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Get Ready For Playstation Bundles Over $1,000
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
If you’re thinking of saving up the money to buy a Playstation 3 at launch, you might want to start now. European retailer Play.com is offering the Playstation 3 for a pre-order bundle with the 60 GB HDD and 3 games - Warhawk, Singstar, and Formula One - for the equivalent of about $1,000 US dollars. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many other sites with prices and bundle offers listed, so it’s not clear yet whether this will be the norm for large retailers like Target and Amazon.com.
Personally, we could see this going either way for Sony. One possibility is that the PS3 will be this year’s must-have Christmas item, and people will be willing to shell out over a grand just to get the system (even if it comes with some games they don’t want), meaning retailers will make a killing. On the other hand, this could further add to the negative reaction that Sony’s been receiving for the price of their console, and could push gamers towards cheaper alternatives like the Xbox 360, Wii, or even a new desktop PC.
Read More 
| 1Up
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Sony Scoffs At Playstation 3 Downgrade
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
Yet another rumor about possible performance problems with Sony’s Playstation 3 made the rounds this week. This time, suggesting that due to heat and other issues, the PS3 Cell processor would be downgraded, and wouldn’t match the performance that Sony was promising at E3. Today, Eurogamer got the straight information directly from Sony, and one could almost feel the dismissive tone in their words. A Sony spokesman was quoted as saying, “Developers have been working with PS3 dev kits for anywhere between eight and 12 months, and to suggest that we’d now take the decision to downgrade the hardware at such a late stage, is, well, ridiculous.” One has to wonder why the Playstation 3 seems particularly targeted for rumors and wild speculation, but realistically, the bloom came off the rose a little bit at E3 after Sony dramatically scaled back on their previous showings, and introduced the dual SKU launch and pricing. Still, the amount of attention these “some guy said” rumors is getting seems out of proportion to the weight of the sources.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Guitar-less Hero Games On The Way?
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
RedOctane President Kai Huang talked with Next-Generation.biz today and dropped more interesting hints about their plan for next generation consoles. According to the article, there’s a “very very high likelihood of additional Hero games”. Not all that surprising considering what a boon Guitar Hero has been for the company, but it’s still good to hear that they’re working on new ideas.
Huang also pointed to the online arena being the next big stage for the Hero titles:
“We will [utilize online features]. As far as games like Guitar Hero and other music games that we have in the pipeline are concerned, I think there are going to be significant changes to the gameplay.”
“Online is definitely going to be a huge component of what we’re planning, whether that’s downloading new music or characters or skins or online play features, those are the things that are really going to be the major changes for next-gen.”
Put the two pieces together, and you have another indication that RedOctane might be working on some sort of cooperative rock-band game with multiple instruments. Do we have to buy a peripheral for each though? And just how big is the “Drum Hero” controller going to be.
Read More | Next-Gen.biz
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Team Xecuter Xbox 360 Connectivity Kit Review
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Mods/Hacks, Xbox 360,
Maxconsole.net managed to get a hold of the new Xbox 360 Connectivity from Team Xecuter, and they ran it through a few tests. There are two items included in the kit: a hard drive adapter, and an optical disc drive adapter. The hard drive adapter is a fairly standard connectivity kit for the Xbox 360 hard drive, except that it allows both USB and SATA connectivity with the same cable. The connector also features an LED to let you know its operating, but it is hardly the clean solution that the Datel kit is. However, the second part of the set is more interesting; it is an optical drive adapter that allows the user to remove the DVD-ROM drive from the Xbox 360 and use standard PC power to connect it to the host computer, so that the Xbox 360 doesn’t have to be near the PC and powered on to work with the DVD drive. The connector has a toggle switch to allow selecting either normal or debug mode (for using the drive without any add-on software) and has a SATA connector to allow firmware manipulation, so that gamers can have access to their legitimate Xbox 360 software backups. Maxconsole gives the kit a favorable review, only dinging the optical drive adapter for not supporting USB at this time, and the complexity of the firmware patching process, which is more of a software issue than anything else. The kit retails for $29.95, and is available now.
