The Xbox 360 has been through quite the public crucible of late. In the last 12 months, it's added a brand new model, re-priced its peripherals, dropped the bottom line cost of all its configurations, and in just a few weeks, it'll completely switch out the face it offers to gamers when powered on (see my review of that change-up, parts one and two). Whatever you think of those changes, you can justifiably say 2008 has been an incredibly transformative one for a system that only launched three years ago. So it's not surprising to read that Microsoft's Stephen McGill told VideoGamer.com the price cuts are done, finished, fini, and that the company is "not dropping the price for many many years in the future." While McGill would technically be speaking on behalf of the UK market, Microsoft has tended to structure the 360's pricing internationally, so it's likely his statement applies universally. According to McGill:
I'm not going to speculate where it might go (the price of the Xbox 360) in five or ten years time, whatever. But we've obviously just reduced the price and that's because we can pass the costs reductions we have straight on to consumers.
...a lot of people have been waiting for it to become even more affordable and they're now seeing that benefit and buying it in their droves and we can now hopefully continue it through Christmas and beyond."
That makes sense for the added reasons that Microsoft is selling well against Sony's PS3. Sony's Ray Maguire also said recently that the PS3 won't be dropping so much as a penny this holiday season, so there's no real pressure for Microsoft to double its flanking maneuvers. That said, is it time for Sony to drop the PS3's price? Have a look at my thoughts on that touchy matter and decide for yourself. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153200/no_xbox_price_drop.html?tk=rss_news
I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole, personally, but if you're an insufferably curious geek, it seems you can pull down a pirated version of Microsoft's New Xbox Experience. The NXE is Microsoft's impending total makeover for its Xbox 360 dashboard, which I recently previewed here and here. I say "early version" because I can confirm Microsoft's been releasing periodic updates to the NXE, so it's probably not the most recent version. Furthermore, Microsoft has a very simple means of tracking who's supposed to have access and who isn't. I won't say how, but use your imagination and it'll come to you. If you download the update and connect, they'll also know you're not a card-carrying club member, at which point, says Microsoft, it's bye bye Xbox Live for you. In case you think that's just grandstanding, Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb, aka "Major Nelson," Twittered the following on Saturday:
A little reminder: If you get your hands on NXE and you are NOT in the Preview Program. You won't be allowed on LIVE.
November 19th is just a few weeks away. Just wait. Besides, aren't Fable 2 and Fallout 3 enough?
Nintendo is teasing users with a release list of the Wii lineup for 2009. The list was obtained by Kotaku on Friday, and provides information on projected availability of several key games and dates for North American gamers. Notable titles include: Wii Sports Resort, Nintendo - 2009 Punch Out!!, Nintendo - 1st half 2009 Sin and Punishment 2, Nintendo - 2009 Mario Tennis (GameCube Port), Nintendo - TBA Pikmin (GameCube port), Nintendo - TBA, Sim Animals, EA - 1/27/09 Tenchu 4, Ubisoft - Early 2009 And there are still a few other Wii games to sooth your gamer self this year, including Quantum of Solace on Nov. 4, Call of Duty: World at War and Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Nov. 11, and Animal Crossing: City Folk with Shaun White Snowboarding on Nov. 16. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/153175/wii_game_schedule.html?tk=rss_news
Microsoft ESP extends simulation innovation to government, enabling immersive, game-like training solutions on a public-sector budget.NASHVILLE — Oct. 29, 2008 — As with many industries today, governments are increasingly affected by the rising cost of goods, unprecedented environmental issues and increasing demand for services amid economic turbulence. That puts pressure on tight budgets and increases scrutiny of how that money is spent. According to Bruce Harris, Technical Evangelist in Microsoft’s Institute for Advanced Technology in Government, training government works presents even more challenges. Agencies must consider a growing and young workforce that is far more digitally advanced than older generations, and that has new learning styles. “All of this contributes to the problem of how to plan, predict, train and respond quickly and efficiently while achieving a better return on training dollars,” Harris says. “For governments, especially in critical sectors like defense and homeland security, the need to expand the quality and reach of existing training solutions to retain and better equip employees is vital.” As public agencies worldwide search for new and better ways to train employees, Harris says one solution may lie in what is increasingly known as the “spatial web” – platforms and technologies such as mobile devices, location-based Web services, search engines, social networking sites, and other services that consider the user’s location in space and time. Spatial web applications are now supporting everything from real estate companies to oil companies, city planners to first responders, law enforcement and the military. Harris sees a natural extension of these technologies to create simulations that allow people to “virtually” work with one another as they would in everyday life. Nowhere is this kind of evolution more needed than in the public sector. Recognizing the value that simulation brings, over the past several years the U.S. government alone has invested tens of billions in simulation technologies and systems. In 2007, for example, the U.S. government spent more than $9 billion on modeling and simulation. Harris says the needs reflected by that spending are continuing to grow. “Governments have an increasing need to model and simulate a wide range of environments that include transportation models, first responder exercises, military training and operational deployments,” he says. “Microsoft ESP has the potential to play a major role here, because the current state of modeling and simulation is similar to the early days of word processing, database management and desktop publishing — when it was very costly and only a few people in an organization had access to these tools. ESP makes simulation affordable to broad audiences of users, thus increasing the availability of simulation as a training aid to new sets of users who had been priced out of the market previously.” Based on Microsoft technologies and open industry standards, ESP brings “plug and play” capabilities to commercial off-the-shelf PC-based computer hardware platforms and devices, putting the entire spectrum of training simulations within reach by making them much more affordable and faster to develop or modify. | | | | |
