Conservative leader David Cameron has praised the work of SpecialEffect, a UK charity dedicated to helping severely disabled children enjoy videogames through cutting-edge technology.
Cameron's comments came during a pre-recorded video message played at the launch event for Walk4Matt 2010, organised to raise money for a range of causes including SpecialEffect.
"The way your charity's developed over the past 18 months has been, frankly, inspirational," said the Tory leader, who is the local MP of Oxfordshire-based Special Effect. "You've made many, many people very happy."
SpecialEffect's work includes StarGaze, a project utilising the latest motion-reading technology to enable users to play videogames using only their eyes. More recently, the organisation has launched www.gamebase.info, an online community and database providing information on the accessibility of mainstream console and PC games.
"You really are helping to give as many people with disabilities as possible the chance to use this fantastic technology in their own lives," added Cameron. "Thanks for what you're doing."
"David's support has has played an immense part in our success as a charity and the speed at which we've been able to progress," said SpecialEffect founder Dr Mick Donegan. "No matter how busy he has been, he has taken an ongoing, keen interest in our work and always, somehow, found the time to lend a helping hand."
According to Donegan, Cameron, whose own severely disabled son, Ivan, died last year, realised the potential of the technology immediately.
Walk4Matt is fronted by Matt Hampson, former England Under 21 rugby player who was paralysed from the neck down following a scrum accident in 2005. Hampson's relationship with Dr Mick Donegan, whose technology aided his rehabilitation, led to the formation of SpecialEffect, of which Hampson is patron.
Donegan added: "The funds raised by this walk will help literally tens of thousands of severely disabled people to get more fun, friendship and competition through enhanced access to videogames and creative technology." SpecialEffect last year also received a donation of £11,000 from GamesAid, a UK videogames charity.
Ed Vaizey MP, shadow Culture Minister and supporter of the UK games industry, was expected to attend, but pulled out at the last minute to miss his cue from his leader, who quipped: "For me there's only one disappointment: I still haven't had a chance to take on Ed Vaizey at eye-controlled FIFA 2009."
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz after the event, Donegan revealed his ambition to launch a National Accessible Games Centre and called upon the games industry both to support the initiative and to work with the charity to make games more accessible to a disabled audience, which Donegan claimed would in many cases require only relatively minor reworking.
The charity has demonstrated the potential of its technology with existing games, with EA's FIFA playable using gaze-control. Also attending Friday's event, held at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire, was Dale, a 21 year-old gamer with arthrogryposis, a condition which means he has no use of his hands.
Through a passion for gaming, Dale has learned to use a standard PlayStation 3 controller, balanced on his chest, with remarkable precision using only his face and mouth to play his favourite game, FIFA – as GamesIndustry.biz discovered to its cost, swept aside 2-0 in a head-to-head.
Dale is currently only able to play a limited range of games, but is a staunch Sony fan having owned every iteration of PlayStation. He explained that the design of the Xbox controller prevented him from using Microsoft's system. His dream game to play, he revealed, would be Call of Duty.
Walk4Matt 2010 begins on May 22, stretching from Rugby to Twickenham, and has received the backing of many leading rugby stars including Martin Johnson.
Mass Effect 2 has shipped two million units since its release one week ago, according to internal EA figures.
The publisher called the game the first blockbuster of 2010, pointing out that it has earned an average review score of 96 on Xbox 360 on Metacritic, which include 40 'perfect' scores.
"Mass Effect 2 is poised to be one of the biggest games of 2010. We could not be more proud of the game's universal acclaim and early commercial success," said Dr Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare and group general manager of the RPG/MMO group of EA.
The game was released in North America on January 26 and across Europe on the 29th.
At the start of the year, GamesIndustry.biz Network members voted the game as their most anticipated for 2010.
Mass Effect 2 is this week's UK No.1
According to GfK Chart-Track data for the week ending January 30th, the PC/360 title was the best-selling game, knocking two-week champion Just Dance from the top.
Mass Effect 2 had, according to EA, debuted with 2m units sold - the game has been praised by the specialist press.
Sony's PS3 shooter MAG also made an impressive debut, appearing at No.4 in the chart in its first week.
Elsewhere, Just Dance holds on to second, followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
The rest of the top ten is made up of familiar faces, with Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, FIFA 10, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Army of Two: The 40th Day and James Cameron's Avatar all present.
The full top ten is as follows:
1. MASS EFFECT 2 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
2. JUST DANCE (UBISOFT)
3. CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 (ACTIVISION BLIZZARD)
4. MAG (SONY)
5. WII SPORTS RESORT (NINTENDO)
6. WII FIT PLUS (NINTENDO)
7. FIFA 10 (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
8. NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII (NINTENDO)
9. ARMY OF TWO: THE 40TH DAY (ELECTRONIC ARTS)
10. JAMES CAMERON'S AVATAR: THE GAME (UBISOFT)
Q Entertainment is having a good hard think about whether to bring Rez HD to PlayStation Network.
That's according to the company's Twitter page, where the following message was posted: "What would a game like Rez HD sell for on PSN? $15? This is no indication that it's happening, but we're researching if its feasible."
Those who like the sound of that idea might want to register their interest as another message reads, "This isn't something we need to do, or will necessarily develop. I'm doing some informal polling to take back to our bizdev ppl."
Rez HD was released on Xbox Live back in January 2008, priced at £6.80. Like the PS2 original it was a hit with the critics, scoring 10/10 on Eurogamer.
Electronic Arts has registered the name MySims Sky Heroes, filing to protect the trademark in relation to gaming software. While no announcement has come from the huge publisher, trademark observers are speculating that the title refers to the next release in the popular Wii and DS Sims spin-off series.
As spotted by Trademork, the filing also covers 'entertainment services, namely, providing an online computer game,' and refers to the 'provision of information relating to electronic computer games provided via the internet'.
Debuting in 2007, the genre-hopping MySims series offers a casual-friendly version of game design luminary Will Wright's virtual dolls house The Sims. In recent months EA's effort has courted chart success with MySims Racing, MySims Party and MySims Kingdom on both of Nintendo's current formats.
Presently any comment on MySims Sky Heroes remains as pure speculation, as on occasion game publishers can file to protect the name of a speculative release that may never see the light of day.
With all eyes on Final Fantasy XIII Square's been a little quiet with the incoming spin-off, Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Not for much longer though - more info should with us this month.
According to Sony, the developer wants to show off more of the game within the next few weeks. According to PS Blog man Jeff Rubenstein, "They're eager to get some posts on the blog in February", about the game.
Versus XIII is a completely separate story from FFXIII, which is out on March 9, but set in the same universe. Its release is still totally up in the air.
Spam and hacking attacks increased by 71 per cent during 2009, IT security firm Sophos has revealed.
According to the Financial Times, the research showed that around 57 per cent of social network users have received spam messgaes, while an additional 36 per cent have received malicious code through their preferred social website.
“People are used to receiving spam and malware on e-mail, but are lulled into a greater sense of security on social networking sites, because they assume they are just getting messages from friends. They are more likely to open messages,” commented Sophos’ senior technology consultant Graham Cluley.
Although malware is on the rise, it is still growing at a slower rate than the websites themselves. Last year, Facebook grew by 600 per cent while Twitter grew by 2,800 per cent.
Epic plans to reward the Gears of War 2 community for its loyalty with a special Valentine's Day event that increases bonuses for friends who work together in-game.
Originally proposed by forumites, the Valentine's event offers double points for revives and doubles XP in Wingman and Horde modes.
There's no immediate word on how long the conditions will be in place, but it seems safe to bet on the weekend of 13th/14th February.
Sadly though, Epic wasn't able to include some of the forum's more exotic suggestions, which included "If your wingman dies, you die as well" and "When picking up a meatshield, you get +50 points (physical love)."
The program manager of Rock Band Network has responded to reports of companies charging up to $2500 to author songs for the new service, saying that artists should know who they're doing business with and consider carrying out the work themselves.
Rock Band Network is currently at beta stage in the US, with play-testing being carried out in advance of the store's launch on Xbox 360 later this year.
Once it launches, musicians will be able to make their tracks available to players for between 99 cents and $2.99, receiving a royalty payment of 30 per cent of the sale price.
However, with third-party companies charging upwards of $1000 to convert a track for the online store, critics have already pointed out the service could prove too expensive for unsigned musicians to take advantage of.
But RBN program manager John Drake has told GamesIndustry.biz that while song authoring is challenging and takes time, the tools are accessible enough for musicians to learn to use, negating the need to pay a third-party.
"The tools are entirely accessible to anyone who has used recording software previously," he said. "Our audio team has developed some amazing plugins - some of which we're now using at Harmonix - that make the interface really straightforward.
"They really aren't 'game dev' tools as much as they're very tailored music production tools. Doing the authoring is challenging work that takes time, but anyone fascinated enough by music to learn how to record themselves won’t have any trouble learning the tools of RBN."
According to Tunecore - a company that provides a range of distribution services for the music industry and which is currently offering to convert a track to RBN for $999 - the process of authoring a track from submission to approval takes around a month.
The company asks musicians to submit individual audio stems for each instrument and can also use live videos to ensure authentic on-screen player animations and lighting effects.
"Companies are springing up offering a variety of packages," Drake acknowledged. "If you're a great songwriter or a label with a volume of content, and you're too busy with all of the other things that come along with making music - touring, promotion, recording, rehearsing - and you have the funds, an authoring group is a great solution to getting your content done.
"We try to stay in close contact with the larger authoring groups and keep awareness out there that, yes you can hire someone to do this for you for a fee or you can do it yourself. You're really paying the opportunity cost of purchasing the infrastructure - 360, RB2, accounts - and putting in your time.
"Beyond that, people should ask for references and past work and know who they're doing business with before turning over their money and masters. Or, again, they can do it themselves. Rock Band Network is a great opportunity for independent musicians to come together with these independent authoring groups to make awesome Rock Band tracks."
The overall aim of the Network, said Drake, is to level the playing field for artists and to provide more quality content for the Rock Band music platform.
While testing is currently only being carried out on the Xbox 360 and in the US, the idea is to make content available in as many XNA supported territories as possible when the store launches on the format, then roll it out on PlayStation 3. "Artists who submit their content will be on sale in all the available territories," says Drake.
"Music licensing is a complicated process," he added. "Lucky for us, we have a lot of experience securing music for the Rock Band Music platform, which now has over 1000 songs available. We have a great team of experienced music licensing pros at MTV who have guided this process. We wouldn't be able to get such a cool system in place without their experience."
And feedback from artists to date has been largely positive, he said.
"Everyone we've worked with has been really enthusiastic about the process. We've been really excited to see a mixture of big names, breaking bands and unknown artists coming through the process."
DIY iPhone apps firm Mobile Roadie is setting its sights beyond the App Store, according to CEO Michael Schneider.
"We’re launching our Android client next month - it’s really great: you can put everything in once to our system, flick a few switches and there it is," he says in an interview.
"I think Android is going to be huge by the end of this year. Partly because of the launch of Google’s Nexus One handset, but there are 20 or 30 more devices in development."
Mobile Roadie started off working with bands to make their own iPhone apps, but has since diversified to support anyone who wants an app - charging a $499 setup fee, then $29 a month to cover hosting costs and new features.
Schneider says the company is also "looking very closely" at BlackBerry and Symbian, but warns that Nokia's strategy is still causing him concern.
"They keep changing their minds," he says. "They have this Ovi Store with Symbian apps, but now they’re releasing a new OS [Maemo] that has nothing to do with Symbian. We’re a small company, so where do we put our resources?"
Warner Bros has slapped a May release date on LEGO: Harry Potter Years 1-4.
The TT Games-developed release will arrive on Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, PSP and PC.
According to Warner, the title 'give gamers the chance to experience the magic and adventure of Harry Potter in a uniquely LEGO way. Playing as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, as well as more than 100 other favourite characters, gamers will have the opportunity to attend lessons, cast spells, mix potions, fly on broomsticks and complete tasks to earn rewards.'
Throughout the game, players will also have the freedom to explore settings from Harry's world including Hogwarts castle, Diagon Alley, the Forbidden Forest and the village of Hogsmeade.
Anyone interested? Or does LEGO-plus-Harry equal a game just for kids?
Delicious Monster founder claims iBooks copies Delicious Library
The founder of Delicious Monster, an iPhone app developer, has claimed that Apple stole the user interface for his Delicious Library app and used it to create the iBooks feature that was demonstrated on the iPad.
According to the SuperSite Blog, Wil Shipley immediately twittered his thoughts during the product demostration last week.
“No, Apple didn’t license iBooks from me. They just copied me. Ah well,” he wrote, before adding: “I guess it’s not enough Apple has hired every employee who worked on Delicious Library, they also had to copy my product’s look. Flattery?”
The Delicious Library app received the Apple design award twice and was a runner-up once, so Shipley is adamant that the duplication is not a mistake.
“Now, of course Apple couldn’t contact me ahead of time and say, ‘Hey, we’re taking your idea, thanks.’ Their lawyers would worry they’d open themselves to a huge lawsuit, for one, and they’d also be leaking a secret,” speculated Shipley. “Nor could they write me a check. Even a token one would be an admission (in their lawyers’ eyes) that they were copying something.”
Nintendo has confirmed that Monster Hunter Tri will be compatible with Wii Speak.
The special Wii Speak bundle is one of three editions of Monster Hunter Tri that will be available when the game launches in April.
You'll also be able to purchase a package containing Wii Speak and the Classic Controller Pro or you could just buy the game on its own.
Wii Speak will be useful in the game's online multiplayer mode as players will be able to share their knowledge of monsters' weaknesses, discuss hunting strategies and cry for help when needed.
As for the Classic Controller, Nintendo has said that the Pro rather than the Wii Remote will offer the ultimate Monster Hunting experience. As ONM revealed, Capcom were actually involved in the design of this controller which features a second row of shoulder buttons.
Apple has confirmed that the iPad, the latest addition to the tech giant’s fashionable product line, will be available in the UK next month.
Furthermore, the higher-spec 3G models that offer over-the-air downloads will begin shipping a month later in April.
How much the machine will cost in the UK is yet to be seen. A direct translation according to current exchange rates would see the entry-level 16GB wi-fi model cost £308, with the top-end 64GB 3G model costing £512. However, UK prices can realistically be expected to start around the £400 mark.
It has not been announced which UK operators will offer the iPad as part of a monthly data usage contract, though all three main mobile operators – O2, Vodafone and the soon-to-be-merged T-Mobile and Orange – are said to be in talks with Apple.
The iPad uses microSIM cards as opposed to traditional sims, meaning users won’t be able to use their existing cards in the device.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said that development of Zelda games is traditionally "an exercise in suffering" - but recognised that one game in the series, made in a completely different style and atmosphere, had a major influence on those that followed.
That game is the 1993 Game Boy classic Link's Awakening, the first handheld Zelda, and the main focus of the latest Iwata asks covering the portable entries in the series.
Nintendo general manager Takashi Tezuka - a producer and director of many Mario and Zelda games, alongside Shigeru Miyamoto - revealed that its development began unofficially, as an after-hours experiment, and even after approval it continued in an informal atmosphere.
"I remember that we made Link's Awakening in a really peculiar frame of mind. We began in the free spirit of an afterschool club, so the contents are quite unrestrained. If you look at it, you can tell," he said, noting that they threw in characters who looked like Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Kirby without thinking.
"It was for the Game Boy, so we thought, 'Oh, it'll be fine,'" Tezuka said. "We moved along at quite a good speed in a relatively freewheeling manner. Maybe that's why we had so much fun making it. It was like we were making a parody of Zelda."
"I thought it was a tradition for working on a Zelda title for it to turn into a kind of exercise in suffering," Iwata countered.
"I remember it was fun working on it, and when it was over, I remember us talking to each other about how fun it was," Tezuka said.
Neverthless, the offhand creation of Link's Awakening had a long-lasting impact on the Zelda series, the Nintendo veterans admitted.
Current Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma argued that "It wasn’t until Link's Awakening that the Zelda titles started having a proper plot." This came from an unlikely source - Tezuka's fascination with David Lynch's surreal TV series, Twin Peaks.
Tezuka decided that, like Twin Peaks, the game should focus on a singular location, and feature "suspicious" characters. "After that, in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, all kinds of suspicious characters appeared. I didn’t tell them to do it that way, but personally, I did find it considerably appealing," he said.
"I'm certain it was a breakthrough element in the series," Aonuma said. "If we had proceeded from A Link to the Past straight to Ocarina of Time without Link's Awakening in between, Ocarina would have been different."
The bigwigs also discuss the decision to farm handheld Zeldas out to the "sporty" types at Capcom, how the smooth and "fun" development of latest instalment Spirit Tracks resulted in a great game ("You can really feel the enthusiasm of the developers when you're playing" - Tezuka), how Miyamoto's original design document for Zelda in 1985 contains all the core elements of the series, and how Miyamoto and Tezuka drew the map for the first Zelda game together, in ink on graph paper, in a single sitting. Those were the days.
Xbox Live developer NinjaBee has confirmed A World of Keflings will release this year.
It promises local multiplayer for the first time, plus a load of features asked for by the community following the release of the original A Kingdom for Keflings.
"A World of Keflings is much more than a sequel. It's a new game with a ton of new features, including some innovative ideas that stand out from both Live Arcade and full retail games," NinjaBee president Steve Taylor told IGN.
"A World of Keflings also has a new story focus, with new exotic lands, characters, quests, buildings, customization options, and a lot more."
A Kingdom for Keflings, released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008, was a gentle and charming city-building strategy game. One of its key lures was the ability to use your Xbox Live Avatar in the game
Reports are surfacing that GPS navigation on the Palm Pre Plus is a little janky, with full aGPS only working with the (recently updated to 5.0) Verizon Navigator app, not Google Maps—locks are inaccurate and slow.
The iPhone Dev Team has put the latest redsn0w jailbreaking tool up for your downloading pleasure, for use with iPhones and iPod Touches running OS versions 3.0 and 3.1.2.
