Solar panels set to help out... a little bit

Raising crude prices have made many things more expensive for people and buisnesses worldwide, but there has been one positive offshoot to the whole situation: now governments and companies are much more interested in developing renewable energy technologies, in order to save money.

One such company -- Nippon Yusen KK, the biggest container shipping company in Japan -- has started looking into using solar power cells to help power their massive transcontitental shipping boats. They hope to have enough solar panels to collect 40 kilowatts of electricty on sunny days. This energy will help supply about 6% of the power requirements of the huge diesel-electric motors that propels the 60,000 tonne, car-carrying ships.

The first ship with these solar panels is set to be completed in Decemeber.

Not likely, but makes an interesting headline

The Inq reports that a small site purports to have some information on the upcoming Deneb chips.

Apparently Reviewage.co.uk claims that AMD will release an FX-80 and an FX-82 - both Deneb based, with 6MB of L3 cache and unlocked multipliers.

The FX-80 purportedly will run at 4.0GHz, and the FX-82 at 4.4GHz - difficult to  believe based on current AMD processor frequencies, but not quite impossible; however the same site also claims that the 4GHz FX-80 will outperform a 5GHz Kentsfield, which would make it roughly equivalent to a 4GHz Penryn.

They have some slides, and I hope this is true... however, I am definitely not holding my breath.

CNET writer seems to think so

Although Take-Two did eventually turn down Electronic Art's offers by letting the final one expire earlier this month, the two video game giants have been entertaining the idea of a merger.  This is mostly on account of EA's undying persistence, and both companies have signed confidentiality agreements to keep ongoing negotiations under wraps.

While some might think this marriage would give rise to new and better video games born from two different groups, Don Reisinger at CNET believes quite the opposite:

Some tout this acquisition as the next logical step for a video game industry that's becoming more consolidated. Others say that EA's takeover of Take-Two could actually increase the value of games and create a company that will offer some of the most impressive titles we have ever seen, thanks to the combined efforts of developers.

That sentiment may ring true in some cases, and every now and then, there's a flash of something unique, but if this acquisition becomes a reality and EA swallows up one of the biggest developers in the industry, it spells trouble for gamers and the industry itself.

Reisinger goes on to say that consolidation would ruin the industry's ability to offer unique video games, meaning we would only see more and more sequels rather than new IPs.  Furthermore, developers who may want to flex their creativity by making more interesting games would be quashed by the suits that sign their paychecks.

While he acknowledges the need to make a profit, Reisinger says the hype surrounding games like Spore and LittleBigPlanet are an indication of the community's thirst for more innovative titles.  And yet they do not dominate the current market:

Market research and sales figures dictate more sequels and first-person shooters because those sell and most companies believe that there's no reason to risk developing an innovative title that may or may not appeal to consumers when the guaranteed money is in light updates to known titles.

And if EA and Take-Two--two of the biggest culprits of derivative gaming-- combine to form one major developer, this will only get worse.

I'm thinking he did not enjoy Grand Theft Auto IV and isn't looking for to Gears of War 2 like some of us sequel-loving sheep are.

Monster Hunter franchise gave Sony's portable a major boost

Even in the shadow of Nintendo's dual-screened handheld global dominance, Sony's PlayStation Portable remains a viable competitor. Japanese publisher Famitsu estimates the handheld has reached a new milestone with sales of 10 million units in Japan alone. The PSP's sales performance has previously made headlines more than a few times this year thanks to being a top-selling platform in Japan for several weeks. Indeed, Famitsu also believes the PSP was the best-selling platform in Japan overall during the first half of 2008.

An attractive software lineup was of course the key to the PSP's continued success. Through their own sales tracking, Famitsu ranks the top five PSP titles in Japan:

Famitsu Japanese PSP Bestsellers (Original game release - 2008/08/24)

Capcom wins big as a PSP publisher thanks entirely to the highly lucrative Monster Hunter franchise; not even Square Enix's Final Fantasy series could top MH on the PSP platform. Phantasy Star's popularity also makes a case for the appeal of wireless PSP gaming, which the MH series also supports.  It's worth noting that nearly all of the top five PSP games were released within the last two years, and the most recent bestsellers took less time to sell more copies on average.

Creator of game getting sued

For the last long while now, Facebook has been flooded with dumb, useful, stupid and fun widgets and apps. Many of you out there have no doubt been bitten by vampires, told who your true love is, played poker, gotten yourself a fun wall, become a slayer, seen daily babes, cheat in scrabble, or gained heroes abilities in your time using Facebook. Perhaps some of you have played the game Mob Wars.

Apparently, the Facebook game Mob Wars is one of the most lucrative Facebook apps. The game has about 500,000 players a day, and through the use of micro-payments, quite possibly rakes in more than one million clams a month (source). Yes, $1,000,000. The advertising revenue for the game provides an additional small bonus of about $22,000 a month for the game's maker.

This is fairly impressive -- a great deal of console and PC game makers would love to make a million a month off of their game. But what is more impressive, of course, is that Mob Wars was a relatively simple game to make, featuring a lot of text, simple game mechanics, and simple graphics -- in many ways, it reminiscent of simple games of the pre-World Wide Web, electronic BBS days.

Besides showing that even today, a very small team of programmers are still capable of making a lot cash from a game, the game's creator, David Maestri is also showing through the success of Mob Wars what an angry game company is like: David Maestri is getting sued by his previous employer, Social Gaming Network.