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Microsoft ESP renders the world from 100 million feet out to 3 meters DEM (digital elevation model) on the surface |
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“Today, Microsoft is positioned to create a real change in public sector training programs, and we are leading the effort to provide affordable modeling and simulation technology for workers at all levels and skills,” Harris says. “With Microsoft ESP’s powerful capabilities, affordable pricing and flexible licensing, these simulations can be deployed across entire organizations, just like word processors and databases are today.” Simulating Chaos: Real World Limitations in Training Harris notes that traditional simulations require so much investment they have been out of reach for all but the most critical applications. “If you have a multi-billion dollar platform like a submarine, and you only have a handful of them, it makes sense to build a simulation solution so that people don’t mistakenly drive them into sea mountains,” says Harris. “However, simulation technologies have traditionally been beyond the budgets for agencies and organizations whose missions put fewer lives or expensive assets at risk. There has also been no way to accurately simulate a large disaster response, because there was no way to simulate a crowd of people acting like they would under those circumstances. Nor can current simulations create factors such as traffic, weather, and injury. Today, disaster response rehearsals are often done via “table top exercises” which identify best practices and proper chains of command, but lack any sense of realism or urgency. “How do you model chaos realistically?” Harris says. “You can’t just shut the Amtrak station down for a day and displace thousands of people. The economic impact is untenable, and getting all the police and fire departments and everyone else to divert their resources to the training exercise is not feasible.” Harris sees the Holy Grail of training as exercises that help the organization examine and rehearse every component of an emergency accurately and effectively, without shutting down transportation nodes, without redirecting police and fire departments, and without the astronomical expense and logistics of trying to conduct such an exercise with people. “These entities need to prove out the processes and contingency plans they’ve got in place, the phone numbers, the directions, the chain of command,” he says. “What happens if a certain arterial street or bridge becomes unusable? A simulation is really the only practical way to go through all that.” Within Reach: New Technologies Bring Virtual World Down to Earth According to David Boker, senior director of Business Development for Microsoft’s ACES Studio (publishers of Microsoft ESP), a number of factors have combined in recent years to make simulation technology more affordable and more practical. Factor in the relentless rise in available computing power and much more can now be done at the desktop instead of on large mainframes or in simulator training centers. “It’s really the next generation of employee training productivity,” Boker says. “With a couple of developers, a few weeks’ time and a few thousand dollars, you can now do what had formerly taken a roomful of developers many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do. And the simulations they’re able to create are much more realistic, flexible, affordable, and portable.” Another benefit: because the Microsoft ESP platform is easily reprogrammed, users can more quickly update their environments to run multiple simulations. That’s a big improvement over the expensive, proprietary platforms of the past, which were developed for specific purposes and were costly, difficult to modify, and lacked hardware scalability. “You no longer have the case where a particular military component may have to pay $10 or $20 million to run one training simulation that’s got a few scenarios built into it,” he says. “Today you can go in and very rapidly add scenarios or change out variables in the environment to deliver a whole new way of looking at problems and rehearsing scenarios.” Microsoft ESP’s ability to tie into a number of different technologies can also drastically change the way simulations are run. Historically there has been no realistic, low-cost, flexible means to integrate simulations across disciplines and allow users to experience the simulation in concert. But Harris says that is changing, and Microsoft is leading the change. “We need to be able to land the aircraft, disembark the troops and deploy them into an operational environment, and then provide after action reviews as part of the next planning and training scenarios,” he says. “And it needs to be scalable from the small tactical teams up to the large integrated organizational efforts, such as large disaster preparedness relief work.” Boker says numerous existing Microsoft products can be used in conjunction with ESP to drive realistic simulations with real geospatial data and compelling simulated environments that can scale from small desktop trainers to large distributed simulation environments. Where today there are only pieces of this vision available in the existing, large, expensive simulation platforms, Microsoft’s products are playing a significant role in bringing it all together. “Along with ESP, Microsoft has technologies that play into all of these scenarios,” he says. “Our proven ability to populate a simulated environment with geospatially accurate 3D data from Virtual Earth, our ability to