If you’re like me, the Xbox One reveal was a bit of a let down for you.  The lion’s share of the presentation focused on watching TV, watching movies, and browsing the Internet.  The general consensus in the gaming community is that the reveal was a major gaffe by Microsoft.  But it wasn’t, and in this article, I’ll tell you why.

Salesmanship 101

In my life, I’ve had many vocations.  One was sales.  It has been awhile, but even with rusty skills, I could see multiple sales techniques being employed.  Unless he’s had sales training, the average gamer is probably, justifiably, confused to hell and back.  So what did Microsoft do?

That was me.

First, they focused on “benefits,” not “features.”  Features are the tech specs: CPU clock speeds, GPU TFLOPS, etc.  This sort of stuff means a great deal to geeks like us, but to people like my parents, it may as well be in another language.  Benefits, on the other hand, are what the features do for you.  “Xbox One lets you do all your TV stuff through one box.”  My mom would get that.

τι λαλει γεεκον?

The bummer with this, of course, is that we still know very little about the system itself.  Here’s what I managed to glean from the presentation:

• 8 Core, x86 CPU with 64 bit architecture
• 8 GB of unified RAM
• 500 GB HDD
• 1080p Kinect camera
• 3 Operating Systems (I probably would not have advertized this)
• Force feedback on the triggers of the gamepad (huh?)

I had expected a post-presentation press release to give tech specs, but this was not the case.  After all, the glitzy, benefits based demonstration was sure to appease the mom and pop crowd, so why not toss a little something to hardcore gamers?  Sadly, this was not meant to be.

Look, Microsoft!  You know how to do it, you’ve issued them before!

Second, while the gaming community seems to hate the name Xbox One, it is actually a good name.  I know, I probably need to turn in my official nerd card for saying that, but again, we’re talking sales and marketing.  Microsoft views “Xbox” not as a product but as a brand identity.  The original Xbox was not “Xbox One” (as some have claimed), it was simply “Xbox” (a shortened version of the development name, “DirectX-box”). The Xbox 360 was so named to establish an identity for that product within the Xbox brand.  In the same way, they’re trying to establish an identity for the Xbox One with its moniker.  It is Microsoft’s unified set-top box.  It is the “one” interface you will use for all of your television needs (or so Microsoft hopes).

One system to—sorry, this gag has been played out.

Finally, they knew their audience.  The biggest market for Xbox is, and always has been, the US.  Second is Europe, and their numbers in Japan are so pathetic as to be laughable.  I’ve seen quite a few European gamers complain that many of the features Microsoft demonstrated won’t work outside the US.  This is a thoroughly fair concern.  But again, a good salesman targets his consumer, and the most likely consumer for this thing is American.

So why isn’t the reveal a screw up?

To gamers, it was a disaster.  To my parents, it was a big win.  Non-technically inclined people eat this stuff up with a spoon (don’t believe me?  Check out NBCNews’ take).  Remember when you couldn’t get a Wii if your life depended on it?  There weren’t even any good games at the time!  Microsoft is following in Nintendo’s wake, and from a sales perspective, they actually did a bang up job.

These guys get it.

What about gamers?  My guess (or better, hope) is that this is where E3 kicks in.  Microsoft has already stated that they intend to focus on games at E3.  Hopefully, we’ll get some hardware info there as well.  If not, well, there’s always Digital Foundry and X-Raying.  Either way, I think Microsoft is planning on having its cake and eating it too with a casual + gamer approach.  While it might mean that yesterday was a disappointment to us (it was for me), from a sales perspective, it was brilliant.

Bonus round: Double points if you can figure out what my Classical Greek said without Google translate!  Hint: I made the last word up.  It’s a transliteration of “geek” in the accusative case.  For some reason, Homer never used the word “geek.”

Update: Wired has gotten some motherboard screen shots, and based on these, Digital Foundry has been able to deduce more system specs.

The video doesn’t show much, but shows a lot at the same time. It is the PlayStation 4 console, the camera and the controller with extreme close ups. I think I might have a heart attack from what’s gone on in the gaming industry this year!

When you watch the video, you will think someone has smeared vaseline on the screen, but they haven’t, so stop licking it. It’s just blurred so we can’t see it (should’ve put FXAA on).

A few clever commenters suggested a few things on it, for example at the end (at 0:17 and 0:30) there is a blue pulsating light, and they thought that there may be a nice pulsating light on the console itself.

Another commenter was clever enough to work this one out:

OMG ! Black square

square has four sides

4 – 3 = 1

1 x 3 = 3

Half life 3 confirmed.

A few seconds in to the video you have close up glimpses of what the three pieces of kit look like, and the sixthaxis were kind enough to take screenshots of certain timeframes of the video showing the pictures of the console. Here are a few, and 12 more here.

Which video is better? This one or the fake one I posted in my weekly roundup?

Top comment on the fake video:

Now, if you see the picture just up there^ it already shows you where to go.

Xbox.com
or through
Xbox Live

But I when I went to watch the PS4 reveal on Playstation.com , the website crashed, so I wont be watching it there.

Now before you moan at me for missing some websites, of course I cant get them all!

Here they are:

Gametrailers.com

Gametrailers are the official partners of the Xbox reveal, so obviously it will be streamed on there, so check there website out if you want to watch it on there

IGN.com

Like they did with the PS4 announcement, they will host a 1 hour pre-show to discuss what they want, what they expect. Along with a 1 hour post-show discussion to talk about what they saw, games, features, etc.

Oh, and Fable creator/ ex Lionhead boss good ol’ Peter Molyneux

IGN will also be hosting the live conference through their Xbox app for you to watch.

Last time I watched it, IGN accidentally gave away their skype name, and they got spammed with calls from people like Darth Vader, ‘Legalize gay marriage’ and others like Bob Marley and more controversially, Adolf Hitler.

Computerandvideogames.com

The currently have a live blog update posted on their webpage, so any news on the next Xbox they get, they’ll update you as soon as they know.

Machinima live youtube section

On there youtube live section will host their live stream on it, but beware, Machinima like to swear a bit so if there is a pre/post show conference for themselves then it will involve swearing!

Gamespot.com

Yet another place to watch it, I haven’t followed Gamespot much, so I don’t know about their profanity rules but i’ve never heard them swear before so I don’t think there will be.

As I said earlier, comment below what websites I missed (with links of course!) so other people can check where to get it from if ALL websites crash, but I doubt that.

Personally, as I’ll be watching it on Gamespot, personally it’s because I think it isn’t as popular as sites like IGN, Gametrailers and obviously, Xbox.com. So their stream  should be the best and not cause bad loading times. (with luck, I could treat myself by putting it on 720p)

What’s this? My blog post doesn’t include a video?

Don’t be silly!

This is Steve Ballmer, he is the CEO of microsoft and is the most mature person in the industry (totally not crazy atall, but the video is a bit noisy)

Oh boy!

Aaron Greenberg, the Chief of Staff for Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft has said that there will  be ‘world premieres’ and how it will be ‘all about the games’

This news comes from a Major Nelson podcast, released a few days ago, and  Greenberg said:

We’re really going to tell one story across two events, so we’re going to start on the 21st, and really that’s about revealing the next Xbox platform, really our vision for the future of games, the future of entertainment.We definitely have a lot of surprises planned

 

This sounds great, but let’s hope they’re not bad surprises!