Mr. Maestri was employed by SGN while he made Mob Wars, so SGN is suing for him for breach of contract and stealing trade secrets, amongst other things. No word on when the case goes to trial.   

Responding to clipping and texture issues, Diablo comparisons, DLC, and more

Another reason I like Silicon Knights' Denis Dyack: he can dish it out as well as he can take it. He says a lot of stuff; the guy is definitely one of the most vocal people in the game industry, and like with anyone like that, he pisses a lot of people off. I really like even after this, he doesn't shy away.

For instance, the studio's game Too Human was just released, and has gotten quite a bit of flak from gamers and critics (reviews seem to be very polarized). I have little doubt at least some of this is tied to how these folks perceive Dyack, one of the main fellows behind the title. In any case, he's responded to the criticism openly in an interview with X3F (beware, there are some spoilers), who discussed with him what they felt were the high points of the game, and what could use work. I think this (the nature of the interview, and his responding openly) is something to respect. Among the topics covered are the gaming community's early judgment of the game ("try the demo"), clipping and texture issues ("Oh noes"), the Valkryie death scene ("is that a change we can make in the future? Sure"), Diablo comparisons (tactics are important here, that's the difference), DLC (tons of ideas, there), and the trilogy.

Check out the full interview below.

Covering what's new and improved over the DC original

Allison Berryman, community manager of Gearbox Software - the team behind the upcoming Samba de Amigo update - has put together a second developer diary. What follows details the look of the game, what's new over the Dreamcast original, the "fun factor", and what's to come in dev diary #3. Read on for maraca shakin' goodness.

If you read the last Samba de Amigo developer’s diary, you know how the idea to put the game on the Wii went from being just a gleam in Gearbox’s eye to development reality. What does it take to capture the fun of a game like Samba and transfer the magic to a new console and audience? In this diary, we’ll talk about how Gearbox and Sega worked together to bring Samba into the next generation!

A Fresh Look
Samba de Amigo for the Wii is much more than just a port of the Dreamcast original. After spending countless hours shaking maracas to the original Samba and the Japanese-only Ver. 2000 (a follow-up game that added several new features and songs), the team enjoyed some well-deserved arm resting and sat down to plan. “We built a giant wishlist of features we wanted to add based on the opinions of our team and original Samba players,” describes Tom Mustaine, Producer on the project. “We then worked with Sega to determine which features would be the best for the game and came up with a list that felt good.” It must have been an enormous list, because the amount of features that ended up in the game is impressive!

What’s New?
So, what features and updates did the team create for Samba? As more than just a port and even more than a hybrid of the earlier Samba releases, you can expect to see tons of new features along with recognizable Samba standbys.

First off, all of the art in the game has been re-visualized and updated from its Dreamcast source. This means smoother, prettier, and even more vibrant environments and characters! All of the original stages we re-built from the ground up, re-lit, and re-animated, so expect your favorite locations to be back and livelier than ever! The artists also remodeled all of the characters, who are now higher-poly and much better-looking. The entire game has received a graphical facelift for its new home on the Wii.
On the gameplay front, there’s a balanced mix of classic Samba and new additions. There are more than 40 songs in the game, of which more than half are brand new. All the game modes are back; Original, Hustle, and Volleyball are all available. We’ve even added a new career mode where players progress through and unlock new game elements and a training mode where new players and veterans alike can learn everything from the basics of playing Samba to advanced techniques. There are three completely new stages, two new characters for you to meet, and two new minigames to play!

We’re very proud to be the first game officially offering downloadable content on the Wii – rhythm games have become increasingly popular and we know how important it is that new content is available to players. It’s exciting to be able to offer the Wii audience new songs to keep the Samba experience fresh and fun. You’ll also notice that even though Samba is a third-party title, we were allowed to use Nintendo’s Miis in the game. Most third-party games aren’t able to, but Samba fits the Wii so perfectly that Nintendo gave us the go ahead! The game will also take advantage of the Friend Roster and Leaderboards, using everything the console has to offer.
Oh, and not to mention the brand new Wii controls – but I’ll save that for its own article!

Fun Factor
Yes, it’s an impressive list of features and updates, but is the game fun? Do all those features come together the right way to deliver the Samba experience of a vibrant, eccentric, and entertaining rhythm game? These thoughts were always on the team’s mind as they set to work creating the game. “We had people constantly playing the game from the moment it was up and running on the Wii,” Tom Mustaine emphasizes heavily how important playtesting was to the process of creating the game. “To gauge the opinions about the Wii version, we created playtesting sessions that included folks who had played the original games only a few times alongside hardcore Samba fans that had mastered the original. Using the data from these different types of players, we were able to make sure the game felt rock solid for the new player and hardcore Samba fan alike.”
The teams at Sega of America, Europe, and Japan were also crucial to ensuring the game was perfect. SEGA of America and SEGA Europe helped ensure that the game would be fresh, fun, and accessible to new players, and that the music selection was enjoyable and a good fit for the game. The Japanese team included many individuals who had worked on the Dreamcast games from Sonic Team who were absolutely essential in ensuring that the Wii game lived up to the original’s standard. Everyone involved really cared about bringing the game up-to-date and keeping it fun, and their efforts really show.

