Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Moore, Satchell savage 'talentless' Sony at CES

by Patrick Garratt

IllustrationPeter Moore - VP of Microsoft's interactive entertainment business, entertainment and devices division and Chris Satchell - general manager of Microsoft's game development group - launched an unprecedented attack on Sony's PlayStation 3 business at CES in Las Vegas yesterday.

Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz, the two senior executives branded the Japanese firm's online service for the newly-launched console a "disaster" and said the company lacks the talent and the "DNA" to ever deliver a suitable online console service for consumers.

"It's going to take [Sony] a couple of years to get up to speed on this, and I'm not sure that they necessarily have the talent, or it's built into who they are as a company," Moore said.

"They're struggling with some of their hardware issues, and apparently they're going to deliver another five million in the next 90 days. But this business is about hardware, software and services now. And the consumer expects that."

Moore's comments came as he explained how much commitment Microsoft has needed to create the currently available Live offering.

"It's taken a company like Microsoft four solid years to get where we are today - the richness of the experience, the consistency of the experience, constantly updating features and making it feel fresh - and we're a software company and this is a software plane," he said.

"It is not in Sony's DNA to be able to get that up and running from zero."

Satchell bore similar sentiments. "If I wanted to make my online service better, and I wanted to give [Sony] a little piece of advice, it would be to copy Xbox Live a little more closely," he said.

"My honest opinion is that it's pretty much a disaster. They keep saying that they have a free service. Well, if they don't have anything, of course it's free. And you know what: what's free about $600?"

Moore and Satchell were speaking after announcements at CES from Bill Gates on Sunday that Xbox Live will be brought to Windows Vista this summer, and an announcement from Sony on Monday that 1 million PS3s have now shipped in the US.

The full interview with Peter Moore is now on GamesIndustry.biz. The interview with Chris Satchell will follow tomorrow.

(c) www.gameindustry.biz

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Evolution of the Handheld

The handheld gaming scene has witnessed many attempts by a variety of companies to gain commercial success, but over thirty formats shown below, only a handful have been able to gain support of the mainstream. The main problems for companies trying to enter the handheld gaming scene is how to create an affordable, portable machine that won't eat up the battery.
It wasn't until 1989 when Nintendo released the GameBoy, with it's dot-matrix screen, low battery consumption (though needed 4 AA batteries), relatively small size and one killer game, Tetris , that guaranteed them the success they wanted. No other company could emulate what Nintendo had created, try as they may, there was nothing as successful as the GameBoy.
Almost sixteen years after the GameBoy, in 2005, both Nintendo and Sony released their 'revolutionary' contenders, each aiming at a different market. So far, two years down the line it seems like Nintendo still have the same magic formula they had back in 1989.

Milton Bradley Microvision - 1978

Nintendo Game & Watch (60 in the series) - 1980 - 1991

Epoch Game Pocket Computer - 1984

Nintendo Gameboy - 1989

Atari Lynx - 1989

NEC TurboExpress - 1990

Sega GameGear - 1991

Watara Supervision - 1992

Sega MegaJet - 1992

Nintendo VirtualBoy - 1994

Sega Nomad - 1995

NeoGeo Pocket - 1996

Nintendo GameBoy Pocket - 1996

Nintendo GameBoy Pocket Light - 1997

Tiger Game.com - 1997

Nintendo GameBoy Color - 1998

Cybiko - 1998

Dreamcast VMU - 1998

Sony PocketStation - 1998

NeoGeo Pocket Color - 1999

Bandai WonderSwan - 1999

Bandai WonderSwan Color - 2000

GamePark GP32 - 2001

Nintendo GameBoy Advance - 2001

Nintendo Pokemon Mini - 2004

Bandai Swan Crystal - 2002

Nokia N-Gage - 2003

Nintendo GameBoy Advance SP - 2003

Timetop Gameking - 2003

Tapwave Zodiac - 2004

Nokia N-Gage QD - 2004

Nintendo DS - 2004

Sony PSP - 2004

Tiger Gizmondo - 2005

Nintendo GameBoy Micro - 2005

GamePark XGP - 2005

V-Smile Pocket - 2005

Ez Mini - 2005

Nintendo DS Lite - 2006

 (c) hahuk.blogspot.com

Friday, January 5, 2007

XBox 360 Version 2 To Come With HDMI and Bigger Hard Drive

by Jason McMaster

Being an early-adopter is a double-edged sword. On the one side you get to be the cool guy with the latest gaming hardware, but on the other side you end up missing out on the hardware revisions and special offers. One such revision that is causing me much pain is the leaked information on the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) XBox 360 Version 2, codenamed “Zephyr.”

Engadget spoke with an industry insider who has confirmed the release of the new 360. This latest revision contains the 65nm processor, a 120 GB HDD and a HDMI port. This would be quite the update for XBox fans, since the 20 GB HDD that is currently available has been constantly maligned due to lack of space, the HDMI port will be capable of producing true 1080p, and, last but not least, the new processor is smaller and cooler, so less heat related issues.