I know everyone knows the Infinity Ward team is hard at work on world premiering the next Call of Duty: Ghosts, so we’re going to see what that looks like for the first time. People are going to get a great inside look at really the making of the new platform and the team that’s brought it to life.

 

He continued to say:

 

I mean, to be honest, it’s really about the team, the people here, that’s why we’re inviting people to campus, we’re going to bring them behind the scenes a little bit. We’ve never done this before and so it’s really exciting to be able to do that. But I think it’s a lot of laying the foundation, probably the best way to describe it, and then just a couple of weeks later we go to E3

At the very end of the podcast, Greenberg states that E3 ‘is all about the games’

Like he said above, CoD: Ghosts will be premiered on the 21st, but, will there be more? Well  like I mentioned in my weekly blog post, a few days ago, Square Enix posted a twitter status saying

I know. I’ve been such a tease. But next week…the smoke will clear.

The sheet is lifted.

The windows will be…. squeegeed.

You get it.

So, the first thing it lead me to think about was a game that was announced back in February known as ‘Murdered: Two Souls’ now, since the announcement apart from a trailer a few days later nothing has been said. So I bet that this game will be under the ‘world premiers’

If you had no idea about this game, here’s an article on its announcement, and here is its trailer:

Oh, and it has the best game page website ever. Murdered.com , there’s not much on there, just a repeating video of the trailer above.

What are YOU expecting on the horizon of exclusives and premiers?

Their E3 conference will happen on June 10th

There will always be news, and if this post is too much say, so I can whittle it down a bit, to the extra important stuff (but it’s pretty hard)

Like always, Vita news first

Announcements:

C-Wars

Kickstarter project, that after raising $95,500 it is being ported to Vita

Coconut Dodge: ReVITAlised
Release date of Killzone : Mercenary moved.
Wait! It’s not bad news, instead of September 17, it is now September 4(EU) 6(UK) and 10(NA) (moved due to clash with GTA V release date clash)

Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault release date finally announced.
May 22nd! Wait… that’s next week!
Releases:

Jacob Jones And The Bigfoot Mystery – £1.59/$2.99
A puzzle type game, episodic type

Velocity Ultra (EU only) – £6.50
Remember that Velocity game you got for free, one of the Minis, well it’s been remade for Vita!

Bit of a shame on the actual game announcements side but if you look at the past weeks we’ve had 2 - 4 announcements (and possible leaks) every week. And that’s a decent amount of games coming. Yeah most of them were indie, but games don’t have to be AAA for you to have fun on them, like Costume Quest for example, made by double fine studio (makers of brutal legend) it’s a great game.

PS4 News!

According to an ‘insider’ involved with Sonys business strategy, the company will be focusing ‘aggressively’ on Europe, as will the next Xbox, so there is no shortage of consoles (hopefully). But still I’m thinking of getting mine in March, that gives Sony some time to iron it out and make it good. Plus, it’s my birthday in March so I’ll be like

Dear Minimur

Happy birthday!

From Minimur

(real name will be substituted )

This is great news saying they will be focusing on Europe more than Japan, maybe it’ll hopefully shorten the lines of the campers that are outside every video games store. Are you a camper? (not for CoD)

Also, a new game known as ‘war thunder’ will be coming to the PS4 as a free-to-play game. It was said by the VP of Epic that Sony will be heavily embracing Free-To-Play in the next generation, and with a couple of games announced as Free-To-Play already, it’s looking pretty obvious that they are.

Blacklight Retribution

War Thunder
There’s a free beta to try out now on the PC, if you want to have a go on it, follow this link. (16v16)

In the opening paragraph I told you about a fake PS4 E3 video, this video fooled the world and even me, it is extremely well done and unless your a clever Richard, you’d be fooled as well. It is to a professional standard!
Here it is:

You must’ve seen the Killzone: Shadowfall trailer by now, and if you haven’t, we clearly have a Microsoft fan with us, don’t we? . Well since the announcement, a few days ago Guerilla games released what their game took out the system, and I must say it is pretty impressive. But before I continue I must say that I’m not that knowledgable on computer ‘tessylashun’, and ‘porygons’, isn’t that a pokemon?

Anyway, Guerilla had a side-by-side view of a Helghast model from Killzone 3 and the new model from Killzone: Shadowfall, it looks a little bit like this.

Also, like I said above they showed what it took out of the system, and out of the 8GB available, it only used 4 of that. This is pretty amazing, I mean, imagine what games will be like when they harness the full power of the PS4 and use up all of the vRAM on it?

Dear Metal gear solid fans, much to your delight Konami have announced that they will be hosting a pre-E3 live steam, either as a tech demo, on their infamous fox engine, our, what I’m hoping for more is more information on The Phantom Pain, like the majority of us I guess!

they will be hosting it at , now because there isn’t any link I’m this slot don’t think I’m an incompetent blogger, (well…) the links are at the bottom, you should know that by now!

It is set to start on June 6th, 10 AM PDT/ 5PM GMT.

Also, the Legacy collection I mentioned a few weeks back has been priced, and given a release date. It will cost $49.99 which is surprising, I was expecting more, and also release date of June 9th.

A brand spanking new Rayman trailer has been given to us ( it may not be that new by the end of the week). It shows the limbless guy underwater in the ‘ocean world’. There still has been no true confirmation that this is coming to the Vita, remember, and judging by the pre-order bonuses I don’t think it’s:

• Nintendo Wii U, Barbara is dressed in Aveline De Grandpré, the first legendary female Assassin from Assassin’s Creed III Liberation 
• PlayStation 3, Rayman is dressed in Edward Kenway, the new hero of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag
• Xbox 360, Rayman is dressed in Sam Fisher, the famous spy agent of Splinter Cell Blacklist.

Wii U bonus is a Ps Vita character? Hmm.

Oh boy, the news for Assassins Creed keeps pouring in, right? A new trailer has been released, but rather than showing gameplay, it’s quite a unique type, it describes the 4 deadliest pirates with a narrator and is just drawings, no gameplay. Sorry.

Here’s the video if you’re interested though:

Scrap that, ANOTHER new trailer. Showing gameplay. It’s a bit violent so just a link. He is one violent pirate!

I mentioned how there was a Gran Turismo event at Silver-stone circuit, and the outcome of that was Gran Turismo 6 for PS3 ONLY, like many people predicted. At the event, the creator of GT spoke how there has been 70 million Gran Turismo games sold, and their latest game Gran Turismo 5 sold a whopping 10 million. The new game has an amazing 1,200 cars in it and 7 new tracks, a brand new UI and also more cars and racetracks will be added over the months as DLC. The games features are improved, where you can fully customise your own car, the physics have been improved.

A release date you say? Yep! Holiday 2013! Wait, what?

And a demo is coming in July, which is good, no definitive date yet but check the store once a week, or better yet I’ll just tell you on here!

