An independently filmed adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, called The Hero Of Time, has been taken offline by Nintendo as of the end of December. The film's producers write: 'We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film... We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself — even from fan-works with good intentions.' Filming for the feature-length, non-profit film began in August 2004 and the movie was completed in 2008. It premiered in various theaters worldwide, including in New York and Los Angeles, and then became available online in the middle of December, before it was targeted by Nintendo's legal team. As both an avid Zelda fan and an appreciator of independent works, I was extremely disappointed in Nintendo's strong-arming of a noncommercial adaptation to the Game of the Year for 1999.
Enjoy your music with the high quality stereo earphone made by Dragon. 24K electroplate golden plug with stereo sound of mega bass. It also includes a Skype microphone so you can make free Skype calls on your PSP GO/3000/2000 consoles.
Converts two Wii Classic Controllers to PC USB. All buttons, D-pads, and analog sticks are recognizable in Windows Gamepad setup. Long USB cable makes up for short length of controller cords allowing for more reach.
You can now save money and get all the accessories you need for your Wii console with this 24 in 1 enhanced sport kit! 24 accessories includes all the must have for people caring for playing Wii Sport Resort!
Secure attachment enables full access to all buttons and directional control. The light weight plastic material assures that these accessories won’t be a heavy burden on your arms, allowing you to enjoy lengthier playing time without tiring as quickly. Precision built and balanced to emulate a realistic, fun and exciting experience! Support motion plus!
You can now save money and get all the accessories you need for your PSP Slim/3000 console with this 28 in 1 ultimate pack! 28 accessories includes all the must have for people caring for their console.
4 colors available: Black, Red, Slive and Pearl Blue.
It's rare that creator curators in the LittleBigPlanet community are rewarded for their homebrewed platforming projects -- a policy Media Molecule seems to want to reverse. Over the past few weeks, the developer has been handing out awards in various categories to the game's wide base of level designers. In a recent PlayStation.Blog post, the studio wrapped these awards up into a single presentation, cheekily titled the "2009 Sackies."
Check out the PlayStation.Blog post to see the full list of winners, including "Roll Over Beethoven," which we think we can all agree is just the coolest thing ever.
Giana’s Return aims to be a worthy UNOFFICIAL sequel of “The Great Giana Sisters”. “The Great Giana Sisters” is an alltime classic made in the late eighties mainly by Armin Gessert, Manfred Trenz and Chris Hülsbeck. The game gained impressive attention but has been damned as Super Mario copy. More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Giana_Sisters
Mednafen a multisystem-emulator has been updated. Mednafen emulates the following systems: Atari Lynx, Game Boy/Game Boy Color, GameBoy Advance, NES/Famicom, PC Engine (PC Engine CD), TurboGrafx 16 (TurboGrafx 16 CD), SuperGrafx, NeoGeo Pocket/NeoGeo Pocket Color, PC-FX and WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color.
Quote:
Changes since 0.8.C:
Lynx: Fixed a bug in the cart loader code that would cause a crash if the ROM bank size was larger than the actual data available in the
file(as is the case with some homebrew programs). Thanks to "Wookie" for the patch.
Build files were regenerated using autoconf 2.64 and aclocal 1.11(previously, they were generated with autoconf 2.61 and aclocal 1.10.1).
Fixed a crashing problem when entering an invalid menu choice("0") in the cheat interface. Thanks to
tsenart for reporting the bug.
GB: The GameBoy module now respects the "filesys.disablesavegz" setting in respect to saved
battery-backed RAM.
Added support for "lurkers" on the network play server. Previous versions of Mednafen don´t lack support for this per se, but there
would be cosmetic issues with status messages printed to the internal console.
SexyAL: Fixed a bug affecting the return value from RawCanWrite() in the ALSA driver. The returned value was typically too
small by a factor of 4. The effects of this bug included potential long periods of garbled sound
during netplay.
Fixed the return value from RawCanWrite() in the JACK driver. It was being clamped to a value
that was too small by a factor of 4; however, the clamp value was already excessively large in a way
that this bug would should have only been triggered if the "soundbufsize" setting was excessively large.
The effects of this bug would be similar to the ALSA RawCanWrite() bug.
The ALSA and OSS drivers will now try to set audio output to 2 channels if the source data only has 1 channel, and 16-bit signed if the
source data is 8-bit(automatic conversion is done). This is done to allow for lower period/fragment sizes, as, in ALSA´s internals at least,
the minimum period sizes are expressed in bytes, not sound frames.
The ALSA and OSS drivers will now try to set lower period/fragment sizes than previous versions of Mednafen did. With default settings, for
ALSA, the new period/fragment size is 50% of what it was before, and for OSS, 25%. Also, there´s a new setting to override
the SexyAL´s driver´s preferred period/fragment sizes, named "sound.period_time"(default value of 0: no override).
The period/fragment size is expressed in microseconds. If the new, lower fragment sizes cause problems, the setting can be changed to "2666"
to approximate the fragment size selection in previous versions of Mednafen when using ALSA output, and "5333" when using OSS output.
Added a workaround to the OSS driver for a bug in ALSA(and hence, ALSA´s in-kernel OSS emulation) that could cause the emulator to run far
too fast for a short period of time if a buffer underflow occurred.
The ALSA´s driver´s RawCanWrite() method now(finally) uses snd_pcm_avail_update() instead of snd_pcm_delay().
This should improve performance and frameskipping behavior when the ALSA output is not routed directly to a physical device, such as the case with
PulseAudio(though PulseAudio is still not recommended :b).
Gens+ REWiND! is the well known Sega Genesis/MegaDrive, Master System, Game Gear, 32X and SegaCD/MegaCD emulator Gens+ with an additional rewind feature that lets you rewind your game at any time.
After several months in the making, the English translation of the obscure Taiwanese Megadrive RPG Barver Battle Saga is now released, and reborn as Brave Battle Saga - Legend of the Magic Warrior!
A lot of work went into bringing this game to an English audience, so we hope you all enjoy this very fine release, just in time for New Years!
Giana’s Return aims to be a worthy UNOFFICIAL sequel of “The Great Giana Sisters”. “The Great Giana Sisters” is an alltime classic made in the late eighties mainly by Armin Gessert, Manfred Trenz and Chris Hülsbeck. The game gained impressive attention but has been damned as Super Mario copy. More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Giana_Sisters
Giana’s Return aims to be a worthy UNOFFICIAL sequel of “The Great Giana Sisters”. “The Great Giana Sisters” is an alltime classic made in the late eighties mainly by Armin Gessert, Manfred Trenz and Chris Hülsbeck. The game gained impressive attention but has been damned as Super Mario copy. More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Giana_Sisters
Slaanesh has released a great new update of the MAME emulator for GP32, heres whats new:
The GP32 is still alive and kicking!
Updated release of MAME4ALL for the GP32 v1.1.
What's MAME4ALL? It's a fantastic handheld-optimized version of MAME, the multi-arcade machine emulator. MAME4ALL was originally ported and enhanced for the GP32 and GP2X by Franxis.
This new version for the GP32 has a few tasty new features:
* Improvements to frontend.
* New graphics (by Antiriad).
* Faster code.
* New DrZ80 modes.
* Lots of bug fixes.
* New games working.
Please see the included whatsnew.txt and readme.txt for full instructions.
Imagine having a 3D labyrinth in your hands... you can rotate it in any direction to get a red ball out of it.
Motion Plus is not mandatory but recommended.
If you get lost press 2.
Changelog
1.0
Dutch translation corrected
Spanish translation added
Motion tracking improved
Smooth transition when ball passes from one plane to another
Localized versons for languages that can't go into international version
Authomatically scale down font size if string doesn't fit the screen
Code cleanup
Changed menu text color to improve visibility
Schism Tracker is an editor and player for tracked music (IT, XM, S3M, MOD, etc.), heavily based on the look and feel of the DOS program Impulse Tracker.
Change Log
20100101: Wii support added
Known Bugs
Saving over an existing file fails
No SD card insert/remove detection
USB disks are unsupported
Title scanning is very slow
The icon is boring
New update for the popular DS homebrew "Moonshell", Now in version 2.09. To recall" Moonshell "media player is necessary for the DS, developed by the team Moonlight.
maRk2512 offers version 1.03 of its adaptation of sokoban like "Kwirk, A-mazing Tater (Game Boy)"For the DS entitled"PuzzleBoy".
v1.03
FIXED: "In your intro screen you can press" A "multiple times Resulting in fading it out ... again." - Thanks to Mr. "Mr.Bug" Lucanius
FIXED: "Sometimes when you move away from your original spot start, you can not go back over that spot." - Thanks to Deathstryker http://palib-dev.com/forum/index.php/topic,34.30.html
I am sure that the name Trogdor tells you something! This dragon is entitled to his own homebrew Game Boy Advance, "Trogdor The Burninator"By Ruben Middel.
New build available, 1299, for Jpcsp, the emulator PSP for PC developed in Java which has recently been updated to version 0.4. I remember that in order to use the program, which allows you to run some homebrew like those already in the archive, you need to install Java on your PC.
Following the full changelog and the link to download.
Changelog:
Quote:
Rev1299: Do not allow sceGeDrawSync () inside an Interrupt
Rev1298: Improved sceUtilityMsgDialogInitStart: display messages and questions
Rev1297: Implemented SubInterrupt handlers (Issue 5: sceKernelRegisterSubIntrHandler,
sceKernelEnableSubIntr). Partially based on work from fiveofhearts in callback-v3. Currently, only VBLANK interrupt is implemented.
Rev1296: New Java native optimization
Over a year since the last release, the coder Raphael updates its plugin JoySens, prx that lets you change the sensitivity of the analog stick of the Sony console. Thank JoySens can also remap the controls of the D-Pad between elements of himself. This new update introduces some new features and fixes some bugs of previous versions.
Changelog v1.5:
Quote:
- Revision of the Code
- Now you can choose only among a short list of "remapmodes" (for example to change between the preferred modes) to GAME / VSH
- Fixato a bug that, if it was set adjust = 0, not allowed to use the analog
- Added LITE version, which does not support saving the configuration nor the information in-game
- Added the configuration parameter "Threshold" to adjust the key mapping from analogue
- Added the configuration parameters "thresholdupbtn" and "thresholddownbtn" tied to the buttons in-game
- Added the configuration parameters "idlestop" and "idleback" to set when the movement of analog cut off the inactivity on the console (display brightness, and the PSP)
- Optimized configuration file
- Improved FAQ
SNES360 is a Super Nintendo emulator for Xbox 360 running through the JTAG flaw to launch unsigned code.
This emulator offers a 1st public release of features:
- Graphics and Sound
- Completions
- User Interface
- Support backup SRAM connected to a user profile
- Filters: Simple2x, Scanlines, Fashion TV, Super Eagle, Super 2xsai, HQ2x
- Turbo Mode (right trigger)
- Support Aspect Ratio / Stretch Mode
- Management safeguards (currently one per rom)
- Preview
Use
This is a package Xbox 360 Game On Demand. Extract the contents of the archive on the original hard disk in HDD: \ Content \ 0000000000000000 \
The Roma should be placed in the following folders (sorry if you do not like the location but there is a reason):
GAME: \ roms \ (this spot is already included in the package)
USB0: \ _Emus \ Snes360 \ Roma \
USB1: \ _Emus \ Snes360 \ Roma \
USB2: \ _Emus \ Snes360 \ Roma \
DVD: \ Roms \
HDD: \ Emus \ Snes360 \ Roma \
MEMUNIT0: \ Roms \
MEMUNIT1: \ Roms \
The file containing the image preview is the default HDD: \ EMUS \ SNES360 \ Preview \
To navigate between each device, press the right stick once in the list of Roma. By pressing the 2 sticks together during a game, you put it in and break open the options menu in game
It remains to implement:
- Mapping buttons
- Support for favorites
- Pixel shaders to replace the filter software (speed)
- Supports Cheats
- Support IPS
- Multiple folders ROM
- Other features
Note
This version is primarily a beta. It is possible that some blockages occur here and there. Most roms run at 60fps. Some delays may appear, but should be fixed in future versions by improving the PPC code. Expect to other known emulators.
The new version XBReboot for all NAND 16MB only was published. This new image must solve the problems of freezes / lags which appeared on some games and also removes the need to patch your XEX (mediacheck).
As a reminder, XBReboot is an image of NAND flash on the console to hack JTAG.
-- Who are the authors?
Members talented XBH who have contributed by their skills. The XBR Team brings together all these contributions, development utilities, and assembles all for this to work.
-- How it works?
Whether or XBR Freebooter, both use an "engine patch for applying patches to bootloaders to reboot the console. Freebooter regard, it is "freeboot.bin" or "Freebooter-manual.bin"; to XBR, it is "xbrfw.bin" These are two binary-based startup code Xell and are launched by the exploit. The code then applies the patches contained in block 0x65 + and reboot the system.
-- What went wrong?
The XBR 1éres versions used the same pair of CB / CD to run the kernel and the 8955 feat. Freebooter, using a system of dual-nand, using the old bootloader to launch the exploit, then used the new bootloader on the flash side to start the kernel.
The problems were not related to the patches used by XBR, but rather to use the old bootloaders. Try to control when problems occur, they can always be corrected. Do not throw in conspiracy theories, the purchase of Cygnos, install a dual-nand or xD Card, to convert a nand 256/512 in a smaller etc ... Have a little patience and rationality.
-- What are the corrections?
1) Adding a copy of the new bootloaders on the flash.
2) Create patches to use the new bootloaders set up on new addresses to reboot.
It was easier to re-use the engine freeboot.bin patch for this work. Patches of Freebooter itself is not used. XBR still uses its own patch, however, the engine patch freeboot.bin be used to implement them. This also allows the patching custom format used by Freebooter.
XENON_8955_3:
- Use the CB 6750 as an alternative to allow easier support for all versions of hardware.
- No changes to the patches, they have exactly the same functions as 8955_2.
XENON_8955_2:
- Added a new copy of flash bootloaders.
- Creation of patches to use the new bootloaders set up on new addresses to reboot.
- Conversion of existing patches in XBR for use with engine patch freeboot.bin.
- Fixed build file to use the CB / CD 1921 for all Xenon.
- Remove the check to the XEX XEX launch from any media without the patch.
It is no longer necessary to extract the files and recreate SAIP. It is a limitation of Freebooter and not XBR. Apart from this difference, all functions are identical. Each section can be updated or retrieved separately via NandPro.
You can find our complete tutorial on installing on XBReboot This page.
The Team FreeXeX we once again offered the privilege of testing the future version of FreeXeX (currently 0.30 but that is being optimized and should be available in the coming days).
In the menu that release:
- Skin System (Skins located in / Media / skins /)
- Support for SD screens (change in skin with the trigger LB to get the configuration page and then using the DPAD)
- Patch XEX automatically when copying DVD
- Patch Manual XEX via the file manager
- List ordered alphabetically (Qsort)
- Launcher for the Games, Emulators and Applications (formerly Discovery Mode)
- Correction at the progress bar
- Fixed some texts
- Several small bug fixes
Using the buttons / triggers:
~ RS / LS - Show only XEX or not
~ RB / LB - Change the mode launcher (Games / File Manager / Configuration)
~ DPAD - New skin / Change submenu Launcher (Games / Emulators / Applications)
~ A - Select
~ B - Back
~ X - Device menu
~ Y - File menu
**New alarm music (Name:alarm.mp3)
**New PIC1 & ICON0
**New images
**Sleep mod fixed
**Kernel fixed
**1.50 support
*New Pic
*Fixed
*Works on 5.50 GEN-X,5.03 GEN-X,CFWEnabler,5.00 M33-X
* 3000-2000-1000
* Sleep Mode Alarm with support for custom MP3 Audio file.
* Power Off Mode Alarm that plays sound in XMB. (Plugin Required - Seperate Package)
* Uses 12 Hour Time system (AM/PM), no more Confusing time conversions
* Display's Hour's and Minutes remaining as the Alarm time is being set; updated in real time.
* Alarm can be set up to 23 hours 59 minutes in future, Check for (Invalid - Readjust message).
* Alarm Accurate to the Second.
kabome writes with this excerpt from a story about an alleged drug dealer who was located by law enforcement thanks to World of Warcraft:
"Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson. ... Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect's location."
For those fans of Apple's Boot Camp package, it looks like you might be waiting on the next 'end of year' to use Windows 7 on your shiny silver boxes. Back in October of this year, Apple published a rather short, but affirmative promise stating quite simply that, 'Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.' The support page has no updates regarding the new version. Maybe they're waiting for iSlate?
ou're probably already familiar with the work of modder / hacker extraordinaire, Benjamin Heckendorn... and if you're not, well, maybe it's time to familiarize yourself with his work. Regardless, some of his fantastic handiwork has shown up on Ebay for sale, and while we don't want to counsel you to foolishlessly spend loads of hard-earned cash, this is bound to be an heirloom one day. The listing here is for Ben's PS3 Slim laptop -- the one modded from a 17-inch Gateway 1775w LCD with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution -- and its currently at around $1,075.00 with 16 bids on it and roughly 3 days remaining. So if this kind of thing strikes your fancy (and we know that it does) hop to it! Check out our segment of The Engadget Show we filmed at Ben's evil laboratory after the break.
Earlier this week, Sony accidentally offered Armored - a movie that's still playing in theatres - for download on the PlayStation Store. What's more, they offered it for free. Whoops.