Apple showed biggest year-on-year growth of all vendors in Q4
53 million smartphones shipped globally in the fourth quarter of 2009 – up 30 per cent year on year, research has found.
According to a study by Strategy Analytics Nokia increased its global smartphone share to 39.2 per cent – 20.8 million units – while RIM (the manufacturer of BlackBerry) and Apple increased their portions to 20.2 per cent and 16.4 per cent respectively (10.7 million and 8.7 million units).
Of those firms, Apple showed the biggest growth, upping its market share from 10.8 per cent in Q4 2008.
"This was the strongest period of growth since Q3 2008 and smartphones are leading the handset industry out of recession," says senior analyst Tom Kang. "Sales are being driven by stronger consumer demand and a stream of attractive new 3G models tempting buyers into retail stores."
Smartphones from vendors other than Nokia, Apple and Rim shipped 12.8 million units in Q4 2009, taking a market share of 24.2 per cent - down from 33.6 per cent in Q4 2008.
"The smartphone market will become ultra competitive in 2010," says director Neil Mawston. "Samsung and LG have ambitious plans to grow volumes and expand their app stores, while emerging players like Dell and Huawei are strengthening their device portfolios and courting major operators."
There is a video floating around of a Nokia N900 smartphone running the full desktop Mac OS X 10.3. From the author, Tomi Nikkanen: 'I believe this makes the N900 the first smartphone ever to run a full version of Mac OS X (at any speed, slow or otherwise). As you can see from the heavily edited video, it took almost 2 hours to reach the "About my Mac..." window. Keep your eye on the time display as that will give you an impression of just how uselessly slow it is.
It's not in the US just yet, but Japan will receive the option to buy a standalone 250GB hard drive for the Xbox 360 starting March 11th. Sadly, it'll run the equivalent of $170.
Spanish blog MuyComputer claims that Microsoft will present the "Zune Phone" this February, at the MWC in Barcelona. According to them, it's 100% confirmed. Since the phone will use Tegra, Nvidia will team with Microsoft for the anti-JesusPhone debut
Since I can't wait to get the Apple iPad, I will build one with Lego bricks, using this one as the guideline. And then use it like I will use the real iPad itself: By licking it.
Microsoft's just outed a new gaming keyboard -- the SideWinder X4 -- which promises to hold up in even the most intense situations. Boasting what the company says is the "most advanced" anti-ghosting technology around, the X4 allows the pressing of up to 26 keys at once for the ultimate gaming moves. Other features include macro recording and auto macro repeat functions, plus profile and mode switching allows your 'board to remember all your moves for different games. So, you probably want it right now, but you're going to have to wait a little longer -- the SideWinder X4 will arrive in March, and it'll run you $59.95.
Okay, folks, you know the drill: here lies new hardware, may we see it hacked to run unintended software. Today's contestant is Pandora, once thought to be relegated to the realm of vaporware and now in full production. One of the lucky, open source-friendly buyers decided that the native Linux distribution was just not for his liking, and instead opted for Google's little green man mobile OS. Touchscreen support isn't there yet, but you gotta start somewhere, right? Video of Android on Pandora after the break. Now we wait until the time we can gleefully say "Pandora (the app) on Android on Pandora" while we listen to some rocking streamed tunes.
Today our good friends over at Woot! are selling the Leapfrog Didj, a low cost educational toy aimed at little kids. Lucky for hackers out there, the Didj is actually a linux device, and gaining serial console access is as easy as soldering two wires. The documentation out there is a little outdated, with a number of broken links and stale wikis, but $25 for a portable linux device is a hard deal to beat. A list of sites which might be helpful are listed after the break, as well as the hardware specs of the Didj.
Let us know if you have played around with hacking the Didj before, and if you have any tips for other readers. Don’t forget to tell us what you do with the Didj as well!
Get ready touch screen musicians, Xseed will release Korg DS-10 Plus in North America on February 16.
Korg DS-10 Plus adds on the fly editing and a track mute option in song mode. If you own a Nintendo DSi you get even more synthesizing power. Dual DS-10 mode ups the analog synth simulator from two to four, bumps up the drum machine to two, and allows you to sequence 12 tracks instead of six. Basically, it’s like having two copies of Korg DS-10 Plus on one machine. Watch this video for a run down of all of the features.
Xseed has something else to celebrate about when it comes to Korg DS-10 Plus. This game will be in stock at Gamestop on day one. The original Korg DS-10 had a limited release until Gamestop picked it up three months after it launched.
According to Engadget, John Koller, Sony's head of PlayStation marketing, recently said that 'Apple's entrance into the portable gaming space has been a net positive for Sony. When people want a deeper, richer console, they start playing on a PSP.' What's odd though is that everyone knows that the mobile phone gaming market is a huge and yet neither Sony nor Nintendo has made a gaming phone yet. Recombu.com thinks that Nokia could enter the space with PSP-like devices and it has come up with a concept phone called the Ovi Orion, which would bridge the gap between phone and console, 'If the iPhone is Wii, then Ovi Orion would be Xbox and offer Xbox Live style features. A serious gaming phone for serious gamers.
It ain't the first company to do it, but Logitech's new iPhone app is certainly one of the easiest to get into. Oh, and did we mention that it's completely free to download? Available now in the App Store, Touch Mouse transforms your handset into a wireless trackpad or keyboard, and thanks to its reliance on vanilla WiFi signals, you won't need any proprietary equipment to get it up and running. It's fully compatible with both Mac and PC platforms, and it's obviously a pretty fantastic way to control your HTPC without dragging a full-fledged keyboard / mouse into the living room. Hit the source link for more details, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments once you give it a roll.
Capcom takes advantage of the Nintendo DS's download capability today, putting up a demo for Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth two weeks ahead of the game's release date.
Sometimes I forget that I can download things to my regular old DS. Hell, sometimes I forget I can do it with my DSi, and I write The Nintendo Download every week. It's nice to be reminded of the capability now and then, and a demo of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth seems like the perfect way to remember.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth lets players take a turn at crime scene investigation, searching for clues and using logic to combine facts to create new facts, eventually (hopefully) cracking the case. It's a whole new kind of Ace Attorney game, with the same flair and style of the Phoenix Wright incarnations.
Having trouble imagining what that's like? Then download the demo, silly. That, or buy the game when it comes out on February 16th. Your choice!
WiiWare finally sees Tales of Monkey Island through to its dramatic conclusion, and Alex Kidd takes a trip to Shinobi World, plus golf, cards, puzzles, and a little action RPG, all in this week's Nintendo Download.
It's been nearly two months since PC players got their hands on the fifth chapter of Telltale Games' Tales of Monkey Island, so it's about damn time Wii owners get their turn. Rise of the Pirate God's (1,000 Wii points) WiiWare release should have fans extinguishing their torches and going home to play, which in turn will allow the Telltale staff to return home to their loved ones once again. I love happy endings, don't you?
The epic conclusion to Tales of Monkey Island is joined by the possibly thrilling sequel to Gameshastra's action-puzzler Tumblebugs (800 points) and Digital Leisure's 5 in 1 Solitaire (500 points) on WiiWare this week.
The Virtual Console adds a bit of fun this week in the form of Alex Kidd in Shinobi World for the Sega Master System (500 points), a game that began as a cutesy parody of Shinobi and grew into a cutesy parody of Shinobi starring Alex Kidd. Remember back when Sega could release a game with only four levels and we'd be perfectly happy? We were such dorks back then.
DSiWare gets five new games this week, with nary a clock or colored notebook in sight. If it weren't for the inclusion of a portable version of Digital Leisure's 5 in 1 Solitaire (200 DSi points), Assoria's Move your Brain Rollway Puzzle (200 points), and EA's Downtown Texas Hold'em (500 points), I'd have hardly recognized the DSi download service.
Especially not with an action RPG in the mix. Gameloft's Legends of Exidia (800 points) covers all of the RPG bases. It has "Legend of..." in the name, a princess has been captured, and only you can complete quests and conquer monsters in order to prevent the resurrection of the almighty Draka. It's just a little bit cookie cutter, but when it's one of the only cookies on the service you don't notice its shape as much.
Finishing up this week's download is Nintendo's True Swing Golf Express (800 points), a tiny bite of True Swing action featuring both round play and a challenge mode that'll help players hone their skills and unlock new courses.
In case you weren't keeping count, that's nine new downloadable Nintendo titles newly available for purchase and play this very morning. Anything pique your interest?
EA has launched the multiplayer open beta for Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight, and all you have to do is sign into your free GameSpot account and wait.
You see, waiting for your key is the key to waiting to get into the C&C 4 multiplayer beta. GameSpot is doling them out by the thousands, giving players access to four maps from the game, including Afflicted Arena, a Polynesian GDI military dock under siege by the Brotherhood of Nod. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Even the game's lead designer thinks so.
"We could not be more excited to give fans a taste of what's in store for Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight with the new multiplayer beta," said Lead Designer, Samuel Bass. "Players can expect the fast-paced strategic RTS action they've come to know and love in the Command & Conquer franchise augmented with new gameplay elements that really ratchet up the intensity, especially in our 5v5 multiplayer modes."
I can hardly wait, but wait I must. Upon logging into my GameSpot account on the beta page, I was greeted by this:
Thanks for your interest in the Command & Conquer 4 Open Beta. We're currently limiting the rate at which we're distributing keys, but we've just secured you a place in line. We'll display your key here when we release more keys in the coming days, and we'll be sure to notify you by email as well.
Hell yeah, I've secured a place in line! Now to bide my time until that fateful day. Oh the biding I will do.
The LocoRoco edition of the PlayStation Portable becomes yet another gaming product to take advantage of the great crossover between fans of video games and fans of string cheese, as seen in a circular from this past weekend.
Here's how it works: We ask a question, you answer it. Simple and no strings attached! This isn't some marketing survey or whatever. It's an emotional investment in you. Yes, we're interested in knowing you, reader person.
You probably know oodles about us - more than you even want to, we're sure. But, hey, we'd like to know about you. That way you won't be some faceless blob — and we might feel a tinge of guilt when we ban ya. Or not, because really we're incapable of human emotion.
Question: Do you have a favorite gaming mascot? If so, who?!
Sure, we'd like a lot of things, too. Could we get a butterscotch waterfall in the backyard and maybe tiny, invisible robo-men with jetpacks to do the dishes for us every night? Or, better yet, could we get a better explanation for Champions Online's hold-up besides the "blame Microsoft" you said six months ago? But, we digress.
Cryptic's Craig Zinkievich told CVG that a console port of the com-pooter MMO is something the company is "definitely" interested in. "We would love to get STO to the console. At launch it will just be available for the PC but here at Cryptic we want our games across multiple platforms," he said.
However, before you break out your good Starfleet duds and crank the jamz up to eleven in celebration, know that should Cryptic pursue a console port, it likely wouldn't be available for quite some time. Zinkievich puts it this way: "But we'll have to see how Star Trek does and then secondly we want to do it justice and not hurry something along just to get it on the console."
Nintendo continues to drag its feet on an official response about Metroid Prime Trilogy's retail status, though online retailer Amazon tells Joystiq that the game has been discontinued. According to a representative from the online retailer: "Per Nintendo, we will no longer be offering Metroid Prime Trilogy at this time." Requests for comment from other retailers were not returned.
The fate of Metroid Prime Trilogy has been shrouded in confusing statements and PR jujitsu for almost a month now. Nintendo refuses to acknowledge it ever made the statement that the game was "no longer being shipped." Nintendo PR told Joystiq, in part (full statement after the break), "Copies of [Metroid Prime Trilogy] are currently available at major retailers nationwide." When pressured, the company representative stated that it is still "clarifying this matter" -- a process which has taken more than two weeks at the time of writing.
Sony's PlayStation Network-exclusive reality series "The Tester" will begin February 18th. The competition will have the above real gamers vying for a chance to win a glamorous testing job at PlayStation. Until April 8th, the PlayStation Store (for PSP and PS3) will update every Thursday with new -- and free -- episodes of the series.
Should "The Tester" successfully sidestep traditional employee recruitment and take off, don't be surprised if Sony announces "Who Wants to be Our Janitor?" next season.
Circuits@Home has put together some libraries that make it easy to use gaming controllers with an Arduino. They interface through the USB host shield. This means that PS3 controllers connect via USB through a cable or a dongle. With the Wii remote things get a little more interesting. A Bluetooth dongle is used to make the connection wirelessly. What we have here is a cheap and easy way to add Bluetooth connectivity to your projects either through the USB Host shield, or by building your own hardware with the schematics and code that are available from Circuits@Home.
The trick with checking out a new iPhone game from Gameloft, the makers of many hits on the platform, is to look for a clue of resemblance to some other game you've heard of. Cars? "GT Racing"? A ha!
You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of retro games. A journey into a wondrous console containing a bunch of old Genesis games and some generic motion-controlled games. That's the signpost up ahead. Your next stop: the Sega Zone.
Pocket Lint has images of a new licensed Sega console called the Sega Zone (or the Zone Sega, according to the box), out in the UK this summer, that contains 15 Genesis classics and 30 new games, 16 of which can be played with the device's two wireless motion controllers.
Essentially a Firecore Classic Console crossed with the "Zone 40," an existing knockoff Wii console, the Sega Zone also features a cartridge slot so you can play your copy of McDonalds' Treasure Land Adventure. It'll sell for £39.95 (about $60) in the UK.
features
Shadow of Destiny is a game unlike any other PSP game available where players can embark on a unique murder mystery, they’re own! The setting within the game will span over 500 years deep into the past to secure the details of why and how they were murdered. What you do in the past will affect the present
Solve various different puzzles while finding clues to reach the killer
Shadow of Destiny is the same game from highly rated release in 2001. It has the same mysteries, characters and look and feel as before, but now for the PSP
description
Imagine you are ambling down the street late one night when suddenly you are attacked and stabbed to death in the back. You wake up in a dark room where an unfamiliar face offers to “help you change your fate” and gives you a time-travel device. The next thing you know, you are in a café exactly 30 minutes before you were murdered with an imagination full of questions. This is the story of Ike – the main character in Shadow of Destiny. Assume the role of Ike using the special time travel device and embark on a quest to solve the most important mystery ever; your own! SOD will offer fun and brain stretching experience as they travel through time, collect clue, unlock new scenarios along the way to finding your killer and the motive.
features
Take on the role of an African Safari Park Ranger. Venture out in your vehicle to rescue wild animals with your lasso
Interactive animal enclosure to name, care for and track your animal after it has been released
Take on missions including animal rescues, photography and tourist sight seeing tours
Extensive level of customisation including characters, costumes, items and vehicle upgrades as you progress through the game
Explore over three exotic locations across many levels
Monitor released animals via real time map positions and check health statistics
description
Become a Safari Park Ranger in a wild action packed African adventure!
Embark on an exotic, action packed journey across your African Safari Park and complete missions to become a fully qualified ranger.
Take on challenges in a variety of Land Rover vehicles to rescue wild animals with your lasso and bring them back to The Ranch. Nurse your animals back to full health in the enclosure before releasing them back to the wild. Packed with realistic environments to explore, exciting challenges, customisation, photography and collectables, Jambo! Safari is a wild new adventure on Nintendo DS.
features
Work against the clock to turn your restaurant into the best restaurant in the world
Juggle making delicious food, keeping everything squeaky clean, greeting customers, and helping your waitress to improve your restaurant's popularity
Prepare yummy dishes including steaks, pasta, burgers, pizza and more!
Take care of VIP customers who will push your service and cooking skills to the limit
Replay each level from Story Mode in Free Mode and challenge your high score
description
Create the best restaurant in the world by cooking up yummy dishes, making your customers happy, greeting them when they stop by, and keeping your restaurant squeaky clean in this vibrant and fast-paced restaurant simulation game. A top-quality restaurant takes a lot of work, and your waitress will need help-keep the place clean, make deliveries, ring up customers, and more. Also features three difficulty levels, over 10 additional cooking mini-games, and Free Mode to replay completed levels and try for the top score.
features
Project Aces, the foremost developer of action-based flight simulation games and the team behind the Ace Combat series, brings their expert knowledge of intense aerial combat to Wii
The flight control stick is simulated by the Nunchuk which is tilted to roll, pitch, and yaw, while the Wii Remote is titled up to accelerate and down to decelerate in its role as the throttle
All the minor details of the aerial combatants are visible against a gorgeous landscape, while the realistic sound effects further immerse the player into an actual aerial dog-fight
A world so depraved that it needs war to thrive, this alternate reality is brought to life with animated cut-scenes and voiced in-game sequences during combat
description
After decades of constant war and fighting, the world has finally come to a lasting peace. But with war being an integral part of their lives for so long, the citizens of the world are desperate for a solution to solve this newfound peaceful life of calm and tranquility.
To ease this tension and to appease its citizens, the government has started pursuing a new round of wars. These new campaigns are not a power struggle between hostile countries, but rather sponsored events between private corporations with military-trained personnel contracted by each side to do their biding for them. It is the battles fought by these corporations such as Rostock and Lautern and the constant media reports on them that satisfy and replace the basic human instinct to fight using the war as a show.
The latest rookie pilot to join the Sky Crawlers, codenamed “Lynx,” is working his way up the ranks and becomes involved in a secret new military project with the goal of making pilots immortal. Join Lynx on his journey to conquer the skies while unraveling the mystery behind the military’s covert new project.
An update of the NES emulator nemulator has been released.
Quote:
1/30/2010
nemulator 2.1.3
* Four-screen mirroring fixes. Rad Racer 2 works correctly now (if it doesn´t, your ROM most likely has the wrong mirroring info in its header; try another copy).
* Support for SUROM boards (Dragon Warrior III and IV). Since the iNES format doesn´t provide enough info to identify these boards, the mapper_variant option needs to be set to 1 for them in nemulator.ini (GoodNES ROMs are already configured).
* SRAM wasn´t being saved on reset; fixed.
* Compiled using profile-guided optimization (PGO), resulting in 25% lower CPU utilization (if accurate mode was too slow before, try it now).
* Support for monitor refresh rates other than 60Hz (see timer_sync option in nemulator.ini).