At the announcement, they showed a trailer, and it is probably one of the most epic trailers I have ever seen. Trust me.

I’m not sure if this is real or not…

I wouldn’t usually do a mini post on here on this topic, but when I read it I laughed. So hopefully it’ll make you laugh too.

Believe it or not, the Apple vs Samsung lawsuit is still continuing. Yep, and recently Apple have asked Google for parts of the Android source code! The cheek of it! The reason they want this is because apparently all infringing Samsung products run android. Apple claims that Google is withholding information relating to Android, for goodness sake Apple, you’ve turned so sour! (hehe)

Like I said above, Nvidia Project Shield has finally got its official name, release date, and pricing. Don’t fool yourself it’s quite expensive, at a whopping $350. Pre-orders will be opining up on May 20, so, will you be one of the first to pre-order it? I mean, as awesome as it looks, I’ve just dished out £300 for my Vita last year, so I don’t want to spend another £300 (for just the console!).

Nevertheless, that’s my opinion, you may have saved up for it but it’s up to you what you do with your money, I’m not your Mummy! (Mommy). As always, all relevant links will be at the bottom

SHIELD SPECIFICATIONS

Also, Nvidia related, if you remember IRA from the extremely impressive Nvidia face works tech demo, and didn’t truly believe it yourself, they have released a demo for you to try. As much as I’d love to try this, my computer is 4 years old and was only £270. So my computer will probably just set on fire.

Here’s IRA, back in march:

Pretty awesome.

I tried it on my computer, when opening the application it just crashes and my computer freezes for a while!

So, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I write this post on a Saturday, so it’s published on a Sunday for you to read, but on Sunday a few interesting things came up. Like a new Watch_Dogs video for example, and sometimes, you may even find a few things from Saturday. Unless I’ve forgotten about a few bits!

So here’s the Watch_Dogs video:

Like I said at the top These are the bits of me being forgetful (last weeks news):

So, obviously in time for the Ps4 release, on June 1st GameStop will no longer take trade-ins. It doesn’t bother me because my Ps2 died long ago, the laser went, and I set about cleaning it… But something went wrong so I decide to crush malteasers in it. I bet there’s some of you going crazy at the screen right now! *troll face*

When was the last time you bought/traded in a ps2 game at GameStop?

Some good news or all you Star Wars fans out there, EA have acquired a multi year license to work on the Star Wars games. Now there’s no news whether they’ll continue working on the old games, or start brand new IP’s, but it is good news nevertheless.

Like I said in the beginning, the Wii U doesn’t support the Frostbite 3 engine. Why? Well, technical director Johan Andersson tried running Frostbite 2 on the console…. And the results ‘weren’t too promising’ so running Frostbite 3 would either run at 0.5 Frames per second, or just blow up the console.

Carrying on from this, EA have said that they are developing a mobile version of the engine, under the alias ‘Frostbite Go’ get it? Go as in mobile…. yeah.

I’m guessing you’re bored now, so I’ll post links to things worth reading now:

Square Enix are teasing some news for next week, what could it be? – Link

When it’s released, The Last Of Us game will be playable when you download it at 50% Awesome! – Link

Nate wells is working on The Last Of Us, and recently tweeted saying that it’s multiplayer is ‘best MP ever conceived’ – Link

This car can fly. - Youtube video

A suspect of hacking the PSN hacking smashed his computer up so he wasn’t prosecuted, but he was arrested at house for destroying evidence. - Link

EA has decided to scrap their online pass system from now onwards, so if you were to buy Battlefield 3 pre-owned, you could play online! – Link

A new Deadpool gameplay trailer, looks pretty fun! – Link

Weekly blog round-up

The Photo-Realism Challenge: Light - Another one of TStrauss’ awesome photo-realistic blog posts, it sure enlightened me! (Sorry)

Fail0verflow: the end of homebrews? - Wololo reports on how Marcan from Fail0verflow made a post on his blog on his opinion of the future of console hacking, and what it means.

Coldbird is Coming Back, Team PRO and TN Put Differences Aside, PSX Sound Coming! - Possible the news of the century in terms of Vita hacking, Coldbird is returning to the scene, and TN and team PRO team up to help sort out the PlayStation 1 sound! (I try not to use PSX, it’s a whole different console)

Release: Wagic 0.19.0 “community builds” for PSP/Vita, Windows, Android - After a very long time, Wagic has returned with a great update. An extra 1,000 cards, better resolution and quality of the pictures, I suggest you check it out! This homebrew is known as ‘Wagic The Homebrew’, or, WTH…… see the reference in the ‘Minimur WTH happened’

Trololo Talks: Predicting The Future (In Games) -  It’s here! Next part of Trololo talks, I talk about predicting the future of games, say your low on ammo, hundreds of highly armed guards on their way, oh look! Red barrels.

A Noob’s Shopping Guide: Video Cards - Another blog post from TStrauss (We’re getting a post from him as often as me! Actually…. no.)

The future is now!: Google Glass - Hgoel shows us the google glass, a pretty strange…phone? It’s certainly mobile though!

Related links

C- Wars – [Announcement] [Kickstarter Page]
Coconut Dodge – [Announcement]
Killzone: Mercenary release date change - [Announcement]
Ratchet & Clank Full Frontal Assault release date change- [Announcement]
Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery – [Announcement]
Velocity Ultra – [Announcement]

Sony focusing on Europe with PS4 shipments – [Article]
Blacklight Retribution – [Announcement] - [Gameplay Video]
War Thunder – [Article] – [Gameplay Video]
Killzone Tech Demo – [Article]
Metal Gear Solid Live Stream – [Article]
Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection Price & Release – [Article] [Amazon Listing]
Rayman Pre-order bonuses – [Article]
Gran Turismo – [Announcement]
Samsung vs Apple – [Article]
Nvidia Shield – [Homepage] – [Pre-order link]
Ira downloadable demo – [Link]
GameStop cancelling PS2 trade-ins – [Article]
EA obtaining Star Wars game deal – [Article]

 Awesome thing of the week

Celluon Magic Cube Laser Projection Keyboard and Touchpad

You know it’s a right pain in the a….bottom proof-reading this.

You know, this is my 41th blog post, tired of me yet? (Don’t answer that)

This is what my PC looks like while writing this blog post.

I’m so sorry.

System specifications:

The Vita runs a quad core, ARM-Cortex A9 CPU (one of the four cores is set aside for system use, leaving three cores free).  This is a 32 bit processor designed for high end mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc), and is comparable to, but quite a bit more powerful than, the ARM11 CPU in the 3DS (if you follow these sorts of things, the original Tegra chipset uses an ARM11).  It is also less powerful than the ARM-Cortex A15 which is in the Tegra 4 (which was just announced in January of this year).  As far as CPU power goes, it can safely be stated that the Vita outpowers any device currently on the market (unless I’ve missed a Tegra 4 release), and there should be no bottlenecks in the area of the CPU.