Controls?
In the next dev diary, we’ll discuss one of our biggest concerns (and probably yours, too) during development: the controls! Learn how the dev team rose to the challenge of translating maracas to Wii Remotes, the challenges of motion-based control, and how success was finally met!

Things looks bad for...everyone else

Oh, game industry, you keep jerking me around. One day it's doom for all, and everything is consolidated and GameStop owns the retail sector, another giant EA is smartening up about piracy and sharing the wealth, another, Midway is going down the crapper, another, PC gaming is getting a boost..you get the idea. If you're the masochistic type and feel like introducing more confusion into your gaming life, this bit is for you.

According to a Screen Digest (a media industry analyst) report, Activision Blizzard (that's one company, now) and Electronic Arts are due to put out 75 percent of all console releases (handhelds are not defined as consoles in this particular case) from July-September (Q3) in the Western world. 75 percent! That's awful. For the entire second half of the year, they're behind 40 percent of titles, which is nearly as astonishing.

During this period, EA is the bigger publisher, due to their "extensive range of annual sports games" (21 in total). Good grief.

Activision is just behind, with 19 releases. This starts to seem like a sport in itself.

Screen Digest's Ed Barton said, "While most publishers appear to ramp up release volume in the key Christmas quarter, EA and Activision Blizzard appear to be ramping up release volumes to similar levels in both calendar Q3 and Q4."

Notably, the Wii still has the largest library, and this will only continue in the second half. Just less shovelware, please.

More information on LE bonus disc

At this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, Microsoft confirmed that the Gears of War 2 Limited Edition will come in a SteelBook DVD case and include a 48-page hardbound book called "Beneath the Surface," a Bonus DVD, and an exclusive gold-plated Lancer available during online play -- vroom vroom meets bling bling.

Up until now, we only know the Bonus DVD would contain exclusive making-of-the-game video footage, design galleries with audio commentary by Epic Games, and promotional videos including the "Rendezvous" trailer from E3 2008.

Now, the British Board of Film Classification has finally announced the Bonus content in its entirety to the public; there is a total of 148 minutes 40 seconds in cut scenes.  Some minor implied spoilers may follow, so be warned:

• 00:34:29:00 BENEATH THE SURFACE (NO SOUND UNTIL 3M30S)(FREEZES AT 6M50)
• 00:01:05:00 RENDEZVOUS
• 00:01:28:00 BARE YOUR TEETH
• 00:07:30:00 E3 2008: GEARS 2 DEMO
• 00:03:38:00 GTTV SPOT
• 00:11:56:00 CHARACTERS - MARCUS FENIX
• 00:07:40:00 CHARACTERS - DOMINIC SANTIAGO
• 00:07:40:00 CREATURES - BOOMER
• 00:07:10:00 CREATURES - KANTUS
• 00:15:55:00 LOCATIONS - HOSPITAL
• 00:13:01:00 LOCATIONS - THE HOLLOW
• 00:07:08:00 VEHICLES - CENTAUR
• 00:06:10:00 VEHICLES - REAVER
• 00:13:00:00 WEAPONS - LANCER
• 00:10:50:00 WEAPONS - HEAVY WEAPONS
• n/a MAIN THEME
• n/a CINEMATIC OPENING
• n/a ASSAULT INTRO
• n/a MARIA
• n/a COG SQUAD PACK (5 IMAGES)
• n/a LOCUST SQUAD PACK (5 IMAGES)

Gears of War 2 is expected for release on November 7, 2008.

Watch ads, get a subsidized phone bill

While Google has been making a big push to release a ad-supported mobile phone, so far it hasn't happened, and now appears that some other companies are getting their own programs launched to market quicker.

In Australia, a company called ComTel is now introducing a cellphone package that is fairly cheap -- because it is subsidized by advertising. Anyone interested in signing up will have to fill out a survey (which classifies potential products that they might be interested in buying) and then, over the course of their plan, "a combination of SMS and MMS ads" and email are sent to the consumer's personal email address (or possibly, a spam collecting fake email account setup for this purpose.)

One example of the difference (cited by the The Sydney Morning Herald) in the price of the plans is that where a non-ad phone plan might be $29 a month, the ad-supported plan would be $10.

ComTel expects that this option will be mostly appreciated by teens, who generally have less spare cash than adults, but like chatting on the phone just as much as anyone else.

This type of plan isn't a first -- last year, a British company called Blyk offered a similar program, and claimed that over a 100,000 people signed up.

Maps will also benefit from graphic representations of landforms

Ubisoft reveals it is teaming up with U.S. satellite/aerial imagery and geospatial information provider GeoEye to deliver high resolution maps for their upcoming aerial combat game, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.  In charge of its own fleet of Earth observation satellites, GeoEye already provides over 250 million square kilometers of satellite map images to Microsoft and Yahoo!.  Similiar maps will appear in H.A.W.X. to represent the landscapes you'll be flying far above while undertaking missions.

The map images are only the first part of the equation.  To further bring the landscape to life, Ubisoft is also partnering with both the U.S. Geological Survey and the Center for Earth Resources Observations and Science (EROS) to implement topographical features of terrain into H.A.W.X. to literally give the otherwise flat maps some three-dimensional depth.

Previously scheduled for launch this September 08th, H.A.W.X. is now due sometime before March 2009.

