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Bunnie Weighs In on Xbox 360 Hacks
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Mods/Hacks, Xbox 360,
Original Xbox hacker bunnie is weighing in on the supposed “competition” between him and The Specialist on Xbox 360 hacks as reported in the Wall Street Journal: on bunnie’s side, he certainly doesn’t see this as a battle to see who can come out on top, for him, if the goal of running homebrew software on the Xbox 360 is reached, everybody has won. He does drop some information on what’s currently going on in the realm of Xbox 360 hacking. He hasn’t been able to work on things for a couple of months, but it looks like there are some promising avenues that could lead to decryption key access on the Xbox 360, including some new ways of dissecting the Xbox 360 silicon in a non-destructive manner.
Read More 
| Bunniestudios.com
Read More | Wall Street Journal Article
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Touch Generations Across Regions
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo DS,
Siliconera has listings of the various Touch Generations titles across regions, and some of the differences are interesting. Games like Big Brain Training, Tetris DS, and Nintendogs appear across all territories, but Animal Crossing: Wild World only gets the Touch Generations label in Europe and Japan. Phoenix Wright, which has seen a rather spotty release pattern in the US, despite being somewhat of a cult classic, also makes the list in Europe, but the game is also published by Nintendo in that territory. Electroplankton also makes the list everywhere but the US, but since the US really only saw an online release for the game, this isn’t too shocking. Japan, of course, gets the largest set of Touch Generations titles, but some titles on their list include the DS Training and dictionary software titles. Still, it does seem like out of all the territories, the US got the softest list of Touch Generation games, where the games are truely focused on simpler gameplay.
Read More | Siliconera.com
The History Behind Brain Age
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Culture, Nintendo DS, Strategy,
The DS has been getting a lot of media attention recently on major venues such as NPR, thanks in no small part to non-traditional “games” like Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day. But most articles have tended to gloss over how exactly the partnership between Nintendo, a major software developer, and Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, an eminent Japanese brain researcher, came about. Interestingly enough, about 5 years ago Dr. Kawashima was studying the effects of video games on brain development
Kawashima, in need of funding for his research, originally decided to investigate the levels of brain activity in children playing video games expecting to find that his research would be a boon to manufacturers…
Using the most sophisticated technology available, the level of brain activity was measured in hundreds of teenagers playing a Nintendo game and compared to the brain scans of other students doing a simple, repetitive arithmetical exercise. To the surprise of brain-mapping expert Professor Ryuta Kawashima and his team at Tohoku University in Japan, it was found that the computer game only stimulated activity in the parts of the brain associated with vision and movement….
Kawashima (2001):
‘The implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic.’
Instead of suing Kawashima (as most companies would probably do), Nintendo instead offered Kawashima the chance to develop his own game - a move that appears to be paying off!
Read More | The Observer 2001 ‘Computer Games Stunt Teen Brains’
DS Lite Released Early By Target, Wal-Mart?
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Hardware, Nintendo DS, Release Dates, Rumors,
Cheap Ass Gamer is reporting that some enterprising individuals have been able to purchase DS Lites from Target and Wal-Mart well in advance of the June 11th release date. If you play it cool and get over to your local Target or Wal-Mart soon, you might be able to score one almost two weeks early. Hopefully this news won’t filter through to the managerial staff for a couple days!
Read More | Cheap Ass Gamer
Guitar Hero Senior Designer’s Thoughts on Wii
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, Nintendo, Rumors, Wii,
The Wiire is sporting an interview with Guitar Hero Senior Designer Rob Kay about his thoughts on the Wii and the gaming industry in general. He seems to agree with a lot of the stances Nintendo has taken recently, including the idea that graphical improvements to games are yielding diminishing returns and costing the gaming industry more money in the long run. He seems fairly excited about the possibilities of developing titles for the Wii’s unique control scheme, including some great ideas about using the Wiimote for drumming or guitar games. He also notes that the choice to develop for PS2 was based purely on the fact that it had the biggest user base, meaning that if Nintendo sells enough consoles they could end up with some great games from Red Octane.