manage the data with SQL Server 2008, to enhance security with Windows Vista, and to expand the access and distribution such as we see with mobile devices — we have everything in place to provide these capabilities quickly, and to develop and deploy virtual, “mirror world” environments with accurate and realistic data and scenarios.” It’s All About Partners: Making the Vision a Virtual Reality Despite these advances in technology, there remain business and human challenges in bringing virtual training to the mainstream. The modeling and simulation market needs to be thought of in an entirely new way: No longer limited to small numbers of simultaneous users, centralized locations, limited data sets, and interactive options, or highly complex and costly infrastructures. “Augmenting these more traditional approaches with lighter weight, powerful and more affordable solutions will transform simulation-based training by bringing it to more people in more places on more devices,” Boker says. “Microsoft has the technology and the ability to knit it together, but it’s going to require a significant partner ecosystem to really bring the power of our new open simulation platform to the public sector.” Harris says Microsoft is not set up to meet the large demands of various government organizations, especially those dealing with classified data systems or large numbers of personnel, “So we’re working with partners to deploy and maintain the technical tools and platforms we bring to the table.” Harris believes that by making the simulations readily available, easily reconfigurable, and relevant to a broad mission set, Microsoft and its partners will bring sweeping changes to a very traditional industry. “The ultimate potential is not in replacing what already exists, but broadening the use of games-based technology to transform how people and organizations plan, prepare and execute their mission directives,” Harris says. The difference is that Microsoft is providing the tools for organizations to build their own environments, or mirror worlds, with real world data, so they can interact with it in a realistic manner. Says Boker, “If you look at how far and how fast the first-person and multi-person gaming has come in the past few years, you begin to get an idea of where we’re headed with simulation.” Reference : http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/oct08/10-29ESP.mspx?rss_fdn=Top%20Stories
Microsoft is not releasing gaming software Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360 in India, citing cultural sensitivities. Bethesda Softworks, the vendor of the software, announced earlier this month that Fallout 3 will be available on store shelves and online in North America on Oct. 28, in Europe and Australia on Oct. 30, and in the U.K. on Oct. 31. There are cultural sensitivities in India associated with the game, and Microsoft took the business decision not to launch this game, said Ashim Das Mathur, national marketing manager for the entertainment and devices division of Microsoft India. Microsoft did not comment on the precise nature of the cultural sensitivities involved. The company was to distribute the game in India under agreement with Bethesda, which is a second party game provider, Mathur said. Fallout 3 has been rated 'M' for Mature by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) for its content, which includes blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language and use of drugs, according to information available on the ESRB and Bethesda Web sites. The game is set in 2277, 200 years after a nuclear war, in an area around Washington, D.C., that is fictitiously called Capitol Wasteland, according to Bethesda's Web site. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152676/.html?tk=rss_news
It sounds almost inconceivable: Sony's highly visible, broadly-appealing, and probably most important video game release of 2008 has been globally recalled with less than four days to retail. LittleBigPlanet, UK-based indie developer Media Molecule's surprise water-cooler wonder about a black-button-eyed knitted and zippered creature named Sackboy who bounds and jounces through physically realistic environments was recalled by Sony after the publisher discovered one of the game's background music tracks employs two Arabic-language expressions found in the Qu'ran (Koran). Last week Friday, October 17, Sony director of corporate communications and social media Patrick Seybold issued the following statement by way of Sony's Official PlayStation blog: During the review process prior to the release of LittleBigPlanet , it has been brought to our attention that one of the background music tracks licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Qur’an. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologize for any offense that this may have caused. We will begin shipping LittleBigPlanet to retail in North America the week of October 27th. Sorry for the delay, and rest assured, we are doing everything we can to get LittleBigPlanet to you as soon as possible. Update: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe adds that LittleBigPlanet "will start to appear in stores no later than the week commencing Monday 3rd November in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, on a country by country basis." Note that the US ship date remains the week of October 27th as noted above. The music in question plays in the now recalled versions of LittleBigPlanet during the first level of the third world, "Singing Safari." The game contains a fairly broad and eclectic range of songs, and it appears no one at either developer Media Molecule or Sony was aware of the specific Koranic references until the proverbial eleventh hour. Some are speculating that the catalyst may have been a concerned letter, but nothing's confirmed at this point. Before we consider whether Sony's stadium-clearing punt amounts to either brilliant public relations or massive overreaction, let's have a look at the passages in question. The song is titled "Tapha Niang," composed by world musician and Malian kora player Toumani Diabate. Have a listen to it here on Diabate's MySpace page, if you like. Sounds innocuous enough, doesn't it? It's certainly hard to argue with the subdued and peaceful sounding strains of Diabate's plucking and the general mood and timbre of the music itself. But if you listen carefully and happen to understand Arabic, you'll apparently hear two lines which also appear in the Koran (aka the sacred scripture of Islam and, at least for Muslims, the literal word of God). So? So. While the Koran doesn't explicitly forbid the marriage of transliterated Koranic text and music, some interpreters of the text apparently find such mingling "deeply offensive." Why is a bit of a mystery that's beyond the scope of a games blog, but suffice to say there's considerable debate over what the Koran does and doesn't say about music, as well as whether subsequent Islamic interpretations and teachings which do raise these sorts of interdictions are in fact canonical. The two lines that appear in Diabate's song are from 3:185 ("Every soul shall taste of death") and probably 55:26 ("All that is on earth will perish"). See below for the translations provided by M.H. Shakir courtesy the University of Michigan's digital library collections and publications. [3:185] Every soul shall taste of death, and you shall only be paid fully your reward on the resurrection day; then whoever is removed far away from the fire and is made to enter the garden he indeed has attained the object; and the life of this world is nothing but a provision of vanities. [55:26] Everyone on it must pass away. In a Friday post to its website, developer Media Molecule wrote: As some of you may have noticed, LBP has been slightly delayed in some territories. At MM we were as shocked and dismayed by this as anyone - shellshocked and gutted. We can’t wait for you all to get playing and creating! According to Edge this morning, Media Molecule immediately prepared a 0-day patch, ready to update the game and remove the potentially offensive tracks, but Sony decided that wasn't good enough, citing PS3 owners who might not have online access, and opted to recall the disks anyway. Nevertheless, some copies slipped through, and of course those of us in the press have had copies for a while now. In the meantime, copies of the recalled version of the game are being offered for as much as $249 on Ebay. My two cents: Speaking as someone who's not at all religious, I think Sony should have left the recalled version alone. Speaking as someone who's not religious but also highly respectful of others' beliefs, I still think this mostly just empowers and emboldens doctrinal censors who ultimately exist in the cultural margins. More important, what no one's really saying is that the other edge of Sony's attempt to pacify certain Muslim sects involves censoring the music in the game. Speaking with my journalist's cap on: Censorship bad. Especially once the horse is out of the gate, which for all practical purposes it was here. In the end, you'll have to play jury and judge for yourself, but it's worth noting that Diabate considers himself "a devout Muslim, with his own prayer room next to his office." Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152477/littlebigplanet_recall.html?tk=rss_news
For the PlayStation Portable, firmware update 5.0 has been released, bringing with it the opportunity to browse and download content directly to your PSP from the PlayStation Store. Previously, content needed to be downloaded to a PC or PS3 first before being transferred to PSP using a USB cord. New to PS3 version 2.5, also available Wednesday, are more than a half dozen updates, including screenshots, which like a "print screen" function to save in-game images directly to your hard drive using a keyboard, and auto-off for idle controllers to save battery life (nice!). Also new to PS3 firmware 2.5 is a standby option to auto turn off your PS3 after 1-5 hours of use (much like Xbox 360), Flash 9 support for the PS3 web browser, improved trophy management, the ability to see when a friend last signed on, and a faster PlayStation store. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/152456/sony_psp_ps3_games.html?tk=rss_news
Blizzard Entertainment on Monday announced that the newest expansion pack for World of Warcraft, entitled Wrath of the Lich King, will be in stores on Nov. 13, 2008. The expansion pack will cost US$39.99. World of Warcraft is Blizzard's enormously popular massively multiplayer online for Mac and PC; at last count, the game had over 10.9 million subscribers worldwide. It's already spawned one hugely successful expansion pack--The Burning Crusade. The game is set on the fantasy world of Azeroth, a land populated by humans, orcs, elves, gnomes and other fantastic creatures. Players assume a character made from one of the playable races in the game, assign themselves a class, and go on quests to build experience and obtain magic items and money. Players must pay a monthly service fee in addition to the cost of the game in order to play. Wrath of the Lich King continues the story of World of Warcraft by opening up a new continent, Northrend, home of Lich King Arthas Menethil. Players must battle his army and interact with new characters and creatures, go on many new quests and can expand their character level to 80 (70 was the previous cap). New features include an achievement system, expanded player-vs.-player combat options and the game's first Hero class, the necromantic Death Knight. The game is being released on the same disc for Mac and Windows players, and comes in two packages--a standard edition that costs $39।99, and a Collector's Edition priced at $69.99. The Collector's Edition includes an art book, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a soundtrack CD, a mousepad featuring a map of Northrend and two starter decks for the World of Warcraft trading card game March of the Legion (which includes two exclusive cards available only in the Collector's Edition. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/151088/.html?tk=rss_news
In PlayDetective: Heartbreakers, you’re a private investigator hired to investigate a series of infidelity cases. You must conduct surveillance using a variety of tools and gadgets, collect and analyze evidence, and solve puzzles. The game features 15 cases, each with unique locations and puzzles to solve. You’ll use phone-tapping devices, cameras and other surveillance equipment to catch people in the act, recover deleted text messages, conduct lie detector tests. You can also play “sub-games” to earn cash to aid you in your investigations, buy and sell investigation gadgets and more. Catch cheating spouses in the act in this new private eye game for the Mac।System requirements call for an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or later, 256MB RAM, 30MB hard disk space. Reference : http://www.macworld.com/article/135514/2008/09/playdetective.html?lsrc=rss_main
Following its release for the iPod last week, Electronic Arts' Spore Origins is now available for the iPhone and iPod touch. It costs US$9.99 and is available for purchase and download from the App Store. Spore Origins is based on EA's Spore game for the Mac and PC, and is especially adapted for portable devices. The game takes its cue from the first part of the full spore game, where you control an alien life form as it evolves in a pond of primordial ooze. Spore Origins for the iPhone is similar to the iPod game.You start out as a microscopic creature eating other microscopic creatures while avoiding larger creatures that can eat you. Over the course of the game you can decide how to best evolve your creature, adding offensive and defensive capabilities, parts that can help it move faster or turn better or sense things more effectively. You can also attach to symbiotes -- creatures that can help you improve speed and defenses. You can even skin your creature using pictures from your iPhone or iPod touch's Photo Albums, use the multi-touch capabilities to pinch, pull and poke your creature, tilt and turn the screen to make your creature move, and more. Spore Origins for the iPhone and iPod touch has two game modes and 30 levels। It's compatible with any iPhone or iPod touch running iPhone 2.0 software. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150795/.html?tk=rss_news
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the latest installment of the popular movie series based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling books, has been pushed back to a Summer 2009 release. Electronic Arts ( EA) announced Monday plans to release video games based on the movie, including a Mac game. Those games will be released at the same time as the movie, next summer. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince chronicles Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The story peers into Lord Voldemort's past and Harry's preparation for a final confrontation with the evil wizard. In the game, players engage in wizard duels, mix and brew magical ingredients in Potions class and play Quidditch -- the arena game played on broomsticks -- as they lead the Gryffindor team to victory. You'll also join Ron Weasley as he dates Lavender Brown and tries to sort out his relationship with Hermione Granger. The game is being developed by EA's Bright Light Studios, which has been responsible for past Harry Potter games. Although no announcement has been made confirming it, EA's Macintosh efforts for the past two years have been dominated by a partnership with TransGaming, which makes "Cider" translation layer technology to enable Intel-based Macs to play games originally developed for Windows PCs. EA's press release also mentions that a version of the game will be targeted at mobile platforms। Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150786/.html?tk=rss_news
If you wandered into Thursday night's launch party for Electronic Arts' new Spore game, you would have found yourself inside a planetarium listening to a lecture by an astrophysicist. Or you might have joined other members of the press at a black-tie event, where attendees accessorized their clothing not just with ties and handbags, but feathers, spikes, and faux-carapaces. Held in Golden Gate Park's California Academy of Sciences, this was clearly not your typical launch event. Then again, Spore is not exactly a typical game. Spore comes from a shining star of video game developers, Will Wright, the man behind such famous games as Sim City, Sim Copter, and The Sims. Anticipation for his latest project was naturally stellar, and the sheer ambition of the project makes it a true hallmark of gaming. Wright wasn't just shooting for the stars with this one, but trying to encapsulate entire galaxies. How's that for scale? Essentially, Spore is a game that allows you to direct the life and development of an organism from its cell stage all the way to its exploration (and dominance) of the galaxy. Spore is essentially five games in one broken up into different stages: an action/arcade cell game, a basic role-playing game with the creature phase, a squad-command game in the tribal phase, a real-time strategy game in the civilization phase, and finally a culmination of many of these elements in the space phase. In one game, you are essentially covering millions of years of evolutionary development. (Or, if that's not your thing, Spore can also be viewed as a game where you play an invisible force designing creatures). So it was only logical to have astrophysicist Frank Drake (author of the Drake Equation and founder of the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence initiative) lecture the assembled members of the press on the significance of this game. Like all of Wright's games, Spore is also an educational tool. Drake is impressed with Spore because it gets people interested in science. It also allows people to imagine for themselves what they think aliens would look like, or perhaps even what we may one day look like. Drake demonstrated what he imagined a more evolved homo sapiens may look like with four arms, able to produce food through photosynthesis, and a mouth by its stomach. We then watched as this "Super Sapien" did back flips and danced for our amusement in Spore's Creature Creator. At its very core, Spore is about expressing individual creativity. The level of customization is simply staggering- from your creature's look to the buildings in their city to their spaceship and eventually the planets themselves--all can be made as malleable as clay. Due to the June release of the Spore Creature Creator, users have already populated the Spore database with more than 3 million different creatures. Even the developers did not imagine the level of interest that Spore has generated. After playing the creature phase and tribal phases for a couple of hours and being forcefully removed because it was someone else's turn to play on the demo machine, I can honestly say that the developers might be low-balling expectations here. A game that is this expansive and has this much freedom of customization will likely appeal to gamers of all types. Spore launches on September 9 and runs on Mac OS 10.5.3 or later. It's priced at $50 for the regular version and $80 for the "galactic edition" that comes with lots of extras. Spore Origins, a game based on the desktop version, is already out for the iPod, and EA said Friday it plans a Spore Origins version for the iPhone and iPod touch later this month। We'll have a first review for Spore within the next week, with a full review to follow. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150747/.html?tk=rss_news
Aspyr Media announced Friday that it will ship its Macintosh conversion of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on September 15, 2008. It will be available at retail stores or $54.99. While the previous Call of Duty titles have focused on the European theater of war during World War II, Call of Duty brings the action to today. It still follows a single player storyline, in which you trade off between a British S.A.S. soldier and U.S. Marine as you seek to recover stolen Russian nuclear weapons and thwart the evil designs of mideast terrorists. Developed by Infinity Ward and created for the Macintosh by Aspyr's own Aspyr Studios team, Call of Duty 4 gives you access to modern weaponry -- more than 70 new and authentic weapons and gear. It's chock-full of cutting-edge features like rim-lighting, depth of field, texture streaming and self-shadowing. The game also features an extensive multiplayer mode -- a leveling system, unlockable perks, hot-join and matchmaking, class and party capabilities, new game environments, and "Kill-Cam," a feature that enables you to watch instant replay of multiplayer online kills. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare requires Mac OS X 10.5.4 or later, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or faster, 1GB RAM, 8.0GB hard disk space, ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce FX 7300 or better 3D graphics with at least 128MB VRAM, DVD-ROM. Although the game requires an Intel-based Mac, it is not "Ciderized" using TransGaming's technology. This is a native Mac port. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is rated M for Mature by the ESRB। Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150744/.html?tk=rss_news
Spore, the most anticipated computer game of the year--with its crazy stalk-eyed, six-handed, do-it-yourself critters and interstellar thrills--is officially slated to go on sale in U.S. stores on September 7. We got the chance to discuss this innovative game with industry veteran Lucy Bradshaw, Spore's executive producer. Bradshaw has worked on everything from LucasArts' Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991) to Electronic Arts' Command & Conquer Generals (2003), but she is best known for her work leading the teams responsible for blockbusters like SimCity 3000, SimCity 4, and the 100-million-selling The Sims franchise. We caught up with Bradshaw again recently. PC World: How would you describe Spore to a casual gamer who's never heard of it? Lucy Bradshaw: It's kind of hybrid software toy, really. We give you a universe in a box, and you get to create your own little cellular organism and then be involved in every step of its evolution, from its life as a single creature through a Tribal Stage where you're multiplying, all the way to a point where you can take your very own species into space and conquer the galaxy. PCW: The game's officially finished and comes out September 7th, which is Sunday. What are you doing to get ready? LB: It's obviously a pretty exciting time for the studio. First of all, there's just a wonderful feeling when you actually get a big project like this to gold [status]. And that's a big push because you have to really think scope, work on the polish, and make some pretty big choices during those last few stages of game play. So the team is feeling really good about the level of polish we were able to bring to the final product. That said, some of the technology we built into Spore, we're only now beginning to take advantage of. So there's been a lot of stuff percolating about where we go from here, and we're playing with some of those ideas. Part of it's getting ready for where we might take the franchise next. Teams are kind of forming around different concepts and asking questions like "Should we exercise the procedural animation in a slightly different way?" or taking a second look at how we built in texturing and where we might go with that. Some of the graphics engine capabilities, particularly with the effects systems that we built, are things we can now explore and take in different directions. We've always thought what we were doing was building an engine we'd keep playing with after we shipped the core product. Something that's already driving us, for example, is the activity in the Sporepedia. I think we actually got to more than 3 million creatures last week, and people have been seeing that number just soar. So it's watching the amazing creativity of players and where they're taking some of the content already, making creatures that look like vehicles or that look like real-world creatures, that's influencing what we do next. I can't wait to see what players do when they get their hands on the Building Creator or the Vehicle Creator. You know, spaceships and everything. PCW: Will Wright calls Spore a "massively single-player online game." Day one, Spore plugs right into YouTube and lets users upload creature videos or import and interact with other players' creatures and even create Sporecasts. Was the social networking angle inevitable? LB: It's interesting, because we took cues from our own experiences with SimCity and The Sims, where players would create elements and then share them completely offline. We had this idea that we were going to lay down the building blocks for players to create the content that ultimately was going to populate the game, and that having that was hugely important, because you're journeying to all of these different planets and able to see all these unique creatures and buildings and vehicles. Every single planet you go to was going to bring this sense of surprise and awe to the game. That was central and why we made the creation tools the way we did. Not only that we'd made the building blocks and could tap into the creativity of a million players, but the fact that the content is so compressible. The model data for a creature is like 3 kilobytes, the thumbnail picture is about 18 to 20KB. So [that makes] a grand total of 25KB, which means that we can actually share all of this content without bandwidth issues. And then we did things like the YouTube partnership, the Planetwide Games deal involving a Comic Book Creator, and a make-your-own postcard system that we put in the Creature Creator that allows players to take things outside of just the elemental game play, share it with other players, and see where those players might take it. We even did a Facebook application that ties back to our servers. We really want to see what directions players take all this stuff. We've built a really strong tool that lets users share their experiences in different venues, and I can't wait to see what unravels next. PCW: What are some of the things we might see in future expansions to the franchise? LB: We designed Spore so that we could take any area of the game deeper and provide even more engrossing experiences, adventures, and activities. Expect to see us add depth to game play, enhance the editors, and increase the kinds of strategic choices that impact the game play. And the Sporepedia is already full of an incredible range of content. We're going to have some fun with all of this data rolling forward. Members on our team have been studying cladistics. You know, "How would we ultimately categorize all of the species that have been uploaded to our Sporepedia?" It kind of harkens back to Will's E3 speech, where he compared the Spore player productivity to God's populating Earth with 1.5 million known species and that sort of thing. So, how do we have fun with the data that we've got our hands on now? And those are all directions that the team is absolutely buzzing with ideas about. PCW: Spore is something of an odd duck in that it keeps opening up as you progress, but actually has an endgame where you can travel to the center of the galaxy. Is that endgame required or optional? LB: There is a little thread of a story that you'll pick up on as you adventure in the galaxy, and if you pursue that thread and unravel that story line, it's going to set you toward the center of the galaxy, but that's as much as I'll say. PCW: You can keep playing afterward, though, right? LB: Oh, absolutely, because there's plenty more to explore. You can continue to terraform, you can continue to evolve your empire within the galaxy. There's an enormous collection of stars and planets to visit. PCW: Spore's available initially for Mac and PC, but it's also coming for the Nintendo DS and mobile phones. Are the handheld and mobile versions forever stand-alone, or will they eventually interact with the PC and Mac versions? LB: The PC and Mac versions interact in the sense that all the content made on either can be shared. The DS and mobile are completely stand-alone, but they really are interpretations of Spore for those platforms, complete with their own creators and game-play parameters. PCW: Any plans for a trading card game based on the creature info cards? LB: That's not something we've announced or anything I can talk to specifically, but one of the things we have been doing is that we have a partnership with Zazzle where you can take your creature images and incorporate them into T-shirts and lunch boxes. So there's already a Spore Zazzle store. We've also got the Comic Book Creator, the YouTube partnership, and we're working to potentially make little collectibles where you could get a 3D printout of your creature spaceship or whatever। That's what's in the works right now. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/150669/spore_game_interview.html?tk=rss_news
RPG-TV got a briefing last week on the Xbox Live Experience and was told that the Fall dashboard update would be hitting in November, i।e. this fall. Makes sense to me. Before I start sounding too glib, while the fall update has routinely landed in November, an update of this size could have theoretically been pushed back to later in the year. Reference : http://kotaku.com/5041292/xbox-360-fall-update-coming-out-in-november
Following rumors of a looming Xbox 360 price drop, Sony says those hoping for a PlayStation 3 drop at next week's Games Convention in Germany "will be disappointed." "It's not going to happen," a SCEA spokesman told Reuters on Friday. "If you're coming for that you'll be disappointed." Earlier this month, a proven confidant said Microsoft would drop the price of the Xbox 360 in September, from US$279 to $199 for the Arcade model, and $349 to $299 for the Pro model with hard drive. Microsoft has declined comment on the rumor. Both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 saw their first price drops in late 2007. As consumers continue to gobble up the industry-leading Wii for $250 a pop (or more if resold), many gamers wonder when Sony and Microsoft will respond with a more enticing mainstream price. The Leipzig Games Convention runs from August 20-22. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149898/2008/08/.html?tk=rss_news
Nintendo easily beat competition from Microsoft and Sony to ship more consoles and handhelds in the second quarter of the year, figures from all three companies show. The company shipped 5.2 million of its Wii console during the April to June period -- that's well ahead of the 1.6 million PlayStation 3 consoles shipped by Sony and Microsoft's 1.3 million Xbox 360s. Sony's second-generation PlayStation 2 console continues to sell well thanks to its low price and Sony shipped 1.5 million of the units during the period beating out the Xbox 360. Sales of software for the Wii totaled 40.4 million, again easily outclassing the PlayStation 3 at 22.8 million units and the PlayStation 2 at 19.3 million units. Microsoft does not announce software sales estimates for the Xbox 360. In the handheld space the DS shipped 6.9 million [m], which is almost double the 3.7 million PlayStation Portable consoles shipped during the same period. Software sales for the DS were 36.6 million units while those for the PSP totaled 11.8 million units. The figures were released by the companies when they announced their respective financial results over the last few days। Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/149182/2008/07/.html?tk=rss_news
A new PlayStation 3 console was approved by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission last week, according to the agency's online filings database. No information on the new model, number CECHL01, is available at present from the filing because Sony was granted short-term confidentiality on the papers but it is likely the 80G-byte version announced earlier this month during the E3 games show in Los Angeles. The console is due on sale in the next couple of months and will replace the current 40G-byte model. Sony's filing to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was made because the FCC is the radio regulator in the U.S. and as such all new products that use radio must be submitted to the organization for approval before they can be sold. The PlayStation 3 includes both 802।11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Reference : http://www.pcworld.com/article/148999/2008/07/playstation.html?tk=rss_news
LOS ANGELES - Give up any hopes you might have had about adding a Blu-Ray player to your Xbox 360. Shane Kim, vice president of strategy and business development for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment business, tells me that the company has "no interest" in adding Blu-Ray functionality to its console, opting instead to focus on digital distribution. "I can categorically say that we're not working on a Blu-Ray player for Xbox 360," says Kim. "To my knowledge, we don't have any intent to do that." Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) made a losing bet in the high-definition DVD wars, publicly endorsing HD-DVD and marketing a pricey peripheral that would play the format on the 360. The gaming world has been rife with speculation that Microsoft would eventually create a similar device that would allow owners to watch Blu-Ray films on their Xbox 360s. Kim, though, says the company is more interested in pursuing digital distribution as a method for building its non-gaming audience. Microsoft backed up those claims Monday, unveiling a partnership with Netflix (nasdaq: NFLX - news - people ), allowing Xbox Live subscribers the ability to stream up to 10,000 movies and television shows directly through their Xbox 360 starting this fall. (See: Microsoft Goes For Movies.) Microsoft also announced plans to launch programmed multiplayer gaming events for the mass audience Monday. Dubbed "Xbox Live Primetime," the program (also set to launch this fall) is a clear shot across the bow of television networks, which are already facing declining viewership numbers. "We are in the entertainment business," says Kim. "Many of our partners are the major networks and entertainment studios ... Being in the entertainment business, you partner with people and you may compete with those people as well." The first game in "Xbox Live Primetime" will be an online version of "1 vs. 100". The company says players will have the chance to compete for "real world" prizes, rather than virtual ones (such as trophies or gamer points) but declines to provide any more details at this point. Kim said Microsoft has also not yet determined if Xbox Live Silver subscribers (who do not pay the $50 annual fee that other subscribers do) will be allowed to participate in "Primetime" games. To underscore its digital distribution strategy, Kim says that Microsoft will have downloadable holiday goodies available exclusively on the Xbox--and the company hopes to lead the list with fresh material developed by the Rockstar Studios team at Take-Two Interactive Software (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ). That seems like an excessively optimistic schedule: Rockstar only began working on the content after "Grand Theft Auto IV" shipped in late April. And the company's exacting standards ensure they won't ship it until they are satisfied with the quality. Even so, Kim was upbeat: "Of course, it's up to Take-Two ultimately, but our hope is it's going to release later this year," he adds. Another game unlikely to see release this year is the long-in-development "Alan Wake." Made by Remedy Entertainment, the company behind the successful "Max Payne" franchise, "Alan Wake" is eagerly awaited by core gamers, who were disappointed by its lack of mention at Microsoft's press conference. Kim says the title is alive and well, but noted "we wanted to show games that would be coming out this year" at the press conference. There's no real rush on either the "GTA" content or "Alan Wake," though, in the long run. Kim says he expects the life cycle of this round of consoles to have "long, long legs," lasting much longer than previous videogame machines. It's a view many industry observers agree with. Few expect to even hear the words "next generation" for at least another two years. What will that next gen be, though? A system brimming with cutting-edge technological and graphical enhancements--or one that's radically different than anything Microsoft has tried before? Kim offers a third alternative: "There's just as likely to be a case that the next generation will be about software and services," Kim says। "And if that's the case, we are very strongly positioned for that." Reference : http://www.forbes.com/technology/personaltech/2008/07/15/e3-bluray-xbox-tech-gaming08-cx_cm_0715xbox.html
Microsoft will start talking about DirectX 11 in less than two weeks. Sources have confirmed that Microsoft game technology conference, previously known as Meltdown and now renamed to Gamefest 2008, will be the place where Microsoft plans to officially announce DirectX 11.This conference takes place on the 22 and 23 July in Seattle, Washington and it will set you back $550 if you register online. You can find some more details about the conference here.The big feature of DirectX 11 is Tessellation/Displacement while we also heard that Multithreaded Rendering and Compute Shaders are part of it. DirectX 11 also brings Shader model 5.0 but we don’t know many details about it.It looks like DirectX 11 will stick to rasterization as there is no any mentioning of Ray tracing support.Nvidia will also talk about DirectX 11 at its Nvision event / conference in late August २००८ Reference : http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8345&Itemid=1
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