Games! Games! Games!

For those of you attending my bachelor party in less than two weeks; we have MAME running on my 50″ TV. So far I’ve tested Discs of Tron, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Super Pac-Man, Xybots, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker and more. They are all working and ready for the party! We’ll also have at least 3 extra T.V.s with consoles attached so that we can run multiple retro arcade games. The Tron cocktail cabinet will be on and we’ll even run the dart board. All music provided that day will come from the coin-op wall CD Jukebox. If you can think of your favorite game that you might like to play, let me know and I’ll try ang get it ahead of time.

Essentially, this would mean that the RSX chip powering the PlayStation 3 is less powerful than two GeForce 6800’s running in SLI mode, which is exactly how the 7800 performs. Interestingly enough, according to Microsoft and ATi, the Xbox 360 GPU is more powerful than the same SLI combo.

PS. Thanks to an open-source x86 emulator, Win95 can now run on a Playstation Portable.

Wow, this is one hell of a collection. Coming soon to your gaming machine of choice (PS2, Xbox or PC), this package of retro classics is gonna keep me up for more than a few nights. Can’t wait to put Elevator Action, New Zealand Story and Operation Wolf through their paces again!

One of the rumors floating around is that backwards compatibility will only work with a hard drive, which would have left Core systems out in the cold. As it turns out, that’s only partially true. In many cases, the hard drive will indeed be necessary because you’ll need an Xbox emulator file to sit on the hard drive (it’s still unconfirmed whether this emulator comes pre-shipped on 360 hard drives but it is highly likely the case) and make your Xbox games 360-friendly. However, our understanding is that this isn’t perfectly foolproof, and that it may not work in every single case.

Interlude: Robbie gets up on the runner board and does an impromptu dance complete with moves from the best break dancers, showing an impressive flexibility that makes his young limbs look like gumby. It seems he has learned all this by imitating LOTR, video games and MTV or VH1. I am, we are all, impressed with his talent. This is where having some connections would enable me to help him do what he most wants to do: entertain. I will do what I can do.

Nakamura had some more enigmatic words for the development of games for the PlayStation 3: “developers will need to change their ways of thinking to adapt to the PS3’s architecture” as noted by the GameSpot piece. Does this mean the PlayStation 3 will be harder to develop for? How will that affect the launch titles of Sony’s console?

A site cataloging all the devices that can play doom.

Finally, no one wants to keep a score card to remember which player they can pop a disc into; you want the disc to play in anything, whether it’s your gaming console, PC, or set-top recorder. Once again, the study results bear this out: 62 percent of respondents indicate they’d prefer a disc that be played in any of those three devices. That makes sense, considering that the popularity of DVD-ROM drives on computers was jumpstarted by the proliferation of DVD-Video, not DVD data, discs. For those of you keeping score at home, Sony has announced it will support Blu-ray Disc in the PlayStation 3; Microsoft, meanwhile, has not announced HD-DVD support for its Xbox 360, but rumors are still swirling that a future version of the Xbox might.

Well the figures are out for the new generation consoles and they aren’t very pretty. With the previous consoles, ps2 and xbox costed $299.00 and the gamecube coming out at $199.00. When they come out we were shocked at how much they were with the previous systems being at least a hundred dollars less. But it seems that the trend is continuing with the Xbox 360 being launched at an eye popping $500.00! The system itself is $299.00, but that is not including the wireless controllers, hd cord and hard drive making it total $500.00 but will offer backwards compatiblity. The PS2 and the Nintendo Revolution will follow suit with these high prices but there is no doubt in my mind that they won’t suffer any decrease in numbers. Check out this link for more info.

Here's an interesting post about designing for the small screen that I ran across today. It's in the context of designing for the new browser included in the PlayStation Portable (PSP) firmware update. The PSP screen is 480px wide. The idea is to use a different CSS - nothing earth-shattering there. What is interesting is the way the writer proposes to detect the new PSP browser. There's also some useful info in the comments below the article (i.e. media="handheld") as a mobile device test. I've not targeted small screen devices, but I don't think it's far off for me.

The shift in the trend started right around the same time the Sony PlayStation arrived on the market, which was revolutionary, to be sure. Even with the likes of the Nintendo64 to compete with, the PS1 managed to land a huge install base and it built an army of loyal fans. I wasn’t sure how they did it at first; their hardware was inferior, and the load times for most of the games were horrendous. To me, it only seemed logical that a system with no load time and far better graphics would be preferable, and indeed many felt the same way. The problem, however, was that Sony managed to get ahold of a huge number of great games for its system, and the long list of the PS1’s greatest games far exceeds that of the N64’s handful of shining stars. Part of Nintendo’s problem has always been their reliance on trying to revamp old franchises and a reluctance to allow completely third party games onto their systems.

Gamepark is releasing a new portable gaming system called the GPX2. I don’t have much info on this player but it looks a bit too similar to a Sony PSP if you ask me. Honestly, I can’t imagine this device making much of an impact on the gaming world. Quite frankly it’s all about titles folks.

Analysts at Wedbush Morgan Securities recently said that Sony may delay the release of the PlayStation 3 until 2007 if the Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launch is less than stellar.

There have been many reports in the news lately about the "decline of PC games." Microsoft thinks that is due almost entirely to lazy reporting and bad numbers. Worldwide, retail sales of Windows games have been flat, at about $2.3 billion a year. The press looks at these numbers and compares it with console sales of over $6 billion (and rising each year) and says that Windows games are being marginalized.

Maybe it’s just summertime or something, but the PS2 is getting a lot more playtime lately. The Xbox and Gamecube are sitting idel. My wife and I are playing Burnout 3: Takedown. I played Burnout 3 a lot on my Xbox when it was released and picked up the PS2 version because I already had Burnout and Burnout 2 for the PS2 (wanted to make it a collection). The PS2 version has more graphical goodies than the Xbox version, but doesn’t have Dolby Digital support. Oh well. My wife is really into the game now. It’s amazing watching her play.

Strangely, the stores will only carry Sony Playstation 2 items—none of the other consoles. Most Suncoast stores also stock PSP UMD movies, as well. “We’re not going to carry that Xbox stuff,” said one store manager.

Well, I guess I have at least one more post this month. This story out of Sony UK give some interesting info on the PS3. It is supposedly on track for 2006 (there were stories this week that it would be delayed and that Sony was planning to ride a $100 PS2 for a full year if Xbox 360 was flopping) and that is supposed *nix OSes. In the release it mentions (at the bottom) "Linux and Apple's Tiger". This could be very interesting - what would have to happen to let Apple release a version of OSX that would run a PS3? It could one of the big things that was announced at Macworld with the Sony pres. And if it is a fully operational OS on the PS3, it seems that the cell chips will have found their way into the Apple line.

What a loon. In his latest insane streak, he has written a letter to the ESRB. He is demanding that the upcoming Gamecube and Playstation 2 Killer 7 game be given an AO rating instead of M. Why? Because of “full-blown sex sequences”. Which involve fully clothed people. Give me a break. I have seen worse on tv comercials. Anyone, read all about this moron on IGN.com.

The PlayStation 3 was originally mooted to launch with a single (1X, 36Mbit per second) speed drive to run its optical media. But with the arrival of 2X (72Mbps) drives this autumn, it’s hoped that by the time PS3 launches in Japan in spring 2006, faster formats will be readily available, with potential for the multimedia machine to run up to 4X, costs permitting.

Chris Pirillo has a good list of downloads for XBOX 360 Trailers.