The XBox insider who released this information couldn’t give a release date for the new hardware, but said that it would be available “soon.” Let’s hope there’s a trade-in plan, because there’s no better way to enrage a bunch of fans than releasing a better version of a product they just bought. There isn’t any information on what the new 360 might cost, but since it is coming with the smaller, cheaper to manufacture processor, one would imagine that it will remain the same price.

(c) www.gigagamez.com

Just how fast is this Wii of yours really?

Apparently quite a bit, as long as it's not compared to the unfairly brawny Playstation 3 or the Microsoft priced Xbox 360. Better compare the Wii to the Gamecube, a console much more powerful than Sony's PS2 and quite capable of producing the rather impressive graphics of Resident Evil 4:

Beside the obvious differences of the Wiimote, the WiFi networking, the Channels and the Virtual console, the inclusion of a full-sized DVDx6 (that's its speed really), 16:9 support, the new design and the SD cards thingy, the Wii improves on the core Gamecube hardware as well.
According to Felix Domke's speech at the 23c3 Chaos Communication Congress in the free and always radical city of Berlin (see the speech here), this is what the difference between the two consoles actually looks like, when compiled into a chart by a gnome:
MaxConsole, on the other hand, estimates that the Wii is actually 1.5 times faster than the Gamecube, and then goes on to provide an extensive list of specs. Read it here. Just don't buy this outrageous Wii bundle...

(c) gnomeslair.blogspot.com

Tabloid reports on child 'Killed by Game Boy'

Daily Mirror front page leads with holiday accident

IllustrationUK tabloid The Daily Mirror today leads with a story of a tragic holiday accident and a half-page headline stating: "Killed by Xmas Game Boy."

The story, also on the red top's website, tells of 7 year-old Connor O'Keefe, who was electrocuted while unplugging a charger in his hotel room in Thailand.

"There should be some kind of warning about different electrical currents you get abroad because this would not have happened in England," said the mother of the child, Kathleen Curry.

She also said that Connor was aware of the dangers of electricity, while police at the Sunset Beach Hotel in Phuket described the incident as a tragic accident.

All Game Boy handhelds come with numerous safety warnings in the manual and on printed leaflets, detailing consumer information and precautions. Instruction booklets also warn that devices 'must be used with the recommended power supply', and that they conform to the EEC's Low Voltage Directive.

Nintendo was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

(c) www.gamesindustry.biz

Nintendo Wii Sports Pack Wiimote Attachments

wsptennis.jpgThe Nintendo Wii's pack-in game Wii Sports is a pretty decent proof of concept, but waving around the Wiimote isn't exactly a realistic experience. However, by attaching these plastic, erm, attachments, you can authentically recreate the experience of swinging a baseball bat, golf club or tennis racket. Take a look for yourself at all of them on the other side.

wsptennisdisplay.jpg

wspbaseball.jpg

So, in essence, you're paying $22 for pieces of plastic shaped like sports apparatuses. I can think of bigger wastes of money. – Nicholas Deleon

(c) www.gizmodo.com

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Sims Wii

Blimey. This came from nowhere this month, and watching the stubby-limbed Chibi-faced characters of the Japanese trailer (Chibi being the form of highly stylised drawing in which the body is about the same size as the head. Chibi is used to describe a small person or child; but often in a derogatory way), you'd be hard pushed to recognise this as an actual Sims game, so alien does it seem from what came before. A radical Japan-ification has taken place - The Sims now sporting a distinct Animal Crossing/Harvest Moon vibe.
Greater construction control is promised to be on the way. You'll be constructing your own home, houses for other residents, businesses - going against the pre-designed communal area approach of previous Sims titles - as well as general eye-pleasing greenery. While we're promised the ability to design our own town, the game will decide how to populate the world - much like Animal Crossing.

With house construction, EA Japan are really going all out to accommodate The Sims, both literally and figuratively, on the Wii. The remote pointer can replicate the PC's mouse cursor control infinitely better than a clumsy analogue stick. It's a case of pointing, picking up, dragging and dropping. No opportunity for cowboy builders here.
A detailed character creator has also been revealed. Like the Mii creation, it focuses on facial details over clothes and body shape. It would've been good to have used our Miis instead - no matter how hard you try, you're not going to be able to make a likeness of yourself in-game. Unless you happpen to have a rectangular Bomberman-style head, that is.
But, though simplified, the faces are capable of wearing numerous goofy expressions - from angry frowns to googly eyes - which are used to indicate what's going on in their little Sim minds much more effectively than a thought bubble or meter-bar ever could. Online functions - visiting other towns perhaps? - and DS connectivity have also been mentioned in development plans; hopefully The Sims will fill the house-developing, townvisiting gap until the inevitable Animal Crossing game rears its own oddlyshaped head.

(c) www.computerandvideogames.com

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