PCSX Rerecording is a Sony Playstation 1 emulator for Windows based on PCSX. Quote: "PCSX Rerecording is the rerecording version of PCSX with many customized features designed to aid in recording movie input files.".
VisualBoyAdvance Rerecording is a Nintendo GBA and GB/GBC emulator (based on VisualBoyAdvance).
Quote:
r193
add lua51.dll and lib
r192
Fixed torn graphics with old good Direct Draw + VSync.
r191
spell
r190
Fixed crash when playing a movie from power-on with a ROM selected from a multi-file archive.
r189
And oops.
r188
Hopefully fixed multi-byte character set support.
r187
Added VS 2010 project files. Modified two files for VC++ 2010. Fixed Escape shortcut key.
r186
Lua: several changes for joypad api (ported from snes9x): * fixed joypad.set, it works fine even though the script has no frame-advance loop. * changed joypad.set, it no longer adds input if the field value means false.
DeSmuME ReRecording is a Nintendo DS emulator (based on DeSmuME).
Quote:
I fixed a few of bugs in desmume 0.9.5, so I´m going to put my updated version here.
Download improved version of DeSmuME 0.9.5 (with lua51.dll)
Note: It´s PGOed but I didn´t run the exe so much during optimization since it ran very slow on my machine (1-2 fps!), oh well
Changes
* Lua: enhanced gui.overlay(). The new one can overlay a part of image and load indexed image
* Fix terrible movie handle leaks
* Lua: Fix gui.gdoverlay()
Privateer: Ascii Sector is a free remake / demake of the classic game Privateer.
Quote:
Changelog:
* Fixed incorrect numbering on the roulette.
* Fixed bug that wouldn´t allow you to buy an Orion.
* Fixed bug that made it impossible to exit Combat Mode when engaged in combat on the Lucky Lady.
* Fixed bug that messed up the game if a ship that you´re docked with is destroyed (this will now also destroy your ship).
* Added keypad support for entering bet amounts in the casino.
Commodore Free issue 36 has been released. Commodore Free is a monthly/bi-monthly retrogaming magazine that comes in PDF, HTML, SEQ, Text, .DSK (C64 disk image) and features news, reviews and interviews involving the Commodore scene (C64, Amiga, VIC-20, C16). Highlights of the issue are shown below...
Commodore news
Cloanto Update Amiga and C64 forever
Bubbler found for the C64
Commodore at work
Interview with programmer Mike Dailly
Commodore 16/plus 4 programming
Wild Bunch review
Weblink: http://www.commodorefree.com/
OpenSceneGraph is a free set of high performance tools to carry out work on version 2.9.6 of this 3D.La 3D engine is compatible with OpenGL ES 1 and 2.
It offers a large number of plugins common for data files (3D objects and images).
Note: Thor wiz warns that the particles do not work in this version.
Quadromania is a game of puzzles free, functional across multiple platforms, which has been ported to GP2X Wiz. The game board consists of returning to its original state with the fewest moves possible.
Recently I was informed that Datel has released a new version of their Action Replay Cheat Cartridge that allows you to cheat in DS games on a DSi console. Knowing that Nintendo put quite some effort in blocking any third party cartridges from working on the DSi I was curious to figure out how they did it.
Before jumping in this article, I’ll give you a small warning that what is written here might be quite “techy” to some people, I advise reading lots of GBAtek (And maybe a bit of dsibrew) when you get lost.
Research™ has shown that getting a DS cart to boot on a DSi requires quite a bit more effort then it did on a (DS)Lite. Cart timings are very important, you cannot eject the cartridge and insert a new one beyond the DSi menu. But most important of all, the DSi menu does additional integrity checking prior to booting the cartridge.
The integrity checking is there to ensure that the cartridge booted is a genuine licensed game cartridge. There is a whitelist stored in the DSi’s NAND, that has an entry for every DS game released, consisting of multiple SHA1 (How these hashes are constructed exactly hasn’t been confirmed) checksums for the cart header, ARM9 binary and ARM7 binary.
I hear you thinking, what about newly released DS games? How will they ever boot on a DSi without an update to the whitelist? Newer DS games come with a RSA signature in the header and so don’t need to be explicitly whitelisted.
So back to the Action Replay DSi cartridge, something that I immediatly noticed is that when the cartridge is inserted into a DSi the icon and title of the game “Game & Watch Collection” show up. That’s a little weird.. but when selecting the icon you are thrown into a AR DSi menu.
Let’s take a step back, if all game binaries and headers are checked against a whitelist or need to have a valid RSA signature, then how does this Datel cart manage to boot?
scip, Rodris, agentx and djdynamtie123 we have just released a new version of its media player for our Wii.
This is a beta version which may contain many bugs.
This new drive can read files from:
SD-HC
USB
Video & DVD DATA DVD
Samba SMB (manager partarge file)
RADIO
QUOTE
R563
- Added volume control hardware via the AVE-RVL
- Added a converter sampling frequency 32 KHz -> 48 KHz
- Added support for IPL.DH in SYSCONF
- Fixed unreliable getch2-Gekko and minor changes in behavior
GodzIvan has refined his work on the Xbox 360 NAND flash write protection (see previous story) and developed a digital switch called NWP CHIP where you simply use the DVD eject button to toggle protection. The only parts required are a PIC12F629 microcontroller and a bi-color LED. Thanks for sharing
No leaks, no rumors, no teasers, no frustrated execs. Apart from revamping the Mega Drive in 2009, it seems that Sega has successfully kept itself under the radar about their plans of going back to manufacturing consoles - that is, until now. Electronics news blog Pocket-Lint has the goods on what appears to be the new Sega console.
It's called the Sega Zone, and it will launch along with 20 classic Sega titles, plus 30 more for added kicks - all from the publisher. 16 of those will be motion-controlled. For that, the package comes with two black Wiimote-like controllers with pretty much the same function.
While it's a console in the strictest sense, it doesn't appear to be a legit entry into the 7th gen war, even with its blatant Wii-ness. The Sega Zone is to launch this summer, priced at about £50, or almost US$ 80.
A new wip version of the ZX SPECTRUM +3, ZX Spectrum 128, ZX Spectrum 48, Arcade, Amstrad CPC 464, NES and Game Boy emulator DSP has been released.
Quote:
DSP 0.9ß4WIP 02/01/10
************
-General
+ENHANCE: New function to scroll a screen, but moved within another screen.
+ENHANCE: M6809 - Added opcodes $10EE, $10EF y $102C. Cleaned code of opcodes $10XX.
+ENHANCE: Added functions for not standard sizes sprites and transparent chars based on color table
+ENHANCE: NAMCO Sound - Simplified, now only uses one audio channel and voice are mixed internally
+NEW: NAMCO Sound - Added 8 voices sound
+BUG: At last! Fixed sprites cuts (Ghost´n´Goblins, Black Tiger, Pacman, etc). A lot of corrections in the sprites functions and data structures
-Mappy Hardware
+NEW: Added 8-voice polyphonic sound
+ENHANCE: Fixed scroll
+ENHANCE: Added graphical priorities
+ENHANCE: Fixed sprites.
-Mappy
+ENHANCE: Fixed the last graphical bugs
-Dig Dug 2
+NEW: Added driver
-Super Pacman
+NEW: Added driver
-Galaga Hardware
-Galaga
+NEW: Added driver, don´t work because the custom IO are not working
-Xain´d Sleena
+NEW: Added driver with sound.
-Suna
+NEW: Added driver with sound, missing DAC. Video only have sprites!
-Hard Head:
+NEW: Added driver.
Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has repeated Reggie Fils-Aimé mantra on the firm's next console, telling investors that simply making the next console compatible with HD televisions wouldn't be enough to guarantee sales.
Last month Nintendo US boss Fils-Aimé said the successor to the Wii would have to offer more than an HD upgrade and Iwata obviously agrees.
The Nintendo boss says: "If asked if making the Wii compatible with high definition -- just making it compatible with high resolution -- will get players throughout the world to buy it, I would of course say: 'Do you think it would sell with just that? It needs something new.'"
According to Andriasang, Iwata claimed that he's never spoken about Wii HD and wonders where the information came from. Try Reggie, boss!
Iwata has also called BS on claims he spoke of the next DS having motion control and HD screens.
EA’s FIFA 10 will take centre stage at a number of key Carphone Warehouse stores in two weeks time as the retailer kicks off its nationwide ‘Supreme Gamer’ tournament.
32 people from each of the supported areas (Manchester, Ipswich, Exeter, Cardiff, Salisbury, Oxford, Brighton and Hanley) will be selected from those who registered at the official site.
They will then be invited to take place in competitions in each of the corresponding stores, kicking off in the week beginning February 15th.
Each area winner will receive a Sony Ericsson Yari and a £50 voucher. They will also go forward to the grand final, the winner of whom will walk away with a 32inch HDTV, games console and two games.
Registration closes next Monday (February 8th).
EA Mobile's European boss Luca Pagano says the publisher is ready to invest more heavily in smartphone platforms beyond the iPhone.
"It’s where our business in the future will drive from, so we are ready to capture the opportunity when it arrives," he tells ME, while admitting that conditions are "not completely perfect" on the stores of some of Apple's rivals.
"The challenges have been widely discussed. Billing is one of the key ones. But we are looking forward to those challenges being properly tackled, and working together with Nokia, Google, RIM and the others," he says.
Meanwhile, EA Mobile may also look to experiment more with game pricing in the future, for example with in-app payments and freemium models.
"There is an understanding that we could actually do a favour to the business as well as to consumers by experimenting with different models," he says.
"That doesn’t necessarily mean giving things away for free though. It may be about giving a different engagement to the consumer with a very small barrier to entry, and then a way to monetise that further down the line."
Twelve of the 20 top grossing games in the UK App Store this week are based on console or PC brands.
In fact, the top four places in the chart are filled with console/PC-derived titles: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars; Rock Band; Broken Sword: Director's Cut; and Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies.
Others in the Top 20 include Driver, Spore Creatures, The Sims 3, Championship Manager 2010, FIFA 10, Worms, Sonic the Hedgehog and Need For Speed Shift.
It's more evidence that despite constant talk of the pressure on publishers to cut their iPhone game prices to $0.99 (59p here in the UK) to compete with the hordes of casual titles, it's pricier console brands that are making the most money.
In fact, only three of the 20 Top Grossing games cost 59p this week: Doodle Jump, All-In-1 Gamebox and Trenches.
The average price of the Top 20 is £3.19, compared to an average price of £1.83 for this week's Top Paid Games chart on the UK App Store, which measures number of downloads rather than overall revenues.
EA Mobile has seven games in the 20 Top Grossing Games chart - the only other publisher to have more than one is Gameloft, which has two.
No wonder EA's Luca Pagano claims the publisher is "dominating" on iPhone, at least here in the UK. This week's UK Top Grossing chart is reproduced below:
If EA is planning to release a PS3 version of Mass Effect 2, it's keeping schtum.
CVG checked in with the publisher this afternoon to ask if it was keen on releasing a PS3 version of the game, and all we got was a short, sharp: "No comment on that one." Delivered in a polite manner, we may add.
The comment comes after Polish site Kikoo claimed that there is some source code of the PC version of the game that suggests a PS3 iteration has been created.
So the PS3 version's not officially alive, but it's not officially dead. Doesn't do anything for the anxiety, hey PS3 fans?
73 per cent of adults have received a scam email in the past year, making it the most common scam approach, research has found.
According to a study by the Office of Fair Trading, social media sites are also an emerging route for scammers to contact targets. Eight per cent of adults have been approached this way, while 12 per cent had received scam text messages.
The OFT also found that 21 per cent had been sent a scam letter.
Over four million people said they had responded to a scam, with almost a third of them losing money. Of those, 49 per cent lost over £50, while five per cent lost more than £5,000.
The release of the figures is part of the OFT’s Scams Awareness Month, which aims to raise awareness of the scale of the problem.
John Fingleton, chief executive of the OFT, said: “Scammers are using ever more sophisticated and cunning tactics to dupe people out of their cash. We want people to recognise the warning signs, and feel confident enough to seek advice from friends and family or from Consumer Direct.”
Consumer Minister Kevin Brennan added: “It is really important that people are on their guard and know that help is available as scams can bring real upset and misery to their victims. We have invested £7.5 million to create 'scambuster' teams across the country. These specialist Trading Standards teams are working hard with the Police and others across local authority boundaries to come down hard on the worst scammers.”
The OFT study follows security firm Sophos' announcement that malware attacks on social networking sites had increased 70 per cent.
Dop-MOD IOS is a homebrew developed by Arikado, and SifJar Lunatik which enables IOS to install and apply a patch to exploit the flaw and trucha of the System menu of all regions and versions and chains, to reintroduce the Trucha flaw in IOS as TBR, a report of émmettre syscheck , delete the IOS stub and get info on his boot2.
In contrast to DOP-IOS MarcThis mod allows you to choose which IOS sales person you want to install other.
For those who have been affected by the bug versions 11.3 and 11.4, the solution is to remake a syscheck with v11.5
QUOTE
v11.5
- Fixed bug syscheck who caused restart the Wii at the launch of a chain.
v11.4 (brig chains do not use)
- Fixed syscheck: The check for the permission was supossé replace NAND check the Boot2.
v11.3 (brig chains do not use)
- Fixed syscheck report showed that "Disable" on certain IOS even if they were so patched.
- Fixed a memory leak.
v11.2
- Correction: The revision of the "shopping channel" was set to 0 fesait what he thought she needed to update then it is already
An anonymous reader points out that the latest Net Applications numbers show that MSIE 8 has become the world's most-used browser, taking over from IE6, which has been hit by the decline in the use of Windows XP. PCMag.com emphasizes another angle on the numbers, which is that Chrome is the fastest-growing browser. Firefox's market share has stalled just below 25%. Chrome is now in third place, ahead of Safari. The Guardian's article reminds:
"There's no guarantee that NetApps' numbers are accurate, and they are very unlikely to be correct to two decimal places. However, they do appear to be a good indicator of market trends."
Several readers have written to tell us that AMD has published their code to support the Radeon HD 5000 "Evergreen" graphics cards on Linux in an open-source driver. Unfortunately the driver isn't quite as complete as some might hope. The current offering doesn't promise 2D (EXA) acceleration or 3D support.
"The DDX driver supports mode-setting on the Evergreen/R800 series GPUs with VGA and DVI connectors while the DisplayPort connectivity is still not working right, according to AMD's Alex Deucher who had written most of this code. These new AMD graphics cards have been around since September while there was no open-source support at that time. In December just before Christmas there was Evergreen Shader documentation that was made publicly available and around that time it was confirmed via our forums that initial VGA mode-setting was working with Evergreen internally on unreleased code. Since then the digital connector support has been added in and this code has finally cleared AMD's legal review. The revised target was to publish this code by FOSDEM, which is this weekend so AMD did hit the target this time."
CWmike writes with a warning that free preview copies of Windows 7 in the wild will start nagging users to pay up in a couple of weeks until ultimately shutting down the PC altogether in a month.
"Microsoft unveiled the schedule for Windows 7 Release Candidate's retirement in May 2009, when it issued the early look to the public. At the time, it said Windows 7 RC would expire June 1, 2010. Before that date, however, users are to receive warnings of the impending end. Starting on Feb. 15, Windows 7 RC will display notices every few hours that the machine will periodically shut down beginning on March 1. As of March 1, PCs running Windows 7 RC will automatically shut down every two hours. Those shutdowns will come without warning."
A Sony Computer Entertainment Europe executive has said that he expects Gran Turismo 5 to come out "this fall, before Christmas", while confessing the release date is "not yet decided".
The comments come from James Armstrong, boss of SCEE's Portuguese arm, in an interview with Spanish site Canarias Al Dia. They were spotted by GT Planet.
It was Armstrong who originally suggested that GT5 would be out in late 2009, a position held by Sony right up until a March 2010 Japanese release date was announced at last year's Tokyo Game Show. A summer Western release was mooted before the Japanese launch was delayed.
A new release date has yet to be given for the PS3's motorsport opus, so it's disappointing but hardly surprising to see Gran Turismo 5 heading towards the end of the year.
GT5 has now been in development for five years at a cost, according to creator Kazunori Yamauchi, of of some $60 million.
Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid developer The Behemoth has slapped a title and a story (sort of) on its third Xbox Live Arcade game: BattleBlock Theater.
The studio posted a new trailer and a plot synopsis along with the title announcement on its blog. It's "a story about friendship, betrayal, and a whole truck load of cats".
"Having shipwrecked on a mysterious island you find yourself both betrayed by your best friend Hatty and captured by the locals. All of this is happening while being forced into deadly performances. This however, is just the start of your problems," runs the blurb.
The trailer shows you and your friend fighting over a top hat and a large green gem and crying. There's also something about "hundreds of prisoners forced into deadly plays", and then a lot of little characters with geometric heads jumping around and hitting each other.
It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it doesn't need to. Castle Crashers is one of the best-selling and best-loved games on XBLA, and BattleBlock Theater seems to have the same blend of multiplayer mayhem and cute cartooning. The game's due for release some time this year.
Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has promised to finally reveal the new Zelda game this summer.
Iwata, straight to the point, told investors during Friday's financial briefing that, "We will show the new Zelda title for Wii at E3 this year." He added that the Wii Vitality Sensor and games for it will also be announced at the show.
He also revealed a few new titles heading to Japan this year on Wii and DS.
Top of the bill is a new DS Pokemon game - the first in four years. Iwata gave this no name but said there will be "various unprecedented experiences" within.
There's also a new "full-scale RPG" on the way to Wii called Xenoblade. This will be developed by Monolith Software and Tetsuya Takahashi. You may have known this project as Monado: Beginning of the World. Metroid: Other M will be released this summer on Wii in Japan, and Mistwalker's Last Story and Super Mario Galaxy 2 will appear later in the year.
The Facebook version of Sid Meier's Civlization will not begin beta testing until June.
Meier and gang will start canvassing for testers soon, according to Variety.
