Archive for the 'Gaming' Category

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Japanese 1st party PS3 games to cost ¥5980 ($50 USD)

Published on Monday, October 9, 2006 in Gaming, Software and Technology. Closed

ps3 stock photo

IGN reported that PS3 games were supposed to cost in the region of $70/$85USD, and in all the anger from consumers, I guess Sony learnt that they need to tell people the better news, fast. Sony have announced that 1st party games like ‘Resistance’ will cost ¥5980 ($50USD), as well as future 1st part relesese; While 3rd party games like Sonic will cost around ¥7140 ($60). This will bring game prices on par with current Xbox 360 prices in the US. We’ll have to see in spring what the prices will be like here in the UK, but I’ll tell you know, it’s not going to be pretty.

Nintendo Marketing Strategy: Wii Goodies

Published on Sunday, October 8, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy and Technology. Closed

Nintendo’s PR department have been busy making lots of accessories to sell along with the Wii. These will have their own dedicated stands, and will include things like rubberised controller ‘gloves’ (for sweaty hands?), game cases, as well as dog tags and lapel pins. The glove idea may not be too bad, but I don’t think I can see anyone walking around with Wii dog tags. These pictures were taken by an anonymous Engadget tipster who took the photos in a Target warehouse, and along with it have the prices that Target will sell the various Wii games and accessories for.

Microsoft updates firmware of Xbox 360 DVD Drive

Published on Thursday, October 5, 2006 in Gaming, Microsoft, Noteworthy, Software and Technology. Closed

As a counter measure by Microsoft to stop people from using the Xbox 360′s DVD drive to copy Xbox 360 games, they have updated the firmware of the Hitachi/LG drive. As seen in the picture above, they have also put a lot of plack glue over the chip, as if to stop hackers from physically gaining access to the chip, and flashing it that way. This does now mean, however, that the Team-X kit which was used to allow gamers to ‘back-up’ their 360 games using their computer is now rendered useless.
It was a long and arduous process of taking apart the 360, removing the drive, connecting it to your PC and flashing its ROM, but it got the job done. For those who are interested a new episode of IPTV show the broken shows you how to back up your 360 games. For the meanwhile, sit tight, as I don’t think it will take long for the Xbox-scene crew to work out how to hack it again. Read on for the full technical details.

Links for 03/10/2006

Published on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 in Apple, Gaming, Microsoft, Noteworthy, Shorts, Technology and Wireless. Closed

The shorts for Tuesday 3rd October 2006 are:

PSM3 Magazine get their hands on the PS3 – Fast, quiet, heavy and a dust magnet (above) [link] [video]
Zune Wireless basically worthless – You can’t connect to the internet via it’s WiFi or sync to your computer via its WiFi [link]
Microsoft Unbox Zune for CBS’ camera with blatant marketing speak – “brown is the new black is the new white” [link]
DVD Jon has reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay technology and is licensing it to companies [link]

Nintendo and Wii News Roundup

Published on Sunday, October 1, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy, Software, Technology and Wireless. Closed

A lot has happened over the past week, and I’m sorry I couldn’t post, but I have had a lot of work at school, and the server was down for a while. Posting on week-days will probably continue to be sparse, but I will try and post as often as possible.
Getting to the topic, there have been various developments in Wii news So I thought I’d do a roundup.

Wal-Mart in the US could be passing Wii demo units because they are thought to be unsafe to use. They think that the game could cause bodily harm because of the akwardness of the Wii-mote. [link]
The Opera browser for the Wii will be free to download until July 2007. Users of Nintendo Wii systems will be able to download Opera for free as a promotion until July 2007 through the Wii Shop channel. As of July 2007, Opera for the Wii will be downloadable for a yet undetermined number of Wii points. The browser supports flash, AJAX, Wii-mote navigation and Web 2.0 graphics. [link]
Nintendo could be facing plastic shortages so games for the DS could come in cardboard boxes. Customers in Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg are affected by this, but it may stretch to other parts of Europe, and the US or Japan.
The new cases will be the same size as the plastic DS cases. They’ll also have a small explanation saying that only the case is different and that everything else is the same. Those who desperately want a plastic one can call customer service and get it in late December.
The following games will come in cardboard boxes; Super Mario 64 DS, Nintendogs Chihuahua & Friends, Nintendogs Dachshund & Friends, Nintendogs Labrador & Friends, Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Tetris DS, Nintendogs: Dalmatian & Friends, New Super Mario Bros. [link]
(Above) A Flickr user has found a picture of what seems to be a press shot of the Wii-mote with what looks to be card/plastic packaging. This may be the final packaging of the Wii-mote, but as other users have pointed out, it looks exactly like dummy units given out at Nintendo’s Japanese Wii Conference. [link]

1080p on the Xbox 360, complicated!