The idea of a guitar-shaped controller shell is enough to get me excited at least! Combine that concept with the fact that the Wii trailer shows people using the controllers as drumsticks and the already-well-publicized theory that the wiimote may contain a microphone, and you’ve got your own little (or should I say, “wee”) rock band.
Read More | The Wiire
Leaked Call of Duty 3 Screenshot?
Posted by John Goulden Categories: Activision, First Person Shooters, Rumors,
British Gaming Blog has a picture that they are claiming is a leaked screenshot of Activision’s upcoming WWII shooter, Call of Duty 3. There’s some debate as to the authenticity of the picture, and we have to agree that it looks pre-rendered. If indeed it is an in-game pic, then “wow” is all we have to say.
Some features of the new shooter are:
- Up close, hand to hand combat and traps to disarm, all requiring fast reflexes in the battlefield. - More destructible environments gives your enemies (and you) nowhere to hide. - Split level design means your tactics from sniping to guns a blazing will open different routes for you. - Execute parachute drops, armoured assaults or SAS commando raids. Riddle battlefields with tank shells and explosives. Drive tanks to topple barricades and invade enemy emplacements. - Brand new multiplayer engine featuring multiple occupancy vehicles for team based combat.
Read More | British Gaming Blog
Halo 2 Vista Details from Bungie
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: First Person Shooters, Internet, PC,
Bungie’s Weekly Update drops a couple of new details about Halo 2 on Microsoft Windows Vista. First, Halo 2 won’t require a DirectX 10 graphics card to render, and second, Vista users will not be able to play online against Xbox and Xbox 360 users, and will instead be segregated into their own PC server realm. Forcing Halo 2 to Windows Vista then seems to be more about making the game operate with Microsoft’s Xbox Live Anywhere service, rather than any specific graphical technical reason preventing the release. The Vista version will also include new exclusive maps, and a map editor, taking some of the sting out of receiving the game two years past the Xbox release.
Read More | Bungie.net
Xbox Live Vision Camera In Action, Drops September 19
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Hardware, Release Dates, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade,
If you were wondering how the Vision Camera would work in UNO, her eis your answer. Maestro1, a camera beta tester, showed up in a game where another player quickly grabbed 40 seconds of video. Not much to see in the video itself, other than a dog standing still for quite a while, then simply walking away - but still cool nonetheless. The Xbox Live Vision Camera is set to launch in North America and Europe on September 19, 2006.
Read More | CheapAssGamer
Extremetech took Microsoft’s Windows Vista Beta 2 for a spin with a bunch of the top games to see how they would perform; in general, things pretty much worked, except for a few tweaks and issues with drivers, as would be expected with beta software. The biggest problem they encountered was that the Starforce copy protection drivers would not install on Vista; this will either be good news or bad news. If you are unlucky enough to have a game that has Starforce, unless there is a driver update for Vista, those games won’t run. However, if you are hoping that the Starforce copy protection scheme just goes away, this may help that cause. Other issues were with Punkbuster; games that have this enabled have to be run with Administrator privileges. This kind of application-level compatibility may hurt Microsoft’s intent to separate user and administrative accounts on a machine, so hopefully the Punkbuster people will find a way to work around this, and allow games to be run in user mode. There were also issues with games not appearing in Microsoft’s Game Explorer UI. Interestingly, one of the games to not appear in the UI was Microsoft’s on Rise of Legends. Other than the Starforce issues, gamers should feel fairly confident that their games will run correctly in Vista when it ships.
Read More | ExtremeTech
Nintendo Announces Touch Generations Brand
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo DS, Strategy,
Nintendo has started officially branding their new casual game line up for the Nintendo DS; the games in this series will be marked with the Touch Generations logo for easy identification. The initial set of titles includes:
- Brain Age
- Nintendogs
- Tetris DS
- True Swing Golf
- Big Brain Academy
- Magnetica
- Sudoku Gridmaster
Big Brain and Magnetica are due on June 5, shortly before the DS Lite arrives the US, and Sudoku will follow soon after. Clearly, Nintendo is timing the casual game brand to coincide with the launch of the DS Lite, but with so many vendors only offering bundles, one has to wonder if this will discourage casual game adoption, at least in the short term.
Full release after the jump.
Click to continue reading Nintendo Announces Touch Generations Brand
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