While game publishers look to retail sales figures to gauge the success of the holiday season, let's take a look at how our favorite games and consoles performed in the shady back-alleys of eBay's 2009 holiday grey market.
kmilloz posted a new release of his Beats of Rage Mod which should work on Wii, Dreamcast, Dingoo, PSP and GP2X:
Hi, with the launch of Openbor for Dingoo A-320, I made an update on my MOD, can now use the whip, attackbackward was improved ... for who played the first version, you'll like this ... compatible with the version 3.25xx.
kmilloz posted a new release of his Beats of Rage Mod which should work on Wii, Dreamcast, Dingoo, PSP and GP2X:
Hi, with the launch of Openbor for Dingoo A-320, I made an update on my MOD, can now use the whip, attackbackward was improved ... for who played the first version, you'll like this ... compatible with the version 3.25xx.
kmilloz posted a new release of his Beats of Rage Mod which should work on Wii, Dreamcast, Dingoo, PSP and GP2X:
Hi, with the launch of Openbor for Dingoo A-320, I made an update on my MOD, can now use the whip, attackbackward was improved ... for who played the first version, you'll like this ... compatible with the version 3.25xx.
kmilloz posted a new release of his Beats of Rage Mod which should work on Wii, Dreamcast, Dingoo, PSP and GP2X:
Hi, with the launch of Openbor for Dingoo A-320, I made an update on my MOD, can now use the whip, attackbackward was improved ... for who played the first version, you'll like this ... compatible with the version 3.25xx.
kmilloz posted a new release of his Beats of Rage Mod which should work on Wii, Dreamcast, Dingoo, PSP and GP2X:
Hi, with the launch of Openbor for Dingoo A-320, I made an update on my MOD, can now use the whip, attackbackward was improved ... for who played the first version, you'll like this ... compatible with the version 3.25xx.
Gabo-Hanzo has posted a new beats of rage mod for the PSP:
History: continuation of my previous double dragon (REVOLUTION 1 AND 2) after the death of Marian, Billy kills Willy Mackey (the SMG), finding solace away from his brother Jimmy for a while ... Over time there is a new threat which recruits former and new members of asot criminals to the city, just in order to attract the Dragons to meet his destiny. With such evidence to overcome Billy rejoins the Dragons which integrate new miebros with new techniques and superior to those known in the arcade. Billy found this challenge a good opportunity to find answers to the path followed in the future, but this must confront old enemies and acquaintances with new allies reinforced with new techniques and weapons ... This game is a result from 2 years of work.... i hope that like you. 2 endings 1 characters secret 1 final enemy secret 6 buttons save support so much edits.... and much more...
Nintendo Gameboy/Sega Master System/Game Gear for Sony PSP has been updated. Changes:
-Screenshot is now woking at 99%;
-fixed a bug for saving in games (GB/GBC);
-fixed bugs in Game Gear games.
Kreationz has released a new version of the Nintendo 64 Emulator for PSP, heres whats new:
Revision 448
[!] Cleaned up AdvancedOptionsScreen.cpp, several overabundant code was removed.
[+] Added a hack to use Flushtris to write Zbuffer (Pilot Wings 64 should be playable now..)
[~] Couple of changes done on DLParser_SetCImg
Wiiwaa is a new interactive video game which uses a small stuffed animal as the game’s controller.
The game is design by Zoink Games exclusively for the Nintendo Wii. The game utilizes the wii’s motion-sensing controller implanted inside a stuffed puppet of the game’s main character. The user shakes and bounces the puppet around, as the on-screen version mimics the same actions. The puppet can be thrown, slingshot and moved in a variety of other ways all of which are acted out on screen.
This idea is ideal for children, giving them a way to connect the game to reality and also encouraging more physical activity than simply thumb movements.
While many Amiga users have moved on to Linux, Mac OS X, and even, gasp shock, Microsoft Windows some of us don't want to give up so easily. There are two open source projects that are keeping the Amiga legacy alive even if Amiga Inc. seems to be deader than a doornail and not really doing much but selling old Classic Amiga games for new platforms. Like WINE, there was a project to run AmigaOS 3.1 software for Linux and other platforms, but it evolved instead into an open source operating system named Amiga Research OS, or AROS. AROS is best run inside an emulator, and while it is not a modern OS like Linux, it can be downloaded and run inside of Linux (and the downloads section has more). While it is not ready for prime time yet, it is a promising OS that is being ported to many platforms and uses the user friendly Amiga GUI we Amiga users grew up with.
According to a Net Applications survey, Google Chrome has replaced Apple's Safari as the number-three browser. This may be partially explained by the release of the Chrome beta on Mac and Linux, but may also be due to users jumping ship from IE. More analysis on this topic can be found at ComputerWorld. As anecdotal evidence of Google Chrome usage gaining steam, Bank of America has apparently recently added Google Chrome to their list of officially supported browsers.
Earlier today I lamented the relative lack of sleep-enhancing gadgets. The Internet answered with these sheets that transform your bed into a giant iPod Touch. I don't think it functions, but it is certainly compatible with puns.
Everyone is clamoring about tablets these days—ourselves included—so it's not too surprising that Google and HTC are set to join the fray. They are reportedly working together on a Chrome OS Google Tablet.
Yeah, hardware accelerating Doom is an important milestone in any fledgling system's career, but when you talk 3D acceleration, Quake is certainly a giant leap ahead of Doom in polygonal terms. The game has now been ported to webOS using the same new SDL library from version 1.3.5, and while it looks a little sluggish and crashy in the video after the break, it's clearly a landmark event just the same. Now if only we could get stuff like this in the App Catalog we'd be perfectly happy forever and ever. Or for at least a week.
In the last quarter, Chrome, Safari and Opera all set new personal bests for browser market share with 4.63, 4.46 and 2.4 percent respectively. This period marks the first time Chrome has beaten Safari to third spot, while their collective prosperity comes at the expense of IE, which continues to hemorrhage users at a rate of 0.92 percentage points a month. Microsoft's 62.7 percent slice might still look mighty, but projections from Net Applications suggest it could shrink to below 50 percent by May of this year. Unless something magical happens. You'll probably also want to know that Net Applications monitors incoming traffic to over 40,000 websites and generates a sample size of about 160 million unique visitors each month -- making the veracity of its claims pretty robust. One hidden sign of our collective laziness: 21 percent of all users last quarter were still fulfilling their browsing needs with IE 6. For shame.
Already feeling the pinch of a mere 25GB per layer on a Blu-ray disc? Neither are we, but it looks like Sony and Panasonic have been busily working on ways to boost capacity nonetheless, and they've now devised a new method that seems to be on the fast track to becoming a standard. The best news is that it doesn't involve a change in Blu-ray optics, but rather something called the Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation evaluation index (or i-MLSE -- the "i' is just for kicks, it seems), which is a new means of estimating the read error rate of discs on the fly that has apparently be made possible thanks to "recent hardware advancements." According to Sony and Panasonic, that should now allow discs to hold up to 33.4 GB per layer, but it's not exactly clear what that means for existing Blu-ray players (a little firmware assistance seems to at least be a conceivable option, though). There's also no timeline for a rollout just yet, but Sony is reportedly now set to propose widespread adoption of i-MLSE to the Blu-ray Disc Association, of which it just so happens to be the leading member.
- Changed some issue related to sound, removed some slowdowns.
- Improved a little speed on emulation.
- Added a letter selector in filemanager.
- Added some items on System config in menu.
- Cleaned some code (but need a little more cleaning code).
- Zip files with one rom, runs without filezipmanager.
- Added and changed fit and scale video modes.
It’s been asked countless times: why do villains sent out their henchmen one-by-one? Wouldn’t it be better to gang-rush the hero?
Now, with the magic of the personal computer, we can see what would have happened if Dr. Wily sent his eight robot masters into the same room at the same time.
This is an English translation of Rockman2 de Ippatsu Neta (ロックマン２で一発ネタ), an 8-against-1 battle with Quickman, Airman, Leafman, and all the others from Rockman2 (”Mega Man 2″ outside Japan). You do start with all the game’s special weapons, and there are other ways to turn the tables against your opponents, but it’s still a hellish battle that will test your patience.
This time the classic DOS arcade shooter Tyrian or in this case OpenTyrian.
The GP32 version mode runs fullspeed at 133Mhz but with out music.
Originally intended as an entry for the GP32 revival competition which never happened, this was something I always wanted to port across to the GP32. It's turned out rather nicely too - much better than I anticipated. There are separate FLU/BLU and BLU+ versions included in the binary package
I also have a Dingoo A320 port too. I know there already is an A320 version but I did my own version of it - which is faster and has a nice full screen display. This will be available shortly.
UPDATE: I've updated the Binary Package as I originally included a slightly out-of-date executable for the BLU+ version. The FLU/BLU version was correct. The BLU+ version is fixed in v1.01. You should download the Binary Package again if you are using the BLU+ version.
A port of the original Quake engine to the Nintendo Wii, compiled using devkitPPC / libogc.
Release 3
The source code comes from Q1DS (an initial attempt to port the engine to the Nintendo DS), which, in turn, comes from the original winquake, one of the projects that can be obtained at ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/q1source.zip .
The engine is feature-complete, it plays the game at 30fps with no hiccups or any similar problems. It can also be used as a client for Internet-based gameplay, as a "unmodified" NetQuake client.
New features in this release:
Classic Controller can now be used to play; controls are similar to those in use by the Gamecube Controller.
Pressing [A] to aim is now optional; a Menu Option was provided for such effect.
Bug fixes in the way the Nunchuk controller was handled, causing problems when moving on water. http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Q1Rev
Download and Give Feedback Via Comments
QWRev: A port of the client component of the original QuakeWorld engine to the Nintendo Wii, compiled using devkitPPC / libogc.
Release 2
The engine is a feature-complete implementation of the QuakeWorld 2.40 engine. Unlike Q1Rev, there are LOTS of servers around the world that are able to accept this engine as a client for netplay. Be aware, however, that some of them might need a modified version of the communications protocol. Experiment with as much servers as you want in order to get the desired results.
New features in this release:
Classic Controller can now be used to play; controls are similar to those in use by the Gamecube Controller.
Pressing [A] to aim is now optional; a Menu Option was provided for such effect.
Bug fixes in the way the Nunchuk controller was handled, causing problems when moving on water. http://wiibrew.org/wiki/QWRev
A port of the original id Tech 2 engine (Quake II) to the Nintendo Wii, compiled using devkitPPC / libogc.
Release 2
The engine is feature-complete, with sound & network play. For technical reasons, the Capture-The-Flag module is not included in this engine; you will need to play Q2CTFRev for that purpose.
New features in this release:
Classic Controller can now be used to play; controls are similar to those in use by the Gamecube Controller.
Pressing [A] to aim is now optional; a Menu Option was provided for such effect.
Q2Rev: A port of the original id Tech 2 engine (Quake II) with ThreeWave's Capture-The-Flag module to the Nintendo Wii, compiled using devkitPPC / libogc.
Release 1
The engine is feature-complete, with sound & network play. It is mainly intended for network play; while it's possible to play the single-player game with this engine, it becomes somewhat slow doing so. Due to the shortage of keys in the original Wii Remote + Nunchuk configuration, it is recommended that you "bind RIGHTARROW use grapple" in order to use the aforementioned weapon.
All features included in Q2Rev, Release 2, have been included in this build.
Do you have too many apps listed in your HBC? Do you rarely play apps starting with "W" anymore because it takes too long to scroll all the way down to there? Have you ever installed an app but never played it because it got lost in the clutter? Your misery ends now. Introducing, Categorii!
Changelog
v2.0
Fixed embarrassing situation where categorii would rename apps and then fail on the second rename leaving you with NO folder named apps.
Removed 1/2 second pause off the end.
Deprecated config.xml in favor of keeping link information in meta.xml
Added colored text to indicate success or failure at a glance.
Added password capability.
Automatically converts from 1.0 style configuration, to new style. (You only need to replace the old boot.dol with the new boot.dol file)
syscheck is a homebrew develops by erikspyderThat as signcheck, to test your IOS and cIOS to search:
- Trucha Bug;
- Identify ES;
- Flash Access;
- Boot2 Access;
- USB 2.0 IOS Tree.
a file with the result will be created on the SD card.
QUOTE
What's new?
* Check for USB 2.0 IOS Tree;
* Display the current date and time in the report;
* Recompiled with the latest version of devkitPro;
* Code cleanup.
TeamXBR along with talented members of xboxhacker.net has been active with XBReboot lately and managed to fix the freezing/lagging issues when playing games from the Xbox 360 hard drive. Also several other bug fixes for the supported motherboards makes XBReboot stable enough to please most users. I think there will be lots of people attempting the JTAG Hack in the near future. If you need help to get started there are tutorials available in the download section. Just keep in mind that you shouldn't connect to live using the hacked kernel, unless you want to be banned.
Pate has posted some more great WIP News about his Dos Emulator for DS:
Alpha version 0.01 feedback
Big thanks to everyone of you who tested the 0.01 alpha version and reported the problems you found, either by sending me the full DSx86dbg.log files or by posting on the GBADEV forum thread! The logs showed pretty clearly that DSx86 is still missing too many opcodes for it to support other games besides those I have specifically supported. Sorry about that, I thought it might be able to run some other simple games already. Also, the logs showed that quite many games want to use the graphics mode 0x0D (320x200 16-color EGA mode). I guess this should be the next graphics mode DSx86 will support.
Opcode tester program progress
Pretty soon after I released the 0.01 version, I noticed some serious problems with Leisure Suit Larry 3. After I fixed the missing opcode in 0.01, it still would not recognize any user input, instead it always said "Bad Said Spec" whatever I tried to type. I could not find the problem by debugging the code (and I tried for hours), so I then decided that now would be a good time to finally improve my opcode tester program. Until now the program had only tested for typos in the memory access, so that my opcode handlers don't change the wrong memory location (addressing with [SI] instead of [DI], for example).
I worked on the tester program for two full days, and added pretty complete tests for all arithmetic, logical, and move opcodes. It tests all modrm byte variations that DSx86 supports, and is smart enough to skip the variations I haven't yet coded. It checks for the correct result of the operation, and also for correct CPU flag changes.
When running the improved tester program I found about half a dozen bugs in my opcode handlers, including bugs in "TEST" opcode, which the original tester program had skipped completely, as it doesn't change any memory.
Now I feel much more confident that the new opcodes and modrm byte variations I add will work properly even when I don't currently know of a game that would use them. Thus, I have been adding quite a few new opcodes these past days since the 0.01 release, for example all "INC", "DEC" and "LEA" variations are now fully supported, same as all arithmetic 16-bit operations with immediate values, and most of the "MOV" opcodes as well. Still a lot of work to do with the remaining missing opcodes, but it is much nicer to keep adding them now when I can test the new variations immediately.
Auxiliary Carry and Parity flags
One big difference between the ARM and x86 processors is that ARM does not have the Auxiliary Carry (which works like the normal Carry flag, but for the bottom 4 bits of a byte) nor the Parity flag (which tells whether the least significant byte of the last arithmetic operation has an even number of set bits). I had hoped that games would not use these flags, but now I have noticed them both being used in games.
The AC flag is used in Leisure Suit Larry 3. When drawing data to the screen, LSL3 uses both the Carry flag (for the upper 4 bits) and the AC flag (for the lower 4 bits) to determine whether the new data is in front of or behind whatever is currently on the screen. It uses code like this:
CMP BL,[DI+7FF0]
LAHF
TEST AH,10
That is, it compares the current value in BL with the value in memory, then loads the AH register with the resulting flags, and then tests for the bit in AH that has received the AC flag. A somewhat complex method, but since the x86 instruction set does not contain a conditional jump that would check the AC flag, this is the most straightforward method available.
Since the ARM processor does not have anything similar, I had to code a game-specific special case to handle this. I added some code to the LAHF opcode (which is quite rare) handler, so that it checks whether the next opcode is "TEST AH,10" (which could have no other purpose but to test the AC flag), and if so, it determines if the previous opcode is "CMP BL,[DI+7FF0]", and if so, it performs the compare again, but this time by shifting the values 4 bits left, so the resulting real carry will get the value that the AC flag would get in x86. This new carry is then stored into the AH register bit 0x10, so the following test will give the correct result. This seemed to solve the problem completely for Leisure Suit Larry 3.
Based on a log file I received, The Incredible Machine uses the parity flag. However, on closer examination of the code I believe this is actually a bug in the game. The game has code like this:
The way I interpret that is, that it first check if it has less than 10 bytes to move. If so, it jumps to simply moving them byte-by-byte. If there are more bytes, it first checks whether the low byte of the target address has an even number of bits set (?!), and if so, it jumps to moving the data by word access, else it first moves the leading byte, and then the remaining bytes using word access.
What the author probably meant, was to check whether the target address is even, and jump to word access if so. That would have been done by a code somewhat like this:
test di,0001
jz 60F6
That is, by testing whether the lowest bit of the address is set or not. Luckily for the author, x86 works fine with unaligned word access (unlike ARM), so this is a benign bug that causes no ill effects. What is annoying, though, is that I need to add a special case into DSx86 to handle a code that shouldn't be there in the first place!
