42 percent)
· Web conferencing (33 percent)

When asked about the availability of other forms of collaboration, including access to alternative social networking tools the results were surprisingly low, and most managers agreed that their organisations are yet to leverage social networking tools to their full extent:

· Nearly a third have no access to social networking tools (30 percent)
· A third have only limited access to social networking tools (34 percent)
· Only one third have full access to most social networking tools (34 percent)

Despite most organisations not yet embracing social networking tools in the workplace, some companies have made inroads with stand alone tools including:

· Wikis (19 percent)
· Blogs/micro blogging (15 percent)
· Shared bookmarks (14 percent)

Most managers see the business benefit of varied collaboration tools

Although email is pervasive, most managers would like to see more collaboration tools available in their organisations. Almost one in three (29 percent) would like instant messaging to be more available to help reduce the number of emails they receive. This opinion is even more widespread amongst the Generation Y* age group (46 percent) who clearly believe embracing more instant collaboration tools would make good business sense.

Many managers recognise the business benefits that collaboration tools can bring; with half of respondents (50 per cent) agreeing it would be easier to work from home if they had more access to a broader set of collaboration tools. Again Generation Y stands out as more interested in these benefits, with 64 percent agreeing that they would realise increased flexibility.

November 2, 2010 — After 6 months and over 2.5 million sales worldwide, Fruit Ninja is still receiving high quality free updates! Today Halfbrick is pleased to announce the biggest and most anticipated addition to Fruit Ninja ever! Since the release of Zen Mode, players have been wondering about the ever-elusive secret banana mode, happily residing on the mode select screen. The Fruit Ninja team would not be content releasing a sloppy, rushed addition, and as such the new mode has been developed under lock and key with an iron fist of juicy quality. It was shielded from the world.

Until today.

Announcing Arcade Mode, the most intense and exciting addition to Fruit Ninja yet! It adds so much more to the value and satisfaction of Fruit Ninja, while still keeping the simplicity and ease of play as top priority! Players have 60 seconds on the clock to achieve the highest score possible, but this isn’t any old boring 60 seconds. We’ve added some serious power in the form of bonus colored bananas which fly up on screen. Slice one of those and get ready for action!

Double Points – This banana will award you double points for a short period of time. Criticals and combos count too, so rack up those fruit for some massive scores!

Frenzy – If you’re not content with the amount of fruit on screen, the Frenzy banana will take care of that. A mammoth amount of fruit will begin flying in, but you have to stay focused to slice it all!

Freeze – The entire screen will slow down, allowing for maximum accuracy and combo potential!

Best of all, the bananas can be stacked! How about activating a Freeze, Frenzy and Double Points bonus all at once? On top of that, if you keep the combos going the game speed will increase and you can achieve a massive combo blitz!

But there’s more! At the end of each game, your skills and scores during the 60 seconds will be rated and you will achieve three unique awards, good for a certain number of bonus points each! Not enough? Exclusive to Arcade Mode is the new Weekly Leaderboards system, where you can instantly compare your scores against those of your online friends!

Arcade Mode is massive, and Halfbrick is proud to release it as a free update, saying thanks to the millions of fans around the world for their continued support! Coming in early November, Arcade Mode makes the best value 99 cent App Store game even better!

Oh, and it’s coming for Fruit Ninja HD on iPad at the exact same time.

And there’s a trailer. It’s awesome.

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROag7hqCc18

About Halfbrick

Halfbrick is a professional game development studio based in Brisbane, Australia. Founded in 2001, it has developed popular titles for the Game Boy Advance, PSP, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS, with expansion into XBLA, PS3 and iPhone development. For further information, please visit www.halfbrick.com and follow on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook!

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – 1^st November 2010 – Leading video games publisher NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe S.A.S., announced today that SPLATTERHOUSE™ has gone gold for the Xbox 360^® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. Inspired by the landmark 1988 arcade hit, SPLATTERHOUSE combines visceral, adrenaline-soaked combat with horror elements to deliver over-the-top gore. 

SPLATTERHOUSE follows college student Rick Taylor as he embarks on a mission to rescue his girlfriend, Jennifer, who was kidnapped after they entered a mysterious run-down Mansion inhabited by an elusive scientist, Dr. West. Confronted by otherworldly horrific abominations under Dr. West’s control, Rick turns to a mystical sentient mask that promises to give him the power to reunite with his beloved Jennifer. Full of desperation, Rick dons the “Terror Mask” and is transformed into a raging juggernaut, exemplifying unadulterated violence and destruction to anything that stands in his way.

Embodying the unfiltered, primal aggression of its namesake, SPLATTERHOUSE gives players countless ways to decimate your enemies with extreme gore including Necrotic energy powered attacks, the all powerful Berserker Mode, an arsenal of classic SPLATTERHOUSE weapons, and the ultimate over the top gruesome Splatter Kills which enable you to rip, impale, and smash your opponents into bloody pulpy masses.

Boasting a licensed soundtrack with many of the top names in metal, the original SPLATTERHOUSE trilogy as an unlockable, and Survival Arenas, SPLATTERHOUSE is the ultimate celebration of all things Metal and Gore.