Announced in October, Civilization Network will use Facebook to get friends working together or competing with each other as they attempt to build the best settlement around. It's ambitious and has ludicrously-lucrative potential should the photo-swappers bite.
The aim, at least until the game builds momentum, is to be free-to-play.
Keep an eye on the Civilization Network Facebook page to stand a chance at becoming one of those beta testers.
Tecmo Koei has confirmed that PS3 and 360 shooter Quantum Theory has been delayed until later in the year.
"We can confirm that Quantum Theory has been moved to later in 2010. We feel the game deserves optimum development time, and we aim to deliver the very best title we can. We are still thoroughly committed to Quantum Theory and this short delay can only make for a stronger, more entertaining game," the publisher told Eurogamer in a statement.
Quantum Theory is a Gears of War-style shooter from Tecmo Koei. There are some screens and videos on the gamepage, if you like that sort of thing.
Sony is lowering the price of PSP and PS3 Minis in February.
The first sale starts this Thursday, 4th February and runs until Thursday, 18th February. Kahoots, Vempire, Breakquest, Majohngg Artifacts and Dracula all drop from £2.99/€2.99 to £1.74/€1.99.
Fieldrunners and Pinball Fantasies go from £3.99/€4.99 to £3.46/€3.99, and Bloons falls from £3.49/€3.99 to £1.99/€2.49.
The European PlayStation blog also promises you free Minis during February, as well as wallpapers, themes and that sort of thing. Specifics aren't mentioned yet.
Minis are small downloadable games originally only for PSP and PSPgo, but now compatible with PS3.
The iPad's not even on sale yet, but that hasn't stopped designer Michael Greenberg from imagining a gaming peripheral for it. Like the wheels built for the Wiimote, the iDrift could help aid in turning sharp corners when gaming.
This is the very first project I ever started with Palib, I never finished it. I 'found' it back when I was cleaning my hard-disk and decided to complete it to share it with the Palib community.
What is it all about? Just see if your EyeQ is as high as Einsteins IQ. Give it a try an improve your score. The more you play, the better you get ;-)
I managed to fixed the black screen issue, it was indeed related to the save game issue. The download link in the top post is updated. I realise that running it on an emulator will not allow you to break the record... so no more excuses now. :-)
Select Walmarts and Best Buys housed E-Play kiosks to accept used games. E-Play folded, and neither retailer found continuing the experiment worth the hassle. Just save your old media while it lasts, kids. Two words: collector's items.
It seems that we're getting a first peek at what a Google Chrome OS based tablet may look like. Glen Murphy, Google Chrome's designer, posted this UI concept video along with some images on Google's official Chromium site
This is my 1 day project, A mini tone matrix. (google it, there awesome, the real ones that is!)
It's a small 8x8 grid of buttons.
Tap a button to activate it. Press the arrows to tell the NDS how many times to play the tune.
Then just hit play, and hear what you made with the button combination
Notes:
There is just 1 problem with this game, The NDS can only process 8 RAW files at 1 time.
Therefor. if you fill 1 line from top to bottom, the next column, will simply skip, until those sounds are done.
Though this sounds like crap, it's no worry, since if you play all sounds at once.. your just hear a very loud note, and it sounds like shit anyway. so just don't do that, make rhythms and loop them, it's a fun little app!
Trumpets playing, bloody moons, seas of fire, cats cohabiting with dogs, and Windows 7 running on the Apple iPad right on the day it launches. That's how the Universe ends, my dearly beloved, and you can blame Citrix for it:
Kabir94 offers "Stylus Maze"0.2, where you have to drive the small blue square to the exit, picking up the yellow balls without touching the sides of the trail.
¥21,000 ($232), Japan, March 4. All of the foregoing should be irrelevant information because we're absolutely, positively, definitely sure you're not going to actually buy one. Right? Look, even if you genuinely don't object to Blossom Pink as your color scheme, and if you quite rightly find yourself attracted by the handy soft pouch for ensconcing your new PSP-3000 in, don't you care about what other people might think? And that's entirely aside from the generic and lazy expectation that women will buy anything so long as it bears a hue from the pink portion of the spectrum. Either way, this bundle of corporate greed and malevolence is coming in about a month's time, if you're weird enough to care.
We've already seen some mods for using a real drum set with Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but it looks like Omega Music Technology's new GM-1 system is the first off-the-shelf option, which should no doubt please the less DIY-inclined among us. Available on its own or bundled with a Pearl drum set, the system packs individual sensors that detect each drum hit with "speed and accuracy" and, most importantly for those not playing, support for mesh heads and a dampening system for the cymbals -- of course, if you opt for the drum set package, you'll also get some real drum heads. Omega is even going so far as to promote the system as an ideal way to learn to play the drums and, conversely, says that non-gamer musicians that tried it were able to start playing songs with ease immediately. Hit up the gallery below for a closer look at the complete kit, and look for the basic system to run you $249.
In late February, more than three months after its last Wii release, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Nintendo will finally launch its next, Endless Ocean: Blue World. This sequel has a twist: It's more of a game than its predecessor.
The first Endless Ocean was a January 2008 oddity here in America, a scuba-diving simulator set to New Age music, a game that encouraged players to take virtual photos of virtual fish or use the Wii's motion controls to pet them. The interactive underwater safari even supported online co-op play, a feature absent from any other Nintendo-published game on the Wii.
The first game was a wet sandbox, letting players transport a boat across a few dozen quadrants of fresh and saltwater diving areas, dunking their diver beneath the surface and scoping out the wildlife. A very light narrative propelled the player through some underwater artifact searches. The game climaxed with the search for a massive whale.
I played the sequel, Blue World, today at a Nintendo demo event in New York City. Like the first, it is developed by a company called Arika and published by Nintendo. I was told by a Nintendo representative who walked me through that game that, well, it's more of a game than the last one.
This time there's a quest, one that the Nintendo guy didn't want to spoil too much, short of explaining that archaeological exploration is involved. I was told that we're looking for the "Dragon Song," whatever that is and that things might get a bit mystical. He said that diving can still be an undersea wander, but that there will be more quests, more tasks with goals.
There's also, in this non-violent game, a sort of gun. The thing is called a Pulsar and I guess it makes fish more mellow. Using the Wii Remote alone, I swam my diver to a region accessible early in the game where a Tiger Shark was lurking. It started swimming toward me. Pulsar at the ready, I shot it a few times. It was subdued. Later, I saw some sick fish, their sickness indicated by red targeting squares hovering over their swimming bodies. In a first-person few, I should some Pulsar rounds at them, making them happier and healthier.
The new game's controls are simple and Remote-only, as were the first one's. MotionPlus is not supported, though Wii Speak is, to improve the experience of the returning online co-op. The game is now set around the world, in four fictional locations in different climates, all populated by realistic and superbly animated sea life. The player has an island home-base this time, from where they can go on missions, take in-game characters on dives and learn what they must do to upgrade their equipment. Better equipment allows a player to dive deeper or for a longer period of time.
While I didn't see it in Blue Ocean, I was told that the new game will also allow players to once again have a dolphin buddy. The player will sometimes need to hang onto the dolphin and let it swim into new regions. In the first game, the player was even able to cling onto full-sized whales.
The first Endless Ocean was one of the Wii's more graphically impressive games, at least in the 90% of it that was set underwater. As with the first game, the above-water graphics and the non-swimming human character models look simple and stiff, but, underwater, the game is delightful to look at. Sealife swims with convincing realism, the ocean teeming with rays, sharks and schools of fish. A swim through a forest of kelp looked lovely.
As devoid of stated goals as the first Endless Ocean was, it still managed to drive the player through its adventure with the motivation of curiosity. When the world undersea looks as beautiful as it does in a well-rendered video game — to say nothing of real life — the pull is strong to swim past the next coral reef and see what is beyond. Grafting more of a traditional goal-oriented game design to that could bring more players to Blue World's depths. But it could also disrupt the natural beauty of serene dive. We'll be able to determine which is the case on February 22 when Endless Ocean: Blue World is released for the Wii.
On December 17, role-playing game Final Fantasy XIII went on sale for the PS3 in Japan. It was priced at ¥9,240 (US$102). Want to sell back your copy?
In a little over a month and a half, the used game is fetching ¥1,500 (US$17) from major Japanese game retailer GEO. By comparison, used games Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 on the PS3 commands ¥4,800, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 merits ¥4,500 and Musou OROCHI Z is priced at ¥3,100.
The lower end of the scale looks like this: Uncharted is worth ¥1,500, NBA Live 10 is ¥2,000, Grand Theft Auto IV is ¥2,500 and Dragon Ball Z Raging Burst is ¥1,500.
Remember, these are buy-back prices. The games will then be sold at higher prices. What's more, the prices do not reflect the quality of the games, but rather, the supply and demand. Most likely, low buy-back prices means that many players, who have probably already finished the title, are selling back the game.
In Japan, renting games is not wide spread and permitted in the same way it is in the West. Instead, players buy games and keep the disc, booklet and case in pristine condition so they can sell back to the titles to shops like GEO.
This is a PC casemod. Meaning there's a personal computer somewhere inside that mannequin of Kratos, star of Sony's God of War series. Meaning terror is only ever a spreadsheet away.
On the PlayStation 3, Final Fantasy XIII will ship on a single Blu-Ray. Avantage of the format! On the Xbox 360, however, the game will - as expected - ship on three discs.
Sources at Square Enix USA have confirmed with Kotaku the reports from yesterday, which have settled a long-running - if ultimately pointless - debate amongst fans of the series.
We say pointless because for a game like this, three discs aren't so bad. After all, Final Fantasy VII came on three discs. And the 360's other big Japanese role-playing games - Mistwalker's Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey - shipped on four discs, and people didn't seem to mind that either.
If you're stuck in the queue waiting to get your hands on the Command & Conquer 4 beta, you could always kill a minute or two looking at these new screens for the game
It's safe to say that the PSPgo hasn't had the reception that was expected of it. Sales haven't been crazy, and most seem to have completely ignored the system's launch entirely. With this kind of negativity surrounding the PSPgo, it's no wonder that Sony wants to do something about it. According to someone close to Sony, they are. Sources have confirmed with Gamervision that a PSPgo "relaunch" is imminent, complete with a marketing blitz in hopes to rekindle some sort of excitement over the handheld. What else will the relaunch entail? There are a number of possibilities, and there's little doubt a price drop might be among them.
Even when compared to the other issues the PSPgo has, the high price seems to be paramount for keeping it out of gamers' hands. It's more expensive than the other models by almost $100, and doesn't even have all of the content the regular system has. Even if they don't drop the price, a massive media blitz would be a great idea, and odds are whatever is done will have a healthy dose of Kevin Butler as well. Those ads seem to have struck a cord with fans and haters alike, especially when compared to the companies earlier attempts at advertising.
We're not certain when this is supposed to start, but with GDC right around the corner I'd expect to hear a little more in the near future. We'll keep you posted.
When first announced, Nintendo's line of "New Play Control" games seemed like a great idea. Repackage games from the criminally unloved GameCube, then sell them onto a massive audience that missed them first time around. So what's happened?
It's been over a year since the first "New Play Control" title was released in Japan, and since then, only a handful of games have been "updated" for the Wii with new features like Wii Remote compatibility and 16:9 visuals. And not many of them are any good.
So come on, Nintendo. Where are the rest? There are dozens of titles released on the GameCube that are due a second lease on life. Titles like these.
We've gone ahead and made a selection of some of the games we think are most deserving of a Wii re-release. Some, like Wind Waker, are purely for the 16:9 visuals. Others, like F-Zero, are because they're amazing games that never received the sales, or credit they were due, all because they were released on the poor little GameCube.
Also selected are a couple of amazing games that used Nintendo's fun, but under-utilised Game Boy Advance connectivity. Re-release them on the Wii and you can just split the screen and let four players go at it. Finally, we've also picked out a few classic titles from third-party publishers, which to date are yet to be represented in the New Play Control line.
While some may benefit from Wii controls and others may not, it's not - despite the line's name - all about the controller in your hand. The key point here is that there were many GameCube games that suffered unduly from problems plaguing the console itself; with the Wii now the best-selling platform in the world, this is more about giving those games a second chance with people who missed them first time around.
The Wall Street Journal today examines "Why Playfish Sold Itself to EA." Um, wouldn't you sell yourself for $300 million? While such an investigation might seem trivial, the WSJ calls in Playfish president and GM Kristian Segerstrale, who reveals that several hundred million is merely chump change. Playfish certainly considered a road to riches paved in the arduous process of going public as an independent company, but "as we advanced our conversations with EA, what became clear was that this would be genuine opportunity to accelerate our pace of growth and build a billion-dollar business faster," Segerstrale explains.
To realize this dream -- to get rich really quick -- Playfish clearly saw it would take more than its prowess as a stand-out developer in the burgeoning social games arena. It would take brand power. According to the WSJ, as suggested by Segerstrale, "there will be a social game based on a well-known EA brand this year." Hardly a revelation, to be sure, but it's at least confirmation of a killer strategy. Take an established IP -- likely EA's The Sims -- and adapt it for a network of social gaming experiences that spans persistent platforms like Facebook and the iPhone. Oh, so that's why Playfish sold itself to EA.
Upgrading Joyau, the only Ruby interpreter available for the PSP, by its author Kode. This interpreter allows the creation of small 2D games using the Old School Library (OSL), and use many of the original Ruby interpreter functions. This version corrects some bugs in previous releases, integrated some additional libraries, and added a useful screen for debugging.
Changelog:
Quote:
- Fixed some bugs in previous version
- Added support for some libraries present in ruby stdlib
- Added libraries BigDecimal, digest, fcntl, squeeze, strscan, zlib, enumerator, thread, and NK
- Added debugging screen
- Other minor changes
First reaction: lolwhut? Of course casual gamerz haven't hurt the hardcore. Hardcore have mad skillz.
Second, more thoughtful reaction: Oh -- Cowen and Company's Doug Creutz was speaking in terms of business. That makes a little more sense. Speaking to Edge, Creutz espoused his belief that "non-traditional" formats like the iPhone and social gaming have not hurt the core gaming market. Rather, said Creutz, "We believe that these newer gaming media represent a distinct and non-competitive market segment from console gaming, which is dominated by the core gamer." He elaborated that while casual titles didn't fare as well in 2009, the sales of core titles were still strong (a reasonable belief).
According to Creutz, the "difficulties" faced by the industry are the result of the "relatively slow uptake" of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, thanks in large part to their high price points. However, now that both the PS3 and 360 have reached mass market prices, the console cycle will "reaccelerate to the benefit of the publishers that are positioned to take advantage."
Creutz sentiments seem to be in line with many of the major game publishers, as both Capcom and EA have expressed dissatisfaction with the Wii market, with a Capcom spokesperson outright declaring, "If you're not Nintendo, it does seem harder to make money on the Wii today compared to the PS3 and the Xbox 360". Meanwhile, Ubisoft has announced that it plans to "refocus" its efforts on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2010.
New update from Mediumgauge PSP Filer, application, now at version 6.6, which in addition to managing the full content of your memory stick, there will also launch homebrew, open file format .zip / .rar, dump your UMD and much more.
Changelog v6.6:
Quote:
- Fixato a bug that did not allow the exact calculation of the size of the directory
- Fixato a bug in the audio player
- Fixato a bug that caused a crash when you start a UMD
- Added the duration of playing an audio file player
- Fixati more bbug
After a long, long wait i've finally released the map editor to version 0.02 of psp mario. I've been very busy with exams, coursework etc.
So this is more useful for the creative people, again, please read the 'README' file. It contains everything you'll need to know, controls, how to submit levels etc.
For a run-down of the changes:
-Code improvements with rendering
-Collision layer updated with the latest resources from the engine, coins, koopas/red/green added.
-Also the possibility to chose mario/luigi's starting position included.
Now just a heads up for v0.03 of the game(PSP Mario - The New Worlds), it is still being worked on, i've done a bit of a re-code with certain parts like the animation, controls etc. Like i said the controls in the previous versions weren't that good, mario just stood still when he stopped walking and the jumping wasn't great in-game either. So i've been revamping the controls, there's a few bugs with the enemy collision code as-well, but yes i did take a little break from the whole coding world for a month or so hence why this has been released til now.
If i had to give a date, it would be sometime during March maybe early April.Hope you guys like it
Well heres a bug Fix of the latest DayPR fixed the scrolling bug where it didnt show the last cheat in the Hacks tab. I also added a Extra Cheat File thingy ma bob .-. where you can load a new set of cheats.
Please Read the README.txt included
And please contact me right away if you notice any new bugs
A plugin that will help you disable/enable your Power Switch whenever you want.
Useful for keeping your Custom Firmware Active (chickhen) & protecting your game progress
from any accidental shutdown.
Compatibility Update
Features:
-Enables/Disables your psp power switch
-Block & Unblocks your psp power switch with the same button combo
-Works In VSH & Game Mode
Changelog:
-Compatible with ChickHEN , GEN Firmware & M33 Firmware
-Works for both PSP Phat & PSP Slim & PSP Brite
-Credits,Readme and Changelog are now updated
Let’s face it, the original Xbox is ugly. It might have looked cool when it first came out but now most would be embarrassed to display that old beast with the rest of their entertainment hardware. This is unfortunate because the old girl still has some life in her. If you have tools, time, and talent you can give the box a facelift and bring it back to see the light of day. We’ve got six of our favorite Xbox to Home Theater PC hacks after the break to inspire you. http://hackaday.com/2010/02/02/our-f...to-htpc-hacks/
Tired of saving the world from alien invaders? In Reverse Shooting the tables and your Nintendo DSi are turned.
You play Reverse Shooting with the touch screen on top. The bottom screen has a standard looking spaceship, which is the target in this game. Shoot it down by sliding enemies and tapping ships on the top screen.
Reverse Shooting has a neat versus mode too where one player controls the spaceship with the buttons and the other manages the enemies on the same DSi.
Robert Ludlum's best-selling spy novels and blockbuster film adaptations have thrilled millions. Now become Ludlum's most famous spy Jason Bourne, going deeper than ever into his world of espionage and conspiracy.