SB ADPCM support
I also added the 4-bit ADPCM and 2.6-bit ADPCM audio support to DSx86 SoundBlaster emulation, both of which are needed by Solar Winds. It was reasonably easy to do, again using the DOSBox sources as a reference. My version does not sound quite similar yet, though, so perhaps I still have something wrong in my implementation. At least it does not crash, which is always the main thing when coding for ARM7. :-)
Annoying save game bug
I have been testing Leisure Suit Larry 3 pretty extensively, as it used to be one of my favourite games back in the early 90's. That was mostly because I had a Roland LAPC sound card (basically an MT-32 synth built into a PC ISA card), which the game supported perfectly. It even loaded new patches to the synth to make the music sound really really good (much much better than what the music sounded on any General Midi synth, for example, not to mention AdLib/SoundBlaster cards). I think the music plays surprisingly well even on my poor AdLib emulation in DSx86. It obviously does not sound great, like with the LAPC card, but it is close enough that it brings back memories. :-)
Currently there is a really annoying problem with save games of LSL3. For some strange reason DSx86 occasionally corrupts the save game directory file "LSL3sg.dir". This is pretty much the worst file to get corrupted, as losing it means you lose all of the possible several save games.
What is curious is that usually when this corruption happens, I can see the save game names at the top row of the DSx86dbg.log file, and the LSL3sg.dir file contains only "---------------", which should be at the start of the DSx86dbg.log file! I don't see how it could swap the file pointers, especially as the DSx86dbg.log file had not been open when I saved the game! This still needs a lot of looking into.
Future plans
Well, today my two-week Christmas vacation ends, so tomorrow I need to again start working "for real". I would like to release version 0.02 with a lot of added opcodes reasonably soon, but I don't yet know when that might be. Probably in a week or two. The next big thing to add would then be the support for the 320x200 EGA 16-color mode, but that will be for version 0.03 at the earliest.
max840 releases an updated version of its Ultimate Plugin Manager to manage our homebrew plugin activating and deactivating the various departments (vsh, game, game150, pops) without going through the PC. From this release, you can enable the USB mode directly from within the program, without having to return to the dashboard, were also fixed several bugs in the browser files and folders, clean the source code, and added the clock and the level of charge battery at the top of the screen.
Changelog:
Quote:
- Fixed several bugs in the browser
- Fixed a bug that prevented opening folders other than the seplugins
- Fixed a bug MS Explorer for files GAME.TXT and POPS.TXT
- Submitted a confirmation message before the addition of a prx
- Added a warning for any plug-existent
- Ultimate Plugin Manager is now compatible with Game Categories
- Increased speed in general
- Added possibility to activate the USB mode to copy plug-in without going through the ms dashboard
- Added the clock and the level of the battery at the top right
XCM has released a new video of their XCM XFPS 4.0 Force for the PlayStation 3 and PS3 Slim. The new v1.5 software allows you to do rapidly turn around 360° and move forward. You can also configure more buttons on a mouse if you have buttons on the side of the mouse rather than the usual left click, right click and middle wheel.
This new v1.5 software has added functionality enabling you to modify 16 directions, 2 analog sticks, D-pad and tilt sensitivity to the mouse. You can also now map these functions to one of the mouse buttons easily. Simply pressing this button moving forward and 360° around is now easier than before.
XFPS 4.0 Force for PS3/PS3 Slim
This new software is also available for XCM XFPS 4.0 Speed for the Xbox 360.
THQ has been granted the rights to develop and publish WWE games for the next eight years and settled its long-running legal dispute with toy company Jakks Pacific in the process.
The deal granted the publisher worldwide publishing rights to the wrestling franchise as from January 1 2010 and will ensure WWE games continue to feature on THQ's release schedule for the long term, according to the company's president Brian Farrell.
"This agreement ensures that WWE games will continue to be an important cornerstone of THQ's annual release schedule for the long term," Farrell commented. "We look forward to working directly with WWE to expand their brand in the video game space through continued game play innovation and increased online delivery of WWE content."
"As one of the most successful video game brands, WWE is excited to work directly with THQ to translate WWE's colourful characters and ever-changing content into exciting and fresh video games for our fans," added Donna Goldsmith, WWE Chief Operating Officer.
The signing of the deal also marks the end of long-running legal disputes between THQ and Jakks Pacific over the licence and agreed royalty rates.
Under a three-party settlement, all claims will be withdrawn and litigation ended without any party admitting any wrongdoing.
As part of the resolution, THQ is to pay WWE USD 13.2 million and, in addition to a preferred return payment for the period ending December 31 2009, the publisher will also pay Jakks Pacific USD 20 million over the next four years. The joint venture between the two companies was terminated as from the end of 2009.
Although the settlement had eliminated uncertainty over the WWE licence going forward, Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities said he expected the deal to have a neutral impact on THQ financials.
To reflect lower-than-expected sales from the publisher in Q3 so far, Pachter's revised revenue forecast for the quarter was reduced from USD 360 million to USD 325 million
Revenues from the UK's videogames industry hit GBP 1.73 billion (USD 2.8 billion) in the 12 months to the end of September 2009, according to figures from GfK Chart-Track - more than 70 per cent higher the Box Office, which UK Film Council numbers posted at GBP 1 billion (USD 1.6 billion) in the same period.
That's despite cinemas in the country enjoying their best performance for almost 30 years, reports The Telegraph.
GBP 198 million was spent on film titles on DVD and Blu-ray, bringing the medium's total up to just under GBP 1.2 billion (USD 1.9 billion) - meaning that games outperformed films overall by over 44 per cent.
That means that only television - including the sale of DVD boxed sets, the TV license and satellite subscriptions - made more money.
"Like anything digital, Parliament has a very narrow view of videogames," said Labour MP Tom Watson, who welcomed the news. "Too many politicians think video games are played by teenage boys staying up all night shooting things in their bedroom.
"And yes there are plenty of those, but there also a huge range of people of many different ages who love playing games. The industry has matured over the last decade, and so too have gamers."
The University of Abertay in Dundee has been awarded its third games course accreditation by creative media industry body Skillset, meaning the university now runs three of the only eight accredited games courses in the UK.
Its Master of Science (MSc) degree course in computer games technology is the latest to be formally approved by Skillset. Abertay is now the only university in the UK to have multiple courses accredited as well as being Scotland's only Skillset Media Academy.
Taught within the university's new Institute of Arts, Media and Computer Games, the latest MSc course began in September. The institute - the UK's first centre excellence in games education - was established in early 2009 with the help of the GBP 3 million grant from the Scottish government.
In December, Abertay secured further grants of GBP 3.5 million from the UK Government and the European Union which, together with a further GBP 1.5 million from Abertay's own resources, is to be invested in a business support framework for start ups and small to medium sized enterprises within the games industry.
Japanese publisher Capcom has revised its financial forecast downwards following the delay in launching three of its key properties - Lost Planet 2, Super Street Fighter IV and Monster Hunter Tri (in the West).
The postponements were put made in order to "Avoid competing with the major titles that other companies plan to introduce in the fourth quarter; preserve the value of Capcom's titles and maximize sales volume; and expand the line-up of titles in the next fiscal year and afterwards," a company presentation noted.
The publisher reduced its revenue forecast down by almost a third, from JPY 95 billion (USD 1.0 billion) to JPY 65 billion (USD ), with the profit forecast slashed by over 76 per cent to JPY 2 billion (USD 21.5 million).
The videogames business was responsible for the vast majority of that revision - JPY 28.5 billion (USD 307 million) in total - although an updated forecast for the next financial year (ending March, 2011) notes expected revenues at the same level as previously forecast for this year - JPY 95 billion (USD 1.0 billion).
Capcom had expected to sell 3.7 million units of Lost Planet 2, 1.1 million units of Super Street Fighter IV and 500,000 copies of Monster Hunter Tri, while Dark Void underperformed based on estimates - it sold only 600,000 units compared to the 1.3 million it was expected to.
Activision has finished the year at number one with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which has topped the chart for an eighth consecutive week.
Despite a 41 per cent drop in sales on the week prior, the game still fended off competition from number two game Assassin's Creed II to become the longest unbeaten chart topper in the all formats chart since Need for Speed: Underground 2 five years ago.
Sega's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games took third position, climbing from number five, while Wii Sports Resort hung onto the number four position for another week.
Further down the top ten, Ubisoft's Just Dance achieved its highest place so far at number seven, climbing from number 12 with a sales increase of 10 per cent, and James Cameron's Avatar: The Game dropped two places to number 10.
The full Chart-Track all format top 20 for the week ending January 2 is as follows:
01 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
02 Assassin's Creed II
03 Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
04 Wii Sports Resort
05 Wii Fit Plus
06 FIFA 10
07 Just Dance
08 New Super Mario Bros Wii
09 Mario Kart Wii
10 James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
11 Forza Motorsport 3
12 Need for Speed: Shift
13 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
14 Left 4 Dead 2
15 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
16 Batman: Arkham Asylum
17 Wii Play
18 Grand Theft Auto Episodes: Liberty City
19 Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
20 Tekken 6
New Super Mario Bros Wii has topped the Japanese games chart over the Christmas holiday, with sales of 506,000.
Nintendo also took the number two and three positions with new release The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Friend Collection placing respectively.
Square Enix PlayStation 3 title Final Fantasy XIII was relegated from first to fourth place with sales of 189,000, despite first week shipments of the title topping 1.8 million.
In the Japanese hardware chart, Wii sales nearly doubled those of the PlayStation 3, totalling 215,129 units.
DSi fell into second place with sales of 113,984, and PlayStation 3 followed just behind with 110,519.
The PlayStation Portable also saw sales increase to 105,801, although the PSPgo managed just 4192 in contrast.
The full Media Create software chart for the week ending December 27 is as follows:
01 New Super Mario Bros Wii (Wii)
02 The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS)
03 Friend Collection (DS)
04 Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
05 Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver (DS)
06 Wii Fit Plus (Wii)
07 Inazuma Eleven 2 (DS)
08 Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
09 Taiko no Tatsujin Wii 2 (Wii)
10 Professor Layton and the Flute of Malevolent Spirits (DS)
The full hardware chart is as follows:
01 Nintendo Wii - 215,129
02 Nintendo DSi - 113,984
03 PlayStation 3 - 110,519
04 PlayStation Portable - 105,801
05 DSi LL - 81,430
06 DS Lite - 17,695
07 Xbox 360 - 6489
08 PSPgo - 4192
09 PlayStation 2 - 3747
SEGA is unlikely to follow up MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill with further mature Wii titles according to studio director Constantine Hantzopoulos following the poor performance of EA's Dead Space Extraction at retail.
Despite both SEGA titles meeting sales targets, Hantzopoulos indicated in an interview with the 1UP podcast the publisher is sceptical about releasing similar games in future.
"I have to say that it was a space that was open and we took a gamble on it," he said. "We did some research, it said there was an audience out there.
"I won't comment about Nintendo, they did champion The Conduit as a 'this is a Nintendo game.' And, you know, I think they did okay by us. At the end of the day, I just think that you're seeing kids are skewing much younger towards next-gen.
"We put out some pretty decent content. I mean, House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld are great Wii games. They're both doing okay and at the end of the day we'll make our numbers - that's good. Conduit's done quite well for us. It's been slow burn. That’s the other thing you find out about the Wii. It's not necessarily first three weeks like most titles. And DS. It's a longer burn, actually.
"But that begs the question, are we going to do more mature titles for the Wii?" Hantzopoulos continued. "And it’s like, probably not. Look at Dead Space. We were stunned. That was my litmus test. Basically, it's like, okay, you got EA, who can put all the marketing muscle behind this, an established franchise that scored quite well on 360 and PS3. They should be able to actually hit this out of the park, right? We get numbers, real numbers aside from NPD, and I'm like, 'Woah'."
According to NPD figures, Dead Space Extraction sold 9000 copies in the US between its release at the end of September and the end of the NPD's reporting period in October.
Microsoft could be planning to bring Xbox Live gaming to Windows Mobile phones, as implied by a range of job adverts.
The company is seeking a principal program manager, software test engineer and senior software test engineer who can bring "Xbox Live enabled games to Windows Mobile", reports The Telegraph.
In particular, the focus will be on avatar integration, social interactions and multiscreen experiences, according to the ads.
Microsoft's Live Anywhere gaming initiative currently allows gamers to use their Xbox and PC accounts across both platforms as well as use Microsoft Points, but Windows Mobile has, so far, not been included in the service.
Last year Microsoft's Shane Kim spoke about Live Anywhere saying the company hadn't forgotten about the portable online market.
"We've chosen to focus on the living room experience from a hardware standpoint, if you will, but we're building a service in Live that will extend to other platforms. No question about it," he said.
Ubisoft Pune finishes first full title, with the firm at concept stage for next
An upstart Ubisoft studio in the Indian city of Pune has become the nation’s first to fully develop a DS title.
Ubisoft Pune – situated in the state of Maharashtra – spent seven months developing the DS title 100 All Time Favorites.
The game, which in the UK is given the title Master All Classics, is a collection of timeless board and card games from around the world.
The studio was formed after Ubisoft purchased Gameloft’s Pune-based development studio back in 2008. When acquired, that studio had about 120 developers and testers, though Ubisoft Pune has far fewer in-house staff, with around 40 developers on-site.
The Pune office has acted as an outsource for various projects, including the XBLA and PSN title CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars.
Now with its first full DS project completed, the studio's head David Blanchard spoke optimistically about the firm's future.
“Here in Pune, we are trying to go in two directions to consolidate ourselves in the online and handheld space,” he said.
"The creativity of Ubisoft Group goes into creating new IPs on consoles, deliver high quality games, and build multiple experiences around new IPs.”
A CV by one of the studio’s designers revealed that the group is currently in the concept stage of its second major project.
Activision, Microsoft and GAME charity drive reaps dividends for charity
Publisher Activision will, as previously pledged, donate £250k to charity War Child following the success of its Game for Good event in conjunction with Game and Microsoft early last month.
In total 1,019,088 gamers logged into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer mode on Xbox Live between Saturday December 5th and Sunday December 6th. Between them they racked up 4.2m hours of gameplay across 3m sessions.
“We would like to thank everyone that got involved with the GAME for Good weekend,” Activision UK MD Andrew Brown stated.
“The response from the fans was amazing and, as such, Activision is delighted to donate a pledge of £250,000 to War Child.” War Child’s Ben Knowles added: “The Game for Good weekend has been very influential in engaging a large UK audience with the issues of the prosecution of war on children.
“Activision’s donation is a truly life changing sum for the thousands of children we support and protect in the world's harshest war affected countries, so we thank everyone that made the campaign such a success.”
Limited Edition War Child wristbands are still available in many branches of GAME.
Natal's integration with Xbox Live will be "groundbreaking", claims Live general manager, Marc Whitten (he would say that though, wouldn't he?)
Speaking in an interview with Game Informer, the online boss said that like all of Microsoft's console features, Xbox Live will be at the core of Natal.
"Live is at the core of everything we do. I think you're going to see us doing the same thing with Project Natal," he said.
"We're continuing the journey of how do you make the user experience as simple as possible for the broadest possible audience. You probably saw a little bit in some of the videos we had at E3, I think you can see our passion and where we want to go.
"I think Natal is going to be a really magical thing and Natal plus Live is going to be groundbreaking. It's going to be groundbreaking in games and groundbreaking in the thing in how I think about entertainment."
There's no pricing or launch details for the 360 peripheral yet, but the Natal launch is rumoured to be happening in November with 14 launch games.
Yorkshire Ripper using Nintendo console to keep fit whilst behind bars
High-security hospital Broadmoor – which is home to some of the UK’s most notorious killers – has issued 22 Nintendo Wiis to inmates in an effort to help keep them fit whilst they undergo treatment.
A source at Broadmoor claims that Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe has been spied playing the bowling game on Wii Sports.
The Sun’s original story prefers to focus on the fact that £5,000 of taxpayer’s money has been splashed on the equipment. The paper also claims that inmates already have access to PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
“When you think of their crimes and the misery they have caused, you have to ask if it's right for society to pay to entertain them,” a source affirmed.
“This cash could have been spent improving care in the wider NHS. In the meantime all we hear is laughter as patients play with their new toys.”
According to a blog post by former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee, Apple plans to produce nearly 10 million tablets in the still-unannounced product's first year. If Lee's blog post is to be believed, Apple plans to sell nearly twice as many tablets as it did iPhones in the product's first year.
Intel has officially launched their new Core i5 and Core i3 lineup of Arrandale and Clarkdale processors today, for mobile and desktop platforms respectively. Like Intel's recent release of the Pinetrail platform for netbooks, new Arrandale and Clarkdale processors combine both an integrated memory controller (DDR3) and GPU (graphics processor) on the same package as the main processor. Though it's not a monolithic device, but is built upon multi-chip module packaging, it does allow these primary functional blocks to coexist in a single chip footprint or socket. In addition, Intel beefed up their graphics core and it appears that the new Intel GMA HD integrated graphics engine offers solid HD video performance and even a bit of light gaming capability.
The iPhone version of Plants vs. Zombies is due for a release later this month.
That's according to a posting on the PopCap Games Facebook page, which simply reads: "Look out for it in January 2010".
PopCap's take on the tower defence genre was released for PC last year and was a big hit. It scored 9/10 on Eurogamer and also made it into our games of 2009 feature.
The iPhone version was due to launch at the end of last year so it's good to know we won't have too long to wait. There's still no sign of the rumoured Xbox Live version, though.