GPU wise, the Vita uses a quad-core SGX543MP4+.  This is a modified version of the PowerVR GPU that powers that iPad 3, which runs at 7.2 GFLOPS—equal to the Tegra 3, and outpacing the Pica 200 that powers the 3DS (sadly, I could not obtain solid numbers for this as Nintendo does not release tech specs for their systems anymore).  There are mobile GPUs that outperform the Vita (like the Adreno 225 and the Tegra 4), but not many.  Some have compared the Vita to a “portable PS3,” but the performance of the Vita is nowhere close to the PS3: the GPU in the PS3 outputs 176 GFLOPS.

Sorry little Vita, I love ya, but you’re not in the same class as your big brother.

Other neat features of the Vita include a capacitive back panel and front touch screen, dual analog sticks (yay!), Sixaxis motion controls, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, wifi (b/g/n), front and rear cameras, a 960×544 OLED screen (which is beautiful), and 3G (on certain models).  The Vita also sports 512 MB of RAM and 128 MB of vRAM, which is more than adequate for such a small screen/ low resolution.

When taken as a whole, the Vita is an impressive piece of hardware, even a year after its release.  These technical specs are actually a drawback for the system in some regards, but this will be discussed later.

The difference between OLED and LCD is huge.  Go to your local game retailer and pick up a Vita for a test run if you don’t believe me.

Games:

There are not many games out for the Vita.  There, I’ve said it.  It is demonstrably true; there is no point in arguing the matter.  The assertion that there are no “good” games on the Vita, however, is demonstrably false.  Some AAA releases are:

• Persona 4 Golden
• LittleBigPlanet Vita
• Rayman Origins
• Guacamelee
• Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
• Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Apologies if I did not list your favorite game here.  The point is, there are plenty of great games on the Vita, and more are coming.  Anyone who tells you that the Vita “has no good games” is either a fanboy, uninformed, or willfully ignorant.

Show this to anyone who says that the Vita has no good games. 

Problems:

The Vita is a great system, and it has some terrific games, but it isn’t perfect.  The biggest problem with the system is the cost.  The system alone is $250 ($300 for the 3G version).  In addition, the system is barely functional without a memory card.  Sony, in their wisdom, decided that memory cards would be proprietary and expensive—you’re looking at spending at least $30 for a small, 8 GB memory card.  Don’t forget that you’ll want a case to protect the screen, too—this is not a clamshell design!  Digital distribution is neat, but the discount for digital games is negligible at best.  The whole set up, from the initial purchase to the accessories to the games, feels like it is designed to bleed you dry, and that isn’t a good way to build a consumer base.

Sony’s business strategy: You have money.  We want money.  Give us your money.

The lack of breadth in the game line-up is another major issue the Vita has.  If you don’t like one or two genres of games, that could knock a huge percentage of decent games off the list.  There are few multiplatform titles on the Vita, and this all relates to power: outside of Sony, few developers seem interested in making the leap from PS3 to Vita (the Vita just doesn’t have the horsepower), and few seem interested in making the leap from mobile or the 3DS to Vita (Vita owners reasonably expect those ports to look good—that’s more work).  It’s an interesting problem to have, really: the Vita isn’t powerful enough for most console ports, and is too powerful for handheld ports.

I like this.  More of this, please.

Finally, the anti-piracy measures taken are downright draconian.  This is somewhat understandable since the PSP was hacked wide open for nearly its entire shelf life, but it still sucks for the consumer.  I need to run a background application to connect my Vita to my PC?  I can’t just connect to my PS3 and transfer data without all kinds of stupid security layers opening up?  I need an overpriced, proprietary memory card ($100 for 32 GB!  I can get 32 GB of SD memory for $20!) just because I can’t be trusted to look at my files?

I’m not a criminal!  Stop treating me like one!

Solutions:

1)  The system needs a damn price drop.  I could get a 3DS XL for $200.  Yes, I know it isn’t comparable, but to the average consumer, it is.  You take it with you and play games on it.  Also, the price of the memory cards needs to drop to reasonable levels.  Get SanDisk to start making them, I don’t care.  These proprietary memory cards are unreasonably driving the cost of the system up, and I believe cost is the primary factor driving Vita sales down.

The bane of my existence.

2)  Sony needs to fix the game problem with a two-pronged approach.  First, they need to start actively courting 3^rd parties to make more games for the Vita (and kicking 1^st and 2^nd parties into gear—where the hell is God of War?  We don’t even have an announcement).  Second, they need to start advertising.  The Vita has a small but great line up of games.  Why, then, does the rumor persist that the Vita “has no good games?”  Because Sony hasn’t told anyone.

I know if one thing tells me “we have good games,” its an ad with a girl with breasts on her back.  *sigh*

3)  CMA has got to go.  Also, there must be a better way to connect to my PS3.  For crying out loud, it’s one closed Sony system connecting to another!  What kind of hacking am I going to do with my Dual Shock 3?

Conclusion:

The Vita is a really nice piece of hardware with some great games.  It is powerful enough that I suspect future games will really shine—if there are future games.  Sony has some work to do if they want to make the Vita competitive with the 3DS.  As a Vita owner, I hope they act before it is too late.

The stylish future of portable computing?

  Yeah, I get that. But what does it do?

Google glass does almost everything you would expect from a futuristic head mounted display. It makes calls, takes pictures, videos, sends texts, gives you directions, answers all your questions, it even answers your questions before you ask. So if you go to the airport for instance, it will automatically show you flight timings! But the feature that I find most exciting is the translation feature. It can translate your voice on the fly. Now just imagine, going to Japan but not knowing Japanese, and you need to buy something, you could just say it in English and Google Glass would automatically translate it into Japanese!

Translation Magic!

Source: http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/

Cool!Where do I get it?

Unfortunately, the open beta sign up is no longer available, so we’ll have to wait. But it seems Google has more of these betas planned. You can sign up to be informed about it at the sign up page

Controversy

As in any other revolution, there are always those people who don’t see any good in it. It is the same case with Google Glass. Pictures like the one below have popped up on the internet, and they show a completely different side to the way people see this device.

Ban Google Glass!

Now, I will make it clear as I can’t stay impartial, I don’t see any legible reason to hate these because a lot of the reasons I found online were like what people say for Facebook and smartphones, the way I look at it, Google Glass isn’t something that infringes upon ones privacy, it is just a smartphone you wear on your head (which should be much more safer than texting and driving) Anyhow, I have to show you both sides of the coin to make it fair, so what are some of the reasons people are against Google glass?

• It could destroy whatever shreds of privacy we have left.
• It will turn the United States into a surveillance state.
• It will hold more people needlessly accountable for easily pardonable activities.

  Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/346829#ixzz2TaOoyrqV (A huge list of 35 different reasons for why Google Glass should be banned)

Google Glass demo on YouTube:

So, what do you guys think? Post your thoughts in the comments

It used to be that when you upgraded your Voodoo2, you simply bought a Voodoo3 (or maybe an Nvidia RIVA TNT2 if you wanted full 32 bit color).  But nowadays, looking at the feature list of a video card is like reading some strange sort of code.  But never fear, dear reader!  I will walk through the features of a video card on Newegg (the EVGA GTX 650 Ti 2 GB, if you are curious), and I will try and explain them so even the most basic enthusiast can understand what they are looking at.

Huh?  Which thing tells me how fast it is?  I want it fast.