A signature Jason Bourne video game experience is born in an original title fusing the viscous tension and depth of the novels with the aggressive style and frenetic action of the films.
Never judge a book by its cover, especially in this dangerous and glamourous world of espionage. Bourne Conspiracy is available as a region free Asian version for Xbox360™ for the unbeatable bargain price of US$ 15.90 only.
UK consumers spent £38 billion on internet shopping last year, making them the biggest online spenders in Europe.
According to the Press Association, a study by the Centre for Retail Research and price comparison site Kelkoo found that purchases by Brits made up 30 per cent of the continent’s web shopping. UK consumers also had the largest average individual online spend at £1,102 over the year.
Germany and France were the second and third biggest internet spenders respectively, while Poland had the smallest market.
Online sales grew by 12 per cent in the UK in 2009, representing 9.5 per cent of total retail sales in the country. The report predicts the UK online market will continue to grow, this year rising by 12.4 per cent to £42.7 billion.
Across the continent as a whole, online shopping accounted for 4.7 per cent of all retail sales, and this figure is expected to increase to 5.5 per cent this year – a total sales value of up to £152.8 billion.
Mass Effect 3's release timing will be based on maximising both "quality" and "commercial success", says BioWare co-boss, Ray Muzyka.
Speaking to CVG in the just-published second part of our Mass Effect 2 interview, Muzyka said that despite reports to the contrary, there's no word on when BioWare's planning to release Mass Effect 3 yet.
"I don't think we've announced the timing for the third one yet but I can tell you the team's already working on it," he said.
"Our goal is to get it out in a time frame that can maximise the quality for our fans, maximise the commercial success for the company and just make sure we do the right thing overall for the long term for the franchise."
Last month series director, Casey Hudson suggested the developer is adopting a 2-year development cycle for Mass Effect 3, meaning it could release as early as late next year.
The 3.1.3 firmware update for the iPhone is out now, available through an iTunes update. It's no revelation, fixing only the accuracy of the 3GS battery meter and the stability of some third-party app launches. Apologies if you were excited.
This Thursday PlayStation 3 owners can take their guitar controllers into battle with Fret Nice, a rhythm platformer created for the PC by Swedish students, brought to the PlayStation Network courtesy of Tecmo.
Tecmo surprised us at E3 last year with the addition of Fret Nice to its lineup, which traditionally consisted of more "hardcore" titles like Ninja Gaiden and Undead Knights. In comparison to those two, Fret Nice is a relatively light-hearted game, in which players help members of the band Vibrant Chordblasters save the world from the oppressive Hair Bangers. To accomplish this goal, players will rock out on their guitar controllers, pulling off riffs to defeat enemies.
It's an amazing concept, and an excellent use for those guitar controllers gathering dust in the corner of your living room.
Squaro PSP is a port of the game Squaro, created by Marc Lebel (www.squaro.fr).
The purpose of Squaro: finding rounds to complete.
For that there are in each box a number from 0 to 4, which corresponds to the number of rounds to complete among those at the four corners of this box.
All grids have a unique solution.
Instructions:
- General --
Cross: OK
Triangle: Back
Select: Change language
- Selection grid --
Start: Starting grid
L and R: Switching between levels
- Basics --
D-Pad: Move
Cross: Fill / Empty circle
Triangle: Return to selection grid
Start: following grid once the grid current completed
Thank you to Marc Lebel for game creation and approval for the PSP version.
Miles
World of Warcraft has been patched to reach version 3.3.2. The update brings with it serveral changes dungeons & raids, classes, items, the UI, and more, including the addition of Frostwing Halls to the Icecrown Citadel, which is the final stronghold of the Scourge and their Lich King.
If somehow you've become concerned that another iPhone might not be on the way to market, you can now rest easy. Our ingenious tipsters have discovered yet another fascinating factoid deep within the Frameworks of the iPhone OS 3.2 SDK, namely: the codename of the next iPhone. Buried way inside the platform simulator lies a set of folders dedicated to specific models of iPhone OS-ready devices, including the iPhone 3GS, second generation iPod touch, something called the "K48" (yep, the codename we were told was the internal name for the iPad), and... the "N89." Sure, it sounds like a Nokia phone just waiting to happen, but this is -- according to our extremely knowledgeable and trusted sources -- likely the codename of the next iPhone (previous versions were called the M68, N82, and N88). We can't take too much away from this beyond the fact that the model exists, though we're certain that with a little more digging, some detail is sure to rear its head (attention hive-mind). Interestingly, Apple's just released firmware (3.1.3) also includes another new model, the "N80," which we're told will most likely be the next version of the iPod touch. We're going to keep researching here, so stay tuned for more.
News from Play Asia of a new sale and chance to win prizes too:
Kung Hei Fat Choi! It's Lunar New Year again! Some of you may be wondering what this Lunar or Chinese New Year is about: The Traditional Chinese Calendar is based on Moon cycles and starts a few weeks after the western New Year. This festival is the most important, and joyoys time in Chinese societies. People buy new clothes, sweep their house and children get red pockets.
Every lunar year is represented by an animal. Last year, it was the ox that represents hard work, and this year is the year of the tiger, promising adventures and dynamic. These big cats are natural leaders, we certainly hope that they'll lead everybody to a happy and prosperous year.
To welcome the Tiger, Play-Asia.com will start into the New year with the Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale, with thousands of brilliant bargains and a chance to win awesome prizes.
Look for the goodies left on your Christmas wish list, there's a good chance that they're now available at a lower price. We have carefully reviewed our inventory and the result is a total of around 5,000 in-stock items, we have around 2000 games, 200 console accessories, 400 toys, 200 books, 800 music CDs and around 1000 movies.
For more details on the bargain items, please take a look at our bargains section! But this is not all! Like we've done with our sales in the past, you will again have the chance to win fantastic prizes such as consoles, games and store credits. So what are you waiting for?
And this is how it works:
Now Tiger will guide you to where the Sales and the Lucky Draw are. The cheerful big cat will stop by the bargained products between February 2nd and February 11th, snap up the goodies and there you go, entered into the Lucky Draw. The more you buy, the more you save and the higher your chances of winning our prizes.
The winners of the 30 main prizes will be announced in this news post during the last week of February 2010 and will also be notified by e-mail.
Yet, be aware. Some products are restocked regularly, so the tiger comes back time and time again, yet for limited versions, such as toys and music, once the tiger leaves (out of stock) he never returns. Set your priorities and plan your shopping strategies.
Prizes:
1st Prize: A: PlayStation3 Slim- Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Bundle (250GB Model Asia version)
2nd Prize: Nintendo Wii™ Console [Black or White] (Japanese Version) + 2 Wii™ Games of your choice*
3rd Prize: A: Nintendo DSi™ LL Console + 2 NDS™ Games of your choice*
OR
B: Sony PSP™ Slim & Lite Console + 2 PSP™ Games of your choice*
4th Prize: GP2X Wiz Game System + Leather Case
5-10th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 50 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
11-30th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 20 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
(*) The "game of your choice" is only valid for any game priced up to a maximum of US$ 70 per title. Winning choices may be limited to countries where shipping restrictions apply. Prizes cannot be redeemed as cash.
This looks like it may be more of a price war than an official price drop, but anyone in the market for a Zune HD may one to pay a visit to Amazon or Newegg fairly soon, as they're now both selling the device for what appears to be the lowest price yet. While there's no telling how long it'll last, you can now snag a black 16GB Zune HD for $189.99 ($30 off the MSRP), or a 32GB Platinum Zune HD for $249.99 (a discount of $40). As of this writing, most other retailers seem to be offering nothing more than $20 discounts, though we have a suspicion that may change in the near future.
The PlayStation Portable will get a brilliant new feature for visitors to London's Emirates Stadium, as the Arsenal Football Club will offer sports fans instant replays of action streamed wirelessly to their PSPs over the stadium's WiFi network.
The long-rumored, recently leaked existence of PlayStation 2 games joining the "PS One Classics" line comes a bit closer to reality, at least in the mind of PlayStation senior VP Peter Dille who calls the digital re-issues a "terrific opportunity."
In an interview with IGN, Dille says that the PlayStation folks are "working really hard on" bringing more PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games to the PlayStation Store, not quite an official announcement, but another glimmer of hope.
"From our side, we're going through our own studio organization and trying to make sure all these old games are out there so that we can lead by example, but we're also communicating with all the third-parties about the success of the Final Fantasy games, and other PS1 and PS2 classics," Dille tells IGN. "By all means, I think people can look for more of that because once the third-parties see how this works, it's just found money. There's not a whole lot of work that has to go into it and once we can get it up on the network, it finds an audience pretty quickly."
With PS2 backward compatibility all but dead on the PlayStation 3 going forward, it would seem like some of that "found money" would be an attractive option for Sony. About as attractive as the rumored addition of Dreamcast games to the PS3 would be for me.
Maybe we'll hear something official closer to GDC or E3 this year.
Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale starting now! Nearly 5000 discounts and the chance to win cool prizes!
Kung Hei Fat Choi! It's Lunar New Year again! Some of you may be wondering what this Lunar or Chinese New Year is about: The Traditional Chinese Calendar is based on Moon cycles and starts a few weeks after the western New Year. This festival is the most important, and joyoys time in Chinese societies. People buy new clothes, sweep their house and children get red pockets.
Every lunar year is represented by an animal. Last year, it was the ox that represents hard work, and this year is the year of the tiger, promising adventures and dynamic. These big cats are natural leaders, we certainly hope that they'll lead everybody to a happy and prosperous year.
To welcome the Tiger, Play-Asia.com will start into the New year with the Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale, with thousands of brilliant bargains and a chance to win awesome prizes.
Look for the goodies left on your Christmas wish list, there's a good chance that they're now available at a lower price. We have carefully reviewed our inventory and the result is a total of around 5,000 in-stock items, we have around 2000 games, 200 console accessories, 400 toys, 200 books, 800 music CDs and around 1000 movies.
But this is not all! Like we've done with our sales in the past, you will again have the chance to win fantastic prizes such as consoles, games and store credits. So what are you waiting for?
And this is how it works:
Now Tiger will guide you to where the Sales and the Lucky Draw are. The cheerful big cat will stop by the bargained products between February 2nd and February 11th, snap up the goodies and there you go, entered into the Lucky Draw. The more you buy, the more you save and the higher your chances of winning our prizes.
The winners of the 30 main prizes will be announced in this news post during the last week of February 2010 and will also be notified by e-mail.
Yet, be aware. Some products are restocked regularly, so the tiger comes back time and time again, yet for limited versions, such as toys and music, once the tiger leaves (out of stock) he never returns. Set your priorities and plan your shopping strategies.
5-10th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 50 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
11-30th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 20 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
(*) The "game of your choice" is only valid for any game priced up to a maximum of US$ 70 per title. Winning choices may be limited to countries where shipping restrictions apply. Prizes cannot be redeemed as cash.
Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale starting now! Nearly 5000 discounts and the chance to win cool prizes!
Kung Hei Fat Choi! It's Lunar New Year again! Some of you may be wondering what this Lunar or Chinese New Year is about: The Traditional Chinese Calendar is based on Moon cycles and starts a few weeks after the western New Year. This festival is the most important, and joyoys time in Chinese societies. People buy new clothes, sweep their house and children get red pockets.
Every lunar year is represented by an animal. Last year, it was the ox that represents hard work, and this year is the year of the tiger, promising adventures and dynamic. These big cats are natural leaders, we certainly hope that they'll lead everybody to a happy and prosperous year.
To welcome the Tiger, Play-Asia.com will start into the New year with the Roaring Lucky Lunar New Year Sale, with thousands of brilliant bargains and a chance to win awesome prizes.
Look for the goodies left on your Christmas wish list, there's a good chance that they're now available at a lower price. We have carefully reviewed our inventory and the result is a total of around 5,000 in-stock items, we have around 2000 games, 200 console accessories, 400 toys, 200 books, 800 music CDs and around 1000 movies.
But this is not all! Like we've done with our sales in the past, you will again have the chance to win fantastic prizes such as consoles, games and store credits. So what are you waiting for?
And this is how it works:
Now Tiger will guide you to where the Sales and the Lucky Draw are. The cheerful big cat will stop by the bargained products between February 2nd and February 11th, snap up the goodies and there you go, entered into the Lucky Draw. The more you buy, the more you save and the higher your chances of winning our prizes.
The winners of the 30 main prizes will be announced in this news post during the last week of February 2010 and will also be notified by e-mail.
Yet, be aware. Some products are restocked regularly, so the tiger comes back time and time again, yet for limited versions, such as toys and music, once the tiger leaves (out of stock) he never returns. Set your priorities and plan your shopping strategies.
5-10th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 50 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
11-30th Prize: A store credit voucher worth US$ 20 each, redeemable for any purchase at Play-Asia.com
(*) The "game of your choice" is only valid for any game priced up to a maximum of US$ 70 per title. Winning choices may be limited to countries where shipping restrictions apply. Prizes cannot be redeemed as cash.
Gameloft has posted its year-end results, with sales up 11 percent to 122 million Euros. Growth was driven by iPhone game sales, up over 230% to 18 million Euros ($25 million).
The French outfit has released dozens of iPhone and iPod Touch games in the last year including branded game heritage titles such as The Settlers and Earthworm Jim, licenses like Avatar and Derek Jeter Real Baseball, and original product such as Castle of Magic and Siberian Strike.
Gameloft departed from the packaged goods sector in 2009 to focus entirely on mobile games. It blamed a comparatively weak fourth quarter on this decision, and the strength of the dollar. In Q4, sales were down six percent to 32 milion Euros. Profits have not been disclosed but are expected to come in at around 8 percent of revenues.
Trailrunner7 sends in a threatpost.com article on exploiting flaws in the way the iPhone handles digital certificates.
"[Several flaws] could lead to an attacker being able to create his own trusted certificate and entice users into downloading malicious files onto their iPhones. The result of the attack is that a remote hacker is able to change some settings on the iPhone and force all of the user's Web traffic to run through any server he chooses, and also to change the root certificate on the phone, enabling him to man-in-the-middle SSL traffic from that phone. ... Charlie Miller, an Apple security researcher at Independent Security Evaluators, said that the attack works, although it would not lead to remote code execution on the iPhone. 'It definitely works. I downloaded the file and ran it and it worked,' Miller said. 'The only thing is that it warns you that the file will change your phone, but it also says that the certificate is from Apple and it's been verified.
According to tipster Mike, an ad for an Aliens vs Predator demo recently popped up in the Spotlight section of the Xbox 360 dashboard. The ad reportedly announced that the demo will be released February 4, this Thursday. Unfortunately, the ad has since been pulled, though AvPGalaxy reports finding the ad as well.
The site also notes that the demo will arrive on the same day for PSN and Steam as well, adding that an official announcement from Sega is forthcoming. Given that the game will be hitting retail shelves in just two weeks, the timing for the demo would certainly make sense.
We'll be sure to update this post if and when Sega makes things official.
Last week it was rumored that Microsoft's Xbox 360 and PC Game Room would "never feature" titles with an ESRB rating higher than E10+; today Microsoft confirmed to Joystiq the current plan is to only add titles that correspond to the application's ESRB rating. Rather than submit each individual title for review, Microsoft has opted to submit the Game Room application to the ESRB, netting it an E10+ rating, ensuring higher-rated titles would not see life in the virtual arcade.
In a statement to Joystiq, a Microsoft representative said, "the 30 titles available for download at launch will carry either E or E10+ ratings; beyond launch we have no additional details to share at this time." Based on its statements, Microsoft's Game Room can only include titles that have been submitted to the ESRB in other forms (compilation discs, or through downloadable platforms). While it's possible for Microsoft to submit classic titles that have yet-to-be rated by the ESRB (such as titles released prior to the group's 1994 inception that have yet to receive a rating), the plan appears to focus solely on games already available in some capacity.
Microsoft said that because titles featured in the Game Room are "classic arcade and console titles" the company will be able to add any individual titles to the Game Room without submitting new releases to the ESRB for review -- provided they are currently rated E10+ or lower. While Microsoft says it currently has "no plans" to feature arcade titles rated Teen or Mature, the company confirmed it would be able to resubmit the Game Room application itself to the ESRB for a new rating, if higher-rated titles are considered for future release.
At this past E3, Square Enix said Final Fantasy XIV would launch on PlayStation 3 and PCs. Looks like an Xbox 360 version is in development too.
A staffer at Square Enix Japan let the proverbial chocobos out of the stable. In her Linked In profile she notes Final Fantasy XIV is a PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 title. Whoops! An Xbox 360 version hasn’t been announced yet. Honest mistake or a slip of the tongue?
Akama also says there are lines currently working on The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy Agito XIII too.
At this past E3, Square Enix said Final Fantasy XIV would launch on PlayStation 3 and PCs. Looks like an Xbox 360 version is in development too.
A staffer at Square Enix Japan let the proverbial chocobos out of the stable. In her Linked In profile she notes Final Fantasy XIV is a PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 title. Whoops! An Xbox 360 version hasn’t been announced yet. Honest mistake or a slip of the tongue?
Akama also says there are lines currently working on The 3rd Birthday and Final Fantasy Agito XIII too.
Finally released after 10 years of on-again-off-again work, the most complete hack of ZAMN to date, featuring 55 new levels (with titles), a new enemy monster, 2 new weapons, and more!
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
20100202
Using pbsds's spiffy icon. Thanks!
No longer crashes at startup when loaded with Bannerbomb. (Still crashes at exit.)
Initial support for Doom .mus files, added by request of SandMan. No drums, and it doesn't do pitchbends, but it's a start.
Display changed to default to YUV overlay (much faster!)
Fixed a bunch of file load and playback bugs
Axc97c released a new version of his Freestyle Dash for homebrew Xbox360s.