In a New Year message on his blog (via VG247), Hironobu Sakaguchi, head of Japanese RPG studio Mistwalker, has promised two new games for 2010: a "blockbuster" and an iPhone game.
"2010 is the year of my long-awaited new blockbuster project," he said. "I'm putting my heart and soul into this production. I'm taking a full swing and making this the best project.
"Oh, by the way, We are also working on a project for iPhone. This should be released soon as well."
Mistwalker was founded by Final Fantasy creator Sakaguchi after his departure from Square with financial backing from Microsoft. Its major releases, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, have been exclusive to Xbox 360, although it has worked on a number of DS games as well.
Blue Dragon earned a 5/10 from us at review, and Lost Odyssey an 8, so here's hoping Mistwalker's upward trend continues.
Microsoft has released classic Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War as a Games on Demand title.
In other words, you can now download the game directly via Xbox Live. In the UK it's priced at £19.99.
Released in 2006, Gears of War became an instant hit with fans of shooting aliens and hiding behind things. It scored 8/10 on Eurogamer, making it equal to but not better than Halo.
LucasArts and Traveller's Tales have uploaded a LEGO Indiana Jones 2 demo to both PlayStation Network and Xbox Live over the Christmas break.
The demo is 425MB on Xbox Live and presumably a similar size on PSN. Top journalism, right here.
We don't know what's in it either, because we were too busy drinking sherry and then buying the Mako remote control car for our Xbox 360 Avatar (he already has the N7 armour) when the demo came out.
However, our LEGO Indiana Jones 2 review can help you out with why it's a good game despite a few flaws, and how it stretches the four films over more content than ever before.
Electronic Arts has announced plans to shut down a bundle of servers for games no one is playing any more.
As revealed on the EA website, these include Facebreaker, UEFA Champions League 07 and various games based around American sports whose titles begin with N.
The most recently established servers to get the chop are those for Madden 09 and the European servers for NASCAR 09. Those who live in the US will still be able to play the racer online.
The shutdown will take place on 2nd February. Here's that server list in full:
UEFA Champions League 07 PC and x360
Facebreaker x360 and PS3
Fantasy Football 09 x360 and PS3
FIFA 07 PSP, PS2, PC
Fight Night Round 3 PS2
Madden 08 Wii
Madden 08 PC
Madden 09 Xbox1
Madden 09 Wii and PSP
March Madness 07 x360
NBA 07 PSP, x360
NBA 08 PS2, PSP, Wii
NBA 09 Wii - Europe only
NBA Street (2007) PS3 and x360
NCAA Football 08 PS2
NCAA Football 09 PS2
NASCAR 08 PS2
NASCAR 09 PS2
NASCAR 09 PS3 and x360 - Europe Only
NFL Tour PS3 and x360
NHL 07 PSP and x360
NHL 08 PC
Tiger Woods 07 PC
Madden 09 x360 and PS3
Madden 07 Xbox 360
The finalists for this year's Independent Games Festival have been announced.
Nominees for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize are Joe Danger, Monaco, Rocketbirds: Revolution!, Trauma and Super Meat Boy! Previous winners of the $20,000 prize money include Blueberry Garden (2009), Crayon Physics Deluxe (2008), Aquaria (2007) and Darwinia (2006).
Those were whittled down from a record 306 entries this year. Games receiving nominations for multiple categories are Closure (Audio, Technical, Nuovo), Trauma (Seumas McNally, Visual Art, Audio), Monaco (Seumas McNally, Design), Joe Danger (Seumas McNally, Technical) Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Seumas McNally, Visual Art) and Super Meat Boy! (Seumas McNally, Audio).
The winners of the Independent Games Festival 2010 will be announced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on 11th March.
The full list of nominees, sorted by category, can be found below. Head to the IGF website to find out more.
Seumas McNally Grand Prize:
Joe Danger (Hello Games)
Monaco (Pocketwatch Games)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)
Super Meat Boy! (Team Meat)
Excellence In Visual Art
Boffins at Microsoft have worked out a way to control games using the muscle movements in your forearm.
These are read by a thin armband concealed under a jumper or shirt that is always on, allowing seamless interaction with games consoles, iPods and, er, car boots.
Demoed on Microsoft's Research site (spotted by Engadget), the device reads EMG (electromyographic) signals from muscles and maps them to familiar movements - pressing a finger to a thumb - to replicate routine functions or commands.
One lab-rat strummed away happily to Guitar Hero without any plastic peripheral, twanging air while using fingers pressed against thumb to work the fret. We also saw a jogger using hand gestures rather than buttons to change songs, and a man clench the handle of a baby carrier to open a car boot.
iPhone app developers never cease to amaze me, re-inventing not only the software, but also the hardware itself, like the iPhone air blower app. Or Pocket Heat, which can turn your iPhone into a real heater. But how?
According John Paczkowski over at All Things D, Apple is planning a "major product announcement" for Wednesday, January 27th -- not the 26th as we've heard in previous reports. Additionally, the French site Mac4Ever says developers have been given a beta of the iPhone OS 4 SDK which includes a "simulator" for reformatting / scaling applications to a new, tablet-sized screens. Here at Engadget, we can confirm that sources very familiar with the situation over in Cupertino have been given info about a tablet heading for launch at the end of January, which will -- in fact -- require reformatting and resizing for (we assume)... yep, its new screen size and resolution. As far as details, they're pretty scarce right now, but you can probably begin preliminary salivating and / or player hatin' as it relates to new Apple hardware. We'll have more info as it becomes available, but for now, stay tuned.
Nintendo ushers in the new year with seven new downloadable games for the Wii and DSi, including Final Fight 3, Hell's Kitchen Vs., and five titles you've likely never heard of.
Even Hell's Kitchen Vs. for DSiWare (800 DSi Points) is a stretch, as I can't imagine I am in the majority when it comes to crossover fans of downloadable DSi titles and Gordon Ramsay's reality cooking show. I also can't imagine the game being anything like the show, especially with that E for everyone rating. How will I know my risotto is shit?
Hell's Kitchen is joined by two puzzle games on DSiWare this week, Nintendo's missile-firing Trajectile (500 points) and Aksys's Animal Puzzle Adventure (500 points), which sees players leading animals to barns while avoiding cliffs and other pitfalls. Totilo informs me that Trajectile is actually developed by Q-Games of PixelJunk fame, and is "so far, very good."
This week's WiiWare titles are all new to me. Triangle Studios' Heron: Steam Machine (500 Wii Points) is a game about managing steam pressure in a rubber ducky factory. Then we've got Big Blue Bubble's Pub Darts (500 points), which is about throwing darts at a pub, go figure. Finally, Digital Leisure whips out Fast Draw Showdown (500 points), a gun-slinging game that has you trying to out-draw the fastest guns in the West, or die trying. Fast Draw Showdown uses actual actors as targets, so you know it's got to be a quality product!
Finally (pun semi-intended) we've got Final Fight 3 for the Super Nintendo on the Virtual Console (800 points), which is of course the North American version of Final Fight 6, unless I am getting my Final games mixed up again.
And so begins the third year of the Nintendo Download. Are we off to a good start, or are things just warming up?
Nintendo DSiWare
Trajectile
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: Trajectile is a puzzle game that's as much about firepower as it is about brainpower, requiring you to line up your shot and launch a flurry of missiles at enemy targets. Three types of missiles are at your disposal, each one with its own characteristics - but all of them can bounce off walls on their path to smash, blast or drill through enemies and blocks. Along the way, you'll find item blocks just waiting to be destroyed so that you can obtain special power-ups ... and cause even more destruction. Be careful though, as missile type and position are predetermined and you get only a limited number of launches per stage. Complete multiple classes containing numerous individual stages, earning medals when you clear stages in fewer than the given number of turns. Are you ready to take aim at becoming a Trajectile master?
Animal Puzzle Adventure
Publisher: Aksys Games
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Mild Suggestive Themes
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Animal Puzzle Adventure is a simple puzzle game where you have to lead various animals to their respective barns placed on the map, while avoiding pitfalls and cliffs and using the objects on the field to your advantage. There are 10 stages per level with a total of five levels, creating 50 stages in all. After clearing a stage, you unlock a piece of a photo. Once you clear all 10 stages in a level, the wallpaper for that level becomes unlocked and you can then view it in the gallery. With so many puzzles to unravel, you'll find yourself immersed in the puzzle-riffic world of Animal Puzzle Adventure.
Hell's Kitchen Vs.
Publisher: Ludia
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Hell's Kitchen Vs. is based on the U.S. TV phenomenon where world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsay puts aspiring chefs through rigorous culinary tests. The game recreates the show's pressure-cooker atmosphere as two players battle head-to-head in an arcade-style kitchen challenge. Try to conquer your opponent in each time-management test, while taking the heat of Gordon Ramsay judging and rating your performance at every stage of the game.
WiiWare
Heron: Steam Machine
Publisher: Triangle Studios
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points™
Description: Heron: Steam Machine is a game about a factory where rubber duckies are being produced by a large steam engine. On this steam engine, there are four different gauges which you will have to watch carefully. By connecting the pipes, you will earn points and relieve some of the pressure, keeping the machine running just a little bit longer. If one of the gauges reaches its maximum, the machine will eventually blow up, and the game is over. If you were lucky enough to achieve a high score, make sure you enter your name in the list so other players can compete with you. In Multiplayer, you are able to cooperate with friends in maintaining the steam machine. When you play with two, three or four players, the screen is divided into sections with different background colors. Each player is able to solve his or her own part of the puzzle. Players are restricted to their own section of the screen, so you will have to work together to make the pipes fit properly. (Additional accessories are required for multiplayer play and are sold separately.)
Pub Darts
Publisher: Big Blue Bubble Inc.
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) - Alcohol Reference
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Pub Darts is a simple darts simulation which uses the Wii Remote™ controller's unique controls to mimic dart-throwing motion. The game is set in a local pub where the players will settle in to play some of their favorite dart games, including 501, Cricket, Around the Clock, Killers and Baseball. Controls function just like throwing a real dart. Players are able to create their own personal profiles, including selecting their avatar image from a collection of creative characters and the design they would like displayed on the dart flights.
Fast Draw Showdown
Publisher: Digital Leisure Inc.
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) - Alcohol Reference, Violence
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: When it comes to fast draw there're only two types of people: the quick ... and the dead! Now you have the chance to find out where you stand, or lie, as the case may be. You'll go up against the best quick draws in the business, including one of the world's fastest, Wes Flowers. Unholster your Wii Remote controller and show 'em who the fastest draw really is, in this live-action shooter. You can even take on a friend in multiplayer modes, and see which of you has the quickest draw. You'll need some serious speed and awesome accuracy to take on these gunslingers ... so get ready for some real fast draw action.
Virtual Console
Final Fight 3
Original platform: Super NES™
Publisher: Capcom USA
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) - Animated Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Following the defeat and subsequent disappearance of the Mad Gear Gang, a small group known only as "Skull Cross" is responsible for a new uprising of vandalism, terrorism and death. The government of Metro City is at a complete loss. Metro City's mayor, Mike Haggar, and Guy are prepared to take on the new gang, but before they can act, the door bursts open, revealing Lucia, Cody's old friend. "Metro City is under attack!" she shouts, "Skull Cross is loose, and they've got something up their sleeves." But before any of them can move, a mysterious man appears in the doorway. "My name is Dean," he says. "I know Skull Cross inside-and-out, and I hate them more than anything. I can help you, and you can help me. We must go!" All four fighters vow to bring Skull Cross down. It will be a tough assignment, and may even be their final fight!
Nintendo ushers in the new year with seven new downloadable games for the Wii and DSi, including Final Fight 3, Hell's Kitchen Vs., and five titles you've likely never heard of.
Even Hell's Kitchen Vs. for DSiWare (800 DSi Points) is a stretch, as I can't imagine I am in the majority when it comes to crossover fans of downloadable DSi titles and Gordon Ramsay's reality cooking show. I also can't imagine the game being anything like the show, especially with that E for everyone rating. How will I know my risotto is shit?
Hell's Kitchen is joined by two puzzle games on DSiWare this week, Nintendo's missile-firing Trajectile (500 points) and Aksys's Animal Puzzle Adventure (500 points), which sees players leading animals to barns while avoiding cliffs and other pitfalls. Totilo informs me that Trajectile is actually developed by Q-Games of PixelJunk fame, and is "so far, very good."
This week's WiiWare titles are all new to me. Triangle Studios' Heron: Steam Machine (500 Wii Points) is a game about managing steam pressure in a rubber ducky factory. Then we've got Big Blue Bubble's Pub Darts (500 points), which is about throwing darts at a pub, go figure. Finally, Digital Leisure whips out Fast Draw Showdown (500 points), a gun-slinging game that has you trying to out-draw the fastest guns in the West, or die trying. Fast Draw Showdown uses actual actors as targets, so you know it's got to be a quality product!
Finally (pun semi-intended) we've got Final Fight 3 for the Super Nintendo on the Virtual Console (800 points), which is of course the North American version of Final Fight 6, unless I am getting my Final games mixed up again.
And so begins the third year of the Nintendo Download. Are we off to a good start, or are things just warming up?
Nintendo DSiWare
Trajectile
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: Trajectile is a puzzle game that's as much about firepower as it is about brainpower, requiring you to line up your shot and launch a flurry of missiles at enemy targets. Three types of missiles are at your disposal, each one with its own characteristics - but all of them can bounce off walls on their path to smash, blast or drill through enemies and blocks. Along the way, you'll find item blocks just waiting to be destroyed so that you can obtain special power-ups ... and cause even more destruction. Be careful though, as missile type and position are predetermined and you get only a limited number of launches per stage. Complete multiple classes containing numerous individual stages, earning medals when you clear stages in fewer than the given number of turns. Are you ready to take aim at becoming a Trajectile master?
Animal Puzzle Adventure
Publisher: Aksys Games
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Mild Suggestive Themes
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Animal Puzzle Adventure is a simple puzzle game where you have to lead various animals to their respective barns placed on the map, while avoiding pitfalls and cliffs and using the objects on the field to your advantage. There are 10 stages per level with a total of five levels, creating 50 stages in all. After clearing a stage, you unlock a piece of a photo. Once you clear all 10 stages in a level, the wallpaper for that level becomes unlocked and you can then view it in the gallery. With so many puzzles to unravel, you'll find yourself immersed in the puzzle-riffic world of Animal Puzzle Adventure.
Hell's Kitchen Vs.
Publisher: Ludia
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Hell's Kitchen Vs. is based on the U.S. TV phenomenon where world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsay puts aspiring chefs through rigorous culinary tests. The game recreates the show's pressure-cooker atmosphere as two players battle head-to-head in an arcade-style kitchen challenge. Try to conquer your opponent in each time-management test, while taking the heat of Gordon Ramsay judging and rating your performance at every stage of the game.
WiiWare
Heron: Steam Machine
Publisher: Triangle Studios
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points™
Description: Heron: Steam Machine is a game about a factory where rubber duckies are being produced by a large steam engine. On this steam engine, there are four different gauges which you will have to watch carefully. By connecting the pipes, you will earn points and relieve some of the pressure, keeping the machine running just a little bit longer. If one of the gauges reaches its maximum, the machine will eventually blow up, and the game is over. If you were lucky enough to achieve a high score, make sure you enter your name in the list so other players can compete with you. In Multiplayer, you are able to cooperate with friends in maintaining the steam machine. When you play with two, three or four players, the screen is divided into sections with different background colors. Each player is able to solve his or her own part of the puzzle. Players are restricted to their own section of the screen, so you will have to work together to make the pipes fit properly. (Additional accessories are required for multiplayer play and are sold separately.)
Pub Darts
Publisher: Big Blue Bubble Inc.
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) - Alcohol Reference
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Pub Darts is a simple darts simulation which uses the Wii Remote™ controller's unique controls to mimic dart-throwing motion. The game is set in a local pub where the players will settle in to play some of their favorite dart games, including 501, Cricket, Around the Clock, Killers and Baseball. Controls function just like throwing a real dart. Players are able to create their own personal profiles, including selecting their avatar image from a collection of creative characters and the design they would like displayed on the dart flights.
Fast Draw Showdown
Publisher: Digital Leisure Inc.
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) - Alcohol Reference, Violence
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: When it comes to fast draw there're only two types of people: the quick ... and the dead! Now you have the chance to find out where you stand, or lie, as the case may be. You'll go up against the best quick draws in the business, including one of the world's fastest, Wes Flowers. Unholster your Wii Remote controller and show 'em who the fastest draw really is, in this live-action shooter. You can even take on a friend in multiplayer modes, and see which of you has the quickest draw. You'll need some serious speed and awesome accuracy to take on these gunslingers ... so get ready for some real fast draw action.
Virtual Console
Final Fight 3
Original platform: Super NES™
Publisher: Capcom USA
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) - Animated Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Following the defeat and subsequent disappearance of the Mad Gear Gang, a small group known only as "Skull Cross" is responsible for a new uprising of vandalism, terrorism and death. The government of Metro City is at a complete loss. Metro City's mayor, Mike Haggar, and Guy are prepared to take on the new gang, but before they can act, the door bursts open, revealing Lucia, Cody's old friend. "Metro City is under attack!" she shouts, "Skull Cross is loose, and they've got something up their sleeves." But before any of them can move, a mysterious man appears in the doorway. "My name is Dean," he says. "I know Skull Cross inside-and-out, and I hate them more than anything. I can help you, and you can help me. We must go!" All four fighters vow to bring Skull Cross down. It will be a tough assignment, and may even be their final fight!
