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Here is an early look at the new Command and Conquer 3 from Electronic Arts. The game is officially called Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. I have been looking forward to a good RTS game since Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 was released. The screen shows C&C’s infamous tiberium and provides an early look at it’s latest iteration. You can check out the official Command and Conquer 3 site to subscribe to a newsletter update. The developers are also putting out a podcast to keep you up to date.
Read More 
| EA
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nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2 Launches, Reviewed
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, PC,
nVidia today announced that the GeForce 7950 GX2 dual GPU solution is now available. Basically, this card is the first official single card SLI solution on the market. Also, this card is the first card from nVidia that explicitly enables HDCP protection, where previously this was a vendor option. Having HDCP onboard means that when this card is paired with a HDCP-compliant display device, users will be able to experience Windows Vista DRM-encoded video in full resolution, important for those people looking to leverage new media types like HD-DVD and Blu-Ray on their PC. Gamers that purchase this card, according to nVidia, can look forward to:
- Two GPUs working simultaneously on a single card-dramatically raising the bar for single-card performance
- 48 pixel pipes on a single card
- 1GB of video memory on a single card
- Hardware accelerated H.264 support through NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology-the combination of HD video processors and software delivers a home-theater quality HD video experience to the PC.
- High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) capable (requires other compatible components that are also HDCP capable)
- Support for Quad NVIDIA SLI technology-available ONLY in PCs from authorized NVIDIA system builders
So, don’t expect to be able to purchase two of these cards and enable Quad SLI off-the-shelf, at least not yet. Retail pricing is suggest to fall between $599 - $649. So, while the GX2 isn’t going to outshine the 7900 GTX SLI configuration, it should come close to the same performance at a lot lower price point, given that a single GTX card retails for around $480. A few online vendors have the cards listed, including Newegg.com, mWave.com, and ZipZoomFly.com. Several sites have posted reviews of the new hardware:
Read More | nVidia.com
Microsoft’s Live Anywhere Gains Support
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Corporate News, Portable/Mobile, Wireless, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace,
QUALCOMM announced June 1st that it will be supporting the Live Anywhere movement through use of it’s BREW software. If you are using a Verizon Wireless cell phone and playing games, you are using BREW. The announcement was made at the annual BREW developer’s conference in San Diego, and is good news for Microsoft. Previous to this announcement Live Anywhere was a great theory but lacked visible backers in the wireless industry. These showings of support by QUALCOMM and by proxy Verizon Wireless has lent credibility to the idea that I can purchase a game on the Xbox Live Arcade and gain the ability to play the game on your phone or interact on the go with your friends on Live. Yet to be laid out is what consumers will have to pay Verizon for this access since Verizon is unlikely to just hand out access to their distribution service and lose revenue from games purchased on Live. On the upside, combined with the free XBL gold weekends that Verizon has given out, the company may be showing a commitment to the gaming community and thus attracting more gamers to it’s multitude of services.
Read More | IGN
Rumor: First PS3 Versions To Play PS2 Games Via Hardware
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3, Rumors,
IGN posted a report based on information that has appeared in Japan’s Ultra One tech magazine, that suggests that for the initial run of PS3 consoles, backwards compatibility will be achieved through actual hardware on board, rather than software emulation. The Playstation 2, of course, achieved its extremely high level of backward compatibility with original Playstation titles through the benefits of including the full Playstation chipset onboard to handle some input functionality. The Playstation 2 could offer this feature at a relatively low cost for Sony because the original Playstation chipsets had been integrated and refined to the point where economics of scale and size took over. Including the Playstation 2 hardware is more problematic for Sony, as the more complicated PS2 hardware, including the Emotion Engine, still costs a fair bit to produce. It is suggested in the article that including the hardware is a stopgap measure until software emulation can be perfected.
Other speculation in the article revolves around the patching system that will be utilized for games, which is going to be another concern for console gamers that will only increase, given that a few high profile patches have already shipped for Xbox 360 games. Ultra One also believe there will be multiple SKUS of the Playstation 3, above and beyond what they see as the “basic system.”
Read More | IGN.com
Through some careful mining of the Internet, the British Gaming Blog managed to dig up some prototype Wii controller styles that might have been. Thankfully gamers never got the odd button-cross prototype, or the version with the disc controller. But there is a version with an analog stick, and one that looks somewhat like an old-school NES controller. The final image on the page may be a prototype for some kind of replacement shell for the Wii controller, so there may be some modification options open to gamers as well.
