1）据gamasutra报道，动视暴雪现在已经恢复独立公司的身份，于上周五宣布已从原母公司Vivendi（法国传媒巨头）以82亿美元（其中有23.4亿美元的股份是从由Activision Kotick和联合主席Brian Kelly领导的独立投资团队所购得）价格购回所有股份。

该公司于今年7月就宣布了这项交易，原本在9月份就能真正结束交易，但由于一部分股东认为此举只会令一小部分投资者受益并暂时中止交易，所以该交易直到最近才真正落幕。

activision blizzard(from news.cheatcc)

2）Consumer Intelligence Research Partners(CIRP)最近报告显示，苹果廉价iPhone 5C销量逊于iPhone 5S。

据其数据分析所示，iPhone 5S在美国9月份的所有iPhone销量中占比达64%，而iPhone 5C仅占27%。

Apple_Store_iPhone_5S(from pocketgamer)

值得注意的是，这两款苹果手机的销量均落后于iPhone 5，该设备去年10月发售时在美国iPhone销量中占比68%。

3）据gamasutra报道，Riot公司日前通过官方博客宣布，将在本月重新发布《英雄联盟》中的某些专属角色皮肤，以便补偿那些错过最初购买机会的玩家。

Riot助理制作人Steve Mieczkowski表示，他们认为皮肤是玩家自我表现和获得趣味的重要元素，因此其团队决定推出包含拍卖行或通过成就解琐有限的皮肤，但他否认这一做法存在太多问题。

league_of_legends(from geek.com)

Riot引进了“vintage”功能以便辨别哪些玩家原先就购买了皮肤，并向他们赠送价值与其所购买的皮肤相当的Riot Points，以便取悦铁杆玩家，同时降低某些皮肤的稀有性（游戏邦注：有些皮肤极其罕见，可能在10万次的游戏中才会出现一次）。

本次发布的皮肤仅限于游戏中曾经销售的内容，而非玩家在竞争过程中赢得的专属皮肤。

4）据gamasutra报道，任天堂总裁岩田聪在最近的奥斯卡B Dash Camp大会上，针对任天堂是否会针对硬件设备而非任天堂平台开发游戏的问题表示，没人可以预知未来，他也并不知道任天堂将来的走向。同时也指出，“如果你总是做和他人一样的事情，最终就会在此栽跟头。任天堂并不擅长竞争，所以我们要通过创新来参与挑战，而不是在一个现存的市场同他人竞争。”

Nintendo-president-Satoru-Iwata(from obamapacman.com)

“这就是所谓的‘蓝海战略’，即开拓他人未进军的领域。我们创造DS设备时，人们说双屏设计很奇怪，也有人说年长用户不会玩游戏。但事实并非如此。”

岩田聪指出，不随波逐流，并尝试新理念正是任天堂的竞争力。他还举例称，曾经有人认为美国人无法接受可爱的怪物形象，甚至有人建议将比卡丘（《口袋妖怪》的角色）设计得更强壮和肉感，但如果开发团队遵从了这些建议，《口袋妖怪》也许就不会像今天这么成功了。之前他提议将《Brain Training》推向全球市场，也没有人认同这一想法，但现在该游戏（更名为《Brain Age》）在欧洲销量已经超过任何地区。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Activision Blizzard officially spins off from (now-former) parent Vivendi

By Kris Graft

Activision Blizzard is now officially an independent company.

The home of World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and other game industry-leading franchises on Friday said it has completed its previously-announced buyback of shares from Vivendi, the French media conglomerate and Activision Blizzard’s (now-former) parent company.

For Activision Blizzard, the deal, valued at $8.2 billion, means the video game company will no longer be on the leash of a larger conglomerate whose interests are in media outside of video games.

“With the completion of this transaction we open a new chapter in the history of Activision Blizzard,” said Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

The company bought back shares totaling $5.83 billion, combined with a share purchase totaling $2.34 billion from an independent investor group led by Activision Kotick and co-chair Brian Kelly. While Activision Blizzard is independent in that it’s no longer owned by a parent company, the majority of the company’s shares will be owned by the public. Vivendi still has a 12 percent stake in the company.