WAR's September 18th release is secure

Mythic has hailed the recent "Preview Weekend" closed beta event for Warhammer Online as a great success, involving potentially thousands of beta testers who stressed test online performance whilst squig herding.  Now Mythic confirms that WAR itself has reached gold master status, meaning the game is ready to head into mass duplication for retail releases in both standard and limited edition flavors this September 18th.

The developer itself previously opined that the basic game was essentially complete after seasoning to taste; several launch features were either canned or postponed in the process of polishing things for the initial launch as much as possible.  Mythic promises these postponed features (including actual cities for several races) will make it into the final game eventually.

WAR's open beta is still scheduled for September 7th for those of you who preodered the title early, so there's one last chance to get your fix prior to the game's official release the following week.

Quad cores are becoming very affordable

Quad cores CPUs have been out for a while now, but how many people do you know that have one? Quads have always been falling in price; but it seems that in the last few months they have really started to become quite afforadable.

If matched MHz to MHz, Intel Core 2 Quads are faster than AMD Phenoms -- so would you want to buy a Phenom? Well, it is pretty simple: they sell for less.

UK based Website Hexus garnered the following new pricing information from a certain Raj Suman, reportedly an "Euro product marketing director at distributor Avnet." Presumably these price changes will touch down in North America as well.

   A quad core Phenom for about $150? Sounds good to me.

   In addition to these refresh prices, the following new models are going to be introduced:

  - Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition 125W - $186

  - Phenom X3 8750 Black Edition 95W - $139

  - Athlon X2 6500 Black Edition 95W - $105

  - Athlon X2 5050e 45W -$90

  These new models and price cuts are due in the first week of September.

Soon available for digital download

Hudson Soft has announced the upcoming release of an all-new Bomberman game for digital download for WiiWare on the Wii.  It retains the classic features fans know and love while sporting some new ones that should attract more Wii gamers -- at least that's what the developer is hoping for.

"The Bomberman franchise is one of Hudson Entertainment's most popular," boasted Sabine Duvall, VP of Product Development, "We're driven by the support of the fans and strive to provide unique new gameplay features with each new Bomberman title to please the longtime fans, as well as make the game accessible to newcomers."

Bomberman Blast sports an 8-person multiplayer mode that supports online battles and arena matches, as well as Mii compatibility.  Players can compete either solo or with a team, vying for a spot on the online leaderboard that compares your skill to others from around the world.  The new Mii support means that you can go into battle as your Mii, adding a more personal element and yet another opportunity to share your bizarre creations.

If online play isn't your thing, up to four players can play at once on the same Wii console, making Bomberman Blast another party game available for the Wii.

Here are a few screenshots just released for the new Bomberman title, Mii action included:

Colognians get red shirts, Leipzigers get blue..

Despite yesterday's news of Game Convention's success and future plans, Oliver P Kuhrt, managing director of Koelnmesse, the company organising another event, Gamescom, says in more or less words, "we run the video game convention racket in these parts":

"It was to be expected that the Leipzig trade fair would try to keep the topic in its 2009 programme as well by announcing its date. But they will have to do it without the industry for the most part. The lead trade fair will take place in Cologne in 2009 and beyond."

"From Leipzig we are bringing the clear message that the games industry will be exhibiting in 2009 in Cologne at Gamescom. We have met with broad approval, and the industry is looking forward to gathering in Cologne. Whatever happens in Germany in 2009 outside of Cologne cannot claim to represent this sector."

Sounds to me like these folks need to decide what the heck they're all doing. Games Convention, especially having been around the block a few times, seems like a prime candidate for being 'the' game event in Europe -- why take all that progress and attempt to make another?

Family reasons cited

Assistant Producer of Metal Gear Solid 4, Ryan Payton, has left Kojima Productions (the studio behind the game), due to family-related reasons. Payton was a compelling force in the title, as well as in MGS: Portable Ops, encouraging a more "Western" approach to the controls, making the game much more accessible for all (remember looking like a complete noob for the first hours of previous MGS titles?).

By the sounds of an interview with him back in June, Payton seemed he would be at least one of the main designers behind future titles in the series, but obviously, this is no longer to pass.

Details really aren't necessary for why Payton left in circumstances like this, but he did say in an interview with Kotaku "all of this has reminded me about how important family is." And so he decided to quit, and continue his career in North America to be closer to them.

"It's not easy leaving my other family (the MGS team), but with everybody taking time off and not having any other big projects to shift focus to, it feels like this is how it's supposed to be," said Payton. "It's fate."

He certainly won't be hard up for work (he's already gotten offers), but for now he'll just be taking it easy before deciding where to go from here. The dream, Payton says, is to get an original game concept out there (he's got plenty of ideas), so look for his skilled hand in some future titles.

If it ain't broken, don't exchange it!

Best Buy is cracking down on console exchanges, according to reports. Up until now, gamers could be wise to the loopholes in the retail and manufacturing tandem, and would 'upgrade' their SKUs when a newer, better one was out simply by claiming their model was faulty. This even worked to upgrade from an Xbox 360 Pro to an Elite, and from a 40gb PS3 to an 80GB Metal Gear Solid PS3, apparently. Yikes!