The brand and model number don’t really matter.  I don’t know of any disreputable manufacturers of mid-high end video cards, so you’re fine buying from just about anyone.  The interface, on the other hand, does matter.  Unless your computer is an antique, you will be using a PCI Express (PCIe) interface.  This replaced AGP (which was slower), which in turn replaced PCI (which was slower still).  The x16 at the end refers to the number of “lanes” (how big the slot is that you are using).  This will almost always be x16, so just go with that and don’t worry about it.  The revision number (1.0, 2.0, and 3.0—4.0 is slated to be finalized in 2014 or 15) refers to how fast the video card can communicate with the rest of the system, and it matters in a big way.  Let’s say you get a GTX 650.  That uses revision number 3.0, which is the fastest.  But maybe you don’t have a motherboard or CPU that supports PCIe 3.0 (intel users, Sandy Bridge CPUs and backwards do not support PCIe 3.0).  The result is that you might be paying for power that you cannot use!  PCIe is backward compatible, so you can use a later revision and still get by just fine, of course.  Just know that you are missing out on performance that you paid for.

Those big long slots are PCIe x16.  Don’t worry about the other ones, they don’t matter in this project.  Just be sure to use the PCIe slot closest to your CPU!

On to the chipset!  The chipset manufacturer actually does matter.  There are two major players in the world of video cards: AMD and Nvidia.  These two companies have gone back and forth as far as features and performance go, but at the moment, Nvidia is in the lead.  I recommend either a Fermi (GeForce 400-500 cards) or Kepler (GeForce 600-Titan) based board since these will support DirectX 11/ Shader Model 5.0.  If you choose to go AMD, the comparable cards are the HD 7000 series.

Sorry AMD, but right now Nvidia has the upper hand!

Don’t worry about clock speeds; this will not hold you up.  What will hold you up, however, are the number of CUDA cores/ Stream processing units (they’re the same thing, Nvidia and AMD just use different names).  These are the programmable shaders that I’ve waxed poetically on about in previous updates, and the more you have, the better.

In this die shot, the boxes marked SMX are where your cores are (this is a high end Kepler chip, so they are CUDA).  There are 192 CUDA cores in each SMX unit, for a whopping total of 2880 CUDA cores.  Wow!

On to memory.  Don’t pay too much attention to memory clock speeds; the manufacturers manipulate these numbers to look as big as possible without telling you anything.  Unless you are into heavy overclocking, your factory default memory speed will be fine (if you are an overclocker, you probably don’t need this guide).  Regarding the quantity of RAM, more is always better.  Consider: the PS4 will have 8 GB of unified memory.  Assuming non-graphics related tasks use 2 GB of that memory, it still has a sizeable 6 GB of video memory.  I can’t overstate this: if you don’t want to have to upgrade within a year, go big on video RAM.  I recommend at least 2 GB.

I could have a picture of RAM here, but that’s boring.  So here’s a chimpanzee wearing people clothes.

The memory interface and memory type are other thorny memory-related issues.  The number for your memory interface (128 bit on the GTX 650 Ti) refers to the size of the memory aperture.  The higher this number, the faster information can go to and from your video RAM.  Newer does not always mean better here.  On the GTX 650, Nvidia actually reduced the size of the memory interface from the GTX 550 Ti  (which is 192 bit).  I’m not sure why this was done, but as far as memory access goes, the newer card is actually slower (of course, a GTX 680 is quicker than both, but it’s also ~$500!).  Do not buy a card with less than GDDR5; this is the actual speed of the memory itself, and is the industry standard.

Oh GTX 680, why are you so desirable, yet so far away from me?

Under APIs, you want to make sure your card supports the latest 3D APIs (otherwise you are buying something that is already obsolete).  The current APIs are DirectX 11 (technically 11.1, but no hardware revisions are required for 11.1 support) and OpenGL 4.3.

Final notes: Under ports, make sure you have the right port for your monitor (a DVI output can be converted to an older VGA one with a simple adapter, but an HDMI output cannot).  If you’re planning on CrossFire/ SLI (connecting two video cards together for faster performance), just make sure that CrossFire/ SLI is supported.  Also, be sure that you get two identical cards; this is required for CrossFire and SLI.  Finally, look at the power requirement (this will be measured in wattage) and the power connecter (probably 6 pin).  You want to make sure your power supply (PSU) can run the video card you are about to buy!  Otherwise, the rest of the stuff is marketing bull: all current Nvidia cards should support PhysX and 3D Vision, and all current AMD cards should support Eyefinity (you might need to turn down in game graphics for this if you get a lower end card).  Almost all video cards come with fans; the fact that they tell that on the website confuses me!

This is a video card without a fan.  It is 9 years old.

Finally, before buying a video card, check out the benchmarks.  I’ve seen tech that looked great on paper but performed like crap in real life.  Why be a test guinea pig when someone else has done that for you?  Learn from the testing that others have done, and make a great purchase.  Happy shopping!

Hey everyone! Episode 2 of Trololo talks now, this week we will be discussing predicting the future in games! (a.k.a. predictable moments)

So, if you’ve ever played a video game on any device, be it PS Vita, PC, Xbox 360, and even your Mac……. Actually, you can’t play games on a Mac, can you?

What I really mean, is predictable, a ‘seeing-something-from-a-mile-away’ moment in a game. When I first got Uncharted 2, I wasn’t hoping for much with the game, the opening sequence was predicting a hell. I thought to myself ‘Well that boulder is going to fall’.

This is what I mean.

There aren’t any spoilers, this is the opening scene of the game.

Apart from the opening chapter, I loved the whole game. It is still up there in my top 5 games, if you haven’t played it I really suggest you do.

You will know that in any game, there is a moment in EVERY game you know what’s about to come next. Here’s a few examples of what I’ve experienced:
•Walking over an old wooden bridge suspended hundreds of metres above a river? Yep. It totally won’t break.
Culprit: Uncharted: Golden Abyss.

•Hitching a ride on a train? What’s that? Something’s in the way? No, really?
Culprit: Telltale’s The Walking Dead

•Running away from enemies? Don’t worry. You’ll trip.
Culprit: Telltale’s The Walking Dead

• Just finished a major boss battle? He’ll come back later, twice as powerful, just you wait.
Culprit: All Final Fantasy games.

•Cousin’s got a problem with loan sharks? As soon as you turn you back they’ll be there, beating the crap out of him.
Culprit: Grand Theft Auto IV

And another one thrown in just for good measure;

•Sliding down something that you’ll go launching off into your death? You’ll grab onto the ledge just it time. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.  
Culprit: Tomb Raider (2013)

Obviously these predictable moments aren’t exclusive to that game (maybe apart from the GTA IV one)  but these are the games that I’ve noticed them.

So, I want to know, in what game were YOU able to predict the future?

You can comment on your predictable gaming experiences below, or on the /talk forums here.

How many times did you fight this guy? (Barthandelus – Final Fantasy 13)

No Nintendoheads were meant to be offended in the making of this article.

I know I said this Trololo talks would be on pet peeves, but I forgot and started writing this one instead.