When Actvision Blizzard announced the deal in July this year, the plan was to have it finalize in September. But certain shareholders, who said the sale benefited only a small group of investors, temporarily halted the deal.（source：gamasutra）

2）Cheap, but not so cheerful: iPhone 5S outselling 5C by 2 to 1 in US

by Matthew Diener

New research by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) shows that Apple’s budget-end iPhone 5C is flagging well behind the more expensive iPhone 5S in terms of sales.

According to CIRP’s analysis, the iPhone 5S accounted for 64 percent of iPhones sold during the month of September in the United States.

The iPhone 5C, meanwhile, made up just 27 percent of the iPhone market for the same time period.

New phones for old

Intriguingly, both of Apple’s new iPhone models lagged behind the debut of the iPhone 5, which CIRP claims commanded 68 percent of the US iPhone sales market when it launched in October of last year.

A common sight at the front of US Apple Stores

Both global pre-orders for the iPhone 5C and interest in the device were cool in the weeks leading up to the plastic-encased handset’s launch, which might explain why Apple’s post launch marketing is almost exclusively focused on 5C, rather than the more expensive 5S.

Nevertheless, if the iPhone 5S selling as well as Apple purports, iPhone 5C’s 27 percent share might not be as grim as many tech sites appear keen to purport.（source：pocketgamer）

3）How Riot plans to balance virtual exclusivity and player support

By Kris Ligman

In deciding to re-release some of its most exclusive character skins, League of Legends developer Riot is attempting to address the nature of limited virtual goods while also compensating its long-term players.

As announced via its official store blog, Riot will be rolling out limited-time rereleases of some of its rarest skins, in order to make them accessible to players who missed them during their original sale windows.

“We believe skins are primarily about self-expression and fun, not exclusivity,” says Riot associate producer Steve ‘Udyr’ Mieczkowski, who adds that the team considered multiple solutions including a trading auction or unlocking the limited skins through achievements, but dismissed them as too problematic.

“While it’s important we solve this problem for the majority of players, it’s equally important that we preserve value for those who do own these skins,” he says.

Riot’s answer to this problem is to introduce “vintage” features to signal which players purchased the skins during their original run, as well as gifted Riot Points “equal to the price they paid for the skin.”

This way, Riot hopes to satisfy veteran players as well as decrease the overall rarity of some of the skins, some of which Mieczkowski noted are so exclusive they might turn up once in over 100,000 games. It’s an interesting solution to reseeding items into a virtual economy without alienating a contingent of a game’s playerbase.

The rereleases are limited to skins that were at some point sold through the game, not any of the exclusive skins earned through competitions. The first of these are expected to drop later this October.（source：gamasutra）

4）’If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out.’

By Mike Rose

“If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out. Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge [the status quo] by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market.”

- Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discusses his company’s forward-looking strategy.

Speaking at the B Dash Camp in Osaka, and as reported by The Bridge, Iwata was asked whether Nintendo will ever produce games for hardware other than Nintendo platforms. He answered, “No one knows the future, but I don’t think that’s going to happen with Nintendo.”

“It’s often called the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, looking for something that no one else is working on,” he said of Nintendo’s tactics. “When we created the DS, people said it was strange to have a dual display, and people said elderly people don’t play games. But they did. Opening the first door is when things are most interesting.”

Going against the grain and attempting new ideas is what has kept Nintendo in the game, noted Iwata.

He added, “Will America accept cute monsters? No, they said. Some people even recommended to make Pikachu more muscular. If we followed their advice Pokemon would never have been the success that it was. Brain Training (Brain Age) became a hit in Japan, and I proposed that we sell it globally. And even as I said that as the president, no one listened.”

Of course, Brain Age then went on to sell better in Europe than anywhere else, further proving Iwata’s point.（source：gamasutra）