Dawn of War 2 standalone expansion 'Retribution' announced for early 2011

Relic and THQ have announced the second standalone expansion to the Warhammer 40k-themed RTS Dawn of War 2. The expansion will be called Retribution, and will introduce the series' first multi-race single-player campaign. The first race announced is the Orks, but players will be able to choose other races to play through the campaign as well, meaning you can finally play as something other than Space Marines in the single-player game.

Multiplayer also gets extras in the form of new units, some new maps and a whole new playable race to fight with. There's no word out of Gamescom yet as to exactly which race that is, but given that we've played as Orks, Space Marines and Eldar in the series before, playing as the Tyranids is a pretty good guess (edited) already in the game. Commenters are guessing Dark Eldar. We'll find out for sure when the expansion is released -- it's scheduled for Q1 2011.

Read more...

Dawn of War II: Retribution multiplayer beta starts Jan. 31

THQ has announced a multiplayer beta for the standalone expansion, Dawn of War II: Retribution. The beta includes all of the game's factions and multiplayer maps and is scheduled to begin on January 31, at which point access will be given to the press and "Key Dawn of War community members." The following day, the beta will be open to anyone who has pre-ordered the game on Steam. Beginning February 8, the test will then open to anyone who has ever purchased a Dawn of War product or registered a copy of Dawn of War II on Steam.

The beta will test Retribution's Steam matchmaking as well as overall multiplayer balance. Once the beta ends on February 24, the results will be used by the developers at Relic to create a "day-zero balancing patch" for the game.

Read more...

PS3 stats: Over 41 million consoles sold, PSN revenue up 70 percent in 2010

During the PlayStation Network Analysis panel at GDC, SCEA digital distribution manager Pierre Gravereau provided some platform stats to attendees, revealing worldwide sales of over 41.6 million PS3 consoles. More than 80 percent of consoles are connected to the internet and have spawned 70 million PSN accounts.

Gravereau boasted about the success of PSN in 2010, saying traffic to the PlayStation Store increased by 60 percent compared to the previous year and Sony subsequently saw a 70 percent spike in revenue. Even without exact hard figures, it's quite a dramatic uptick.

Now, we're no bussinessologists, but if you ask us (you asked, right?), we'd have to attribute Sony's success in 2010 to one thing: KB.

Read more...

iPhone Steering Wheel: MarioKart Never Had it so Good

Even though the included steering wheel for MarioKart was just a cheap piece of plastic, it pales in comparison to this racing wheel for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Digital Steering Wheel from CTA comes comes with grip with a bigger radius, not to mention a suction cup mount that adheres to any flat surface. The angle which the user wants to play is also adjustable.

It works for the iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch. It comes with about 4 “mounts” that the user has to insert their particular Apple device in, and then snap it in to the center of the wheel. I have included a video that you can see after the jump if you want more info.

Read more...