What's new/fixed:
* Fixed content saving bug in dash
* XML saving in dash quicker
* Added usb0:\applications and hdd1:\application paths. Please delete your config.xml for these to be added to existing installs. (The one in fsdata not base)
To Add (future features):
* Add buttons working on indexer, allow you to add custom graphics to a title when none have been automatically downloaded
* Background image support (Element 'Background' in xbox360.xui and gamedetails.xui if your making a skin)
* Preview.wmv support. Put preview.wmv in the artwork folder for a game and it will play when selecting the game
* Pick all/xbox 360/xbla/homebrew/emu on indexer to help sorting out your content.
In early January, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata gave an interview with Japan's second largest newspaper The Asahi Shimbun. The printed article has been a source of dispute.
In the original article, the Asashi Shimbun quoted Satoru Iwata as stating the Nintendo DS successor will have "highly detailed graphics, and it will be necessary to have a sensor with the ability to read the movements of people playing".
Nintendo of America told Kotaku that the Asahi Shimbun had "misinterpreted" Iwata's remarks. "Mr. Iwata did not make any comments regarding the functions of Nintendo's future hardware systems," Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's senior director of corporate communications told Kotaku. "The answer to the reporter's question was misinterpreted."
The Asahi Shimbun stands by its reporting and issued a statement to Kotaku Japan that read: "The article quoted Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's comment accurately." The actual quote in the article is a fragment of a longer sentence.
During a recent investors Q&A, Iwata was asked about new hardware. "Naturally, we are always developing new hardware," Iwata replied. However, Iwata says he is not in a position to talk specific details about upcoming hardware. The exec went on to address the issue with the Asahi Shimbun, asserting that the reporter stated, "The graphics for the next DS will be highly detailed and it will contain a motion sensor, right?" Iwata claims he then replied, "Those things are naturally being required. But do you think it would sell with just that?" Iwata emphasized that this last part was left completely out.
Now it seems as thought Nintendo is saying that these features (better graphics, motion sensor) are being viewed as basic requirements — and Nintendo is probably correct in this assertion. Most likely all future handhelds will have motion sensor tech and improved graphics. The issue here is whether or not Nintendo brought this up or the Asahi Shimbun is putting words in Iwata's mouth when the exec was speaking indirectly and not necessary divulging Nintendo's plans.
This is where a recording would be helpful! Perhaps the Asahi Shimbun has one, hence the paper issuing a statement that it stands by its reporting. Perhaps, it does not, but trusts its reporter's work.
While the Asahi Shimbun article did not touch on an HD Wii, Iwata also took the opportunity to clear the air, stating he has never mentioned an HD Wii. Speaking hypothetically, Iwata also mentioned that if he heard Wii getting HD, that it would need more than simply high definition to get new customers around the world to purchase the console. "I would ask, 'Can it be sold with just this? It needs something new." But what?
About : Battery Warning plugin is a PSP plugin that shows a message on screen when your battery reaches 15% or less charge. Works in VSH/GAME + Homebrew Games & Apps.
Why bother when the PSP LED blinks when the battery is low? Well lets face it, who can honestly say when they are stuck into a game that they even notice the LED blinking at all, also added to that, the fact that when your playing a game your thumb practically covers the whole light, it's not an ideal method of warning
I lost the source to V0.2 because my external HDD died so I had to start the project from scratch.
Screenshot :
So here are the changes :
Changelog :
* Added ability to turn the message off. Press L+R+Select to disable the message once shown.
* Changed message to display remaining battery percentage and time remaining (in mins)
* Message now doesn't get hidden behind objects.
* Message now clearer to read (again).
* Reduced flickering substantially (still flickers in certain games)
Future :
In the next release there will finally be the configuration manager. I have started it and it wont be long until it's finished. However been that in essence this is more of a new plugin than a updated version (since I had to start from scratch) I want to be certain people enjoy the same level of success with it as I do before bothering to release a customization manager.
Thanks and enjoy!
EDIT : New version attached. V0.3.1
Changes :
* Message upon battery reaching full charge (Whilst charging) - (See screenshot)
Removing the power cable or pressing L+R+Select will disable the message.
An online petition has been raised that calls for the UK government to end its support for the nine-year-old Internet Explorer 6.
The petition, which at the time of writing has over 4,800 signatures, aims to initiate a nationwide move to upgrade to the latest versions of any browser – a move that it’s felt the Government must follow.
“Upgrading would be a massive task for government, but if the public is encouraged to lead the way and the government follows, that would create the momentum needed,” reads the petition’s accompanying statement, penned by Dan Frydman, the MD of Edinburgh-based web design firm Inigo Media.
However, Frydman also reveals motives that lie somewhat closer to home – at this time all Government contract companies are forced to build for IE6, due to the fact that the costs of upgrade are considered to be too high for the public sector to keep pace with the private.
“Most creative and software development companies are forced by government department clients to build websites for IE6 when most of the industry has moved on,” continues Frydman’s statement.
David Braben has kick-started his new column in Develop by exploring the current state of game narrative.
The Develop Legend Award winner opened his account by opining that narrative could turn out to define the current generation of software, and is therefore “a foolhardy thing to ignore.”
Briefly fixing the discussion on Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2, Braben revealed high praise for the game in all aspects save for one, wittily observing: “There might as well have been a lava level, for all that the story mattered to me”.
Said Braben: “My point is when we look back at it from the future – when the combat is no longer best in class – it will feel dull, like those almost storyless cowboy films of the '50s (not featuring John Wayne), shown endlessly on TV in the early ‘70s, but that have thankfully now been forgotten.”
He added that talented storytelling is coming ever more to the fore in the game sector, citing Fallout 3, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins as great examples of non-linear storytelling.
David Braben has kick-started his new column in Develop by exploring the current state of game narrative.
The Develop Legend Award winner opened his account by opining that narrative could turn out to define the current generation of software, and is therefore “a foolhardy thing to ignore.”
Briefly fixing the discussion on Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2, Braben revealed high praise for the game in all aspects save for one, wittily observing: “There might as well have been a lava level, for all that the story mattered to me”.
Said Braben: “My point is when we look back at it from the future – when the combat is no longer best in class – it will feel dull, like those almost storyless cowboy films of the '50s (not featuring John Wayne), shown endlessly on TV in the early ‘70s, but that have thankfully now been forgotten.”
He added that talented storytelling is coming ever more to the fore in the game sector, citing Fallout 3, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins as great examples of non-linear storytelling.
From tomorrow a number of PlayStation Minis titles will go on sale for two weeks, with savings of between 50p and £1.50. The cuts come as part of what Sony is calling ‘Minis Month’.
The discounts will come into effect tomorrow (February 4th) and run until February 18th. A fresh bout of Minis marketing will also kick-off to help promote Sony’s fledgling service, with the PSP YouTube channel being the main focus.
The PSPgo has come under the spotlight in recent weeks following poor sales numbers in Japan. UK unit sales – tellingly – have not been revealed, but are believed to lag far behind those of its UMD-equipped predecessor the PSP-3000.
Here are the offers in full, as listed by the PlayStation blog:
Fieldrunners – €4.99/£3.99 now €3.99/£3.49
Kahoots – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Vempire – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Breakquest – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Pinball Fantasies – €4.99/£3.99 now €3.99/£3.49
Bloons – €3.99/£3.49 now €2.49/£1.99
Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Dracula: Undead Awakening – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
From tomorrow a number of PlayStation Minis titles will go on sale for two weeks, with savings of between 50p and £1.50. The cuts come as part of what Sony is calling ‘Minis Month’.
The discounts will come into effect tomorrow (February 4th) and run until February 18th. A fresh bout of Minis marketing will also kick-off to help promote Sony’s fledgling service, with the PSP YouTube channel being the main focus.
The PSPgo has come under the spotlight in recent weeks following poor sales numbers in Japan. UK unit sales – tellingly – have not been revealed, but are believed to lag far behind those of its UMD-equipped predecessor the PSP-3000.
Here are the offers in full, as listed by the PlayStation blog:
Fieldrunners – €4.99/£3.99 now €3.99/£3.49
Kahoots – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Vempire – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Breakquest – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Pinball Fantasies – €4.99/£3.99 now €3.99/£3.49
Bloons – €3.99/£3.49 now €2.49/£1.99
Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Dracula: Undead Awakening – €2.99/£2.99 now €1.99/£1.74
Head tracking and, for the PS3 version at least, stereoscopic 3D features are both being lined up for MotoGP 10/11 (the sequel of MGP 09/10, which Capcom will release on March 31).
Lead designer Greg Bryant told CVG: "We haven't looked into Natal yet for MotoGP 09/10, but we're definitely going to be looking into it for MGP 10/11 because I personally think the future for that application is through head tracking in racing games."
"We did a lot of testing with other games for competitor analysis and one that came up was the classic Grand Prix Legends. You can set that up with full head tracking and a steering wheel, and it's one of the most compelling racing experiences. Now that that developers have that technology available to them we certainly want to harness that for the next iteration of the game," he told CVG.
The PS3 is in for extra treats, too. "One of the other things that I'm really excited about it that the PS3 going to support 3D technology as well. So when you combine that with the PS Eye and theoretically doing the head tracking through that. I think that's going to be absolutely awesome."
Latest Call of Duty dominates 2009 global charts despite mid November release
As part of its all-encompassing detailed report on the global video game market in 2009, GfK-ChartTrack has confirmed that Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold nearly 12m units worldwide last year.
More precisely, the game’s total sales now stand at 11.86m units – or at least, they did come the end of 2009. Total sales could conceivably be far in excess of this by now.
Looking at the sales region-by-region, the USA emerged with the keenest appetite for the shooter, snapping up 8.82m copies. The UK was next up with total sales of 2.8m while Japanese sales hit 238k.
Other star performers on the global stage included Wii Sports Resort (7.57m), New Super Mario Bros (7.41m), Wii Fit Plus (5.80m) and Wii Fit (5.44m).
ScrollMotion is signing deals with a variety of educational textbook publishers, to take their titles to Apple's iPad.
That's according to the Wall Street Journal, which names McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, Pearson Education and Kaplan as involved in these deals.
What's more, the article suggests that Apple is firmly focused on the education sector as a key market for the iPad, despite last week's launch concentrating on consumer usage of the device.
The device could also link into the existing iTunes U service for students.
"This is the beginning of handheld education," says ScrollMotion CEO John Lema.
We've previously reported that Zelda Wii will be at E3 this year. Exciting enough, right? But now we know it's going to be playable at the show. Sweaty palms, anyone?
Nintendo producer Eiji Aonuma has confirmed that he's looking to show off a hands-on demo at the June show - and that the title will only work with MotionPlus.
"I'd like to show something playable," Aonuma told that latest issue of Famitsu.
He added that the game would work exclusively with Wii MotionPlus. "It just feels so natural," added Aonuma. "Link's sword and the controller that you're holding become one."
Development is progressing, with Aonuma commenting: "We've progressed in development since last year. At present, the core areas have come into clear view."
However, the great man couldn't give a release window.
The excitement around Palm's new generation of webOS smartphones has ebbed somewhat since the Pre was hailed as a potential iPhone killer last year.
Even so, Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg thinks the company is set for another upswing this year, predicting that the company is being under-estimated by investors.
"If they can grow their installed base of users and keep the carrier momentum going, this value should become more apparent," he writes in a research note.
Goldberg also predicts that Palm will sell 7.3 million handsets in 2010, and then 11.3 million in 2011, fuelled by its upcoming launch with Verizon Wireless.
He also thinks that by the end of this year, there may be more apps available on Palm's App Catalog than are on BlackBerry App World - a more controversial assertion, given RIM's recent announcement that its developer community is now 200,000-strong.
However, Palm's success may not lead to a standalone future for the company. "There is real potential for Palm to be acquired in the next two years," writes Goldberg.
Microsoft appears to have no plans to release a 250GB standalone hard drive for the Xbox 360 in Europe.
Instead, the platform holder has reduced the price of the 120GB hard drive from £99.99 to £79.99 - "while supplies last".
"Microsoft is now offering a standalone 250GB hard drive in Japan to provide consumers in Japan more storage options for their games and entertainment. We work closely with retailers to determine the best approach for our products on a region-by-region basis," Microsoft told Eurogamer in response to yesterday's news.
"In Europe, the 120GB Hard Drive is available for an ERP of €129.99 / £79.99 while supplies last. We also offer other storage options for consumers to choose from such as the Xbox Live 60GB Starter Pack that includes a 60GB Hard Drive, three-month subscription to Xbox LIVE, Ethernet Cable and Wired Headset for an ERP of €79.99 / £59.99."
We're not sure what "while supplies last means"; maybe Microsoft is clearing the way for a 250GB HDD. We'll look into it.
Best Buy has refuted growing industry chatter about a partnership with European games specialist, GAME.
Several industry nose-tappers have suggested the US retail giant is looking to buy GAME outright.
Meanwhile, others suggested that branded concessions would appear in Best Buy’s UK stores when they open in the spring, in lieu of its own managed games range.
Best Buy has moved to quickly dismiss the rumours.
“There are absolutely no plans for Best Buy to partner with GAME,” a Best Buy spokesperson told MCV.
“We are completely focused on launching the Best Buy business in the UK this spring.”
GAME said it would not comment on rumour or speculation.
A partnership with GAME makes sense on paper considering the retail giant's power in the UK market, as well as its success with concessions in the likes of Borders.
However, Best Buy already revealed its own games team last year, which includes former GAME MD for Continental Europe Marc Spence and ex-DSGi trading manager Tom Guy.
The retailer also signed a distribution deal with Centresoft in October last year.
It’s not the first time Best Buy had been linked with a major video games retailer. The firm were reportedly keen on snapping up US retail giant GameStop last year.
Sony bigwig Peter Dille has explained that the real reason for PS3's slow start was poor levels of stock; the pump was "primed".
"The shortcoming was getting a lot of people whipped up and having them wait in-line and then only having a very, very limited amount of hardware supply globally, which meant that we had a kind of start and stop effect with our launch, which is hard to recover from," Dille told IGN. "It was a speed bump that we had to overcome and we overcame it.
"There is nothing but momentum behind the PS3 at this point," he added. "We're off to the races."
It's not a question of "if" the PS3 will overtake Xbox 360, Dille went on to say, but "when".
"I mean, we've got 31 million [units sold] worldwide right now - they've got 39 million [units sold]. I don't even need to go out 10 years," he quipped.
"I'm not going to make any predictions for your interview today other than we'll pass them, but you look at where we are today and where they are today, and they had an opportunity to sprint as far ahead of us as possible when they had the head start.
"Well, we're breathing down their necks and they can see us in the rear-view mirror and it's not going to take too long to pass them."
Sales of Sony's PS3 overtook Xbox 360 on a monthly basis in the US following the release of the PS3 Slim. There, in the whole of 2009, Microsoft's console finished just 400,000 units ahead of Sony's machine.
In Japan, there's a gulf between PS3 and 360. Sony's console now goes toe-to-toe with Wii, while Xbox 360 sells around 5000 a week alongside the PS2. To date, the PS3 has sold over 4.5m units in Japan, while the 360 has managed over 1m.
Sony's senior VP of marketing and head of the PlayStation Network has said that Sony is now "breathing down the necks" of Microsoft in terms of console sales, and predicted that while the PS3 will fulfil its planned 10 year lifespan, the 360 won't be around for as long.
"We can be passionate fans, but I don't think they'll be around in 10 years so I'm very confident we'll pass them within that time frame," Peter Dille said in an interview with IGN.
"I mean, we've got 31 million [units sold] worldwide right now - they've got 39 million [units sold]. I don't even need to go out 10 years. I'm not going to make any predictions for your interview today other than we'll pass them, but you look at where we are today and where they are today, and they had an opportunity to sprint as far ahead of us as possible when they had the head start.
"Well, we're breathing down their necks and they can see us in the rearview mirror and it's not going to take too long to pass them."
Speaking specifically about the PlayStation Network, Dille also backed up recent comments by Kaz Hirai that Sony was looking into charging for new additions to the service.
"It's been our philosophy not to charge for it from launch up until now, but Kaz recently went on the record as saying that's something we're looking at. I can confirm that as well. That's something that we're actively thinking about," he said.
Dille added that the company is pleased with how the PlayStation Home space is performing, saying that December saw the highest traffic yet for the service.
"The average time people spend in Home is about 60 minutes. If you think about that, it's a lot of time. I know you can sit down and game for hours and time gets lost. But think about watching a TV for a half hour or how much time you might spend on a website - there's are kind of bite-sized chunks of time. But to spend 60 minutes on Home is a pretty sticky experience."
People are also spending money in Home. Virtual items become profitable from the day they launch "because it doesn't cost a lot to create a virtual t-shirt," said Dille. And those items also become drivers for gaming content, he added.
"People walk around in Home and if they see someone wearing an artifact from Uncharted or God of War, they might ask, 'Where'd you get that?' and they might go back to that specific game space, learn more about it, become a fan of that game and then go buy the Blu-ray disc."
The alliance of retail information providers in the US, UK and Japanese videogames markets made up of NPD, GfK Chart-Track and Enterbrain has released it calendar year numbers for 2009, showing an overall drop of 8 per cent in combined sales.
The UK was hit the hardest, with poor comparable sales on the DS and PlayStation Portable platforms resulting in a 14 per cent decline, while the US dropped 7 per cent and Japan fell by 2 per cent.
Meanwhile the PlayStation 2 platform continued to fall away, as expected, declining by 57 per cent year-on-year.
"For the UK videogame home console software market it is clear that current generation systems suffered slight negative growth overall in 2009, even though PS3 and 360 both enjoyed record volume (and value) software sales for the year, and were the only formats to exhibit positive growth over 2008," said Dorian Bloch, Business Group director at GfK Chart-Track.
"Growth on these platforms did not manage to offset the steep decline in PS2 software units (-67 per cent), which in real terms was close to a decline of 4 million units. Also, the incredible performance exhibited by Nintendo's Wii in 2008 meant that Wii units fell back 10 per cent, although remained the number one format in terms of units sold in 2009.
"Within the portable market, it is clear that this is the reason for the overall console software decline. Nintendo DS volume (and value) sales in 2008 reached a high point brought about by massive, record-breaking DS Lite sales, and the corresponding sales of hit titles such as Dr Kawashima, Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, New Super Mario and Mario Kart DS.