Read More | MaxConsole
GamePro’s Eleven Most Groundbreaking Controllers
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Hardware, Nintendo, PlayStation 2, Xbox,
GamePro has a list of what they feel to be the eleven most groundbreaking controllers of all time. Most of the controllers on the list aren’t that controversial, but we thought you might be interested, so here they are:
- The Zapper (NES)
- Dreamcast Controller
- Nintendo Wavebird (Gamecube)
- Super Nintendo Gamepad
- Atari 2600 Joystick
- Nintendo 64 Controller
- Wii Remote
- Xbox Controller Type S
- Playstation Dual Shock
- Keyboard and Mouse
- NES Controller
Its hard to argue with the likes of the Zapper and the Dreamcast controller. Even the Atari 2600 controller was groundbreaking in its own, breakable, hand-cramping way. But while the concepts behind the Wii controller are innovative, it remains to be seen whether this controller will really alter the industry in a meaningful way. It certainly pushed Sony to adopt motion-sensing, but it’s hard to consider this a real breakthrough until the console actually ships. Similarly, the Xbox Type S controller may be best known for being released in response to the horrible feedback that the original Xbox “Duke” controller got; while it is a well executed controller, there isn’t a whole lot new that it brings to the table. Its amazing to see how many of the controller breakthroughs come from Nintendo; they weren’t always the first to implement a control scheme, but they usually were the first to make such things usable and gamer friendly.
Read More | GamePro
Interview With Matt Lee, Xbox 360 Game Technology Group Developer
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,
Ars Technica has a fairly in depth interview with one of the developers from Microsoft’s Game Technology Group, Matt Lee. In his words, his job “is to help game developers make better Xbox 360 games.” There are a ton of technical details in the interview, ranging from improvements in the Altivec units on the PowerPC cores, CPU multithreading issues, and procedural world generation.
Somewhat interesting are the perspectives on the video game market; as a developer, the marketshare statements might not hold a lot of weight. Bandied about is the 10 million unit head start, as if that were fact at this point. With the PS2 outselling the Xbox 360 in May, and an average of 250,000 Xbox 360 units sold by month, if Xbox 360 sales remain the same for the rest of the year, that targets an additional 1.5 to 2 million Xbox 360s in the United States; Europe might add a similar number, and Japan’s sales will be negligable. Add to this the fact that Wii and the Playstation 3 ship in November, and Sony’s marketing machine will be intense. So 10 million sounds good, but is probably as optimistic as Microsoft’s original holiday projections for the Xbox 360. Saying that “Both the Japanese and US markets are reaching saturation at this point” may have some weight in that there aren’t a lot of ways to incrementally add new gamers, but the existing core gamer demographic is still a battle to be fought every generation. Add to this the strong drives that Nintendo is making with its “Blue Ocean Strategy” in all three territories seems to indicate the opposite; that there are new opportunities, just not in the standard game development genres.
Lee also takes some time to discuss the PS3 architecture. Given that he probably doesn’t have a Sony NDA signed or a development kit, he’s probably working off much of the same information as the general public. There might be some insight he has talking with developers experienced on both platforms, so the commentary is interesting from that light. Porting from PS3 to Xbox 360 and vice-versa will be difficult, Lee predicts, but that’s hardly a revelation; the original PS2 and Xbox consoles saw some spectacularly bad cross-platform ports in their day, most notoriously with some of Midway’s releases. The Xbox 360’s unified memory architecture may be somewhat of an advantage, but its hard to tell at this point. It is, however, interesting to get a technical review through Microsoft-colored glasses.
Read More | ArsTechnica
Resolving HDTV Lag In Games
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360,
The Xbox 360 has sought to usher in the era of high definition gaming, and many gamers have purchased HDTV sets to go along with their new Xbox 360s. However, while HDTV offers spectacular pictures at stunning resolutions, there are some issues, the most vexxing of which is HDTV lag. IGN.com tries to dissect the problem, and offer up some solutions to the issue. There are basically two areas where HDTV lag can occur: first, when resolutions other than the native resolution of the television are used, the TV will have to alter the signal to display correctly on the set. This will sometimes require scaling the image up or down in resolution, and may also require converting the signal from an interlaced signal to progressive, or vice-versa, depending on the television type. This conversion takes a finite amount of time, and depending on the television, will either be so quick as to be unnoticeable in gaming, or can be long enough to affect the ability to play games at all.