Apart from Pet Peeves, I’ve ran out of ideas! So there’s only 1 month left of Trololo talks. Unless you, the Wololo community is willing to chip in and suggest topics for it!

If you don’t understand the picture above, it is a Pokémon reference of the Pokémon named Psyduck. His name has ‘psy’, for psychic (no, not the Korean singer) That’s the joke.

This song has been banned in South Korea by the state broadcaster KBS, why? Well at the beginning he kicked over a cone that said ‘no parking’. Yep.

I have a theory, that if the next Xbox is called the Xbox Infinity, that the next-next Xbox will be called Xbox: Infinity and Beyond!

This release is different from our releases in the past as I will not desperately be trying to get all platforms ready at the same time. You will see, for example, that we don’t have a build for iOS ready yet. It is not because it’s not possible, but because nobody has provided one yet. There might also be lots of bugs compared to our latest stable 0.18.6 release. Unlike for the past releases, I haven’t spent days playtesting on many platforms, nor have I asked the community to do so before submitting the binaries.

But since the project is still very alive, and the only thing preventing you from enjoying it is that the people with the tools to compile are not coordinated, I figured I might as well start this.

What is Wagic?

Often compared to commercial games for its replay value and quality, Wagic is a heroic fantasy card game, in which you fight as a wizard against the computer. As you win battles, you unlock new game modes and earn credits that allow you to improve your army. Wagic is community driven and entirely customizable: you can create themes, mods, new cards, new rules, or even new games. Wagic is available in several languages (English, French, German, spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian), and open source. It currently runs on the Sony PSP (as well as on the PS Vita if you have VHBL), Windows, Linux, maemo, meego, Android (phones and tablets), and iOS (iPhone, iPad).

Changelog

So what’s new in 0.19.0? To be honest, it’s been so long since the last release, and I have myself been so disconnected from Magic The Gathering in general and Wagic in particular, that I am not entirely sure, but here’s what I could gather from our SVN:

• There are a lot new cards, as we now support 10’400 unique cards in the game (up from 9’400 last year), for a grand total of 18’000 supported cards (that’s when you include reprints) in Wagic.
• High resolution fonts have been added on platforms that support it. Not everything supports high resolution in Wagic yet, but you’ll definitely see a huge improvement your PC, phone, or tablet. It is now possible to read the tiny names on card thumbnails, on an Android phone with a decent screen.
• the “gauntlet mode”, that we had a long time ago as a “source code” mode to have AI fights, has been added as a core part of the game. This means you can now have tournaments with 3, 5, 7, 13 games against the same AI, or even more “tweaked” tournaments where the winner is decided when there are 2 or 3 wins difference
• New abilities, in order to support some of the new MTG sets, have been added. You can see a list of all abilities, if you want to add your own cards, on the wiki here
• I wish I could tell you we have a network mode ready, I know xawotihs has been working hard on this, but I believe it is still hidden in our code, and can probably be alpha-tested by people who will have the guts to compile their own Wagic version. But hey, at least you know there’s some progress in this area too.

More than the release, I want to use this post as a request for the community: if you know how to compile Wagic, and happen to compile it once in a while, please head over to our “SVN Builds” thread and post a link to your compiled version, the community will really enjoy it

Downloads

These new builds of Wagic can be downloaded here. Be sure to read the instructions for each download, the downloads do not necessarily include the resource files, which you have to download separately (usually the links are in the thread)

I also want to thank all the devs who keep improving this project despite me being only remotely involved in it today, this is really heart-warming guys!

Shortly after the Vita scene drama that went down awhile back, developer Coldbird decided to depart the scene with no inclination on coming back. However some behind the scenes work and other factors have not only changed this but will spawn a new partnership; bringing the long and highly requested PSX sound compatibility for the Vita (some time soon, patience is of virtue) and increase in functionality.

Coldbird will be coming back in some form soon however due to having a life (crazy right?!?) and being busy like every developer out there, it’ll be some months before we see him. Basically, in the mean time Team PRO and TN have put aside their differences to finally work together to provide new things. As you may know sound for PSX was non existent due to Coldbird leaving the scene and his plugin that enabled sound (while functional yet extremely buggy and not ready for the public) as a casualty, ended up being left behind. Now with a clean table, they’ve decided to exchange code and the sound plugin is in the hands of TN to polish in the mean time until Coldbird’s return.

Below you can find Coldbirds official statement which explains everything currently and will elaborate on the subject matter more.

 ”Just wanted to give you guys a little heads-up on whats going on here.

The reason I’m writing this is because lately I’ve seen an increased flow of donations coming in for Team PRO, I thank you guys deeply for that and think that you guys deserve to be kept up to date.

Lets start with the saucy parts shall we?

Our fellow teammate Yosh, aka. wth has been busy at work analyzing latest Vita Firmwares, trying to figure out how they work and porting Ark to those.

As some of you might have noticed he also was nice enough to provide Builds for all kind of different Game Exploits we had sitting in our code repository for a while, I hope you guys enjoy that.

So lets cheer on Yosh, as (due to reallife being very busy at the moment) he is the most active member of our team at the moment… poor Liquidzigong (Hrimfaxi) and me are kinda knocked out with 24/7 jobs here…

I’ve also seen a increased interest in PRO Online and its future on both my Youtube Channel and personal messages and even donations coming my way.

Everyone that is concerned about its future, remain calm, its not dead and I will continue updating it after I’m done with my 3-job-setup here… (yes, right now I’ve got 3 jobs… 5 days at one, 1 day at another and yet 1 day at another one… the 24/7 part was no joke).

Sadly, due to contracts and laws I’m bound to this 3-job-lifestyle for another 5 months… so I hope you guys can sit tight and wait for me until then?

On yet another frontier, here is some TN news; All of you have been monitoring the whole TN-V and ARK Business out there and this has been especially interesting on the PSX on Vita part…

TN and our team have finally cleaned the table and put our differences aside sharing our code bases with each other in the hope of providing diversity without having to sacrifice functionality.

Many people have seen my proof of concept PSX sound video on Youtube and in my absence I’ve put the code into TN’s capable hands, hoping that he can polish it while I’m unavailable.

Either way, back to work for me…

~Greetings, Coldbird”

 

Well there you have it, more progress and support being made contrary to most people’s belief that the scene is completely dead. Hopefully this leads to greater advancements now that these two forces are working together. Stay tuned for more information, as always. Let me know in the comments below what you think!

I mentioned not so long ago that I believe console hacking has become difficult enough that only companies with high expectations of return-on-investment would engage into the hacking of consoles. Marcan has a slightly different theory, but is conclusion is the same: piracy might become the sole driver of console hacking in the years to come (while, believe it or not, data seems to show piracy is rarely the initial intent), therefore gray-hat hobbyists and homebrew programmers might not be driving the scene anymore.

Summarizing Marcan’s article without missing its bigger picture might be difficult, but I’ll try with this: Marcan’s point is that hackers’ interest has moved on, because cheap-but-powerful devices made for hackers or indie developers are now the norm (think Ouya, raspberry pi, or any Android device today: you can get a quad-core running Android for less than $100). While consoles were affordable devices that hackers wanted to explore years ago, they have become relatively expensive and uninteresting pieces of hardware in a sea of hacker-friendly competition. Marcan mentions that the same will be true for the upcoming PS4 and XBox, as those will be nothing more than “glorified PCs”.