"Rolling on to 2009 saw much lower DS hardware sell-through and no new must-have DS titles at the top of the charts, apart from Professor Layton and Pandora's Box. Sony's PSP suffered a similar fate, with few must-have titles arriving in 2009, and a continued decline in PSP hardware sales, ever since the sweet spot achieved in 2006 with the original PSP."
The picture in the US was somewhat less negative, with more titles released in the territory last year than in previous years - despite some evidence to indicate that the fewer the games released, the greater the average unit sales.
"With the huge investment needed to produce software for this generation's consoles, many publishers talk about releasing fewer titles each year which will allow their teams to better focus on maximising the success of each title," explained NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "The theory is that this will produce more high quality games resulting in better sales. However, the year end data from 2009 shows us that the number of titles entering the market is still growing. 778 new titles were released in 2009, up from the 764 in 2008.
"So, while there has been no noticeable slow down in the number of titles launched each year, we do see some evidence of a converse relationship between the number of titles launched and the average unit sales of a title. When looking back at the past 7 years, we see that 2004 had the lowest number of titles launched, yet the highest average unit sales. On the other hand, 2009 had the most titles launched and average unit sales were lower than they've been since 2005."
Conversely, Japan's market - which has been in decline for some time - benefited from a series of strong DS releases.
"Japan's 2009 game software market was blessed with a string of Nintendo DS software hits during the period, including the trio of double-million-plus sellers, Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito, Pocket Monster Heart Gold/Soul Silver, and the year's most successful non-sequel, Tomodachi Collection, which sold 2 million units," said Mitsunobu Uwatoko, manager of global marketing at Enterbrain. "Moreover, Final Fantasy XIII, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Fit Plus, sold over a million each on top of the long-awaited New Super Mario Bros Wii selling over 2.4 million during its first month at retail.
"However, these titles could not manage to recover the losses experienced during the first half of the year, thus the annual total sales was slightly down."
Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll will expand the fanbase for its long-running arcade-style puzzle franchise, thanks to Balance Board compatibility.
That’s according to Sega, which is holding high hopes for the upcoming Wii title, due for release on February 12th.
The firm believes the device’s accessibility will introduce the series to a whole new audience.
“This is the first time any game in the series has utilised the Balance Board, which opens up a whole new way to play,” Sega PR and marketing exec Kate Billingham told MCV.
“It’s going to broaden the reach of Super Monkey Ball games even further, and that can only be a good thing.”
The previous Super Monkey Ball released on Wii, Banana Blitz, sold through over 250,000 units, and Sega is hoping to top this with Step & Roll. To help boost the game further, the company has drawn up a targeted marketing push.
The majority of the campaign will be aimed at children, such as a partnership with popular kids’ site, Bin Weevils, which will host treasure hunts and launch parties.
There will also be contests, puzzles and ads in kids’ print press, as well as community-dedicated challenges targeting veteran fans through YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.
“We think Step & Roll is the most accessible title yet,” added Billingham. “The Balance Board element fits perfectly with the rolling gameplay mechanic and really brings the collection of puzzles to life.
“Super Monkey Ball has a strong heritage, and with every title the quality just gets better. If you’re a fan or a newcomer, there’s something to suit you.”
Sega has revealed Tournament of Legends, a Wii exclusive from The Conduit developer High Voltage.
By the sound of the PR, it's an arena-based fighter "featuring a host of fighters based on legends from world mythology: the Minotaur, a powerful Gladiator, a mighty Valkyrie and others".
Weapons and magic also play a prominent role, and it's out in May. No claim that it'll look as good as a 360 game this time though, thank goodness.
Interested? Here's the full PR:
SEGA Europe Ltd. and SEGA of America, Inc. are excited to announce a new project in partnership with developer High Voltage Software - Tournament of Legends. Exclusive for Wii, Tournament of Legends is scheduled for release in May 2010.
Tournament of Legends offers a 3D fighting experience for one or two players, featuring a host of fighters based on legends from world mythology: the Minotaur, a powerful Gladiator, a mighty Valkyrie and other well known and awe-inspiring characters. Take these fighters to epic battles in fantastic fighting arenas where the combatants wield legendary weapons, launch magical attacks and dodge giant mythological creatures that protect their lairs. Master a range of incredible combat moves; including unleashing a man-eating lion, summoning a deadly rain of arrows and throwing a nest of venomous snakes.
Tournament of Legends strives to offer even the most sophisticated Wii gamer a rich weapon fighting experience. Players will be able to switch weapons and enchantments with other characters, or compete in various Wii Remote/Nunchuk controller challenges which include dodging giant mythological creatures, or restoring health and armour during fights. The game also features an Interactive Training mode and supports the Classic Controller.
Tournament of Legends cinematic effects and graphics are fueled by the High Voltage Software Quantum 3 engine, specifically designed and optimized for Wii. Large 3D mythological fighters move fluidly while all fighting arenas, characters, and magical attacks are polished by advanced real-time lighting, blended animation, cinematic colour curves and more.
Star Trek Online developer Cryptic has called on fans of the series to suggest ideas for future DLC, expansion packs and sequels.
Speaking to CVG in the first part of our new interview, Cryptic exec producer Craig Zinkievich told us:
"There is still so much we want to add to this game. There is just so much out there in Star Trek lore and history it would have been impossible for us to get it all in at launch.
"But we really want to see what direction our community and fans want the game to go and then we want to add that in. Is it more playable options on your bridge, or engineering room? Do you want more Klingon play? More species in general to be playable?
There are just a lot of directions we can go with the game and we definitely want more and more in the game."
So there you have it.
Star Trek Online is released on Friday, and you can read the second part of our interview with Craig right here tomorrow.
What do you want to see in future STO games, readers?
DICE has said that PlayStation 3 gamers will be able to get in on the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo fun from February 4.
Here's the word:
STOCKHOLM, Feb 03, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- DICE, an Electronic Arts Inc. studio (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced that the PlayStation(R)3 computer entertainment system players in North America will now have access to the Battlefield: Bad Company(TM) 2 demo* on February 4.
Available via the PlayStation(R)Network, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has been recognized by critics worldwide for its incredibly detailed, huge sandbox environments, vehicular warfare, destruction, and squad play. Its dedicated servers that allow for smooth, seamless online play help it stand above the competition.
The Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo features Port Valdez, a new vehicle focused map where up to 24 players can compete against each other in the game's Rush multiplayer mode. Players have access to five land and three air vehicles including Main Battle Tanks as well as the fast-moving Quad Bikes and Mobile Armored AA.
The fight is also packed with plenty of infantry combat fought alongside the waterline towards a great oil industrial landscape in the Alaskan mountains.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be in stores on March 2, 2010 in North America and March 4, 2010 in Europe for the Xbox 360(R) videogame and entertainment system, PlayStation 3 and the PC.
A playable demo for Superstars V8 Next Challenge is now available for Gold members on Xbox Live. Silver members must wait until 9th February.
As you may have guessed, the new game will let you drive the V8 production class cars of the official Superstars Championship. Expect "incredible" vehicle models, "photo-realistic" environments and online multiplayer races for up to 16 players. Superstars V8 Next Challenge is in development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and will launch later this month. An exact date is yet to be announced.
Pleading from the NiGHTS fan community has persuaded SEGA and Sumo Digital to include the flying jester in their upcoming kart racer, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.
He's not a playable racer, but appears as flagman, starting and ending each race. You can find a picture over at NiGHTSintoDreams.com (via Kotaku, thanks to Pete Brolly for the tip), along with a post from Sumo's S0L explaining that it was the fansite's impassioned requests that persuaded them to include the character.
"I have to admit the main reason he's in was after we saw your heartfelt pleas, especially those of DiGi and TRiPPY, we had to make sure NiGHTS was in and played an important role. After all, we really didn't want them to burn all their collection now. So whilst he's not playable, he very much made it in, and as a result of the huge amount of support for the character that you all showed."
S0L couldn't say whether NiGHTS would also appear as a playable character in future DLC: "That's a question I can't answer right now - it all depends on how well the game does."
South Florida news outlet SunSentinel believes online gaming on PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 has become "a sexual predator's playground".
The website blamed "interactive games" that allow "kids" to talk to people from around the world.
The problem is that adults often pretend to be kids! And they are "luring children through headsets and private messages" like evil magicians!
SunSentinel heard from Erica McWhorter, a woman (of unspecified age) who was sent private messages by one "Romantic Devil" on Xbox Live.
"It was very scary. He said, 'Are you [a] girl? How old are you? Do you have a web cam?'" He then asked if she wanted to see his "private parts".
She must have said no because she quickly reported him to Microsoft and contact between the pair was blocked. "But it made McWhorter realize [sic] just how dangerous XBOX could be for a child," the SunSentinel added. pair.
Jefferson County investigator Mike Harris knows what's going on. "Sex offenders will go anywhere kids go," he reasoned.
"Children don't always tell their parents because their afraid they will take the game away instead of trying to solve the problem."
The SunSentinel encouraged parents to report any "suspicious" conduct to local law enforcement. "That's because there are ways to track down criminals through cyberspace," the report ended.
Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies mastermind PopCap reckons Apple's new iPad could "kickstart" a creative revolution.
"PopCap loves to see devices that offer new experiences and force us to look at our games and rethink how we can make the best game using those new features," Andrew Stein, PopCap bigwig, told Destructoid.
"As a developer, the iPad offers the same easy development environment as the iPhone but amps that up with tremendous technical specs and a potential whole new way for somebody to interact with a game.
"As a consumer," he added, "the iPad has the potential to kickstart a whole new wave of creative innovation similar to the wave kicked off by the launch of the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch."
Stein promised that iPad games by PopCap won't be iPhone ports. "As we're fond of saying, we don't port, we adapt – we keep the essence of what makes our games and then rebuild them to take best advantage of the features offered by the specific device," he said.
As such, the delay to the iPhone version of Plants vs Zombies is unrelated to the iPad. "It will be launched on the iPhone before the release of the iPad [in March]," said Stein. It just needed more time.
An anonymous reader links to Greg Kroah-Hartman's explanation of a rift (hopefully mendable) in the development culture of Google's Linux-based Android OS and the Linux kernel itself.
"As the Android kernel code is now gone from the Linux kernel, as of the 2.6.33 kernel release, I'm starting to get a lot of questions about what happened, and what to do next with regards to Android. So here's my opinion on the whole matter
A novel study analyzes the installed base of various office packages among German users. (Here is the original study report in German and a Google translation.) While Microsoft Office comes out top (72%), open source rival OpenOffice is already installed on 21.5% of all PCs and growing. The authors use a clever method to determine the installed office suites of millions of web users: they look for the availability of characteristic fonts being shipped with the various suites. What surprised me the most is that they found hardly any difference in the numbers for home and business users.
The most common charge leveled at the Xbox 360 by Playstation 3 devotees is that Microsoft dares to charge for its Xbox Live service, unlike the free PSN. Not for long!
Back in November, a presentation slide revealed that Sony had a paid subscription plan in the works for PSN. And now Peter Dille, the head of PSN, had this to say in an interview with IGN:
Will we charge for it or why don't we charge for it? It's been our philosophy not to charge for it from launch up until now, but Kaz recently went on the record as saying that's something we're looking at. I can confirm that as well. That's something that we're actively thinking about. What's the best way to approach that if we were to do that? You know, no announcements at this point in time, but it's something we're thinking about.
Now the question is what exactly will they be charging for. Will they charge for online multiplayer, like Xbox Live? Or will they offer up some new premium goodies to entice people to pay up while leaving the current offerings up for free? In any case, it looks like there's soon to be a little less ammo in the console wars. But don't worry, Sony fanboys: you still have Blu-ray. No one can take that away from you.
I just want to take anyone from Sony who's related to the development of the PS3 platform in any way, and shake them until the saboteur witch doctors hired from Nintendo and Microsoft lose their hold.
The latest idea from the Sony braintrust? No more big downloadable titles. So you'll still be able to download little arcade games, but future titles the size of Warhawk will no longer be offered on PSN.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has assembled an impressive library of $20 titles on the 360, and they're intelligently slapping games like, say, Mass Effect on there before Mass Effect 2 comes out. This kind of strategery is good for the game studios, sure, but more importantly, it's convenient for the consumer.
Anyway, Sony is having none of that. Why? Because their platform is heavily invested in 50GB-wielding Blu-ray (which requires hefty installs for some games all the same).
You want to know the chief problem with Blu-ray, Sony? It's that you can't download it. You aren't out of the console fight yet. Pick yourself up, dust off your gloves and attack the world with every tentacle that is Sony's larger development monstrosity.
I grew up listening to a Walkman. This shit kills me.
To open the secret entrance to the cave, try left-left-up-left-down-down-right-left then a-y-y-x-b-a and then hold the d-pad down while clicking y-y-b-b. Press start twice, and you will get in.
Google's been doing some pretty slick stuff with QR codes lately, and now it looks like The Weather Channel's getting in on the fun -- it's running a little on-screen graphic prompting Android owners to download their app by scanning their TV screens. Sure, it's not the craziest thing in the world -- it just takes you to a webpage -- but it's certainly fun, and one of the more mainstream uses of QR codes we've seen in a while.
Hey there, why so glum? You've overfilled your PS3's internal storage with mission-critical data and don't have anywhere else to stash your incoming Best of Miley Cyrus compilation? Fear not, Sony's got you covered with a pair of officially licensed external HDDs built by Buffalo. They look remarkably similar to standard issue USB portable drives -- so much so in fact that one of them is a rebadged unit that Buffalo already retails in the US -- but let's not nitpick here. The two drives on offer come with a generous 500GB of storage and their prices aren't too bad with the rebadge setting you back around $130 while the more stylish HD-AV500U2 above will cost around $168. You could of course ignore Sony, buy any drive you like and jack it into your PS3; it's just that these aren't too terrible as far as unnecessarily licensed peripherals go. Both drives will be hitting Japan in March to coincide with the Torne DVR adapter release.
Android's devised one of the slickest, most widely-deployed systems for delivering over-the-air operating system updates to smartphones, but there's a problem: you've got to wait until your carrier (or manufacturer) blesses you with them. They're typically deployed in rolling batches so that it's easier for the company to do one final test of the code's veracity and limit potential damage before sending it to a wider audience -- but where there's a will, there's a way, right? As is often the case with these things, some folks have found a way to get the Nexus One's glorious new multitouch code on the phone before Google's willing to give it to you, and for anyone who's done this before, it's a fairly standard-issue procedure: copy the update to the root of your microSD card, reboot into recovery mode, and apply the binary. We've tested the procedure and it works like a champ, so if you're feeling impatient, go ahead and pull the trigger -- we're going to go out on a limb here and say that the risk of bricking is pretty low.
In our continued efforts to see both sides of the argument in Australia and elsewhere about the extreme content of some games we find this letter to the editor that says that many violent game defenders are being disingenuous.
The context is the ongoing debate in Australia about whether the country should finally allow video games to have the equivalent of an M rating, or in movie terms, an R rating, for video games. Currently, a game must be deemed suitable at least for a 15-year-old in Australia in order for the game to be classified by the nation's ratings board. Many games rated M in America have failed to meet this threshold, though the recent controversy over the very violent upcoming Aliens Vs. Predator appears to have ended with the game getting Australia's MA15+ rating.
Here's letter-writer Caleb Owens writing in to today's Sydney Morning Herald:
True maturity an alien concept to video gamers
I wish video gamers were more honest about what they want (Letters, February 2). Most mention these days that the average age of gamers is quite high, but they do not mention that most of those gamers do not play ''mature'' games. It is like arguing that tennis needs more nudity and gore because the average age of those who watch is above 18.
While it is true Australia stands alone in not having an R rating for video games, gamers do not tell you that an R rating is needed only to slake their bloodlust.
No game maker has yet created what an ordinary person might consider a mature game. Video games in other countries that receive 18+ ratings, many of which are refused classification here, are ''mature'' only because they contain excessive gore, cruelty or torture. There are no great works of video game art being held back.
All we miss out on is graphic gore. It would shock most non-gamers to realise that in a current MA15+ game, players can shoot, decapitate and dismember. All games refused classification (and there are just a handful each year) are described by the classification board as containing things such as ''excessive blood spurts, excessive cruelty, the ability to kill innocents without consequence''.
When gamers discuss this issue on their internet forums, they complain that the bodies do not pile up in the Australian version of one game. But when they write polite letters to politicians or the Herald they hide this reality and instead talk about ''mature games'' and how they are being denied their right to enjoy content.
If we translate this into their ''right'' to indulge in gory simulations of murder and dismemberment, it beggars belief they would be able to state their case without causing their peer groups to react in horror.
Video gamers also make direct and crude comparisons with the movie ratings scale. However, the last time I saw an R-rated movie I do not remember being allowed to participate in the various heinous acts.
It takes a great work of art to advance a ratings scale. When the Lady Chatterley's Lover of video games arrives, all citizens will be rightly concerned if it is withheld. But that seems a long way off.
Would it change the debate if gamers who advocated for mature games described the details of the games they think should be permitted? Certainly comparing the content of some of those games to that of some movies that get rated would present a strong argument that games shouldn't be held to a different standard. But must the content be justifiably "mature" for gamers to win this argument? Would it help?
Assassin's Creed II Discovery has only recently hit iTunes, and Ubisoft is readying another dose of portable professional killing with Assassin's Creed II: Multiplayer, an online game of kill-or-be-killed for the iPhone.
Coming soon to iTunes, Assassin's Creed II: Multiplayer is an online multiplayer game for the iPhone, which uses a Wi-Fi connection to connect you with up to three other players in a game of hide and go die. The goal is simple: kill the other players before they kill you. Players will be able to blend into the crowd in order to avoid detection in three different environments inspired by cities of the Italian Renaissance. You can even use one of six different power-ups, just like real assassins!
Ubisoft is packing the game with features, including a dynamic notoriety ranking system, a built-in friends list, and 24 achievements you can post to Facebook, where the world goes to find out what you've been up to.