The second issue occurs when there are additional filtering options offered by the TV. One of the more common is Samsung’s DNIe, but most of the high end HDTV manufacturers will have their own proprietary signal filter that will attempt to improve the picture seen by the user. This process again takes time. Usually it doesn’t take that long for signal processing to occur, but combined with the time taken to scale the image in the previous examples, this can again cripple gaming.
IGN proposes a few solutions to this problem. First, if the gamer hasn’t bought an HDTV set, try to test the set first with some timing intensive games in the store first. Obviously, it will be difficult to bring your dance pad in to work through some 10 foot Dance Dance Revolution tracks, but fighting games are notoriously twitch sensitive.
If you already have a set, try and set your HDTV to as close to native resolution as possible. With some consoles, this will be next to impossible. The Gamecube supports 480P resolution on some games, but most will be 480i. The Playstation 2 will have even fewer 480p games. Most original Xbox games are also 480p, but some will support 720p and higher resolutions. The Xbox 360 should offer native support for most resolutions, including 480p, 720p, and 1080i. Relying on the Xbox 360’s internal scaler should help resolve the issue in most circumstances.
They also recommend turning off any image enhancement filters on the TV. Some sets offer a “game” mode that passes the signal through without any additional filtering, and this may help as well. Finally, if none of these help, it may be necessary to purchase hardware that has a faster scaling engine than the one in the television set. IGN has a couple of recommendations, including the Micomsoft XRGB boxes that are usually available from import stores like Lik-Sang or NCSX.
Read More | IGN Gear
PSP Vending Machines Coming Soon To A Mall Near You
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, Culture, Hardware, PSP, Release Dates,
Buying new video game systems is always an experience that gets your heart racing - the thrill of removing the shrink wrap, the joy of getting your first fingerprints on the glossy exterior. Well, now you can have all the excitement of getting a PSP without the pesky nuisance of actually dealing with people. According to twice.com, Sony is test-marketing a series of “Sony Access” vending machines that will sell items such as PSPs, video games, MP3 players, and digital cameras.
Three trial machines were recently placed in malls in Georgia, Colorado, and California, with more to follow (assuming they’re successful.) Fortunately, you don’t have to pay with hundreds of singles…the machine accepts both debit and credit cards and will automatically cancel your order if something goes wrong.
Read More 
| twice.com via TechLiving.com
Why Low Frame Rates, Dumb AI, and Glitches Are Here To Stay
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Culture, Hardware, Internet,
1up.com has posted an interesting piece talking to a bunch of game developers about next-gen consoles and why we’ll never quite get the amazing AI and smooth-as-silk graphics we’re always promised. Nathan Martz from Double Fine notes that creating smart AI is still one of the most difficult programming problems out there and tends to get sent to the back-burner since the purpose of most enemies is to “put up a bit of a fight and then die in an interesting way.” He also comments on framerate issues, noting that “features tend to be more marketable than framerate, so most of the time features win out.”
Good reading for anyone interested in how the games industry operates. Made me think back to the days when I was wowed by the visuals on the 7th Guest box art, only to find that my poor 486-SX could only manage about 5 fps. Things have definitely improved since then. Still, according to these folks, even with the processing power that the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii are offering us we’re still likely to see our fair share of choppy framerates and monstrous load times. Hopefully some folks in the industry are taking notes and working on making games play better as well as just looking better.
Read More | 1Up
Xbox 360 Ad Wins Best of Show ADDY Award
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, Xbox 360,
Microsoft may have received some bad press for their extremely inventive “bang” Xbox 360 ad, but it appears that the advertising community in general has finally recognized Microsoft’s Xbox ad agency for their great work. The “Jump Rope” ad, which you can see here has won the ADDY Best of Show award.
Of course, while the ads are quite amazing, (the double-dutch jump rope ad was shot in one take!) a lot of folks might not have known these had anything to do with the Xbox 360 console - as the logo only appears in the last few seconds.
Read More | GameDaily.com
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