Japan's biggest gaming publication, Famitsu, has polled a handful of readers (and retailers) about what news they thought made the most substantial impact during last year.
Only a small number of the millions of Famitsu readers participated in this poll — the few, the proud, the dedicated. It would be a stretch to call those gamers who take the time to participate in Famitsu polls "typical Japanese gamers", because they're not. (They're the type of gamers who fill out Famitsu surveys!)
10. The Last Guardian announced (19 reader votes/0 retailer votes)
9. Final Fantasy XIV announced (24/1)
8. Project Natal announced (28/2)
7. PSP-3000 price drop (34/3)
6. Nintendo's R4 lawsuit (27/13)
5. PSPgo announced (32/14)
4. DSi LL goes on sale (40/9)
3. Dragon Quest IX selling more than 2 million copies in 2 days (49/20)
2. Final Fantasy XIII release date announced (65/21)
1. New PS3 model (PS3 Slim) announced (112/42)
Before passing judgment on whether or not Japanese retailers are incredibly jaded, it's interesting that those polled thought the most obvious, rumored and leaked news of last year was the biggest.
Police and relatives say an argument over Tony Hawk: Ride precipitated a shocking murder in New York; Anthony Maldonado, 9, (pictured) who got a PS3 for Christmas, was stabbed in the chest by an enraged 25-year-old early New Year's Day.
The specifics of what sent Alejandro Morales, 25, into a murderous rage are unclear. The attack happened at 3:30 a.m. The Daily News of New York spoke to the dead boy's family and they leave no doubt that an argument over the game was the cause.
"Anthony was playing ... on PlayStation when his friend came and stabbed him. My grandson died over a video game," Antonio Juela, 59, Anthony's grandfather, told the Daily News.
Police said Anthony was slashed in the face and stabbed several times, indicating there may have been a struggle before he was stabbed in the chest. He was taken to the hospital but died within an hour.
Anthony had been playing Tony Hawk: Ride with Morales and two men whom Anthony's parents said were Morales' brothers. The three rent an apartment in the same building, they said. At some point, two of the brothers left to go get something to eat, leaving Morales with the boy. The attack occurred while they were alone and Anthony's family was asleep.
This is a sickening and sad story, and you can't read about a 25-year-old man doing anything to a fourth-grader, much less attacking him with a knife, without feeling a powerful revulsion, if not outright hatred of the accused.
But while I don't mean to be "that guy," the video game is only incidental to the cause here. A violent man willing to stab a 9-year-old over such a trivial argument could have killed him or anyone else for any of several other reasons. It's still a very sad and germane detail - a child stabbed while playing a game he got for Christmas - but it's not the reason.
Those who bought Red Alert 3 during Steam's holiday sale are finding themselves with a partially useless game purchased at an admittedly excellent price. Steam users report that the downloaded copies of Red Alert 3 don't include serial numbers, which the game requires for online play.
A similar issue occurred recently through Steam with the digital sale of Spore. That problem seems to have been resolved, and at least one Red Alert 3 player has been able to rectify the current error, though the solution required the game to be re-downloaded directly from EA (complete with SecuROM DRM). Still, EA's eventual intervention in Steam's Spore issue is a possible sign that these Red Alert 3 woes will be alleviated in a more timely manner.
You can enjoy and share your music or movie with this dynamic mega bass and powerful stereo speaker!
- Movie stand function
- Mega bass and super power of stereo sound channel
- Novel, compact and multiple audio electronic appliance devices support function
- Special sound equalize effect of blue LED indicator light
- Anti scratch and dust repel function of casing by mud process
- Can use with dry battery (4 pcs of AAA batteries, NOT included), AC adapter, car lighter adapter, USB power supply cable or any standard of USB slot
- Compatible with PSP GO/3000/2000/1000/NDS/NDSL/NDSi/NDSi-LL/iPod/Nano/Shuffle/Mini/iPhone 2G/3G/3GS/MP3/MP4/Mobile Phones/PC System/Laptops or any Audio Electronic Appliance
Daedalusx64 rev 450 changelog:
by Salvy
[*] Removed empty folders left from previous commit
[!] better description for our Advanced Options
[~] Added Europe version of Paper Mario and also enabled hack for Pilot Wings 64 in roms.ini
rev 449:
by Kreationz
This is a huge commit and likely to have a few regressions.
[-] Removed all non-PSP platform related code
[~] Quieted some compiler warnings
[-] Removed some uneeded/uncalled functions
[-] Removed some un-needed checks in the CPU emulation (Small speed-up)
[-] Improved a cache routine (Small speed up, slightly less choppy sound)
[!] Chenged how VI are handled a bit (removes unneeded excess VI CPU Events)
January 5th, 2010, 00:07 Posted By: kranoldweinreich
Hi there,
here's an updated version of ps2vice.
New features:
- update to vice 2.2
- all p00 and prg files should work fine now
- vic20 memory expansions
- files in file browser sorted alphabetically
snapshot feature:
- save snapshot to mc0:/, mc1:/, host:/ or mass:/ (in main menu -> save current state)
- load these snapshots using the autostart feature in the menu (saved files will appear in mc0:/ etc., named <gamename>.sav)
- quicksave/quickload to/from memory using L1/L2 (lost after reset of ps2)
Someone asked for palette selection, I don't think that's a necessary feature. Just copy <yourfavouritepalette>.vpl to default.vpl.
WebOS developers have been waiting, and with the 1.3.5 release, Palm's open source page suddenly listed SDL. Members of the WebOS internals team took that as a challenge and within 24 hours had a working port of Doom running in SDL on the Pre, in a webOS card. 48 hours later, they not only had Quake running, but had found in the latest LunaSysMgr the requirements to launch a native app from the webOS app launcher from an icon just like any other app. At the same time, the team demonstrated openGL apps running. With full native code support, with I/O available via SDL, developers now have a preview into Palm's future intent with regard to native code SDK's, and a hint of what's coming.
Now the WSJ is quoting people "briefed by the company" as stating that the 10 or 11-inch Apple Tablet will be shipping in March for $1000, but will be announced at the January 27 event this month.
Ten-year-old Kade Goodman's holiday dreams were shattered on Christmas Day, when it was discovered that someone had left a penis on his used PSP.
The PSP-nis was uncovered by Kade's thirteen-year-old brother shortly after the gift was unwrapped, as thirteen-year-old boys have an uncanny knack for uncovering porn no matter how hard my father tried to hide it. In this case the offending image was lurking in the background images for the used system, where Omaha used game retailer CD Tradepost had neglected to look while performing its traditional cleansing of the PSP porn ritual.
Kade's father Shon was taken aback.
"At first I thought it was a joke," he said. "Maybe it will come off. But when I started getting into it and started to erase it and couldn't, the more I thought about it, the madder I got."
Increasingly frustrated at his failed attempts to get the penis off, Shon brought the game system back to CD Tradepost, where it was quickly cleared away. The family walked away with a penis-free PSP, a free game for their troubles, and a traumatized young boy who should never have seen such a thing.
Omaha's KETV had nearly as much fun with the story as I have. Just look at the lede to their story: "It was a gift from a father to a son. It was a much-wanted portable gaming system. But the gift came with an X-rated surprise."
Now a picture of a penis alone isn't technically x-rated, but it sure makes the story much more dramatic. I suppose we really have no idea what the penis was doing in the picture, if anything. As the accompanying video explains, "A picture of a penis appeared on the PSP screen, an image we simply can't show you on TV."
The moral of this story is that parents should check over used gaming systems completely before gifting them to their children, and if it's too complicated for said parents to figure out, then perhaps they should just shell out a few extra bucks for a new one.
[Spatula Tzar] Turned on her NES one day to find it no longer working. Off went the case and out came the oscilloscope. After probing around for a bit, she found that one of the RAM chips was very hot. She hot aired off the bad chip implementing an “Impenetrable Aluminum Heat Shield of Science” to protect the rest of the components. In the chip’s place she soldered a wide DIP socket for which the NES engineers had thoughtfully left a place. Then, using a 128Mbit SRAM SOIC, she soldered it to 0.100″ headers to fit in the socket. As the original chip was only 16Mbit, unused address lines are tied high or low. The console is now fully functional again. Also checkout the comments on Oldschool NES ‘repair’ how-to.
Bayonetta is a stylish and cinematic action game, directed by Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.
A member of an ancient witch clan and possessing powers beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, Bayonetta faces-off against countless angelic enemies, many reaching epic proportions, in a game of 100% pure, unadulterated all-out action. Outlandish finishing moves are performed with balletic grace as Bayonetta flows from one fight to another. With magnificent over-the-top action taking place in stages that are a veritable theme park of exciting attractions, Bayonetta pushes the limits of the action genre, bringing to life its fast-paced, dynamic climax combat.
Bayonetta is a stylish and cinematic action game, directed by Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya, for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system.
A member of an ancient witch clan and possessing powers beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, Bayonetta faces-off against countless angelic enemies, many reaching epic proportions, in a game of 100% pure, unadulterated all-out action. Outlandish finishing moves are performed with balletic grace as Bayonetta flows from one fight to another. With magnificent over-the-top action taking place in stages that are a veritable theme park of exciting attractions, Bayonetta pushes the limits of the action genre, bringing to life its fast-paced, dynamic climax combat.
FreeLords is an open source project that aims to provide a free Warlords clone.
Quote:
We have switched the release cycle to one release every three months, and this version is the first to follow this pattern. The changes in this release are:
* Client-server handshake rewrite
While this may sound rather boring and technical, rewriting the setup code fixed several bugs, streamlined the Lobby form a bit, and we also implemented some other changes along the way. These are colorized chats, proper client authentication, the display of player titles, and guest players that can watch a game without participating.
* Interface improvements
A crude version of variable mouse cursors and an overview map were added. Some of the standard dialogs can now be closed by a simple click. A couple of drawing glitches when scrolling around were fixed.
* Various other improvemens
The external libraries have been updated, the changelog is now read from an external file, and the code base got a big boost in comments, and was simplified in some parts.
Here we have ColonyConflict - "Generals", Version 1.1(B4) of the 3rd-place-winner in the TowerDefense-Coding-Competition by gp2xspain.com. Get yourself from Soldat up to the ultimate ELITE - Towerdefenser! Build 19 different Towers to fight 50 different enemys on 15 maps with each about 60 waves and prove your tactical skills while combinating the power of your towers with their strategic position and an intelligent developement-politic!
Since V1.0 a lot changed:
- animated Tiles
- CHOOSABLE DIFFICULTY
- COMPLETE new mainmenu
- HIGHSCORES
- smooth moving camera
- REDRAWN graphics
- complete TOUCHSCREEN SUPPORT
- a LOT of bugfixes
- speed improvement(you may not notice this )
PLEASE NOTE:
This is still a beta of V1.1! There are some known bugsleft and some functions of final V1.1 were disabled, because they dont run as they should at the moment (Rangecircle/music/sound). If you notice another bug, please let me know! Feedback very welcomed!
Thanks to:
- RMFast , for making the GFX
- GernotFrisch , for making GLBASIC (you should try this if you like to make games)
- Passy , Pikachu99 , RMFast , Kasumi89 , for betatesting
- Nobiag , for giving great feedback
The annual Chaos Communication Congress (CCC) is always a bittersweet experience for me — I always go there with projects that I hope to work on (this year: SPMP, a TV Plug’n'Play version of Bejeweled with an SPG chip inside, a couple of DSis + TWLFPGA boards, SD cards and a logic analyzer to work on BootMii/SD card fail), and I almost never get a chance to work on any of them. This year was no different, so I really should know better at this point.
We once again managed to snag a couple of tables in the Hackcenter for console hacking, and we did actually have a few consoles — mainly some Wiis and DSis in pieces. Hardware was exchanged, and we looked at soldering the 50+ wires needed to connect up a twlfpga board to a DSi and just sort of gave up due to lack of lighting and the chaotic environment. No, CCC is more of an occasion to meet old friends and make new ones. I was also selling Proxmark3s that I had made for the occasion, and had the chance to meet some of the people behind that project.
There were plenty of interesting talks, and the nice thing about CCC (compared to the American conferences I’ve been to) is that you can watch them from home, either live via streaming video, or download the video in a variety of formats after the conference. Here are some of the ones I considered to be personal highlights:
About : Battery Warning plugin is a PSP plugin that pops up a message on screen when your battery reaches 15% or less charge. Works in VSH/GAME + Homebrew Games & Apps.
So I finally got chance to do some programming again. I would firstly like to apologise to all custom theme users for not checking compatibility with CXMB before releasing the first version. I'm not one for releasing crapware so I am sorry. I have since installed CXMB and a custom theme and ensured that it does work with a custom theme.
Tested on 5.50Gen D3-Final using CXMB with the Playstation experience theme.
Screenshot :
So here are the changes :
Changelog :
* Fixed warning message appearing as white box on PSP's using a custom theme.
* CXMB Compatibility
* Message now clearer to read.
* Reduced memory usage to 256kb (as opposed to 1mb)
* Fixed warning message getting hidden by textures on certain games. (still happens on some loading screens)
* Reduced flickering (Somewhat, still flickers in certain games)
Future :
In the next release there will be a lot more features. I will keep quiet on them for now but they are coming
The next release will also come packaged with a "Battery Warning Customisation Manager" tool for the PSP. Basically it will allow you to change every setting
on the plugin and customise it right down to your exact needs.
The only reason I am not releasing the tool with this version is that I want to be 100% sure the "White box" bug is gone for everyone and not just me
ARCTool is a Python script for extracting Yaz0, RARC, and U8 archives. These are used in many Nintendo games, and sometimes have the extension arc, hence the name.
Mass Effect 2 has been voted Most Anticipated game of 2010 in the annual GamesIndustry.biz Network Survey.
The Bioware-developed game, set for release at the end of January, took 11.1 per cent of the total votes, ahead of God of War 3 on 8.9 per cent and BioShock 2 with 7.3 per cent.
Another of Bioware's project, Star Wars: The Old Republic, also featured in the top ten, along with franchise titles Halo: Reach, Final Fantasy XIII and Starcraft 2, while new IP in the form of Alan Wake and Heavy Rain also made the list.
Meanwhile Network members voted Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2: Among Thieves as their favourite game of 2009 - it gained 12.5 per cent of the total votes, just ahead of Batman: Arkham Asylum on 11.6 per cent.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came third with 9.8 per cent, while Dragon Age: Origins was fourth with 6.8 per cent.
The GamesIndustry.biz Network Survey canvassed the opinions of its industry-only members throughout December 2009. More results from the survey will be available in the next few days.
The 2010 Most Anticipated top ten is as follows:
1. Mass Effect 2: 11.1%
2. God of War III: 8.9%
3. BioShock 2: 7.3%
4. Final Fantasy XIII: 5.7%
5. Starcraft 2: 4.8%
6. Halo: Reach: 4.1%
7. Star Wars: The Old Republic: 3.7%
8. Heavy Rain: 3.5%
9. Alan Wake: 3.2%
10. Red Dead Redemption: 2.5%
The 2009 Favourite Game top ten is as follows:
1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 12.5%
2. Batman: Arkham Asylum: 11.6%
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: 9.8%
4. Dragon Age: Origins: 6.8%
5. Borderlands: 4.5%
6. Assassin's Creed II: 3.3%
7. New Super Mario Bros Wii: 3.0%
8. Demon's Souls: 2.4%
9. Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition: 1.8%
10. FIFA 10: 1.5%
The releases of key software titles in 2010 will lead to a rebound in sales, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, however Wii sales will stagnate and hardware sales are also expected to decline.
In an investor note on US retailer GameStop, Pachter said he expected the company to report solid holiday sales in a weak environment.
"We believe that industry sales will rebound in 2010 and that GameStop is well-positioned to reap the rewards," he predicted.
The company, he added, benefits from high exposure to the software market, of which it has an estimated market share of 30 per cent for January. It also has a comparatively low exposure to hardware - a 12 per cent share - which will be beneficial since that market is expected to decline.
"In addition to this favourable product mix," he said, "the company's appeal to hardware gamers will become increasingly important as Wii sales stagnate and Q1's long-awaited slate of games (Army of Two: The 40th Day, BioShock 2, Gran Turismo 5 and Splinter Cell Conviction etc) comes to market."
While US software and hardware sales combined were down nine per cent in November, Pachter predicts GameStop will post a four per cent year-on-year sales increase for that month and a four-five per cent decline in December - which still outperforms the industry's predicted 13 per cent year-on-year decline.
Electronic Arts has reconfirmed that it intends to continue to work with shamed sports star Tiger Woods despite other high profile sponsors cancelling their business arrangements with the US golfer.
Gillette, Accenture and AT&T have all dropped endorsement deals with Woods, following his admission of infidelities with a number of women.
"Our relationship with Tiger has always been rooted in golf," wrote EA Sports president Peter Moore. "We didn’t form a relationship with him so that he could act as an arm’s length endorser. Far from it. We chose to partner with Tiger in 1997 because we saw him as the world’s best, most talented and exciting golfer.
"We struck that partnership with the assumption that he would remain near or at the top of his sport for years to come."
Although Woods has announced a break in his golfing career, EA Sports is due to launch a revamped Tiger Woods game this year, with over 75,000 people already taking part in the online beta.