Add to that the legal issues that hacking can bring a hobbyist (and Fail0verflow are in a good position to mention that), and you’ll see why it’s not really worth the trouble for them.

Although we’ve taken different approaches to describe the situation, Marcan’s conclusion is, however, the same as me: let alone the taste for challenge that many hackers have, there are not many good reasons remaining to want to hack a console besides piracy. People who want homebrew have dozens of ways to do so (even Sony has made a step in their direction recently on the Vita), so “regular” hackers will move away and be replaced by shady companies revolving around piracy dongles and mods, such as the recently announced Wiikey For Wii U.

On a side note, and maybe only to prove that it’s really lack of interest but not the lack of skills that was driving his blog post, Marcan disclosed lots of information of fail0verflow’s ongoing hack of the Wii U, stating that they have fully hacked the Wii U, to a point where “there is basically no security left to break in“. The article includes snippets of code, probably enough for people of the trade to move forward, but that will confuse the general audience who’s generally not versed into the fine art of C programming and hacking.

I am still heavily using my PSP for homebrew, and it is possible the situation is actually the opposite of what Marcan stated: maybe people are losing interest in homebrews on recent consoles because hacking as recently focused a lot on piracy rather than homebrew, and not the other way around. The PSP had a great unofficial SDK for homebrew programming: maybe if such a thing ever came out for the Wii U, or the Vita, people would be motivated again to write unofficial applications.

Are you playing any homebrew games or emulators? On what console? Or are you moving all your “indie experiments” to more open platforms such as Android or the Ouya? Do you believe the nextgen console’s hacking should become the private playground of hardware mod companies? Or should hackers release their work, if only to prevent such companies from making money out of piracy?

Before I begin, however, I wanted to address a question from Johnmiceter in the previous article: “So how do we get real life graphics . . .?  Could the PS4 achieve close to real live images with its power?” The answer to the second question is “no.”  The most powerful PC build cannot, using present techniques, produce fully photo-realistic images in real time.  The PS4 is less powerful than this.  So no, the PS4 will not be photo-realistic.  It will be better than the PS3 (arguably much better), but it won’t be photo-realistic.

As to the first question, the answer is “change the underlying technology.”  Current 3D games use a method called “rasterizing” to generate scenes.  In a raster engine, everything is made of triangles (called polygons), and these polygon models are converted into pixels for display on your screen.  If you can, go and pick a flower.  Look at it really closely.  How many tiny triangles do you suppose it would take to completely imitate it?  Hundreds of thousands?  Millions?  More?  It simply isn’t possible, and since a flower is rarely the focus of a scene, a good artist will “dumb down” the detail of the flowers (and the trees and rocks and whathaveyou) to give more polygons to the main actors.  There are promising new techniques, such as voxel engines, that could maybe approach true photo-realism, but these are so CPU intensive as to be impractical for the foreseeable future.  Sorry.  Unless there is a radical shift in computing technology, we will forever approach reality, but we will never achieve it.

This is what voxel rendering looks like.  No, it is probably not running in real time.

On to light!  Waaaay back in the day (pre-DirectX 6 generation), games didn’t really have “light.”  If you play one of these games, you will notice that everything is just kind of “lit up,” not bright and not dark.  DirectX 6 brought us light in a “cheating” sort of way via lightmaps (lightmaps were around before DirectX, specifically in the Glide API, but who’s keeping track?).  A lightmap is a second texture put onto a model that imitates light being displayed on it.  These are pretty good at first blush, but pretty soon you start to realize that the light never moves (they are static) and that it’s just a texture.  DirectX 7 brought us transform and lighting support, a technique for shading objects with light that has largely gone away due to better methods being developed.

This is what lightmapping looks like.  Just in case you felt nostalgic.

By better methods, I mean shaders (DirectX 8)!  In my previous article, I strongly mentioned how shaders revolutionized 3D gaming, but my emphasis was more on their role in simulating additional polygons.  Their primary purpose was lighting, however.  There are numerous lighting fuctions that shaders have performed.  Some of these functions include light “shading” objects with its color (hence the name “shader”), volumetric lighting/ crepuscular rays (light rays from a single bright source, like the sun behind a cloud or Helios in God of War III), and light beam effects (Bioshock Infinite is a good example of this).

Crepuscular rays.  I wanted a screenshot of Helios from GoW III, but I couldn’t find one that showcased it.  Sorry!

In DirectX 9.0c, a major change was made in the lighting model.  Previously, light sources were assigned a numerical value for their brightness, with 0 being fully dark and 1.0 being fully bright.  So a really bright light (like the sun) would be given a value of 1.0, while a 40 watt lightbulb might be given a value of, say, .2.  Reflective surfaces (water, mirrors, wet rocks, etc) were given a value for how much light they reflected.  A mirror might reflect almost all light, a lake maybe 80%, and a wet rock perhaps 50%.  But is this realistic?  If the sun shines on a wet rock in real life, maybe it will lose 50% of its brightness.  But 50% of really freaking bright is still really freaking bright.  In a game, however, that wet rock is going to reduce the sun from 1.0 to .5.  It isn’t very bright anymore!

To accommodate this, DirectX was adjusted to allow for much higher brightness levels.  The sun could now be a given a stupid brightness like 100,000,000.  It will still display as full brightness on a monitor, but when reflection and the like are taken into account, they will display properly.  This is called High Dynamic Range Rendering (HDRR).

A decent before and after of HDRR.  I like the example for bloom below better, though.

Another addition in DirectX 9 was bloom lighting (although it was simulated in Ico much earlier).  When you take a picture with a bright light coming through a window, say, the light will “bleed” around the edges.  This effect is caused by the diffraction of light in the camera.  It isn’t really important why it happens, the point is, it happens.  Bloom lighting enables game developers to simulate this light bleed.

Bloom, plus some really nice HDRR!

So what is the future?  The first and biggest change to look forward to is particles.  Lots and lots of particles.  These small, light emitting points will allow developers to create more realistic looking fire, and will allow for neat light effects like light shining on dust particles.

Particles.  Wow.  Just wow.

Another change applies to shadows.  I could write an entire article on shadow rendering (maybe I will!), but for now, it is enough to say that the biggest problem with shadow rendering is the way light tends to “bleed” around things.  Shadows in general are very hardware intensive, so newer hardware is always better.  Newer video cards allows for Multi-View Soft Shadows, which more realistically simulate how light casts and influences shadows.

Notice how the shadows diffuse.

Groan inducing pun time: The future of 3D gaming is looking bright!

I’m so sorry.

As always I’ll show you the Vita news of the week. Because that’s what you’re most interested in, isn’t it? I bet some of you just click on this post just to see the Vita news!

I couldn’t find much this week, but the PlayStation blog announced 3 new titles for PS3, PS4 and most importantly, the PS Vita.