Well, now Best Buy, it seems, is wise to these ways, having noticed losses due to the increasing amount of console exchanges. Therefore, they're putting their foot down: starting next week, if you try to exchange your console at the retailer, a 'Geek Squad' (a subsidary of Best Buy who offer 'various computer-related services') agent will test your console to verify it's busted like you say it is. Daunting! Will gamers just go to GameStop/EB Games instead, though..?

Confirmation following some time confusion

Left 4 Dead was originally set to hit retailers on November 4 but in a video interview with Gamekings.tv, Valve's Gabe Newell stated that the game was be pushed back to the third week of November to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Half-Life.  That meant L4D would have come out November 20, 2008, according to Newell.

Well the date has been changed again, and now Valve's highly anticipated co-op survival horror has different release dates for North America and Europe.  Left 4 Dead 411 made a request to Valve for definite confirmation, and Doug Lombardi responded, "Nov 18 in the States. Nov 21 in Europe (US retailers do 'new release Tues' and the EU does that on Friday)."

The new release date still ties in with Half-Life's anniversary, as the game was originally launched on November 18, 1998.

Once again, North Americans will be seeing the action a little earlier than European gamers, but it's a decently small gap this time around, if that's any consolation.

Not in bad shape as far as MMORPGs go; most people enjoy the game

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning entered its open beta period over last weekend, with everyone who pre-ordered the collector's edition of the game being able to jump into the game for the first time.

For those of you who somehow have not heard of WAR, it's a YAMFRIES MMORPG (YAMFRIES is an acronym I just made up; it stands for Yet Another MMORPG Featuring Rangers, Imps, Elves or Sorcerers.)

A bunch of information has been turning up all on corners of the Internet, such as from the stimulating website BetaLeaks.

Overall, most people have had a good time with the game; a rough estimate might be that 75% of people had positive enough impressions that they seemed very likely to play the game out of Beta, while the rest may (or may not) have liked the game, but did not seem very enthralled with it.

Here are some excerpts from various unconfirmed sources:

Veteran gamer 'Perp' said he liked the game, but wasn't ready to commit: "There are many things WAR does right and some things they've improved and polished to make the game very appealing. Character movement is solid and you actually feel in control of your character. The UI was terrible at one point, but the final design is quite nice. The graphics have been turned up and the game looks really good and the recent animation changes helped quite a bit. Player quests are a nice evolution to the quest grind game, but your mileage will vary." Then he goes on to diss the game's crafting, how the balance of the zones have been thrown off because of the cutting out of two of the game's cities, and the long cool-downs for skills in combat. 

'Jason81789' was pretty thrilled with the game: "this past weekend, was imho, the best experience i have ever had in an MMO. I went with a HE shadow warrior, and loved it. The terrain, in tandem with the quests that were given, seemed to fit perfectly. And the PQ's that I encountered early on were very fun. I really didn't care about leveling throughout my time (which is awesome), and [it] feel[s] like it does break the status-quo 'grind' of mmo's."

Summary-liking 'visavis' compared WAR to WOW like so: "Hard to say really. This game is definitely more casual friendly than WoW, at least on the surface. However keeps are an entirely different matter.  And, inspite of what you've read, this game is very different from WoW. They look similar on the surface, but once you start playing them the differences become more and more clear.  You have multiple more layers of customization in this game, which I'm sure will keep many people interested, as well as more complex combat (though it may not seem like it on a 1v1 basis). As much as WoW keeps trying to lessen the gab between WAR and WoW, they are still very much different games, and WoW is ultimately for the gear grind loving PVE players. Whereas WAR is primarily for the strategic pvp players / casuals."

dpollack is another fan of the game: "WAR is terrific and very well polished at this stage. I played debacle that was Age of Conan and I will say that WAR blows that game out of the war with class balance, PVP, and ease of play. I think mythic achieved everything they aimed for and I look forward to its release on sept. 18th. See you all in game."

Producer makes a promise to PS3 owners across the globe

After numerous delays following its debut at the Game Developers Conference in March 2007, Sony seems ready to get serious about Home.

At this year's Leipzig Games Convention, Home producer Van der Meulen told Ryan Clements of IGN that "it is a 100 percent guarantee that Home will be released by the end of this calendar year." 

Aside from this bold statement, he's also made several more assurances while showing off some of the service's unique features to Clements, who seems confident in der Meulen's promise:

"He has absolutely no doubt that this will be the case, so it looks like the long wait to come Home is finally reaching its conclusion.  Van der Meulen also assured me, quite adamently, that Home will always be a free service -- only premium content will need to be purchased.  I know some gamers were concerned that once Home reached a certain user base, a fee might be applied to the service, but this is not the case.  Van der Meulen says that there are no plans to charge for Home, even in the far future...

I know some people are skeptical about the service, bu tI think Home has a lot of potential and cold really personalize Sony's online service.  I look forward to really getting into Home sometime this year."

Well, a promise is a promise, and 100 percent is a pretty steep figure.  To the development team of Home, we wish you Godspeed.

Drool worthy for trekkies...

Entertainment Earth will apparently sell an RC Enterprise toy aimed squarely at Star Trek fans wallets starting in May '09

The package consists of a foam Enterprise from the original series, a touch screen RC remote control that looks like a communicator from the original series, and a charger for the flying Enterprise that looks like a tricorder from the original series.

Have no worries, you WILL be recognized as a Trekkie / Trekker when you fly your ship!