"By his own admission, he’s made some mistakes off the course. But regardless of what’s happening in his personal life, and regardless of his decision to take a personal leave from the sport, Tiger Woods is still one of the greatest athletes in history," continued Moore.
"At EA Sports, we make authentic sports simulations. When we say 'It’s in the Game', it is not just a tag line but a statement about the quality and authenticity of the game experience. Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online is truly representative of that rallying cry, and a game that all of us at EA Sports are proud to be delivering this month to sports fans around the globe."
The publisher's commitment to the athlete and not the controversy was also demonstrated last year when it placed convicted rapist Mike Tyson on the cover of boxing title Fight Night Round 4, with Peter Moore having the final say on the controversial decision.
"I fully understand people's issues with that and you know, the challenge you have with athletes is that they're human beings and you look at what you do, and you make some hard choices," he told Eurogamer at the time.
The dispute over World of Warcraft between China's third-largest online games operator NetEase and the country's General Administration of Press and Publication could be resolved shortly, according to reports.
Sources have told Reuters that NetEase has been order to pay a fine to Beijing regulators for allegedly breaching regulations, but that it will be allowed to continue operating the game.
According to a GAPP official, a resolution and announcement regarding the operation of the game will be unveiled "very soon".
The dispute between NetEase and China's authorities began last year following the operator's taking over of the running of the game from The9.
Upon the game's re-release, GAPP claimed it had only authorised a beta release and that taking money and new account registrations was "illegal behaviour" on NetEase's part - an allegation the operator denies as it said the release had been approved by China's Ministry of Culture.
Analysts predict that once the dispute is eventually settled, NetEase will release the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack in China.
Enterbrain figures have shown the Japanese games market generated JPY 542.6 billion (USD 5.9 billion) in 2009 - a 6.9 per cent decline on last year.
Specifically, hardware sales declined 13.6 per cent to JPY 216.5 billion (USD 2.3 billion) and software sales were down 1.8 per cent to JPY 326.2 billion (USD 3.5 billion), according to the numbers (translated by Andriasang).
The figures also gave a break down of the top five best selling software and hardware for the year, where Dragon Quest IX on DS came out on top of the former with sales of over 4.1 million, and the Nintendo DS topped the latter, with sales that just tipped 4 million.
While Nintendo games dominated the top software sellers, Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIII managed to claim fifth position, despite its release late in the year.
The full top five top selling games were as follows:
01 Dragon Quest IX - 4,100,968
02 Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver - 3,382,597
03 New Super Mario Bros Wii - 2,485,150
04 Friend Collection - 2,311,948
05 Final Fantasy XIII - 1,698,256
The top hardware chart (which combines the different console models into one category) was as follows:
01 Nintendo DS - 4,025,313
02 Sony PSP - 2,307,971
03 Nintendo Wii - 1,975,178
04 Sony PlayStation 3 - 1,727,041
05 Microsoft Xbox 360 - 331,706
A distribution deal has been struck between Capcom and Nintendo for the release of Monster Hunter Tri in the PAL territories due to happen later this year.
Under the terms of the deal Nintendo will be responsible for the sales, marketing and distribution of the game throughout European and Australian territories.
"Nintendo has identified Monster Hunter Tri as a key title for the Wii platform in 2010," said Michael Pattison, senior director of marketing for Capcom Europe. "We are really excited about partnering with Nintendo to further develop this franchise."
"Monster Hunter has a huge and passionate following in Japan and we are looking forward to introducing the Monster Hunter Tri to a whole new audience in Europe as the series makes its first appearance on the Wii," added Laurent Fischer, Nintendo Europe's managing director of marketing and PR.
The game was previously slated for an early 2010 release, but its delay was announced - alongside delays for Lost Planet 2 and Super Street Fighter IV - earlier this week. Capcom has confirmed the game will now come out in April.
Released at the start of August in Japan, sales had reached over million copies there by the end of September making it one of the best-selling Wii titles to date.
Nintendo has announced that the DS family of consoles has sold over 40 million units in Europe
The numbers come after last month's confirmation of 10 million sales in the UK alone, with Nintendo also adding that Wii sales have reached 20 million in the three year's since launch, making it the fastest-selling home console in the region.
According to Nintendo, 9.6 million Europeans have a copy of either Wii Fit or Wii Fit Plus, and over five million copies of Wii Sports Resort have been sold since it launched in July last year.
The recently released New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which was released in November, has already sold over 2.5 million in Europe.
More than three billion apps have now been downloaded from the App Store, according to new figures from Apple.
The massive numbers achieved since the store's launch just under 18 months ago will be tough for rivals to catch up with, said Apple's CEO Steve Jobs.
"Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months - this is like nothing we've ever seen before," said Jobs. "The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon."
The store reached the two billion downloads mark in September last year, and in November the number of apps available had hit 100,000.
Nintendo has announced that it expects the Wii platform to have sold an additional 3 million units in the US in December, ahead of official figures to be released by the NPD Group on January 14.
The platform holder, which has endured a tough time in 2009, ended the year strongly - it also announced that total US sales of Super Mario Bros Wii are almost at the 4 million mark.
And additionally the company expects the DS handheld to set another new calendar year record for hardware sales in the country.
The expectations were outlined by Nintendo president Saturo Iwata, and although it's not yet clear how that performance will shape up to Microsoft and Sony sales last month, it'll be welcome news in a year that had seen a general decline.
"The millions of people who bought Nintendo hardware during the holidays can look forward to enjoying great games on those systems now and in the future," added Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive VP of Sales & Marketing.
"The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for Nintendo DS, and Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros Wii are all currently providing Nintendo fans with amazing experiences and fun adventures for the whole family."
Parallel launches expected for Ireland, Germany and Spain
Palm is aiming to launch a UK version of its App Catalogue in March following the success of its US site, which went live in December.
According to Mobile News, the launch will be concurrent with the opening of online stores in Germany, Ireland and Spain.
Palm is hoping to build a developer community around the brand, with its web OS developer e-commerce programme, which sees interested parties able to pay an annual fee of $99 for support and promotion for their apps.
In the United States, the programme and its developer community have generated over 600 apps within two months.
“Our programme will be unlike anything currently available and has been established to promote a thriving community by giving developers direct involvement in their own success,” stated Palm’s senior vice president of product marketing Katie Mitic.
After weeks of speculation, Google has officially unveiled its new Nexus One Android handset, which it claims "belongs in the emerging class of devices which we call 'superphones'".
As predicted, the handset runs the latest version of the Android OS - version 2.1 - and has been made by HTC. It's got a 3.7-inch touchscreen and runs off Qualcomm's 1GHz Snapdragon chipset.
Google has launched its own web-store to sell selected Android handsets, starting with the Nexus One. It's being sold SIM-free for $529, shipping to the US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong.
However, T-Mobile USA will be selling it for $179 on a two-year contract. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone will also be selling the handset from Spring, although no pricing details have been announced.
As you'd expect from a Google-branded phone, the Nexus One features all Google's apps, including Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation. A new, whizzier version of Google Earth was also unveiled at the event, with desktop-like 3D fly-throughs.
Other entertainment-focused features include voice recognition integrated deep into the device, 'live' wallpapers, and a 3D photo-browsing gallery. The voice recognition was showed off at the launch by composing an email in Gmail by talking into the phone.
There's also a trackball for navigation below the touchscreen - interesting, given RIM's recent abandoning of trackballs in favour of trackpads. However, the fact that the trackball can pulse different colours to serve as notifications is a nifty selling point (for us ubergeeks, anyway).
One final note for app developers: Google confirmed at the event that it will soon drop its limit on the storage space available for apps on Android handsets. That means richer 3D games (for example) will be more feasible.
The official promo video for the Nexus One is below:
Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill has told PC Zone that he's never been asked to lend his voice to a Star Wars game.
Despite his starring role in George Lucas's original movie trilogy and a successful voice-over career in games - including the Wing Commander series and recent smash Batman: Arkham Asylum - Hamill said that LucasArts had never contacted him to ask if he fancied relinquishing his role for a console release.
He told Zone:
"When I played Luke from 1977 to 1983, games were in their infancy. I talked about turning a page and starting a new chapter. Those movies had a beginning, middle and end, and everyone sort of moved on.
"I don't really know how to answer that, because I've never been asked to do it. That's fine, though.
"If you're playing Luke the way he was in the films - from his late teens to mid-'20s - I've outgrown the role. In the story, Luke is so boy-next-door farm boy, it's like Dorothy in Oz. All the other characters that surround him are fantastic."
Google has unveiled an own-brand smartphone called the Nexus One.
The wraps were taken off the handset at an invitation-only event held at Google's Mountain View HQ.
The Nexus One is a slim, touchscreen phone built in partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC and runs Google's Android operating system.
It will be sold via Google's website and initially be available on T-mobile in America followed by Vodafone in Europe and Verizon in the US.
Direct from Google it will cost $529 (£331) and on contract with T-Mobile $179 (£112). Google said the phone would ship from launch day.
Mario Queiroz, Google vice president for product management, described the unveiling as "the next stage in the evolution of Android".
Mr Queiroz said there were now more than 20 Android phones available from 59 carriers in 48 nations.
The release of the Nexus One is seen as a move to ensure Google remains relevant as people search the web using mobile phones rather than typing queries into a PC.
Google makes the lion's share of its revenue by selling adverts linked to those queries.
NEXUS ONE HANDSET
3.7 inch touchscreen
1GHz snapdragon processor
5 Megapixel camera with LED flash
GPS and compass
Accelerometer
Noise cancellation technology
Voice recognition can be used with all applications
Light sensor changes screen brightness to conserve power
512MB Flash memory with SD card slot (expandable to 32GB)
At the briefing, Google said the Nexus was "a point of convergence where the web meets phone and is an example of what is possible on mobile through Android."
"You will see it pushes the limits of what is possible on a mobile phone today," said Peter Chou, HTC chief executive.
Google has set up its own phone portal through which people can get a handset tied to one of several mobile operators or untethered direct from the search firm.
Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said this could be its main selling point as it would mean owners could decide which network to sign up with.
"You buy the phone and then choose what sim card you want to put in," she said.
Those buying an unlocked phone would be able to use it as a GSM phone on almost any network.
A spokesperson for Vodafone told BBC News that it was the first operator to "bring the Google phone to the UK" but stressed that it was a "non-exclusive agreement", meaning other networks could also offer the phone soon.
He said it would be available "in the coming weeks" but only from Google's website.
Figures from Gartner suggest that Android has about a 3.5% share of the global smartphone market. By comparison Nokia has a 39% share and Apple 17%.
It emerged on 5 January that Google sent out Nexus One phones to some industry figures in mid-December so they can try them out. Recipients were asked to keep quiet about their experiences until 5 January.
"The Google phone isn't much different than the iPhone," wrote VC Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures on his blog. "It's basically an Android clone of the iPhone."
Google also announced on 5 January a plan to launch "pay to call" adverts that would appear on mobile phones. These would work in a similar way to the "pay to click" adverts that populate many websites and which form a significant chunk of Google's revenue.
Created by Eric Ruth Games, Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead is a great little NES-style "de-make" of Valve's Left 4 Dead. It's also been relesed on PC as a free download.
Eric Ruth (the sole developer behind the game) says, "Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead is a retro de-make of Valve's hit zombie killing masterpiece. Lovingly recreated in a fashion that would have been acceptable in 1986 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, this de-make stands as the flagship title of the upcoming Pixel Force series from Eric Ruth Games.
"Go alone, or invite a friend for 2 player co-op against the zombie apocalypse in all 4 of the original game campaigns. Two difficulties and all four of the survivors make a glorious 8-bit appearence, complete with first and second tier weapons scattered along your path to escape. So, grab your controller of choice and kick back with an award-winning retro take on the end of the world with Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead."
South Korea, China, Brazil, parts of Europe, and Japan have been watching television on their phones for free since 2005, but American mobile carriers are struggling to offer clunky streaming video using Qualcomm's proprietary MediaFLO system for an additional monthly fee and excessive bandwidth demands. Now, with America having gone digital in June, if Mobile carriers were to have ATSC M/H (advanced television systems committee — mobile/handheld) television-tuner chips built into their handsets it sounds like we could enjoy free TV on our cell phones too; however, these companies have already invested a great deal of money adapting their networks to Qualcomm's format and Qualcomm is considering becoming a mobile television distributor itself.
Since launch, Android has descended into a confusing soup of hardware manufacturers, carriers and software versions, while Google has watched, helplessly. Starting today, they're taking Android back: Google's selling Android phones through a unified store, starting with the Nexus One.
Sorry guys, Google's not changing the game today: the Nexus One will be priced like any other smartphone: $180 on contract with T-Mobile, $530 unlocked, both available through Google's online store. It's what we'd heard, if not what we'd dreamt
The Nexus One is here, and it brings gifts: Google Earth, a fantastic app that was inexplicably released for the iPhone before its parent company's mobile OS, is coming to the App Market.
We already knew the Nexus One would come baked to a crispy golden brown with a new cut of Android, and we've now heard several mentions of it on-stage at Google's official reveal: Android 2.1 is the real deal. HTC chief Peter Chou has specifically mentioned its 3D capabilities -- something we've seen in the new Gallery app -- but we're looking forward to seeing if El Goog's got any extra tricks up its sleeve here. For what it's worth, dev documentation for 2.1 isn't yet online, but we're keeping an eye out.
Update: Notably, they're saying 2.1 is an extension of Eclair -- no Flan here, as far as we can tell. They've gone through the new integrated weather and news apps, live wallpapers, a 3D framework accessible by devs (thank goodness), and speech-to-text input.
We've seen plenty of methods for emulating PC input schemes from a couch, but nothing's really beaten the tried and true "put a board across your lap" method. We're not sure the new iGUGU Gamecore has a leg up on the competition, but you can't fault it for trying. The system is actually a three-fold approach to the problem: there's a 50 foot VGA cable or wireless USB method for beaming your PC video to the TV and some TV-friendly software for managing your games library, but the obvious centerpiece is the monstrous wireless controller (pictured). Bearing a slight resemblance to an Xbox 360 controller and retailing for $80, the beast packs in a trackball, d-pad, joystick, full QWERTY keyboard and six accelerometers for making a mess of just about any PC game imaginable. Seems interesting, and we'll try to give it a look here at CES, but the completely ridiculous promo video (embedded after the break) makes us think twice about taking these folks seriously.
The PS3 has thus far proven to be something a tough nut to crack for those wanting to play homebrew etc on non-modified consoles, but word on the web is that a technique has been found that will make it possible -- if the stars happen to align properly for your hardware configuration. What you need is a PS3 model capable of running Linux, Ubuntu, Windows XP on top of that, a suite of utilities, a copy of the original Motorstorm, and a Blu-ray burner. Get all that configured properly and you should be able to use the technique at the read link to play those copies of games that have thus far been expensive coasters. Given the complexity of this approach we can't be 100 percent sure it's legit, but for what it's worth there is video "proof"
Nineties arcade champion NBA Jam is reported to be returning to life exclusively on Wii.
EA will make the game, revealed an ESPN report, under the watchful eye Mark Turnell - the former Midway man responsible for the original NBA Jam. No other details are given. EA UK has offered "no comment" on the matter.
If true, this puts an end to speculation sparked by EA Sports community manager Alan Quinto, whose December Tweet said the company was gearing for a new game announcement.
NBA Jam was released in North American arcades in 1993 and proved such a hit that machines needed their money stomachs emptied daily. Apparently the original arcade flock generated around $1bn in quarters.
Jam's draw was larger-than-life, two-on-two basketball, where there were next to no rules and gravity defying slam-dunks. Score consistently and players would literally be "on fire", gaining permanent turbo-boosts and more.
I just discovered a hullabaloo over at the Orange County Register's Mom Blog that began when blogger/mom Marla Jo Fisher explained why she keeps her household gaming free.
Part of the attraction for this story are the new ways Fisher demonizes games, which she thinks would hold her son back from growing up smart and fit.
This is kind of novel:
I truly believe that video games were created by Satan to turn otherwise normal children into his drooling, glassy-eyed stooges. After my son plays them at his friends' houses, he comes home irritable and testy for the rest of the day.
But this... this is new stuff:
Here's my question: When do kids ever think these days? When do they ever have brains free from electronics long enough to ponder the universe? To think of things that might someday lead them to a cure for cancer?
If Sir Isaac Newton had been playing a DS, I'm sure he never would have noticed the apple falling from the tree, so he never would have formulated the theory of gravity.
Fisher gets hit with gamer backlash in the comments section below her blog. That's not too surprising. More interesting is a dad named Kevin who writes about his kids' relationship with games.
Here's some from Kevin's comment:
My youngest son's case: he's 13 now, and loves his Xbox. The game he loves to play enables him create and design his own courses and let's others online use his course too. The menu system for this game is very complex, and develops analyical skills just to work through the whole thing. He is able to record his course runs and can "render" them and put them up on a forum for his buddies online to watch. He can do screen captures (get still pictures) of him playing. This has motivated him to learn Photoshop (totally on his own) so he can edit the photos and post them on his forum. He's now into creating videos of his games, creating title pages, splicing in pictures, adding video, adding music for other gamers to watch. I was amazed! I got him Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements (video editor) for christmas! He's 13!! He's certainly not the only kid out there doing this.