Read More | British Gaming Blog
Muslim Video Game Company : Afkar Media
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Culture, First Person Shooters, PC, Strategy,
The Christian Science Monitor reports on a Muslim company called Afkar Media which is producing games with an emphasis on positive roles of Muslims in gaming. The company focuses on providing an alternate view of Arabs to westerners through the use of video games. Afkar’s latest game is based on the first 100 years of Islam History and is titled Al-Quraysh. Other than bolstering a positive view of Muslims in the western world Afkar media hopes to provide positive role models for Arab and Muslim youth. Al-Quraysh appears to be a RTS game along the lines of World of Warcraft and the Command and Conquer series.
Afkar Media previously published Under Siege (not the Steven Seagal Movie!), a first person shooter which dealt with tension between Palestine and Israel. Under Siege was released in 2005 and had a lukewarm reception due to lackluster graphics, however the title sold over 100,000 copies sold in the Arab world alone.
Read More | Christian Science Monitor
Halo 3 Documentary Coming Soon to Bungie.net
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, First Person Shooters, Internet, Trailers, Xbox 360,
Coming soon, you’ll be able to see a documentary of the making of the Halo 3 trailer on Bungie.net. From the company’s weblog:
“Some of our sharp-eyed fans may have noticed Marty hinted at an upcoming documentary on Bungie.net. It was supposed to be a surprise, but since the man himself gave it away, we can in fact reveal that we have a documentary short that shows the process and people involved in making the E3 trailer, complete with some never before seen scenes (think angles, really) from the trailer. This was the goodie I had hinted at in a previous update.”
No specifics were given yet as to when we can expect to see this documentary appear, but it should be interesting to see the blood, sweat and tears that went into getting the trailer ready for E3.
Read More | 1Up
Read More | Bungie
NY Times Loves “Minimalist” Wii, Interviews Iwata & Miyamoto
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: E3, Nintendo, Wii,
The New York Times is arriving a little late to the scene with their own article on the Nintendo Wii. Don’t expect to find detailed technical specifications or descriptions of how the controller works in this article; a lot of the content in this article has been said before. Still, this marks one of the highest-profile articles dedicated to the Wii, and you will find some interesting philosophical discussions on Nintendo’s strategy for the upcoming generation of consoles.
As an added benefit, the article has a link to an NY Times interview with “The Forces Behind Wii”, Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto. Again, don’t expect a ton of new content, but there are some interesting tidbits. Iwata does note that the biggest concern between now and launch time for the Wii is simply producing enough units and getting word-of-mouth going through hands-on demonstrations.
Read More | NY Times
West Virginia Schools Use DDR in Gym Class
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Sports,
Schools are finally figuring out that jumping around playing Dance Dance Revolution still counts as exercise, even though you’re staring at a TV. This latest use of DDR is being studied by exercise physiologists at WVU’s school of medicine, who note that early results of the program are “stunning”. 450 students at Suncrest Middle School in Morgantown, W.Va. are currently enrolled in the trial program, which is even receiving a lot of support from the school’s football coach. There are some interesting comparisons in this article, especially the fact that playing DDR for 45 minutes can burn as many calories as running 1-2 miles.
Can we look forward to a day when Samba de Amigo (or Wii Sports or Donkey Konga) plus DDR constitutes a full-body aerobic workout?
Read More | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sony Graphics Processor Not Fast Enough Yet?
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: PlayStation 3, Rumors,
It’s pretty safe to say that May was not a good month for Sony, and judging from articles starting to show up June might not be so great either. A recent article in TheInq lists some interesting tidbits about the second-gen Playstation 3 development kits. The bottom line: they’re not fast enough, and the specs aren’t final.
“The slightly more curious bit, encouraging and disturbing at the same time, is the current state of RSX. The disturbing part is that the slide I was shown had “Current DEH’s aren’t final spec or speed” in bold letters. Speed, OK, but not final spec at this point in time leaves precious little room for debugging before the console release. On a different note the current ones are running the RSX core at 420MHz with 550 expected for launch. Memory is set at 600MHz with 700 hoped for as final.”
It looks like a lot of game programmers might be spending a lot of late nights before the PS3 releases. And with the possibility of speed bumps and spec changes this close to launch, it should be interesting to see which console reigns supreme in the area of overheating / crashing.
Read More | The Inquirer
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