SPLATTERHOUSE will be available throughout Australia and New Zealand for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 system on November 26, 2010.

PlayTV hits the 100,000 unit milestone in Australia

PlayStation announces PlayTV price drops to RRP$149.95

PlayTV Live Chat feature to bring new community functionality  

Sydney, 1 November 2010 – Sony Computer Entertainment Australia today announced that less than one year on from the launch of the PlayStation®3 (PS3™) peripheral PlayTV, which enables users to watch, pause and record high definition free-to-air digital TV, has sold over 100,000 units in Australia. To celebrate this milestone, a competitive new price point of RRP$149.95 has been announced for the Australian market effective today.

PlayTV reaches 100,000 units in Australia

In a year of sweeping change in Australian at-home and on demand entertainment, this marks a milestone for PlayTV, with many PS3™ users being able take advantage of the compact and convenient add-on device allowing the type of TV viewing convenience and freedom at a fraction of the price of other premium offerings on the market, and without subscription fees.

“2010 has seen a flood of content consumption choices like we’ve never before experienced in Australia, making the selling of 100,000 PlayTV units since late November last year especially significant for PlayStation,” said Michael Ephraim, Managing Director, Sony Computer Entertainment Australia. “This news comes after a huge six months which has not only seen strong software sales for the PlayStation platform along with firmware upgrades to deliver 3D gaming, but also more catch-up TV and on-demand movies added to the PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network, our online portal to a world of entertainment content. With PlayStation 3 and a nifty PlayTV peripheral, it means now more than ever Australians can easily enjoy a games console that is also a complete and value driven home entertainment solution. The family can play or watch what they want, exactly when they want, and now, even more affordably.” 

PlayTV price drops to RRP$149.95

Coinciding with the sale of 100,000 units in Australia, Sony Computer Entertainment also announced today that the price of PlayTV will be reduced from RRP$169.95 to RRP$149.95, cementing PlayStation’s position as a great value high definition entertainment choice in the living room.

At this price-point, more PlayTV users across Australia will be able to create their own TV viewing schedule. Attaching to the PlayStation 3 via a USB, PlayTV allows viewers to watch one program while recording another and even record television at the same time as playing a game or watching a Blu-ray or downloaded movie.

PlayTV features a seven day electronic programming guide, has no subscription costs and is endorsed by Freeview, the free digital television service in Australia, giving consumers greater choice when switching to digital high definition television.  Users can also take their favourite shows on the go via Wi-Fi with the Remote Play feature of PSP (PlayStation Portable).

Live Chat brings even more to PlayTV

Later this month, PlayTV users will also be able to download a PlayTV Live Chat feature, which allows users to text chat for a more social viewing experience. The feature will be made available to download to purchase online from the PlayStation Store.

The game really is just the start with PlayStation®3, allowing users to play games for the new PlayStation Move motion controller, catch up on TV viewing, download movies on demand, enjoy free music videos with VidZone, watch Blu-Ray content, enjoy 3D entertainment, surf the web, store photos and videos and explore the ever-expanding social world of the PlayStation® Network.

Amazon.com Customers Now Buying More Bestsellers on Kindle Than Paperbacks and Hardcovers Combined, at a Rate of 2 to 1

Sydney, Australia – November 1, 2010: The new generation Kindle devices are the fastest-selling Kindles of all time and the bestselling products on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. Today, Amazon.com announced that sales of the new generation Kindle devices, since their introduction, have already surpassed total Kindle device sales from October through December 2009.

“We’ve already sold more Kindle devices since launch than we did during the entire fourth quarter of last year, astonishing because the fourth quarter is the busiest time of year on Amazon,” said Steve Kessel, Senior Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “Readers continue to choose Kindle for its all-new electronic ink screen with 50 percent higher contrast, readability in bright sunlight, long battery life of up to one month, light 8.5 ounce form, flexibility to read their books across all major LCD devices and platforms, and low price. It’s clear that this is going to be the biggest holiday for Kindle yet, by far.”

In addition, Kindle book unit sales continue to overtake print on Amazon.com, even while print book sales continue to grow. During the past 30 days, Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than print books, hardcover and paperback combined, for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.

“For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1. Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers, it’s across the board,” said Kessel. “This is remarkable when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months.”

Other recent milestones for Kindle include:

In the 12 weeks following the introduction of the new generation Kindles, Kindle devices or Kindle-related items such as Kindle books and covers represented 15 of the top 15 bestselling items on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined.
Amazon sold more than 3 times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of 2010 as in the first nine months of 2009.
The Association of American Publishers’ latest data reports that e-book sales grew 193 percent between January and August 2010. Kindle book sales growth during the same period exceeded this rate.
Learn more about Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/kindle.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewellery; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Kindle, Kindle 3G and Kindle DX are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle 3G and Kindle DX utilize the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including http://www.amazon.com, http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.de, http://www.amazon.co.jp, http://www.amazon.fr, http://www.amazon.ca, and http://www.amazon.cn. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

SOURCE: Amazon.com