6 May 2010, Australia – The sixth FIFA Interactive World Cup Champion was recently crowned after intense interactive football action at Barcelona’s Port Olympic.  

Twenty-two year old Nenad Stojkovic from the USA completed the long road to interactive football glory, which culminated in the FIFA Interactive World Cup Grand Final.  There, the world’s 32 best virtual football players met face to face for a display of strategy and skill on EA SPORTS™ FIFA 10 on PlayStation®3.  

Stojkovic beat Ayhan Altundag from Germany in front of a cheering crowd, securing the title and the $20,000 USD prize money. He also received an invitation to attend the FIFA World Player Gala 2010 where he will rub shoulders with real life football heroes.  

In a very close and exciting match, Stojkovic’s Chelsea side took the lead in the 34th minute of the first half.  He was denied the lead into half time as Altundag equalised in the 42nd minute with the French national team. The second half was balanced until Stojkovic scored the 2:1 with Drogba in the 75th minute.  The German fought hard to get back into the game but in the end it was the American who kept his cool and walked away with victory and the FIFA Interactive World Cup crown.  

The third and fourth play-off was contested between Bruce Grannec from France and England’s Danny Taylor. In a closely fought encounter between Chelsea and Real Madrid, defending champion Grannec beat the Taylor 3:0. They received prize money of $5,000 for 2nd and $1,000 for 3rd place respectively.

“Two days ago I was dreaming I could make it, and now I have succeeded. I can say this is probably the happiest day of my entire life,” said Nenad Stojkovic.  “During the final I tried to remain calm and I did not want to celebrate my goals.  My opponent was really good. This is amazing!”

“The FIFA Interactive World Cup is breaking records every year, with more than 775,000 online participants in this 2010 edition. We have seen the best virtual football players in the world compete for the champion’s title in a fantastic Grand Final in Barcelona, where not only the participants, but also the fans enjoyed a truly unique event”, said FIFA Executive Committee member Chuck Blazer.  

Nenad Stojkovic’s triumph was the culmination of a thrilling event at Port Olympic, which played host to the FIFA Interactive World Cup final for the second year running. In addition to the Grand Final showdown, spectators at the event were treated to an action packed day of gaming, music and football, featuring special guests such as football legend Patrick Kluivert and Spanish beach soccer star Amarelle, as well as an exclusive live DJ set from Groove Armada’s Andy Cato.

“The thrilling showdown at Port Olympic was a fantastic end to this year’s competition with Stojkovic proving to be a very worthy champion,” said Matt Bilbey, Vice President Football, EA SPORTS.  “The FIFA Interactive World Cup 2010 has seen the strongest ever field of competitors in its history and to emerge victorious from over three quarters of a million entrants is no mean feat, congratulations!”

“The FIFA Interactive World Cup 2010 has been a huge success and we offer our warmest congratulations to the winner Stojkovic,” said Darren Carter, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.  “To have had over 775,000 entries for this year’s competition clearly shows how the combination of the growing popularity of PlayStation®Network on PlayStation 3 with FIFA 10 is something that taps into this community unlike anything else.”

Launching in October last year, the FIFA Interactive World Cup 2010 attracted over 775,000 entrants, competing on FIFA 10 for PlayStation 3, both through the PlayStation Network and via a series of live qualifying events for one of 32 grand final places at Port Olympic in Barcelona. The online phase of the competition consisted of two mini seasons running from October – December 2009 and from January – April 2010, with the top eleven and ten gamers from each respective season qualifying for the final. A further ten finalists came from the  live qualifying events held around the world in Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, Denmark, Poland, Russia, South Africa and UK, with the last final spot reserved for defending champion Bruce Grannec of France.


For more information on the FIFA Interactive World Cup, including a list of the 32 finalists, please go to www.FIFA.com/fiwc
 
Footage and images of the FIFA Interactive World Cup Grand Final can be found on the FIFA Media Channel http://media.fifa.com

May 6^th, 2010 – Fruit Ninja has rocketed to the top of iPhone sales charts around the world, and to celebrate the release of performance update 1.01.1 (otherwise known as the Multiple Decimal Point Update Which Makes Slicing Even Smoother), Halfbrick is here to share some juicy statistics with you!

Fruit Ninja is currently in the top three selling apps in USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden and more! Our good friends from Germany graced Fruit Ninja with its first #1 spot and we have been proud to accommodate their gameplay needs.