The initial screens may be a bit small and simplistic, but I've always been a big fan of games where you can kill Bob. Man, I hate that guy.
Tecmo is bringing its girly beach volleyball, gambling and picture taking game to the PSP with Dead or Alive: Paradise. How does the ESRB describe it?
The Entertainment Software Rating Board is responsible for rating titles in the U.S. market and is a source for often unintentionally wonderful descriptions of games. Check out the blurb on Dead or Alive: Paradise:
This is a video game in which users watch grown women dressed in G-string bikinis jiggle their breasts while on a two-week vacation. Women's breasts and butts will sway while playing volleyball, while hopping across cushions, while pole dancing, while posing on the ground, by the pool, on the beach, in front of the camera. There are other activities: Users can gamble inside a casino to win credits for shopping; they can purchase bathing suits, sunglasses, hats, clothing at an island shop; they can "gift" these items to eight other women in hopes of winning their friendship, in hopes of playing more volleyball. And as relationships blossom from the gift-giving and volleyball, users may get closer to the women, having earned their trust and confidence: users will then be prompted to zoom-in on their friends' nearly-naked bodies, snap dozens of photos, and view them in the hotel later that night.
Parents and consumers should know that the game contains a fair amount of "cheesy," and at times, creepy voyeurism-especially when users have complete rotate-pan-zoom control; but the game also contains bizarre, misguided notions of what women really want (if given two weeks, paid vacation, island resort)-Paradise cannot mean straddling felled tree trunks in dental-floss thongs.
Paradise cannot mean straddling felled tree trunks in dental-floss thongs. Oh?
The ESRB has given Dead or Alive: Paradise a Mature rating.
This year could be a huge year for video games. That's what folks say every year, and that's what we are saying about this one.
In the upcoming issue of Japanese game magazine Famitsu, some of the industry's biggest names talk about their current projects and hinted at things to come. Let's have a look:
Konami
• Hideo Kojima: He thinks that 3D televisions will become the norm. Kojima declare this year the "Year of Peace Walker". He also mentioned that Peace Walker will have a very long story and expressed his desire to make another home console title.
Capcom
• Ryozo Tsujimoto: When asked what's going on with the next Monster Hunter, Tsujimoto replied, "Well, what should we do?" When Famitsu asked if there will be a sudden announcement, he told the magazine to look forward to something.
• Jun Takeuchi: The Resident Evil 5 talked about the necessity of appealing to a world-wide audience.
Level-5
• Akihiro Hino: The Level-5 CEO announced that there will be a "surprising announcement" this year.
Nintendo
• Eiji Aonuma: When asked whether the game will go on sale this year, "We're doing everything we can to have people play the game as soon as possible." At the year's E3, he says he'd like to have something in playable form. (However, this is not confirmation it will happen, it is just his desire.)
Other designers sounded off as well. SEGA's Toshihiro Nagoshi (Yakuza, Super Monkey Ball) talked about the importance doing titles that stand out, while Square Enix mentioned it was working on a number of non-Dragon Quest titles.
Supply power to your PSP GO, PSP-3000, PSP Slim, PSP-1000, NDSi-XL, NDSi, NDSL, NDS, iPod, Nano, Shuffle, iPhone 2G/3G/3GS ,Nokia mobile phone and other AV electronic appliances in your car with this car-lighter adapter which provides power supply to the rechargeable lithium battery pack.
It comes with a red light indicator that will light up when the console/device is charging.
Supply power to your PSP GO, PSP-3000, PSP Slim, PSP-1000, NDSi-XL, NDSi, NDSL, NDS, iPod, Nano, Shuffle, iPhone 2G/3G/3GS ,Nokia mobile phone and other AV electronic appliances in your car with this car-lighter adapter which provides power supply to the rechargeable lithium battery pack.
It comes with a red light indicator that will light up when the console/device is charging.
Supply power to your PSP GO, PSP-3000, PSP Slim, PSP-1000, NDSi-XL, NDSi, NDSL, NDS, iPod, Nano, Shuffle, iPhone 2G/3G/3GS ,Nokia mobile phone and other AV electronic appliances in your car with this car-lighter adapter which provides power supply to the rechargeable lithium battery pack.
It comes with a red light indicator that will light up when the console/device is charging.
Yesterday we mentioned the Woot! sale of the Didj, and we had some comments and emails from readers who had purchased one. We couldn’t resist either, and ordered a couple to take apart and modify. We will probably be following the work laid out by [Claude Schwarz], who seems to be one of the leading hackers on the scene. [Claude] has done some work in porting the GP2x libraries to the Didj, which gives a tremendous head start to anyone looking to have a working game system any time soon. There will also be a build log for everyone to follow along at home, and contribute what you want and have, as well as a follow up How-To when a working system is attained. Happy Hacking, everyone.
Sega continuing their quest of putting everything in Phantasy Star Portable 2 they possibly can added items from Resonance of Fate.
Does that character look familiar? Some Phantasy Star Portable 2 character is cosplaying as Leanne aka Reanbell in the Japanese version, End of Eternity. You can download a clothes pack with Leanne’s default outfit and B-84 gun. Like other Phantasy Star Portable 2 crossover content, these items are free. Just log on with a Japanese PlayStation Network account to get them.
features
Up to four characters can take part in battles simultaneously and party members can be switched mid-battle
New Blindside battle system fuses evasion and offense, enabling players to confuse and ambush enemies by quickly moving out of their line of sight when targeted
Pilot the Calnus spaceship for the first time in the series and journey to various planets of the STAR OCEAN universe
Features breathtaking CG movies by Visual Works, the cutting-edge studio whose previous work includes cut scenes for the acclaimed FINAL FANTASY® series
In addition to English and Japanese voice options, the PlayStation 3 system version will include English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Japanese language options for STAR OCEAN fans around the world
description
The year is A.D. 2087. In the aftermath of World War III, Earth has been ravaged and the population decimated by a deteriorating environment. The countries that survived have joined together to form the Greater Unified Nations and turned their eyes skyward…to space. Edge Maverick and his childhood friend Reimi Saionji are chosen as pioneer members of the Space Reconnaissance Force, which was created to seek out new worlds beyond the stars. Their ship, the Calnus, takes its place on the lunar launch pad along with four other starships of the first reconnaissance fleet. These ships – humanity’s last hope – blast off one-by-one and sail into the awaiting wormhole that leads to the vast star ocean. And so, Edge and his crew begin their voyage in search of a new haven for humanity...and a second chance.
Labyrinth is a very simple maze game. The goal
is to collect all the items within the maze,
when all the items have been collected the exit
will appear.
Win2x is a fronted alternative for GP2X Wiz with multiple functionalities. Was added in this new version many enhancements:
- Added the command "cut" in the explorer.
-- Fixed traces of Ram (some processes Rams were leaving traces behind them, now fixed)
- Added a auto-scanner executable (This scan for files with gpe or gpu in SD and NAND and given the option to quickly and easily create shortcuts.
- Added the Auto-Installer (Install.gpe is now an application that automatically handles the installation process)
- Added warning function when the battery is low: When the battery is at a low level of information flashing icon appears 10 seconds before they reach the lowest level in order to save information. This function is independent of the application.
A new version of Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator for PC is available.
Changelog R5000
QUOTE
Dolphin SVN changelog:
r4997
Fixed detection of some wii root files
r4998
Falcon4ever prefers to keep a standalone copy of njoy code in repository.
Nake, please make a branch / tag after release so that the code of njoy will be saved as a standalone plugin
r4999
Revert commit 4997 and fix in a way that is more consist with the structure before the global build patch
R5000
a lot of changes here
first fixed scaling backbuffer when updating to make it friendly with encoders, frame dumping must now work without errors in any codec. clean screenshot and frame dumping code is more correct now, faster and stable. Improve safe texture cache, improving the distribution of the hash algorithm, including tlut hash in the hash of the final texture, and making use of a 64 bit
hash to make it more accurate. clean a lot of code and corrected some missused vertex formats when drawing full screen quads. last and biggest changes: pseudo antialiasing implemented: a post-image process algorithm that mimics antialiazing fare and is more easier to implementation in this scenario. You can change the intensity of the effect changing the values of the combo antialiasing. The right value depends on The Game. For example mkwii looks awesome with 8x.
please try all the changes and let me know the results. if something is broken, please let me know and will fix it asap.
A new version of Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator for PC is available.
Changelog R5000
QUOTE
Dolphin SVN changelog:
r4997
Fixed detection of some wii root files
r4998
Falcon4ever prefers to keep a standalone copy of njoy code in repository.
Nake, please make a branch / tag after release so that the code of njoy will be saved as a standalone plugin
r4999
Revert commit 4997 and fix in a way that is more consist with the structure before the global build patch
R5000
a lot of changes here
first fixed scaling backbuffer when updating to make it friendly with encoders, frame dumping must now work without errors in any codec. clean screenshot and frame dumping code is more correct now, faster and stable. Improve safe texture cache, improving the distribution of the hash algorithm, including tlut hash in the hash of the final texture, and making use of a 64 bit
hash to make it more accurate. clean a lot of code and corrected some missused vertex formats when drawing full screen quads. last and biggest changes: pseudo antialiasing implemented: a post-image process algorithm that mimics antialiazing fare and is more easier to implementation in this scenario. You can change the intensity of the effect changing the values of the combo antialiasing. The right value depends on The Game. For example mkwii looks awesome with 8x.
please try all the changes and let me know the results. if something is broken, please let me know and will fix it asap.
Pate has released a new version of his excellent Dos Emulator for the DS, heres whats new:
Last weekend, actually about an hour after I wrote the blog post below, my development PC started acting up. All the programs crashed one after another, until I got a blue screen. When I tried to reboot, it wouldn't start at all. I removed the extra SSD RAID pair I had in it, and then it booted, but again got a blue screen after a little while.
I ordered parts for a new PC (as this one is about 5 years old already) as these symptoms have not improved since. This is also why I decided to release the 0.04 version today ahead of schedule, in case this PC stops working completely.
The new version has the changes mentioned on the previous blog post, but they are not very well tested due to my PC problems. I hope this version works better than 0.03, though.
The incredible boss has posted a new release of his game for the DS:
This is the very first project I ever started with Palib, I never finished it. I 'found' it back when I was cleaning my hard-disk and decided to complete it to share it with the Palib community.
What is it all about? Just see if your EyeQ is as high as Einsteins IQ. Give it a try an improve your score. The more you play, the better you get ;-)
Thanks, glad that someone likes it Fix uploaded, starting post updated.
CasualGaming.biz can reveal that Cobra Mobile’s excellent iPhone action title iBomber has been downloaded over 1.5m times since its release last year. Furthermore, the coming weeks will see the release of an update to the game will for the first time introduce in-app purchases. And that's not all...
The franchise is set for an even bigger evolutionary step, however, with news that Cobra is currently working on versions for console platforms – with Xbox Live Arcade and PSN being the most likely candidates.
Cobra last year announced its intention to port the game to Sony’s PSPgo.
The developer has also confirmed that it is already working on iBomber 2.
“Since release, we have managed to successfully build a really strong gaming brand from the ground up with iBomber and we are now expanding the game out onto a host of new platforms to build out the whole experience,” Cobra CEO Mark Ettle told CasualGmaing.biz.
“Cobra’s slogan is ‘We Create, You Play’ and with iBomber there has been an awful lot of playing.”
We’re big fans of iBomber on Casualgaming.biz, naming it as our Game of the Week last August.
Campaign Magazine claims TV spot was the second most effective in the UK in 2009
UK trade publication Campaign Magazine has hailed Nintendo’s Ant and Dec TV advertisement as the second most effective in the UK throughout 2009.
Created by Karmarama, the prime-time TV spots saw the likeable Geordie pair chatting with UK families about the various functions of Wii and DS.
Campaign’s results come from a TNS survey that measured how likely consumers were to purchase products or services after watching an ad. 250 separate advertisements were measured in total.
Nintendo’s creative missed out on the top spot thanks to Dettol’s antibacterial spray campaign, which was given a significant boost thanks to last year’s global swine flu scare. Other campaigns recognised for their success included Walker’s Gary Lineker ads, Apple’s iPhone 3G marketing and Comparethemarket.com.
Now, if Nintendo can just ensure that the next DS has built-in swine flu protection…
The Governments measures to push the Digital Economy Bill through Parliament has been dealt a blow after Creative Industries Minister Siôn Simon announced that he will resign his post.
According to the Guardian, Simon was appointed to steer the bill through Parliament, but has stepped down in order to make a bid to become the Mayor of Birmingham.
The Government was hoping to push the Bill, which controversially imposes obligations on ISPs to combat peer-to-peer file sharing, in to law before the next general election.
“First Stephen Carter, now Siôn Simon – this resignation is another chapter in the sorry story of Labour's disastrous approach to Britain's digital future,” said the Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. “It is a complete farce that a minister responsible should resign his post so close to the digital economy bill arriving in the House of Commons.”
Electronics giant Sony has posted operating profits of $1.6 billion for its third fiscal quarter – its first profit in five quarters.
The results are a big improvement on the $197 million loss seen in the same period the year before.
Increased sales for Sony’s Blu-ray operation paved the way for a 22 per cent increase in profits at the B2B & Disc Manufacturing Division, totalling $110 million.
There were also strong results at the Networked Products and Services Division (which houses Sony’s PlayStation operations), with the period brining an operating profit of $213 million – up $277 million year-on-year.
Sony has now halved its forecasted full-year loss from $415 million to $207 million.
One of the games industry’s most celebrated global success is enjoys its tenth birthday today, and while success very much depends on how you measure it, by any account The Sims is one of most successful and enduring video games series the world has ever seen.
Having first debuted on February 4th 2000, The Sims IP has since gone on to become the best-selling PC game in “nearly every major video game market worldwide”, shifting a massive 125m copies and generating $2.5bn of revenue in the process.
“The success of The Sims is something gamers and the gaming business as a whole can be proud of,” EA Play label boss Rod Humble stated.
“With its charming and quirky style, lovely emergent game mechanics and user created creativity that delights every day, The Sims is a game that can be enjoyed by everybody and reflects what you put into it.
“The future of The Sims is going to be a lot of fun; it is rare for an entertainment franchise to be gaining momentum a decade after release, so this is a particularly pleasant moment for everyone who has worked on the games.”
And while some series struggle to maintain their popularity in the quickly evolving market that is video games, there’s no sign yet of The Sims’ popularity abating. The most recent instalment, The Sims 3, has sold over 4.5m units since its release in June last year.
In addition, there have been nearly 110m downloads for the game and its community website welcomes in the region of 6m unique users each month, serving 300 downloads a minute.
The Sims’ success has spread to new formats, too, with The Sims 3 on iPhone being the best selling game on the App Store in 2009. The Sims 3’s YouTube channel is the second most subscribed on the service with over 55,000 users and over 26m video views.
So let’s raise a glass to one of our greatest successes. Happy birthday, The Sims!
iPhone users are much more interested in games than Android or BlackBerry users, according to stats released by app discovery firm Mplayit.
Games make up only 20% of the 130,000 iPhone apps available to browse on Mplayit's Facebook service, yet they account for 47% of the traffic for the site's iPhone section.
Only 20% of the traffic to Mplayit's Android section is games-related, while the proportion is 30% for its BlackBerry section.
The data was collected from the browsing habits of more than 50,000 users in the last two weeks of January.
"iPhone developers are driving this phenomenon, putting out simply fantastic games that get people excited," says Mplayit boss Michael Powers.
"But the developer catch up is underway on Android, and although BlackBerry is renowned for apps, it continues to be underrated and overlooked as a games platform."
While the most active game categories were roughly the same across all three smartphone platforms according to Mplayit's data - Arcade, Casual, Card/Casino and Puzzle - there were some differences in tastes.
The company says music games were more popular among iPhone users, while Android users showed more of a preference for games using GPS, camera and augmented reality features. And BlackBerry gamers? They like TV and movie spin-offs.
Alain Corre, Ubisoft's MD for EMEA territories has said that he expects 2010 to be another transition year for the industry in which consumers will continue to be cautious about where they put their money.
But he added that he's confident people will continue to enjoy gaming, and points to the upward growth of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 markets as proof that core gamers will continue to spend money on their hobby.
"We kind of expect 2010 to be another transition year, meaning that we see the market stabilising in this calendar year, with the possibility of growth after that," Corre told GamesIndustry.biz.
The reason for 2009's mixed performance was partly down to the economy, said Corre - "People had less money to invest, especially in the US."
"I'd say it was more, to a certain extent, in the casual segment of the market, especially on the handheld side, where people spent much less on cartridges," he added.
"But on the other side there was also the music game business, which went down quite a lot - and if you combine that with the DS decrease, it's been a big part of the decrease of the market last year.
"However, if you look at what is important for the future, both the PS3 and 360 markets went up, which means that the gamers are still around, they're still enjoying playing and they're still playing more - which is essential for the dynamism of our industry, because these consumers are very vocal, they define trends, so that they're still getting to play great games is a very positive sign."
Corre pointed to the sales performance of Assassin's Creed II - which by the end of December had already sold 40 per cent more units than the original game two years earlier - as proof that high quality, well-known franchises can sell even higher numbers of units, despite the economy.
"That's very positive - but it's a more challenging industry in the sense that, on the gamer's side, only the triple-A-quality games will sell, but these games can sell many more units than they were selling before," he said.
Going forward, Ubisoft has already stated its intention to focus on key franchises, and Corre said that he could also foresee a strategy of combining the talents of different studios to create those key games.
For Assassin's Creed II "our Montreal studio worked with our Singapore studio and the Annecy studio in France to make sure that the game would be a top quality game," said Corre. " And we've been able to make all the talented people - engineers and creatives - at the three studios work together."
"I think in the future we'll see that as very much more the case - a bit like in the movie industry, where talent combines from different parts of the world. For example, our studio Hybride in Canada helped James Cameron to make the film Avatar," he added.
"The same way I think we'll see more and more people from different companies with different talent combine to create the best games on earth."
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