Article by Maggie Wong
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co., Ltd. announced that it will issue 1,120,881,000 new shares of common stock at a price of NTD 11.71 per share.
Horror videogames scare up record sales
Horror videogames are having a record year as zombies, monsters, demons, and chain-saw wielding psychos fight against the consoles, making videogames the new home of horror for some.
Michael Pachter, video-game analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities, said about 7 million worth of horror videogames have sold in the United States alone this year through September compared to 1 million in total for all of 2008.
Actor Kane Hodder, best known as the man behind Jason’s mask in the “friday the 13th” movies, believes scary games have an advantage over horror movies as disillusionment sets in with horror movie remakes and recycling old horror themes.
“Whenever horror movies do well, Hollywood always rushes more into theaters and people get a little burned out on them,” said Hodder, who has worked in the videogame industry.
“But with games, there are fewer choices in the genre and they tend to be spaced out better.”
With Halloween this week, movies like “Saw VI,” “Paranormal State” and “Zombieland” are luring audiences seeking a scare to the movie theaters.
Haunted attractions have also risen across the United States, with these increasingly high-tech venues doing everything possible to make a scary scenario seem real, which includes hiring actors to jump out at people and using theatrical sets.
Persona 3 Portable: its out in Japan, here’s the first 20 minutes
Atlus’ third version of their venerable hit Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 has been released for PSP in Japan over the weekend, and thanks to YouTube user Wonderpierrot, we can now view the first 20 minutes, plus the first battle sequence. These videos answer several of the questions that came up in my Persona 3 Portable information write up, such as the state of the game’s full motion video, which is no longer motion. Instead, still shots will be given the appearance of motion by camera movements, a common trick made popular by Ken Burns in his lengthy PBS documentaries. As you can see in the videos below, this actually doesn’t look too bad, and I noticed that there was also a new sequence inside the train that you frequently ride at around the 9:30 mark in the first video. The great news is that the spoken dialogue all seems to be intact, which I know not everyone cares for, but is really the aspect of these games that make them so endearing in my opinion. As I reported earlier, character portraits now appear in front of static backgrounds, which works fairly well, but there is still something particularly odd about seeing an empty room in the background, or worse, a room full of motionless people.
About the Author
Maggie Wong is currently a financial analyst for Shin Kong, after moving from Wedbush Inc. Maggie Wong written for many international financial newspapers, and magazines. Her regular column can be found in Taipei Times financial section.