I'm not so interested in commenters here haranguing Marla Jo Fisher, but I am curious what parents believe their kids are getting out of playing games. A release? Development of skills? Entertainment?
Modern Warfare usually is discussed as a major franchise for the Xbox 360 and PS3 and is subject for debate on the PC. By at least one measure, it's significant on the Wii too.
Those who follow our monthly tally of Wii playing time (the so-called "measure of pleasure," as I've dubbed it) know that the average amount of time that Wii gamers spend playing 2008 Call of Duty: World At War is sky-high. At last count, gamers were averaging more than 51 hours with the game, which has sold more than a million copies, according to reporting I've done in the past. Only three games boast more hours per player: The similarly multiplayer-centric Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Guitar Hero III along with Animal Crossing: City Folk, a game designed to be played daily.
I was interested in seeing how this past November's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition, a remake of 2007's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare would fare. I'll get to sales figures a little lower, but let's look at something impressive first: its average playing time per player. As of December 1, the game had an average playing time of 17 hours, 22 minutes. As of January 1, that average is up to 24 hours, 55 minutes. People who play this game are keeping at it, likely due to its online play.
There's a caveat to the rising numbers for Call of Duty on the Wii. Because I'm only tracking average playing times, a game that is owned by five people who each play the game for 50 hours, will have an average playing time that exceeds a game that a million people have bought and played for 10 hours each. There's also the issue that these average playing times are tallied by the Nintendo Channel, a Nintendo service that only pulls the data of Wii gamers who download the channel, opt-in for data-sharing and re-visit the channel.
There's a way to account for those caveats, to at least have some context. As of January 1, the Reflex Edition was listed as having a cumulative 237,615 hours of play time among people sharing their data with Nintendo. World At War, as of December 1, had more than 7 million hours logged by users sharing their data. Compare those totals to The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, which has 45 million hours tallied as of Jan. 1, and it's obvious that not that many Reflex Edition players are out there and/or sharing their data... yet.
A better comparison for the Reflex Edition might be New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which was also released in November. That game has an average playing time of 15 hours, far fewer hours than that of the Reflex Edition but more than 1.5 million hours of that Mario game have been played and logged by the Nintendo Channel, dwarfing those 237,615 hours for the Reflex Edition. On the other hand, we've got September 2009's WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 which has a wonderful average playing time of 27 hours and 28 minutes, but across just a cumulative 90,066 hours played.
There's no starker contrast than with sales, of course. Nintendo announced today that New Super Mario Bros. sold three million copies in the U.S. through December. The NPD sales-tracking group, which has not released sales for December yet, told me today that, in its first month of release, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition sold 81,000 copies.
These Nintendo stats that we track measure the passion players have for the games they have, if not the popularity. Sales aren't the only stats that are interesting to look at.
Call of Duty games may not be the immediate blockbuster launches that they are on other platforms, but the playing time patterns here suggest that those who do have the game are as into the series as the most fervent fans on other platforms. World At War proved that on Wii. Reflex Edition seems set to do the same.
Atlus is bringing the latest installment of SNK's classic run and gun shooter series to the PSP next month, with tons of extra content, downloadable Leona, and a chance to win a pair of Metal Slug boxers. Metal Slug boxers!
An alert sent through the Atlus Faithful mailing list heralded the coming of Metal Slug XX to the PSP on February 23rd, with the clever tagline of "One X Short of ESRB Trouble." The latest title in the series features sees the return of Marco, Fio, Eri, Ralf, Tarma, and Clark, along with the option to purchase SNK's Leona for an additional $.99 for a little extra replayability. Speaking of replayability, Metal Slug XX also features Combat School, with more than 70 mission-based challenges to keep you occupied long after the story has ended. All that, plus ad hoc two-player co-op, all for just $19.99.
But wait, there's more!
Head over to the PlayStation Blog post on the game and you could win one of four pairs of Metal Slug boxers or a Japanese promotional poster. Your life probably won't be complete until you have a pair of Metal Slug boxers.
Look for Metal Slug XX on PSN and store shelves come February 23rd.
Majesco puts players in the movies this Spring with Attack of the Movies 3D, a 3D shooter for the Wii that drops players into classic action movie environments armed with four sets of 3D glasses.
Just before 2009 came to a close, the Sony Corporation sought trademark protection for something cloudy, but something likely not Final Fantasy VII related, the service "Cloudsurf." That's one of a few "cloud" themed products hinted at by Sony.
We no longer have to rely on Google-translated rumors about retailer listings regarding an upcoming Dragon Age expansion. EA has officially revealed Awakening, the first retail expansion for Dragon Age: Origins, due in stores March 16 for $40 -- and it's up for pre-order on GameStop now. (There's no word on a downloadable version.)
Awakening takes place after the (many) events of Origins, putting the player in the role of a new Grey Warden Commander, or simply an old, imported character from the main game, taking on new monsters, like the Inferno Golem and the Spectral Dragon, in a new area of the world called Amaranthine. The expansion features an increased level cap, new items, new spells, the ability to "re-spec" attributes, and five new party members with whom to bond.
It seems odd that the DLC delay and the expansion announcements would coincide so closely, though we don't think it's a matter of BioWare trying to starve people for Dragon Age content so that the expansion would appear more attractive. We can't think of any other explanation than "it's a weird coincidence," though we'll attempt to clear it up with BioWare.
In a terse message on the BioWare forums last night, Community Coordinator Chris Priestly announced that the Dragon Age: Origins "Return to Ostagar" DLC, dated for release today, won't be available as planned.
"We're sorry but the planned Return to Ostagar downloadable content scheduled to launch on January 5th has been delayed for all platforms," the forum post reads. "We will update you as new information becomes available." And then there's a little "devil" emoticon, which seems to be Priestly's forum signature rather than a hint that the post is a joke. The fact that the delay applies to "all platforms" suggests that the content could arrive after the "later in January" release window named for PS3 before.
We expect that BioWare will release more details (as in, some details) about the delay during business hours -- or an official denial, if this turns out to be inaccurate. In either case, we're waiting to see if we're going to be waiting for the DLC.
Who wouldn't want to go gallivanting around the globe, bustin' silly skateboarding tricks with icon Tony Hawk? Well, you'll never get to, but you can have the next best thing: Tony Hawk on your Xbox Live friends list. He hit the Twitters last night, trying to drum up some friends to play Tony Hawk Ride with on the Xbox 360. You know, that game with the crazy board Tony would like to see used with more games in the future? Yeah, that one.
There's no telling if it worked or not -- you can't check out Tony's friends list unless you're a friend with him. Still, it's interesting to see Tony take such an active role in trying to market the game. We guess when you invent a peripheral, you get all super passionate about it or something.
Although it still intends to release three versions of StarCraft 2 -- each featuring on a single-player campaign for the Terran, Protoss or Zerg races -- Blizzard has revealed that the first, the Terran-specific Wings of Liberty, will also feature "a Protoss mini-campaign that lets you control Protoss units," this according to an employee post on the game's official forums.
Not wanting to get anyone's hopes up too high, Blizzard says that the component is "way shorter than the Terran part," adding that it "will not prepare you for the multiplayer as Protoss, you won't be using all units or getting to know buildings and upgrades." The multiplayer component of StarCraft 2 will let players control all three races when Wings of Liberty hits this year someday.
Ancient temples have risen from the undergrounds along with demons. A group called the Inquisitors have heard of the monstrosities happening on the island and is determined to stop it.
They sent out troops to the island, however, a great storm swept the ships away and the only survivor who arrived on the island is you.
Shape your own destiny, fight the monsters and stop the tyrannical rule. Even though you are on your own now, you have your sword and gaming skills with you, so there is nothing to fear.
Every detail is included in the world building, Risen is a fantasy you may find yourself lost in. Admire the graphics and get involved in the story. The fantasy RPG is our weeklu special and is available for the unbeatable bargain price of US$ 19.90 only.
features
Use your ability to fight as both, human or dragon to your tactical advantage
Dynamically unfolding storyline depending on your choices and skills
Individual skilling and developing of both sides of your personality, the man and the dragon
Collect and customize weapons, items and armour for human and dragon
Discover and upgrade player skills through the Skill Trainer
description
Re-enter the world of the Dragon-Lords with the sequel to the award winning fantasy RPG, Divine Divinity. Use your wits as a human or strike high above the land as you battle your way through the world of Rivellon to discover the true meaning of being a Dragon Lord. Train your skills, ready your sword, and conjure your minions. The epic saga continues and the fate of Rivellon rests in your hands.
features
Combining brutal attacks, supernatural abilities and seamless traversal, delivering intense action combat and epic adventure, set in an immersive demon ravaged world
Each open world hub offers players the freedom to explore and make their own game-experience
Unleash WAR’s fury with an expansive arsenal of weapons, from the fantasy oriented to the modern and the ability to use virtually anything within your environment as a weapon
Customized to your gameplay style. Build up WARs Wrath powers and unleash them in spectacular attacks - or collect Soul Cores to increase or unlock new abilities
Gain the services of RUIN, WAR’s phantom steed, blazing a trail through enemies across devastated environments
Joe Madureira’s (X-Men, Battle Chasers, The Ultimates) unique visual art style and original storyline
Harnessing the power of next-generation console systems, Darksiders: Wrath of War will immerse players in a rich cinematic gameplay experience - featuring beautiful graphics, detailed special effects, cinematic lighting and an epic musical score that compliments the in-game action
description
Penned by legendary comic book artist Joe Madureira (X-Men, Battle Chasers, The Ultimates), Darksiders: Wrath of War is set in a Post-Apocalyptic demon-ravaged world where evil forces have prematurely brought about the end of the time. Originally sent to oversee the destruction of Earth, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been betrayed by their master, stripped of their powers and cast down to Earth. Players take on the role of WAR - the first of the Four Horsemen - as he embarks on a brutal quest of vengeance and revenge against the forces that betrayed him with the help of his phantom steed RUIN. Darksiders: Wrath of War features open-world exploration, a deep combat system and a huge arsenal of modern and mythical weapons.
features
Combining brutal attacks, supernatural abilities and seamless traversal, delivering intense action combat and epic adventure, set in an immersive demon ravaged world
Each open world hub offers players the freedom to explore and make their own game-experience
Unleash WAR’s fury with an expansive arsenal of weapons, from the fantasy oriented to the modern and the ability to use virtually anything within your environment as a weapon
Customized to your gameplay style. Build up WARs Wrath powers and unleash them in spectacular attacks - or collect Soul Cores to increase or unlock new abilities
Gain the services of RUIN, WAR’s phantom steed, blazing a trail through enemies across devastated environments
Joe Madureira’s (X-Men, Battle Chasers, The Ultimates) unique visual art style and original storyline
Harnessing the power of next-generation console systems, Darksiders: Wrath of War will immerse players in a rich cinematic gameplay experience - featuring beautiful graphics, detailed special effects, cinematic lighting and an epic musical score that compliments the in-game action
description
Penned by legendary comic book artist Joe Madureira (X-Men, Battle Chasers, The Ultimates), Darksiders: Wrath of War is set in a Post-Apocalyptic demon-ravaged world where evil forces have prematurely brought about the end of the time. Originally sent to oversee the destruction of Earth, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been betrayed by their master, stripped of their powers and cast down to Earth. Players take on the role of WAR—the first of the Four Horsemen—as he embarks on a brutal quest of vengeance and revenge against the forces that betrayed him with the help of his phantom steed RUIN. Darksiders: Wrath of War features open-world exploration, a deep combat system and a huge arsenal of modern and mythical weapons.
In addition to the March 25 release date for Japan more Gran Turismo 5 details are leaking out.
Game Star’s Gran Turismo 5 product page lists features such as direct YouTube replay uploading and connectivity to Gran Turismo for PSP. If you have both games, you can transfer car data. Gran Turismo 5 will have over 950 cars and twenty locations to drive in. When you factor variations there are more than 70 courses to race on.
The last thing Sony Computer Entertainment America said something about Gran Turimso 5 scheduling was they were targeting summer 2010.
Geostore, a Japanese retailer, may have leaked release information for God of War III, Gran Turismo 5, and God of War Trilogy.
God of War Trilogy is a bundle of God of War Collection plus God of War III for 7,849 yen ($85). A standalone copy of God of War III goes for 4,784 yen ($52) at Geostore. Sony seems keen on double game packs since a 7,980 yen ($87) Uncharted Twin Pack with Uncharted 1 and Uncharted 2 is on deck for February 18.
All three titles are scheduled to ship on March 25, according to Geostore. The Gran Turismo 5 listing was quickly pulled, but not before other sites could paste the release information.
The first of a series of mods. Classic MegaMan style gameplay, arcade style fun! Fight your way to Wily in this MegaMan: Power Battle/Fighters inspired mod. Includes 5 playable characters, each with helpers that can be summoned. Based on MegaMan 1. Comes with custom PSP OpenBOR version to play it with.
WinterAce offers version 2.1 of Sprite Combat, a Peter Feuille Scissors custom.
v2.1 -> Music! Yes, now we have sound effects!
Featuring a snick of the story mode!
The ROM name is now without the version number (saving)
Even better fading (now even the text and sprites fade in!)
"Press B to go back." added in many places to help users
Refined the code a bit
Fixed some places where the text was Placed irregularly
v2.0 -> Hoof! Major Updates here:
Added a Help Doc
Added a nice doc Credits
Fixed bug where the scores do not reset to 0
Records that keep track of your no. of wins and losses
SAVING! Yes, there is saving now!
Minor Bug fixes to the text
Score required to win reduced from 20 to 10
New Game Icon!
Removed the white background on request
Changed the font for better readability
"Opponent's Score:" - "Opponent" and "Your Score" - "You"
Ichiroh Satoh offers version 1.1.0 of its excellent Shoot Em Up "Super Star Shooter Wii.
What's new?
Ver1.1.0 fix and added features
Fix: Crash at the time of the start when connected GameCube controller.
Fix: SD card save support.
add: Supported 'GameCube Controller'.
add: Supported 'Classic Controller'.
add: Supported 'nunchuk'.
add: Game mode selection of title, 'Type-X' was added.
Special thanks to Anders Schlichtkrull and shadow1w2. Thank you for bug feedback!
aurel2108 realizes version 1.4 of its utility "Lamp DS", a flashlight for the DS.
Correction from v1:
- Added a backup of the config (active color mode and chug) when pressing Start
Fixed since v1.1:
- Check if the user to the latest version
- Added a mode teuf (changing color every two seconds)
- Press Select to enable or disable teuf
Fixed since v1.2:
- Added a small splash screen
Fixed since v1.3:
- Using images to tell if you have the latest version or not (and prettier)
- Improvement of variables to consume slightly less memory
- If pressed A after the splash screen: you do not check
In the series OLDIES, I'll talk about the latest homebrew of Uncle Alekmaul about a game that people under 20 years old should not know, I mean Manic Miner, a platform game revolutionary for its time, released in 1983 on ZX Spectrum by Matthew Smith. The following year my brother CPC 464
In the original version, our little hero Willy must traverse 20 levels. The version created by Alekmaul, allows for 20 levels and an additional unpublished end (note that the original did not end).
Manic Miner is part of his game which was brought on a lot of machine so it is official or not.
Portage Official: Commodore 64, Commodore 16, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, Dragon 32/64, Commodore Amiga, Oric 1, Game Boy Advance, MSX, SAM Coupe, mobile phones.
Portage Unofficial: PC (Windows / DOS), Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, ZX81, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Acorn Archimedes, Orao, Z88, PMD 85, HP48, Microsoft Zune and Nintendo DS.
Perhaps a simpliest way to turn your psp into a powerful PC gamepad (and yes PS3 too).
Just launch this tiny homebrew
Connect your psp via USB cable to PC (PS3)
And you are ready to go
NEW FEATURES:
Updated driver core
Adjustable configuration (via config.ini)
Led indicating
Digital/Analog modes
Deadzone support
No conflicts with drivers (No more "PSP type D" - now it's "FuSa GamePad")
FuSa G@mePad allows you to use your psp as usual GamePad
Main features:
Plug'n'Play
Does not requires any drivers
4-Axises (w switcher)
8-directional POV
12 Buttons
Led indicating
Adjustable configuration (via config.ini)
Deadzone support
Digital/Analog modes
No conflicts with drivers (No more "PSP type D" - now it's "FuSa GamePad")
Very easy in use (but find a time to read the readme.txt)
Compatible with every PSP wich can run in KERNEL 5.00 (that's mean you must put it to GAME 5XX folder on PHAT PSP) (SLIM, PHAT, 3K)
Perhaps a simpliest way to turn your psp into a powerful PC gamepad (and yes PS3 too).
Just launch this tiny homebrew
Connect your psp via USB cable to PC (PS3)
And you are ready to go
NEW FEATURES:
Updated driver core
Adjustable configuration (via config.ini)
Led indicating
Digital/Analog modes
Deadzone support
No conflicts with drivers (No more "PSP type D" - now it's "FuSa GamePad")
FuSa G@mePad allows you to use your psp as usual GamePad
Main features:
Plug'n'Play
Does not requires any drivers
4-Axises (w switcher)
8-directional POV
12 Buttons
Led indicating
Adjustable configuration (via config.ini)
Deadzone support
Digital/Analog modes
No conflicts with drivers (No more "PSP type D" - now it's "FuSa GamePad")
Very easy in use (but find a time to read the readme.txt)
Compatible with every PSP wich can run in KERNEL 5.00 (that's mean you must put it to GAME 5XX folder on PHAT PSP) (SLIM, PHAT, 3K)
The coder NoEffex, also thanks to Dave (one of the team members Typhoon), has released version compatible with the PSP-3000 (or with custom firmware or CF Enabler 5.03GEN) of homebrew CPS1PSP, CPS2PSP and MVSPSP, emulators respectively cards Cps1/Cps2 Capcom and Neo Geo, which was not updated for some time.
