Resident Evil 5 Facebook app celebrates PC release this week

Capcom announced that Intel will be celebrating the Resident Evil 5 PC Launch by offering Majini Facebook Application to fans. To celebrate the launch of Resident Evil 5 on PC tomorrow, Intel and Capcom have come together with The Game Agency to create a Facebook application that gives users a chance to see their dark side. The Majini Makeover application - found at apps.facebook.com/majini-makeover - allows Facebook users who are fans of the series to transform a regular photo into a grotesque Resident Evil 5 inspired Majini. The evil is infectious as the service also allows fans to show their dark side to their friends through Facebook.

Once a user selects an image from a personal or friends’ public photo gallery, he or she can use a library of wounds, stitches, worms and more to turn themselves into one of the infected Majini’s. If you don’t feel like getting infected, then grab a friend’s photo, tag them and suddenly you’ve created a photo album with one evil friend – or maybe a new enemy! Use a picture of yourself with your closest friends to create a bloody, stitched up group of evildoers right out of the world of Resident Evil.

You can learn more about it by visiting capcom.com.

R.U.S.E. Announced

Ubisoft announced the launch of R.U.S.E., a new intellectual property developed by Eugen Systems, creators of the strategy title Act of War: Direct Action. R.U.S.E. is scheduled for release on Windows PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 in fiscal year 2009/2010.

R.U.S.E. is being billed as a strategy game that requires some critical thinking, and the ability to deceive and mislead the enemy. In other words, baffle the enemy with bullshit. The game also sports the IRISZOOM Engine which offers an interface that allows for quick transitions from a birds-eye view to the heat of the battlefield .

The game will be formally unveiled at the Intel booth during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) at Moscone North Hall, booth #6006 at 5:00 PM Pacific on Wednesday March 25 in San Francisco.

Intel Could Cut 6,000 Jobs

Intel announced this morning that it will cut an estimated 5,000 - 6,000 employees to streamline its operations. The cuts are going to be global, affecting a number of its manufacturing plants including Fab 20 in Hillsboro, Oregon; test facilities in Penang, Malaysia and Cavite, Philippines; and the D2 facility in Santa Clara, California.

Intel says that some of the employees at these plants may be offered new positions inside the company, bringing that 5,000 - 6,000 number down a bit lower.

Today’s revelation is an exclamation point that technology, video games and even the movie industry 0 sectors often considered recession proof are not resistant to the serious global financial crisis that has not yet found rock bottom.

Intel joins Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Nokia, EA, Eidos, AMD and many other companies that have announced serious job cuts to deal with declining sales, a lack of credit and a less than friendly financial atmosphere.

Wall Street Chaos

It was a tumultuous day on Wall Street today as a federal bailout plan voted down by Congress (by a margin of 228-205) caused a broad sell off on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ. The Dow plummeted 778 points by the closing bell (the largest one-day decline since the 90’s), while the NASDAQ fell nearly 200 points on the news. Nearly 90 democrats and 130 Republican members in Congress put the bill down for a dirt nap, causing the usual partisan bickering and finger pointing. The American public, which largely did not want the bill, sat on the sidelines as our government proved how ineffective they could be. Good job!

Game related stocks and technology stocks were not immune to the chaos on Wall Street: technology stocks took a savage beating with Apple leading the way in a downturn for the sector. Microsoft was down $2.39, Apple lost 22.98, Intel lost $1.93, and Dell was down by $1.59. Game publishers were not immune to the volatility either: Majesco lost 0.08, EA dipped 3.63, Logitech fell 2.06, Take-Two lost .73, and THQ shaved off .87.

Source: Yahoo

Qosmio X305-Q701 Gaming Laptop Announced

Toshiba today revealed why it is at this year’s E3 event: it has a brand new gaming laptop that will be available only at Best Buy. The Qosmio X305-Q701 gaming laptop is all about power, featuring a flashy custom case, an NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GTS graphic processing unit, a 200GB, 7200 RPM hard drive, Vista with dual boot for both 64 and 32 bit flavors, a 17.1-inch diagonal widescreen TruBrite high-definition display, an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P7350, 4096 MB PC3-8500 DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM and more.

The Qosmio X305-Q701 gaming laptop is available only at Best Buy stores for $1,549.99. I’ll stick with my Dell.

PC Gaming Alliance Announcement Next Week?

According to a report in the San Jose Mercury News, a consortium that hopes to put PC Gaming back on the map will be announced at the Game Developers Conference next week in San Francisco. According to the report this consortium of mega software and hardware companies will be called the PC Gaming Alliance. This powerful group will consist of such industry leaders as Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and a number of other unnamed companies.

So what’’s the goal of this group? It aims to put PC gaming back in the spotlight by highlighting its strengths against other gaming platforms and to solve problems that plague the industry, one would assume. Some believe that the strength of PC gaming is its ability to stay on the bleeding edge of technology and its quick turnaround time when it comes to game development (in most cases, anyway). It will be interesting to see what initiatives this group lays down when it is announced officially. Stay tuned.