Halfbrick officially thanks everyone for their amazing comments and support, and the Fruit Ninja team is looking forward to serving up more content, more action and more fruit in regular updates throughout the coming months – including a major gameplay update to be completed and submitted within the next week!

 In two weeks, Fruit Ninja has sold over 140,000 units worldwide. That’s a lot of fruit. So much, in fact, it prompted a little investigation from the team.

DID YOU KNOW?

Since the original Fruit Ninja release date of April 21st, our players have sliced over 250 million fruit.

That’s 170 fruit sliced per second.

To put things in perspective:

• 28 million watermelons are now extinct. Fruit Ninja players slice 7800 tonnes per day, which is more watermelon than the United States produces every year.

• 26 million oranges juiced, totaling 57 million recommended daily servings of vitamin C down the drain. Sorry about that, scurvy patients.

• 8 million banana cakes worth of bananas. Which sucks, because banana cake is awesome.

• 160,000 tonnes of fruit sliced in total. Which is roughly equal weight to the total amount of gold ever mined on this entire planet. Sweet!

Some food for thought indeed. Thanks for playing Fruit Ninja!

Trailer

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6hUTC1Edyo

App Store

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fruit-ninja/id362949845?mt=8

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!

DEN HELDER, NETHERLANDS – May 3rd, 2010 – OrangePixel, a global leader for mobile applications today announced DynamoKid Touch, available now for download from the AppStore at $1.99 on Apple iPhone® and iPod® touch devices. What are you waiting for? Go pick it up now, DynamoKid Touch has been re-mastered with new touch controls taking another excursion to Dream Island. Collecting stars has never been fun before until now, clearing paths, removing baddies, destroying hazards and debri, and last but not least make DynamoKid jump!

Originally for the Android, OrangePixel gives the opportunity to share the excitiment of DynamoKid Touch and give in to iPhone/iPod touch fans. See what the media has been praising for all this time.

“Silver Award – A charming platformer that makes good use of your Android phone’s touch screen. It can be a little frustrating, but that won’t stop you returning for another go” – PocketGamer 

“4.75 / 5 – this is a great scrolling platform game where even though you want to pull your hair out, at the same time, you just can’t stop playing. It’s addicting, very addicting and fun.” – DroidGamers

DynamoKid Touch features include: 

• OrangePixel’s distinctive graphics
• Original touch-based gameplay
• Randomly generated game worlds (unlimited replay value!)
• Unlockable achievements
• Global, cross-platform, online rankings
• 8-bit style sound effects
• Unlockable worlds
• and many free updates planned!

Please see attached for some images of the latest airbrushed consoles up for auction as part of Xbox’s 1 million consoles sold celebration, the Konsoles for Kids charity drive.

This week, in celebration of all things entertainment, we’re auctioning off airbrushed consoles signed by some of the Australia’s most identifiable celebrities including:

• Hugh Jackman
• Home and Away
• Hamish and Andy

For more details, check out the Xbox site which includes links to all the consoles currently up for auction – http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/konsolesforkids/default.htm

The Light of the Darkness

Official Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqWlubZRlZU

The game is a side-scroller with elements of action and RPG, similar to games like Casltevania, Odin Sphare, Muramassa. Is being developed for PC, but an iPhone and XNA versions are also planned. The game is based on a universe project that has been developing for some time, called “The Light of Darkness”. Working in the game, professionals from various parts of Brazil, in the area of games and other areas.

AVG (AU/NZ) Continues its Series of Security Hints and Tips for Business

Melbourne, 5 May 2010.  Today’s smartphones are, to all intents and purposes, miniature laptops. Many of the latest generation of smart phones run applications concurrently, just as their big brothers, the netbooks, do. Social networks have expanded exponentially at the same time, and those networks are spawning applications by the thousand every day. Facebook now has more than 400 million users and a million of those users are writing Facebook applications. Many of these apps will run happily on a mobile phone, and in fact are being demanded by mobile phone users.

While the phones themselves are rarely hit by viruses or worms (yet), they can help to spread malware when connected to a network, just like USB drives. Hackers and criminals have also been known to use text messages to direct unsuspecting users to infected web sites, according to Lloyd Borrett, Marketing Manager at AVG (AU/NZ).

“These messages, supposedly from a legitimate company, may try to convince you to visit a malicious web site by claiming that there is a problem with your account or stating that you have been subscribed to a service. Once you visit the site, you may be lured into providing personal information or downloading a malicious file,” Borrett warns.

Other risks with smartphones relate to downloading content. Borrett’s advice is for companies to warn employees not to download games or other unnecessary applications onto business-owned phones, just as they should not download such applications onto their work computer.