Follow the link to download.
UmbySpit93, a user of our forums, releases the first version of PSP Download Manager, developed in LUA application that allows you to directly download wallpapers and homebrew on the console, thus avoiding the use of your PC. Currently 66 AVAILABLE to download content, but the list will be updated every two weeks with the more recent programs.
ChaoticX releases a new version of OneMangaPSP, for those who still do not know this is a homebrew to read manga online with our PSP in an entirely free. In this release, still a beta, a bug was corrected only when playing mp3 files, thereby improving the stability of the program. Recall that to use OneMangaPSP you must configure a Wi-Fi and, of course, have access to the Internet to download data.
Sales of Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles on Wii have been a "disappointment", the director general of Capcom France has revealed.
According to Antoine Seux, sales of other mature games, such as MadWorld and Dead Rising, on the platform have also suffered as core gamers have "obviously moved on".
Speaking in an interview with Gamekult, Seux said that Darkside Chronicles had sold a disappointing 16,000 units by December 23 - lower than hoped.
The sales, he continued, pointed to a very clear problem with core gamers moving on from the Wii and its audience becoming a much broader one.
Resident Evil 4 on Wii worked well, he added, selling over 140,000 units. But as it was released in June 2007 the market "had nothing to do".
The situation has since "radically changed" he notes, with an oversupply of games in 2009. Core games are selling less and less on the Nintendo console, he suggested, with sales of MadWorld, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and The House of the Dead: Overkill all failing to make significant impact.
In contrast, games such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and New Super Mario Bros "work great", he added. But the Wii market is becoming complex.
Seux's comments echo those made earlier this week by SEGA studio director Constantine Hantzopoulos.
The poor performance of EA's Dead Space Extraction - a game with plenty of marketing muscle - "stunned" the company, said Hantzopoulos, who added that SEGA probably wouldn't release any more mature games onto the Wii.
Sony Corporation, Discovery Communications and IMAX Corporation are partnering to create the first dedicated 24/7 3D television network.
Initially a US launch, the goal of the channel is to drive adoption of 3D televisions and acceptance of the format, with international distribution opportunities planned for the future.
"Sony is the only company with expertise in every part of the 3D value chain," offered Sir Howard Stringer, President of the Sony Corporation. "We are delighted to be partnering with Discovery and IMAX, two premier companies also dedicated to leadership in 3D, in this ground breaking new venture.
"It is clear to us that consumers will always migrate to a better and richer entertainment experience, and together we are determined to be the leader in providing that around the world."
Sony told investors last year that its 3D strategy also includes gaming, with plans to upgrade the PlayStation 3 to 3D capability at some point in the near future.
As well as Sony, French publisher Ubisoft has often discussed its 3D gaming ambitions, and UK developer Blitz Games has already released Xbox Live Arcade game Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao in 3D, built using it's own propriety technology.
The three companies said that the new channel will focus on programming that suits the 3D experience, with Sony and IMAX also using the channel as an outlet to broadcast 3D feature films.
Satoru Iwata has told a Japanese newspaper that the next generation of Nintendo handhelds will have to be able to read the movements of players.
Although the Nintendo president declined to comment on when the company's first post-DS handheld might be released, he said, in comments translated by Kotaku, that it would need "highly detailed graphics, and it will be necessary to have a sensor with the ability to read the movements of people playing".
Nintendo is known to be exploring specific options for the hardware on its next, non-DS handheld, which would fit the graphics bill. Eurogamer's Digital Foundry reported on insider information and analysis late last year.
Today's Japanese newspaper piece also stated that the next Legend of Zelda game, briefly trailed at E3 last year and as-yet unnamed, will be released this year, although it did not specify whether it was referring to Japan or the whole world.
Consumers should also expect the release of the Vitality Sensor too, with a press conference this July followed by a release as soon as possible.
The Xbox 360 has come out on top as the most popular console in terms of minutes spent using it, according to a survey.
Statistics compiled by US market research firm Nielsen have revealed the 360 accounts for 23.1 per cent of total console usage minutes.
In contrast, the PlayStation 2 accounts for 20.4 per cent of the total, and the Wii 19 per cent.
The research also revealed a closing gender divide among the users of some consoles, with the most notable being PlayStation Portable owners of which 52 per cent are now female. Female Wii owners were found to account for 49 per cent of the market.
The percentage of female respondents deemed active gamers - defined as playing games for at least one hour per week - was 45 per cent.
In terms of overall gaming device ownership, 73 per cent of households were found to own a device used specifically for gaming while 54 per cent of households said they own a videogame console or handheld gaming device.
Household penetration of the 7th generation of games consoles stood at 41 per cent, while the percentage that own a handheld console was 23 per cent.
The layer capacity of a Blu-ray disc could grow from the current size of 25GB to 33.4GB following the creation of technologies by Sony and Panasonic.
This technology - dubbed the i-MLSE (Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation) evaluation index - resolves previous problems with the implementation of partial response maximum likelihood (PRML) signal processing, reports Nikkei.
Its creation resolves problems with 'jitter' previously experienced by the use of PRML. Reports state that since the technology works with existing Blu-ray optics, current players and burners would only require a firmware upgrade in order to utilise it.
Sony will reportedly propose widespread adoption of i-MLSE - a move which should be successful due to its core member status of the Blu-ray Disc Association - and sources state the technology could become widespread this year.
Konami's Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots was the first PlayStation 3 game to use a full 50GB dual layer Blu-ray disc, even after extensive efforts to compress its data.
Microsoft has revealed the XBLA games, downloadable content, Games On Demand and demos that were the most popular in Japan in 2009.
According to Famitsu (translated by Andriasang), Bayonetta was the most downloaded demo of the year, followed by Lost Planet 2, Forza Motorsport 3 and Left 4 Dead 2.
Bayonetta also appeared on the most downloaded demo of all time list at number four - preceded by Lost Planet at three, Ace Combat 6 at two and Resident Evil 5 at number one.
The most downloaded Arcade game in 2009 was Virtual On Oratorio Tangram, followed by Battlefield 1943 and Castle Crashers. And Castle Crashers - released last year - is also the most downloaded Arcade game to date, followed by Virtual On Oratorio Tangram and Ikaruga.
In terms of downloadable game videos, Dream Club First Video came out on top, followed by the Metal Gear Solid Rising E3 2009 teaser movie, Dead Rising 2, a second Dream Club video and Gears of War 2.
The 2009 top fives in full are as follows:
Xbox Live Arcade
01 Virtual On Oratorio Tangram
02 Battlefield 1943
03 Castle Crashers
04 Marvel vs. Capcom 2
05 Trials HD
Demo downloads
01 Bayonetta
02 Lost Planet 2
03 Forza Motorsport 3
04 Left 4 Dead 2
05 Ninja Blade
Games On Demand
01 Each Defense Force 3
02 Idol Master
03 Idol Master Live 4 You
04 Bullet Witch
05 Raiden Fighters Aces
Add-on content
01 Idol Master Live For You
02 Dream Club
03 Idol Master
04 Fallout 3
05 Otomedeus Gorgeous!
Game videos
01 Dream Club First Video
02 Metal Gear Solid Rising E3-2009 Teaser Movie
03 Dead Rising 2
04 Dream Club "Yume Miru Caged Bird" (HD)
05 Gears of War 2 "Rendezvous" Trailer Japanese Subtitles (HD)
2009 has been the second strongest year on record for the UK games industry, according to Chart-Track figures for the year.
Total software sales amounted to GBP 1.621 billion for the year - a decrease from GBP 1.905 billion in 2008 but still a strong performance indicative of a maturing market, according to ELSPA director general Mike Rawlinson.
UK consumers spent a total of GBP 3.311 billion on videogame product during the year - down from GBP 4.034 billion in 2008 - while console hardware revenue amounted to GBP 1.06 billion, a drop from GBP 1.422 billion. However the results were still positive, said Rawlinson.
"We cannot forget that 2009 saw the UK economy in the grip of one of the most severe recessions of recent times, which has naturally impacted on the entertainment industry," he said. "It is not surprising that the UK videogames industry has weathered the economic storm so well as games represent great value for money.
"The UK videogames market is maturing – we are not seeing such explosive growth as in 2008, a sure sign that the market is coming of age. Consumers are shopping smarter and gaming is becoming more widespread across all demographics – this is demonstrated by the fact that a videogame (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) topped the Amazon best-sellers chart for the first time in 2009.
"Thanks to continued innovation from games publishers and developers, opening up new types of games and gaming methods, more and more consumers are becoming gamers and the industry is reaching new audiences."
The Wii sold the most software units in 2009 with sales of over 18 million. However it was the Xbox 360 that saw the biggest increase in software revenue, up four per cent from 2008 to earn GBP 459 million, and became the number one software format by revenue - surpassing the Wii.
Units of PlayStation 3 software sold were up by 14 per cent on last year, from 10.4 million to 11.9 million.
Overall, consumers bought a total of 74.6 million games, working out as more than one per person in the UK.
In terms of hardware, the PlayStation 3 showed the highest growth, posting a two per cent increase in units sold compared to last year. The Wii though retained its lead as the best selling console.
In total, 6.7 million videogame consoles were sold in the UK throughout 2009.
The lauded Square Enix development team behind Final Fantasy XIII is set to begin work on something completely different - according to their boss, that is.
Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada said it 'remained to be seen' whether Square would continue to create Final Fantasy-style games internally after the release of FFXIII.
He told Edge: "I believe Final Fantasy XIII is going be something special, and that it's going to be well received by the audience.
"But whether we are going to continue to internally create this type of game remains to be seen, because I actually feel that the team that was involved with Final Fantasy XIII should next move on to create and generate some 'next generation' forms of play.
"Internally and externally I feel there's an expectation of Square Enix to offer something new, and I really think that the Final Fantasy team could create something completely different, but at the moment they're strictly catering to the particular audience they have now."
Sales of Xbox 360 overtook those of Wii in the UK last year, making Microsoft’s console the top selling format in software terms in the UK in 2009.
Xbox 360 raked in £459m in sales throughout the period according to numbers from ELSPA, generating more revenue than any other platform. Wii still won in raw unit terms, however, with 18m games sold.
The news marks a mixed few days for Nintendo’s machine. Record breaking performances in the US and Europe, as well as an impressive recovery in Japan, have been countered by publisher apathy from Capcom and Sega.
A filing with the US' Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that upcoming cloud gaming service Gaikai has received $5m in investment.
The document also revealed that the business, backed by veteran designer Dave Perry, has former EA and Jamdat exec and current Benchmark Capital investment guru Mitch Lasky on board as a director - suggesting Benchmark is the VC firm stumping up the cash.
Gaikai reps have not yet commented on the actual filing, except to confirm its existence.
Perry formed the venture along with Andrew Gault and Rui Pereira last year and demoed it for the first time behind closed doors at E3 and then as part of a keynote opening the Develop conference.
Currently a race is on to see who can reach the market first with a cloud-based/streaming technology platform.
OnLive, which also plans to offer a cloud-based service, was unveiled to much fanfare at GDC last year.
But Perry has regularly tried to distance himself from rivals like that - he says Gaikai will move quick and set up multiple data centres to ensure quick proliferation of its service, which is browser-based. OnLive, meanwhile, is both browser-based and also designed to help upsell a 'microconsole' device that plugs into home TVs.
he first PlayStation Home update of 2010 is "imminent" says Sony and it's the one that brings with it a London Pub complete with London prices.
The pub was first revealed last December but the doors are finally about to open.
"Visit Home Estates today to get your own personal London Pub, and become a virtual pub landlord. Priced at €4.99, the London Pub offers a warm fire and comedy beer pumps - and more! - all in a setting on the Thames that overlooks the Houses of Parliament."
Looking at the comments in our original story, there was a lot of grumbles about the price. Anyone actually going to dig deep for a license?
Mobile games firm Gameloft has announced that it has sold more than 10 million games through Apple's App Store since its launch in July 2008.
'Sold' is the key word - that's 10 million paid downloads, in contrast to the many publishers who've announced multi-million iPhone milestones bundling paid and free together.
Gameloft says it enjoyed a merry App Store Christmas thanks to Q4 releases like N.O.V.A. and James Cameron's Avatar - both of which were prominent in Apple's Top Grossing charts over the festive period.
"We have had a remarkable year on the App Store," says chairman and CEO Michel Guillemot (pictured). "Our success is defined not only by great production values, but a vested interest in bringing to market games that are commercially friendly and appeal to a mass consumer base."
Gameloft launched 35 games for iPhone in 2009, taking its overall total to 55. However, it has also faced criticism for the perceived lack of originality of its flagship titles.
N.O.V.A. has been widely compared to console game Halo, for example, while it has also released games clearly inspired by Diablo (Dungeon Hunter), Call Of Duty (Modern Combat Sandstorm) and Soul Calibur (Blades Of Fury).
Still, it seems consumers don't care. Gameloft took a calculated risk by investing heavily in rich, 3D iPhone games from the earliest days of the App Store - a strategy which is now paying off for the publisher.
Parrot has unveiled a remote-controlled helicopter that boasts augmented reality games. The helicopter is controlled using an iPhone or iPod Touch's accelerometer and touchscreen. There's a camera on the front of the helicopter, which you can use to navigate and to play augmented reality games, including a game that involves fighting a gigantic robot
As more and more games move away from 60fps, the myth of the human eye only being able to detect 30fps keeps popping up. What's more, most people don't seem to realize the numerous advantages of a high framerate, and there's plenty of those.
Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata believes Wii has shaken off a shaky year and repositioned itself firmly as generation leader.
He spoke as the company internally estimated over 3m Wii sales across North America for December alone. That's up from 2.15m sales from the same month in 2008.
And that's impressive, considering Nintendo's depleted but nonetheless impressive Thanksgiving effort.
Iwata attributed the strong Christmas sales to two things: a stronger software lineup and price cut. New Super Mario Bros. Wii, released November, has already sold 4m copies.
"I think it's now safe to say the Wii has recovered from slowdown," Iwata told Reuters.
"But I'm not sure if it's prudent to use words like revival and recovery lightly before making absolutely certain we can maintain this momentum. So, I steer clear of such words today."
Iwata didn't announce specific figures for DS but said the handheld had likely broken 10m sales for 2009 in North America - a record for videogame hardware.
The Nintendo boss also praised the DS (and new arrival DSi) for not peaking after three years on the market, as is tradition, but selling strongest in its fifth (launched 2004 in the US) year on the shelf.
Yesterday Nintendo announced that the DS had sold 40 million units across Europe, which makes it the best-selling console ever. In home-console stakes - as in the ones under the telly - the Wii wins the prize, with 20m units shifted.
Satoru Iwata has told a Japanese newspaper that the next generation of Nintendo handhelds will have to be able to read the movements of players.
Although the Nintendo president declined to comment on when the company's first post-DS handheld might be released, he said, in comments translated by Kotaku, that it would need "highly detailed graphics, and it will be necessary to have a sensor with the ability to read the movements of people playing".
Nintendo is known to be exploring specific options for the hardware on its next, non-DS handheld, which would fit the graphics bill. Eurogamer's Digital Foundry reported on insider information and analysis late last year.
Today's Japanese newspaper piece also stated that the next Legend of Zelda game, briefly trailed at E3 last year and as-yet unnamed, will be released this year, although it did not specify whether it was referring to Japan or the whole world.
We should also expect the Vitality Sensor too, apparently, for which there will be a press conference this July followed by a release as soon as possible.
Sony Computer Entertainment Japan is releasing a Michael Jackson-themed PS3 hardware bundle.
The package will include a 120GB console in "Charcoal Black", a controller and cables, plus biopic This Is It on Blu-ray. There's a special PS3 wallpaper on the disc.
Shoppers will be able to pick up the bundle for ¥33,500, equivalent to around £230. It will hit stores on 27th January.
Majesco has announced the world's first 3D shooter for Wii, known as Attack of the Movies 3D.
Developed by Panic Button, the game will be out this summer packaged with four pairs of 3D glasses - therefore four-player multiplayer should come as no surprise.
The idea is to plop you in the middle of classic-film-inspired sets that are alien-riddled, shark-riddled, robot-riddled, zombie-riddled and so on. Majesco's blurb promises you'll experience a "realism and dimensionality" that only cinemas have previously been able to provide.
You're also promised replayability as enemies will be unpredictable, paths branching, areas unique and environments "challenging" - a bit like the snow this morning.
There are no screenshots or video clips available at the moment.
Rock Band 2 will be updated on Thursday to support wireless SingStar microphones, which means power-crouches and dazzling spins are back on the menu.
The update also brings various other improvements, better chord hammer-ons/pull-offs and Rock Band Network support for when the feature finally goes live - stay tuned for more on that, writes lead designer Dan Teasdale on the European PlayStation blog.
Ion drum kits will also support velocity sensitivity in both drum fills and Drum Freestyle, plus there's finally a sort-by-stars option for Quickplay, which does what you'd expect.
There are 
. ...never 
)