War of the Words over GPU's continued

PCPro is reporting that Nvidia was expending a fair bit of effort cautioning people attending NVISION to take the Larrabee hype with a grain of salt - they apparently pointed out that not much in the way of detailed specifications have been released yet, and that there is no magic tool to make a highly parallel x86 processor be a great GPU.

Interestingly enough, with massive numbers of stream processors, Nvidia is in a bit of a "pot calling kettle black" position, as it faces the same problems with factoring software over large numbers of processors.

Peter Glaskowsky, a GPU architect and blogger, predicted that the "large" Larrabee of 2010 will have roughly the same GPU performance as a 2006 GPU from ATI or Nvidia.

Thanks for the correction Peter, and thanks for the links - good information in them.

Peter's blog post #1 & blog post #2

Nvidia also admitted to having underestimated ATI, for which it is now paying due to the superior price/performance of the 48xx series.

Gaming on Windows Vista gets a boost

Electronic Arts, Sega and NHN Games confirm in a joint statement with chipmaker AMD and software/console giant Microsoft that their studios will back Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 API for upcoming game development. The first few titles will include Sega's RTS Stormrise, EA and Phenomic Studio's fantasy online RTS Battleforge, and NHN Games' RPG Cloud 9.

Requirements for DirectX 10 and its incremental updates are currently limited to the Windows Vista OS starting with Service Pack 1, and graphics cards supporting Shader Model 4.1. As you can see, the market for DirectX 10 support in gaming is not yet geared towards them casual types. Assassin's Creed was originally expected to be one of the first titles actually supporting DirectX 10.1, but later software patches removed any trace of this.  The slightly older DirectX 10 API however is backed by current headline titles like Age of Conan and Crysis, as well as upcoming titles like StarCraft II and Dragon Age: Origins.

Games for Windows' global director Kevin Unangst brings the AMD/ATI lovin' in the official statement, though to be fair only the chipmaker's Radeon HD 3000 and HD 4800 series of graphics card fully support the updated API at time of writing.  For now, gamers are still finding it hard to discern differences in DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 gaming.  The leap from DirectX 10 to DirectX 10.1 will be even harder to appreciate, as the update largely involves memory optimizations.

Great way to bring your stalking to the next level

The trouble with the Internet is that its too big. Finding incriminating information about people can be a bit of a hassle; most of us are limited to only Googling someone's name, but that takes patience. And patience means slow.

A handy new website has come into being to help us all. It is called cvgadget.com (as many of you know, CV is Latin or some such, and it basically means 'resume' in England.) This website is pretty straight-forwardly arranged: you just put in someone's name at the top of the page, and the CVgadget searches 13 different sources for hits, including most of the big social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo, and Myspace. 

Something tells me that this tool was intended to be used by curious employers, checking out the purported backgrounds of possible new employees. Which, of course, is a bad idea -- nothing will surely sully the image of your prospective new employee more than say, a session with CVgadget that turned up a handful of pictures of Mr. Hire-Me doing keg-stands on a moving vehicle, or perhaps something slightly less incriminating, such as old blog posts he or she made, revealing their enthusiastic support of the Flat Earth Society.

The website isn't perfect, of course. Googling my own name turned up my usual impostors that I'm familiar with, such as the Reverend Kevin Spiess who was involved in stain-glass window controversy, and the Kevin Spiess French director guy who likes to fire shotguns, and seems much cooler than myself.

Throw your own name in CVgadget and see what it comes up with -- and good luck with erasing any regrettable stuff it turns up! It can be tricky sometimes (so I've heard.) 

"We have set a standard in digital gaming"

The enhanced remake of the 1988 NES title, Bionic Commando Rearmed, launched August 10 on XBLA and PSN for $10, and on PC for $15, to great reviews all around. If you're curious about how well a remake of a 20 year-old title can do, well, awful good!

In a blog post today, producer Ben Judd stated the game sold over 130,000 copies, and they're overjoyed. "Holy fiddlesticks!" are his exact words. He notes while that may not seem like much compared to retail titles which sell in the millions, in the digital realm "that is a friggin JUGGERNAUT!"

Sheer bliss aside, Judd discusses the bigger picture, which tells him this:

"Consumers voted with their dollars. They basically have sent the message loud and clear:

We are tired of meta-emulated crap.
We want the titles of yesteryear to be paid the proper respect.
We want them done right.
And if the price is right, we'll buy.

Basically, we have set a standard in digital gaming. The bar has been raised and you have let developers around the world know that if they invest the time, money, and heart into making (and remaking) some great games, you will support that initiative.

That's the way it should be. I can't wait to see what the future has in store...

It's good to be a gamer."

Looks like the tides will bode well for Mega Man 9, hey?

Staying in Germany, GC Global, and more

Aside from a misstep or two, the Games Convention this year in Germany was a huge success (for awards and photos, go here if you haven't been). A grand total of 203,000 visitors (this including trade people and game fans) came, setting all-time records for the show; there were more exhibitors than ever (547 compared to last year's 503), more space, media reporting in 48 countries (3,800 journalists this time, 3,395 last time), and tons of cool events for all kinds of folk (Freestyle gamer camp, GC family area, Job & Career section, etc).

Naturally, then, it's only going to get bigger and better from here. As a result of the success and great response, a poll was conducted asking those involved (public and private communities) if they'd like GC to stay in Leipzig, Germany. The results: 10 percent of exhibitors said "no"; 13.2 percent of the 14,600 trade visitors said "no." Private visitors responded with a clear "yes" (more than a third did travel over 300km for the show, after all). So, in Germany it stays!