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 in Gaming, Microsoft, Technology and TV's. 1 Comment

In an effort to try and whip Sony in the HD war, Microsoft forgot to mention the fact that 1080p on the 360, won’t be so simple. Depending on the method you’re using to connect your 360 to your set, you will get different outcomes of games and movies. A Microsoft insider, on the AVS Forum, cleared it up for us all; for 1080p in all categories, you’ll have to buy a VGA cable, and not a HDMI cable.

Using your 360 with component cables:

Xbox 360 games will be upscaled to 1080p, and games which are 1080p native (none yet) will run without a hitch.
HD-DVDs will run at a maximum of 1080i, which is due to the AACS DRM implemented into HD-DVDs.
DVDs will only play at 480p (ouch!), due to the CSS inside DVDs, which prevents upscaling any higher.

Using your 360 with a VGA cable:

You’re all set, as DVDs, games, as well as HD-DVDs will display in full 1080p.

That is really underhanded for Microsoft to not tell us about this, as many people use the component HD cable that comes with the 360 to play games in high-def. I too use the component cable, and it all looks so good. Our Sony TV, actually doesn’t have a VGA input, but has 1 HDMI, which we use for Sky HD.
This really irittates me, as not only would it be good to finally have a good up-scaling DVD player, but we would have to buy a cable, for which not many TV’s support. Granted, there are TV’s which will have VGA inputs, but most don’t. Most have DVI, which is pure digital (while VGA converts analogue to digital), though you can get an adapter for that. Our TV doesn’t have DVI (hey it’s a good TV!), but we do have a DVI – HDMI converter. You may say that I could use the HDMI slot, as I wouldn’t be watching Sky the same time as playing on my 360, but then I would have 3 cables, the 360 VGA cable, a VGA to DVI cable, and our DVI to HDMI cable. I don’t know about you but all that converting doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I don’t know whether it would work anyway, because of the HDMI at the end.
Leave it to Microsoft to make such a stupid move.

Links for 24/09/2006

Published on Sunday, September 24, 2006 in Apple, Gaming, Internet, Microsoft, Random Stuff, Technology and TV's. Closed

Shorts for 24 September 2006.

Amazon UK attribute the Zune to “Apple Computer”, recently fixed it (above) [link]
Xbox 360 add-on HD-DVD drive adds 1080p, for $170, to be released on November 22nd in Japan [link]
Digital fingerprint lock broken by MythBusters’ photocopied fingerprint! (video) [link]

Wii will be region-locked!

Published on Saturday, September 16, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy, Software and Technology. 1 Comment

wii console It turns out that the both the Wii itself, and first party games will be region locked. This comes as a blow to many who felt that Nintendo made a good decision in keeping the Wii region-free. Nintendo of America’s Vice-President of Marketing & Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan stated that “Like the Nintendo DS, the Wii will be able to play games from other regions, such as Japan, without any restriction.” However, a US spokesperson told Joystiq that the Wii will be region locked;

“We’ve heard conflicting reports from lots of folks out there, but can tell you that Wii will be region encoded, as will first-party software.“

Similarly, a UK spokesperson told Gameindustry.biz that “We are region-locked”, and that the US part of Nintendo had made a mistake saying otherwise. So it seems that editors at Wired’s Game|Life miss-interpreted Kaplan’s comments, and thought that by saying that software may be region-free, she meant that the console was region-free as well. But this still contradicts what the US spokesperson told Joystiq, that first-party games will be region locked. Either way, the console itself will be region locked, and most likely the games will be too. So no importing of games from Japan!

[via IGN]

Wii developer kit photos in the wild

Published on Saturday, September 16, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy and Technology. Closed

And it’s green! Leave it upto Nintendo to do such a radical and cool thing to the dev kits. I think it looks very retro. An anonymous tip was sent to Engadget with this, and another 4 photos of the Wii, including multiple angle shots. There is a photo of it next to a keyboard, which just puts into perspective how small the thing actually is. Click on for all the photos at Engadget.

Wii to launch on December 8 for £179 in Europe

Published on Saturday, September 16, 2006 in Gaming, Noteworthy, Software and Technology. Closed

nintendo wii logo

We have a European launch date and price! Though it is much later than the US and a few days later than the launch in Japan, at least it will be here before Christmas. The 360 launch was similar last year. The Wii will be on sale on December 8th throughout Europe for £179 / €249 EUR. The Wii will also include the Wii sports package, like in the US. Games will cost between £34-£39 / €49-€59 EUR. Launch games include the Legend of Zelda and WarioWare: Smooth Moves.
You can read the full UK press event details at Eurogamer.net