Here they are:

Doki Doki Universe
Hohokum
CounterSpy
Muramasa Rebirth: Seek The Demon Blade

Fifa 14 gets a release date of 4/10/13 (10/4/23 for you ‘mericans ) a little bit later than you might expect, although GAME has removed the date listing now. It still hasn’t been listen on their site as a Vita title though.

Final Fantasy X-2 remaster has released some new screenshots, and here they are [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Pretty good looking, right?

Tearaway have released the pre-order bonuses you get, and here they are:

The Jukebox Pack, which contains:

• Splendiferous iota and atoi Avatars for use on the PlayStation Network
• Resplendent PlayStation Vita wallpaper
• Audiolicious Tearaway soundtrack with bonus track

 

Shahid Ahmad the Senior Business Development Manager at SCEE has said on his twitter account said that there’s an AMAZING big Vita title coming to the Vita, in the replies to the tweet he confirms it is not an indie game, nor is it a port! So it’s a Vita only game…. Hmm.

As always, if I’ve forgotten anything, post it in the comment box with the link!

Love these type of games!

Polyphony Digital, the team behind Gran Turismo are celebrating its 15th birthday on 15th May at Silverstone Circuit to discuss ‘the future of the franchise’. Going back to the tweet by Shahid Ahmad above, it fits in nicely to the ‘amazing title’ coming to the Vita the game being Gran Turismo Vita, doesn’t it?

When they posted it on their blog,they gave us a little video to watch about the meeting, interestingly at the end it goes:

‘GT1, GT2, GT3, GT4, GT5, GT__ ‘

After its extremely long beta release, Dust 514 has finally got a release date, can you guess when? Well, I’ll tell you at the end of the post

Sony US blog have put out a new video on The Last Of Us, called ‘meet the infected’ if you cant guess by the name, it tells more about the infected. Now ive been following TLoU since the begining, and if youre wondering why the infected are so ugly its because of something called ‘cordyceps’ fungus, ithe cordyceps fungus cant infect humans, only insects but creative director Neil Druckkman got the idea when he watches a nature program describing the fungus, and thought ‘what if humans could get infected?’ And hey presto! The Last Of Us was born.

If you have ever heard of the game series called ‘Battlefield’, there were a few things that might point to the fact that the new game might have dinosaurs (no, really!)
If you were aware of the easter egg in the game, there was a teradactyl flying around, and, DICE supposedly sent out a ‘secret’ poll to ask people on specific DLC, like naval combat features, and…. also a multiplayer mode where you fight against dinosaurs with old weapons like a bow and arrow
(remember this is a rumour)

The OUYA, bit of bad news unfortunately. If you pre-ordered it, you wont be getting it when you thought. Its release has been delayed until June 25, to fix an issue with the controller where when you push the buttons down, it can get stuck under the faceplate, so they are fixing that.
Don’t cry, it’s just 3 weeks!
If you are an early backer and have had this problem, you can resolve the issue over customer service.

Theres been a new video from the ‘coversations with creators’ series, this one, it shows Assassins Creed: Black Flag, just line the last time you need to be over 18 to watch it and I can’t embed it, so theres a link to it here.

Dust 514′s release date is… 5/14/13 Did you guess correctly?
Thanks to IGN for the FFX-2 photos!

On Saturday at EuroGamer, an article was posted that argued that the proper way to enjoy a game is on the hardware it was designed for.  Now, I love EuroGamer.  It’s a great site, and EuroGamer’s Digital Foundry articles are especially neat to a geek like me.  But this article went against everything I stand for as far as games go.  PSOne classics on a Vita or PS3 are not a valid way to enjoy PSOne games?  I shouldn’t play the 3DS version of Ocarina of Time because it isn’t how the developer originally intended the game to be played?  In the next few paragraphs, I will offer a different perspective: one where emulation is not only a valid way to play games, but a good thing for classic gaming overall.

According to EuroGamer, this girl isn’t actually having fun.  Sorry to deceive you.

The following sums up my entire premise: games are made to be fun.  Forget the “games as art” debate, as it doesn’t affect this subject.  Even “art games” are meant to be fun.  Flower was fun.  Braid was fun.  Shadow of the Colossus was fun.  If a game is not fun, then it has failed at being a game.

Consider my daughter.  When I got a 3DS, I gave her my DS (she was 5 at the time).  She loved Pokemon.  She didn’t know what she was doing, and frequently did things wrong (like trying to pokeball a monster at full health), but she was having fun.  Was she experiencing the game wrongly?  I would argue “no.”  The game existed to be enjoyed, and she was enjoying it, so everyone was happy.  Happy ending, right?

Not according to the EuroGamer blogger.  She wasn’t playing the game “right,” and that is what counts.  Is there a “right” way to play a game?  I would agree that there are “authentic” ways to play a game.  For the authentic PSOne experience, you need a CRT television, some Pearl Jam playing in the background, a PSOne and a good game or three.  For an authentic Vectrex experience, you need, well, a Vectrex.  But is the authentic experience the same as the “right” experience?

The “right” way to play Vectrex?

Let’s consider my situation.  I still have my PSOne and a stack of games, but I don’t have an SDTV anymore.  One of the wonders of HDTVs is that SD looks remarkably bad on them.  I could run at the native system resolution, but that means my game will be in a small box in the middle of the screen.  That sucks!  My TV can stretch the image to fit the screen, but that just makes the picture blurry and ugly.  What am I to do?

FF9, did you always looks so . . . chunky?

Enter emulation.  The emulation scene was originally about preserving classic games (I was there, I’m old—some time I’ll write about the evolution of the scene).  And emulator coders have really gone out of their way to accommodate different experiences.  You want to filter the sprites for higher resolutions?  They’ll do that.  You want to emulate playing on a screen with scanlines?  They’ll do that too.

So when I’m emulating (be it on my PSP, my Vita, my PS3, one of my Nintendo devices, or on my PC), I personally prefer a filtered, sharpened experience, and I can get that.  And someone who wants a more authentic experience can get what he or she wants too.  Win-win, right?

Emulation to the rescue!

Apparently not, according to the blogger at EuroGamer.  Because while I’m having fun playing on my HDTV, I’m not honoring the “authorial intent” of the game.  By his logic, his experience is more “correct” than mine.  Unfortunately for him, the facts do not bear this out.

Consider, for example, Shadow of the Colossus.  It was a great game which took advantage of every last drop of power the PS2 had.  But the PS2 game, the original experience, did not match the “authorial intent.”  There were framerate issues that were fixed in the PS3 HD port.  The game was filled with glitches that were fixed in the HD port.  Did Team Ico really intend this?  Of course not.  That’s why the problems were fixed in the remaster.  What was Team Ico’s “authorial intent?”  For people to play their game and have fun.

This brings us full circle.  Games are made to be fun.  If someone enjoys going for the most “authentic” experience possible, then the game succeeded.  If someone enjoys blowing their classic games up to 1080p with smoothing enabled, then the game succeeded.  If someone enjoys sprite swapping and using their own sprites to play, then the game succeeded.  All of these are valid experiences!  If anyone tries to tell you the “right” way to play a game, I say tell him or her to get lost.  Are you having fun?  Then you’re doing it right.

Eric Estrada says you’re alright!