“The GC – Games Convention will be back in Leipzig again in 2009”, as Wolfgang Marzin, CEO at the Leipziger Messe GmbH, has announced on the last day of Europe’s biggest games fair. “The industry and visitors are giving us their clear support to continue with the fair in Leipzig.” He named 19 to 23 August 2009 as the dates for the next GC – Games Convention.

The city's mayor, Burkhard Jung, is elated about its sucess and offered his full support:

“Anyone who has experienced the enthusiastic mood in the exhibition halls over the last seven years knows: this fair belongs in Leipzig.” Jung, who is also chairman of the board at Leipziger Messe GmbH, assured the games industry of his full support for the future. For example, four new hotels with 1,500 beds were to be built and would also be available in future for other trade show events. “The fairs and conferences in Leipzig are becoming increasingly international and attract more and more visitors. We’re pleased with this development. I completely agree with the governor of the Free State of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, that we will do everything to help this new cultural sector and the GC – Games Convention to achieve further success.”

Okay, I sort of fibbed a little. The fair won't exactly be staying in Germany -- it'll also be coming to North America. An off-shoot was started last year in Singapore (GC Asia), and was an immediate success, the second iteration of which will be held September 18-20. CEO Wolfgang Marzin says the model could be adjusted to suit different regions:

“The concept is flexible and the network of the global games industry permits us to be active at different locations. After the Southeast Asian Games Convention, we are now focusing on the North American market.”

See you soon, GC!

MMOs are a breeding ground for pseudo-criminal behavior

For many MMO players, gold farmers are nothing more than a nuisance, spamming public chat and mass PMing potential customers.  However, gold buyers can easily throw off a game's entire economy, thus becoming more than an annoyance for other players who do their own farming.

Business is booming for gold farmers, and according to new research conducted by Professor Richard Heeks of Manchester University, up to 400,000 people in various developing nations earn a living through this illegal trade of online currency (and goods).  About 80 percent of the gold farming industry is based in China, where farmers earn an average of $142 per month.  Exact numbers are hard to come by due to the nature of the business, but Professor Heeks estimates the total global market worth at around $500 million, though it could easily "be twice as big."

"I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry. In a way that is still true. It's just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands... I was drawn to write about gold farming due to my perception that it's a significant phenomenon that academics and development organisations are unaware of...

It is also a glimpse into the digital underworld. Or at least the edges of a digital underworld populated by scammers and hackers and pornographers and which has spread to the 'Third World' far more than we typically realise."

Steven Davis, chief of game security firm Secure Play, believes the gold farming industry follows the success of MMOs, expanding as the latter grows increasingly popular.  Despite efforts made to wipe out gold farming and other shortcuts in online gaming, both are integral to the each other.  "When you get people with more money than time and time than money the two will find a way to meet," he said.

The buyers aren't limited to Western countries either.  The whole industry functions on its own heirarchy, Davis explains, ranked by "where wages are lowest."  While Chinese gold farmers may cater to players in North America, Vietnamese farmers offer their services to the gamers in China.

"You could get rid of it," he admits, "but you would get rid of one of the most fundamental parts of player-to-player interaction."

Men often play the part better than women

Following a modestly successful article about approaching female gamers in social games, some might wonder why I would be following up two weeks later with something pertaining to the same subject.

Not quite.

I've been playing my current MMO of choice more than usual these past few days because Blizzard is dangling that proverbial carrot in front of my face from a very long rod.  When or if I ever get that carrot is irrelevent, however, in light of our topic this evening.  For those of you who do play these MMO games, voice chat is not always an option and even when it is, not all players utilize it.  So how can you be sure if the person you're grouping with is a guy or girl?  You can't.

In the past, various communities have taken it upon themselves to conduct research in futile attempts to document the men to women ratio in such massively popular MMOs (not to be redundant) such as World of Warcraft.  Even games that dwell in its shadow are suspect to this vague territory, such as ArenaNet's Guild Wars.

There's really no need to go into the experience of being a true female gamer in these situations, as most major points were touched upon in a previous Sunday Special.  Rather, let's talk about the guys who gender bend for gold and goods.  As a fairly serious gamer, most of my friends and acquaintances are of the male variety, and I've learned that quite a few of them do in fact play one or more female characters (or "toons") in MMOs.  Most of the time, I hear them justify the choice to virtually crossdress with, "The girls just look better."

Sounds reasonable enough.  Everyone knows these developers can't ignore their own base instincts, and I've been known to make a few male characters myself here and there -- mostly on account of not wanting to watch my poor Ranger run around in a bikini made of twigs and leaves, or observe pole dancing every time I hit "/dance." 

Aesthetic preferences aside, there is the undisputable fact that females get free stuff.  This universal truth has become a deciding factor for many male gamers when creating a new toon, and it only adds to the shady gender aspect of MMOs.

You can tell how long ago this was taken based on our armor.

Having played the gender bending game myself in these virtual worlds, I know from personal experiences that in most cases, other players will be nicer to you on a general scale, even before you announce your true sex.  That's not to say they're meaner to a male character, just less attentive and generous.  No, I'm not the kind of person to ask for gold or items, and you'll find that most real females don't outright beg.  No, we subtely hint that we need a new weapon or more money for a certain mount (or just a little help with a quest), and if someone responds, wonderful.