“There are many sites that offer games and other software you can download onto your cell phone or PDA.  This software could include malicious code. Avoid downloading files from sites that you do not trust. If you are getting the files from a supposedly secure site, look for a web site certificate. If you do download a file from a web site, consider saving it to your computer and manually scanning it for viruses before opening it.”

Aside from e-mail and web access, other ways criminal code could gain access to a mobile device is via the wireless networking technology known as Bluetooth. Borrett’s advice when it comes to Bluetooth is to ensure employees know to keep it switched-off when it is not needed.

“Make sure that you take advantage of the security features offered on your device,” Borrett says. “Attackers may take advantage of Bluetooth connections to access or download information from your phone. Disable Bluetooth when you are not using it to avoid unauthorised access.”

Smartphones are also increasingly being used for purchasing goods and services, which makes them a primary target for cyber thieves. According to AVG’s chief research officer Roger Thompson, “Viruses have, and will continue, to make it onto mobile devices from time to time. Just last month, we had a couple of iPhone viruses (or, more correctly, worms), but a virus is really only a virus if it spreads, and the malicious software we’re going to see infecting mobile devices will be much more subtle than your typical virus.”

Mobile malware will log keystrokes and snoop out user ids and passwords from mobile devices, according to AVG’s Thompson. “There will also be malware that transmits information about our browsing habits to its masters, who will use that information to decide what ads to serve us,” he says. “It’s quite likely that the more nefariously-inclined will build up databases of background information about us, to be used to profile us for future criminal activity.” Please feel free to read more of Roger’s thoughts on this topic at http://thompson.blog.avg.com/2009/12/virus-migration-from-desktop-to-mobile.html.

The Australian government web site “Stay Smart Online” www.staysmartonline.gov.au explains you can tell if your mobile phone has been infected with malicious software, if:

• there is a sudden large increase in your phone bill with no clear reason

• your phone has e-mails and messages in the sent folder that you did not send, or

• the user interface has changed without you taking any action to change it.

If you notice any of those things, you should contact your mobile phone manufacturer and/or phone company for instructions on how to remove the malicious software. 

For more information on securing your mobile phone, please visit http://www.staysmartonline.gov.au/secure_your_mobile_phone.
See also the following blog entries by AVG CEO J.R. Smith:

• Mobile World Congress – Vision in Action
  (http://jrsmith.blog.avg.com/2010/02/mobile-world-congress—vision-in-action.html)
• How will smart phones and social networking affect cybercrime? (http://jrsmith.blog.avg.com/2009/12/how-will-smart-phones-and-social-networking-affect-cybercrime.html)

About AVG (AU/NZ) Pty Ltd — www.avg.com.au

Based in Melbourne, AVG (AU/NZ) Pty Ltd distributes the AVG range of Anti-Virus and Internet Security products in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. AVG software solutions provide complete real-time protection against the malware, viruses, spam, spyware, adware, worms, Trojans, phishing and exploits used by cyber-criminals, hackers, scammers and identity thieves. AVG protects everything important and personal inside computers — documents, account details and passwords, music, photos and more — all while allowing users to work, bank, shop and play games online in safety. AVG provides outstanding technical solutions and exceptional value for consumers, small to medium business and enterprise clients. AVG delivers always-on, always up-to-date protection across desktop, and notebook PCs, plus file and e-mail servers in the home and at work in SMBs, corporations, government agencies and educational institutions.

AVG products actively protect over 110 million users worldwide, including more than 4.6 million users in Australia and New Zealand.

AVG (AU/NZ) has more than 3300 resellers across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific.

Sydney, Australia – May 5, 2010 – 2K Games announced today that Sid Meier’s Pirates!™, the classic swashbuckling high seas adventure, will set sail this Spring for Wii. Originally developed by Firaxis Games, the Wii version is being developed by 2K China and allows would-be buccaneers to serve as captain as they raid and plunder the 17^th century Caribbean, successfully navigate pirate ship battles, triumphantly dispatch opponents in clanging sword fights and woo fair maidens with the streamlined controls of the Wii Remote™ in a quest to save their family from the evil Marquis de la Montalban.

“We are big fans of the Wii and think Pirates! is the perfect game to bring to that platform,” said Sid Meier, director of creative development at Firaxis Games, and designer of the Sid Meier’s Pirates! series. “We’re sure Wii fans will enjoy the timeless adventure of being a pirate captain on the high seas as much as all of our other fans have!”

Sid Meier’s Pirates! is an adventure-driven entertainment experience where swashbucklers can helm one of 27 fully customizable ships as they descend upon unsuspecting ports of call to assemble a motley crew of seafaring bandits. Captains will collect secret treasure maps, undertake daring missions, play havoc with local townspeople and swiftly hand out pirate-style justice to local braggarts before setting sail for breathtaking open sea engagements unlike any other game before on the Wii.

Overflowing with intense pirate action, Sid Meier’s Pirates! has a treasure chest of gameplay riches, including the traditional mini-games from the classic original such as Sword Fighting, Ship Combat and Dancing, as well as two Wii-exclusive mini-games – Bombardment and Lock Picking. In addition, the Wii version will offer exclusive character and ship customization options.

Sid Meier’s Pirates! is rated PG by the Australian Classification Board.

2K Games is a division of 2K, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).

About Take-Two Interactive Software

Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a global developer, marketer and publisher of interactive entertainment software games for the PC, PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment systems, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Wii™, Nintendo DS™, iPhone™, iPod® touch and iPad. The Company publishes and develops products through its wholly owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K, which publishes its titles under 2K Games, 2K Sports and 2K Play. The Company’s common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at www.take2games.com.

Wii and the Wii logo are trademarks of Nintendo.

All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained herein which are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws and may be identified by words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “potential,” “predicts,” “projects,” “seeks,” “will,” or words of similar meaning and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the outlook for the Company’s future business and financial performance. Such forward-looking statements are based on the current beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to them, which are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Actual outcomes and results may vary materially from these forward-looking statements based on a variety of risks and uncertainties including: our dependence on key management and product development personnel, our dependence on our Grand Theft Auto products and our ability to develop other hit titles for current generation platforms, the timely release and significant market acceptance of our games, the ability to maintain acceptable pricing levels on our games, our ability to raise capital if needed and risks associated with international operations. Other important factors and information are contained in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2009, in the section entitled “Risk Factors,” as updated in the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2010, and the Company’s other periodic filings with the SEC, which can be accessed at www.take2games.com. All forward-looking statements are qualified by these cautionary statements and apply only as of the date they are made. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

‘FAN-TAZ-TIC’ ACTION ADVENTURE GAME FOR NINTENDO DS OFFERS KIDS TWICE THE FUN WITH TWO MODES OF PLAY 

Sydney, Australia – May 5, 2010 –Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announces the launch of Galactic Taz Ball, a new video game for the Nintendo DS™ featuring Taz, the famously frenzied Looney Tunes character. Kids can spin their way across the universe in this action-adventure game filled with interplanetary exploration, platform challenges and fun puzzles. Galactic Taz Ball is available in Europe and Australia beginning May 2010 and in North America August 2010.

The game contains two worlds with completely different gameplay mechanics, including the “Overworld,” an action-style 3-D game playable on the Nintendo DS top screen with track ball controls using the stylus on the bottom screen. By using the track ball, players can spin Taz into a tornado, moving him fast enough to destroy anything that gets between him and his prize.

The second world in Galactic Taz Ball is the “Underworld,” a side-scrolling puzzle game in which players can control Taz by nudging, poking and pulling him and his surroundings with the stylus. Marvin the Martian’s tools also found in the Underworld assist in Taz’s motions, helping players pass each level.  Both worlds lend perfectly to Taz’s frenetic and wildly outrageous style

Developed by Wayforward Technologies, Galactic Taz Ball is rated “G” and is available on Nintendo DS and is Nintendo DSi™ compatible.  Galactic Taz Ball is available at retail stores across Australia on May 4, 2010, in Europe on May 14, 2010 and in the United States on August 10, 2010.  For more information, visit www.GalacticTazBall.com.

Sydney, AUSTRALIA. May 5^th 2010 – The blockbuster Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 2 Stimulus Package is now available for Windows® PC and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system.  The five map Modern Warfare® 2 Stimulus Package features a variety of adrenaline-pumping multiplayer venues, including three new locations “Bailout,” “Storm,” and “Salvage” along with two fan favorites from Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare, “Crash” and “Overgrown.”

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package can be downloaded for $14.99 from the PlayStation®Store for PlayStation 3 system and from Steam for the PC.  In celebration of the release, Infinity Ward will host nearly a week of Double XP for PlayStation®Network and PC gamers May 5 – 10. 

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus Package from Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) is rated “MA” (Mature Audiences) by the Australian Classification Board for Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence and Language.  For more information, visit www.modernwarfare2.com.