[by Don Reisinger, CNET.com]

One of the most celebrated video games ever released is coming to the Nintendo 3DS in June, Nintendo announced today.

On June 19, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D will be hitting store shelves for $39.99. The game, which Nintendo says has been “completed remastered,” brings players back to the land of Hyrule as Link solves puzzles and interacts with the characters around him to save Princess Zelda and the world. Nintendo said the title will also include a Master Quest, which is separate from the main game and includes “revamped puzzles and redesigned dungeons.”

As with other 3DS games, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D will feature full 3D integration without requiring users to wear special glasses.

So far, it seems that the 3D functionality in the 3DS has caught on with consumers around the globe. When the portable device launched in Japan in February, it reportedly sold out in its first weekend of availability. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said in a research note yesterday that he believes Nintendo sold 500,000 3DS unitsin the U.S. in its first five days of availability.

However, reactions to the 3DS game lineup so far have been somewhat tepid. The upcoming Legend of Zelda launch could be just what the 3DS needs. The venerable franchise is easily one of the most popular of all Nintendo brands. And Ocarina of Time has been celebrated by some as being the best entry in the series.

Even so, Nintendo won’t be the only company delivering 3DS titles in the next few months. The game company said today that Pac-Man and Galaga Dimensions is coming out in June, along with Activision’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon Stealth Force Edition 3D on June 14. They will be among many other third-party titles expected to launch in the coming months.

But Nintendo didn’t stop at the 3DS. The game company also said today that it plans to launch Wii Play: Motion on June 13. That title will feature 12 new motion games. It will come bundled with the black Wii Remote Plus controller. Nintendo didn’t reveal the bundle’s pricing.

Along with Wii Play: Motion, Nintendo revealed a host of third-party releases coming to its Wii in the coming months, including Cars 2: The Video Game, Thor: God of Thunder, and Kung Fu Panda 2.

See the original post here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20053162-17.html?tag=mncol;14n

[by Walter Schoenknecht, TV TECHNOLOGY]

For many, references to “the cloud” are all too apt — an amorphous, poorly-defined fog that looks different to everyone who sees it.

But a cross-industry consortium has wrestled the cloud into submission to paint a vivid picture of the ways in which cloud storage will soon benefit content providers and consumers.

Monday’s NAB Show Super Session “Power to the Consumer! Here Comes UltraViolet!” assembled a cross-disciplinary team of interested parties to discuss Ultra- Violet, an initiative of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).

The system, set to debut later this year, provides common paths, methods and tools for distribution of visual media across a range of devices, media and platforms.

Moderated by David Wertheimer, CEO of the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California, the session attempted to define and describe the UltraViolet project, a collaboration among more than 60 players from different industries.

One of the first goals of UltraViolet, Wertheimer said, was to deliver content in the ways consumers are most comfortable with. Richard Berger, senior vice president of Global Digital Strategy at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, outlined UltraViolet’s cross-media underpinnings: physical products such as DVD and Blu-ray Disc and digitally-delivered streams and downloads. “The good thing about UltraViolet is that we have something for everybody,” he said.

Wertheimer said consumers still have great affection for physical media, whether to assuage fears of format compatibility or simply to maintain their movie collections. As a result, he said, “digital sell-through” was a difficult task for distributors.

Mark Teitell, general manager and executive director of DECE, UltraViolet’s parent consortium, said consumers also resisted being channeled to a single purchase outlet, preferring to select their retailer of choice. Many were worried that a digital purchase in one specific format might leave them “marooned” if the device or platform faded from public use.

Christopher Allen, Best Buy general manager, described the challenges UltraViolet faces. “There’s still a passion for the entertainment experience; there’s still a passion for collecting,” he said. “But how do you bring the best of that ownership model that people like, and blend that with the best that the Internet and technology can bring?”

Scott Fierstein, senior director for Interoperability Standards at Microsoft, described the “pillars” the consortium chose as the foundation for UltraViolet: interoperability between services and devices; a consistent, predictable usage model across platforms; and a strong visual identity — a logo — that implicitly guarantees compatibility for both devices and content.

Fierstein also said that creating an effective, platform-agnostic digital rights management (DRM) scheme was key. “I think this is the most innovative thing that came out of UltraViolet,” he said. “From the consumer’s perspective, the technology is truly transparent.”

Tim Dodd, media vice president and general manager at Neustar Media, described consumers’ perception of “the right” to move their physical media purchases into the cloud for portable viewing. “I think that, for a while, we’ll be in a hybrid physical/digital environment,” he said. Bill Wheaton, vice president for digital media at Akamai Technologies, said that unauthorized download of content was a concern, but that the benefits of UltraViolet were, in themselves, a deterrent.

See the original post here: http://nabshowdaily.com/2011/WednesdayEdition/119188