I find that men (and boys), whether playing a male or female toon, show much less tact when it comes to getting what they want.  Even when pretending to be a real girl, the charlatans tend to lay it on pretty thick and bluntly.  If they want something, they'll outright ask for it or dance naked (as naked as the game will allow) in a populated region.

The funny part is that their fellow guys often fall for it, and maybe when that false affection runs dry, they'll turn around to complain about how manipulative women are.  Aside from the fact that these "women" are usually men as well, the duped party is likely to repeat such altruistic behavior over and over again until they're blue in the face. 

It appears that most gamers know the general ratio of men to women in MMOs, often joking about it themselves; so why do they keep falling for that pretty face with the pointy ears and glowing eyes?  In games that allow characters to marry, these situations can get pretty ugly.

Now if you're an aspiring MMO con man (or woman) who is looking to pick up the art of in-game crossdressing, there are plenty of resources you can turn to for help.  I've included one below for your benefit. 

Enjoy, have fun, and remember to keep it clean!

....what?

I really struggled coming up with a headline for this one, as you might imagine.

Scientists are planning to give the almighty tongue even more responsibilities, that is, turning it into a 'computer control pad'. Researchers at Georgie Tech believe a magnetic, tongue-powered system could be extremely useful for the disabled, for instance -- their mouth would serve as a 'virtual computer', their teeth as a keyboard and tongue as the control pad. This would be useful for all sorts of things, like controlling a wheelchair, managing appliances, and controlling other computers.

Maysam Ghovanloo, a Georgia Tech assistant professor who leads the team's research, said,"You could have full control over your environment by just being able to move your tongue."

The Tongue Drive System, as it is called, is most definitely a work in progress, but the work done so far seems promising.

Of course, this isn't the first of its kind -- many devices powered by facial movements have been made for the disabled in the past (Nintendo came up with the NES Hands Free Controller in the 80s, for instance). In any case, it seems they're putting the most stock in this one, believing a device operated with the tongue will be best at what it aims to do.

"This could give you an almost infinite number of switches and options for communication," said Mike Jones, a vice president of research and technology at the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta rehabilitation hospital. "It's easy, and somebody could learn an entirely different language."

But how exactly will it work? Well, Ghovanloo's project focuses on a magnet about 3mm wide which is placed under the tip of the tongue, and from there it goes:

The magnet's movement is tracked by sensors on the side of each cheek, which sends data to a receiver atop a rather bulky set of headgear. It is then processed by software that converts the movement into commands for a wheelchair or other electronics.

After turning the system on, users are asked to establish six commands: Left, right, forward, backward, single-click and double-click. A graduate student who tested the technology was cruising the lab at will in a wheelchair, tongue firmly in cheek.

The top of the list gets juggled once more

Japanese sales tracker Media Create released their sales numbers for last week, with the sales rankings and hardware numbers for the Week of August 4th to August 10th.  WIth a meager list of new releases, the list is at most a repositioning of titles in the top fifty from last week, along with supply issues currently plaguing Microsoft's Xbox 360 that prevented it from at least trying to sustain last week's numbers.

The top seller this week is last week's #3, Nintendo's simple rhythm game for the Nintendo DS, Rhythm Tengoku Gold, selling 137k copies.  The first runner-up is Sega's Phantasy Star Portable for Sony's PlayStation Portable, clocking in with 74k copies sold.  Rounding out the top five are Square Enix's RPG, Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride (NDS - #3 - 74k), Nintendo's Wii Fit (WII - #4 - 47k) and Mario Kart Wii (WII - #5 - 36k).

On the hardware side of things, every console experienced more sales this week than last week, with the largest amount of change coming from the two Nintendo systems.  The Sony family of systems saw some moderate increased sales, while the Xbox 360 experienced a sharp tumbling from one of its more prolific weeks, with Namco Bandai's Tales of Vesperia having released last week.  Reports from Japan indicate that the console is still seeing shortages, and that has most likely hampered sales.

On the software side, with minimal new releases, the games already released get another chance to shine.  The top five continue to sell extremely well, with each game bringing in quality numbers since their respective debuts.  Rhythm Tengoku Gold is sellling on impressive word of mouth, and is approaching the half-million mark.  The GBA predecessor, while having sold decently, was released after the DS had released and had ultimately had its growth stunted.  Sega's Phantasy Star Portable meanwhile has surpassed that half-million mark, and is already one of the PSP's top selling games in Japan.  It is a good second week in Japan for Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragons and the Sword of Light, which puts it close to 200k in its two weeks out on the market.  The rest of the top ten is filled with some surprise reappearances in the top ten, with Daigasso! Band Brothers DX (NDS = #7 - 24k), Taiko Drum Master DS 2 (NDS - #8 - 20k), Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 15 (PS2 - #9 - 19k), and Wario Land Shake (NDS - #10 - 18k) still selling constantly well.

With only four new releases last week, only two managed to crack the top fifty, with both being low-tier releases.  Never the less, GN Software's adventure game Akane Iro ni Somaru Saka: Parareu for the PlayStation 2 and Sega's Crazy Taxi Double Punch for the PlayStation Portable managed to crack the top thirty this week.

What to look for next week: