Category: Games

Sony Goes Global

Nice surprise – Sony will release the pS3 this year in November and it’s a worldwide launch. There is coverage everywhere but Joystiq have pulled most of it together. It’s really quite a mixed bag of news. Main points for me…

  • As already mentioned there will be a global release in early November. Early money on Nov 11th. Pre-order to avoid disappointment and e-bay sharks who have already started.
  • Blu-Ray. Every game will be supplied on a Blu-Ray disk – lot’s more room than a normal DVD. More importantly this will be the cheapest way of getting a Blu-Ray player for the foreseeable future.
  • Hard disk….60Gig. Linux OS will be pre-installed. No clarity on whether it’s a standard feature or an add-on.Now confirmed as a standard feature with rumour that a larger disk may be optional. Make it standard Mr Sony – bump up the price but give us one standard platform rather than the Xbox Core and Premium fiasco.
  • Mmmm – Linux. At the same time Sony have talked about the PS3 as a home server that you can store media on and play from elsewhere (PSP?). This could be a killer feature if you can also play media (of any type) from anywhere in the house. Sony would have almost certainly THE best media center player and games console in the one device.
  • HDMI….time to upgrade the amp
  • Online service. Sounds like Xbox live. Basic free service included. Voice chat, messaging etc etc.
  • Backwards compatible
  • Price at least $425. Sounds reasonable given the technology to be included.

No screenshots, no (hopefully redesigned) controllers. Yet another console launch just before my birthday. Joy. Roll on E3 for actual screenshots.

Curse of the Online Gamer

Stumbled upon a blog where the owner did a bit of stat taking. Not the normal number of kills, number of head shots. No – this was the number of times he heard someone cursing or being sexist/racist while playing Halo 2 (the worst game for this type of thing). Stats make for interesting reading and certainly ties up with what I hear on line. I wouldn’t be comfortable with juniors hearing some of this stuff. Bitch talking is not something I normally get involved in – Roy still holds the title for most abusive in a Halo session.

That’s where The Lickers kick in. It’s a league for folk that aren’t obsessed about being number 1 and where cheating and glitching isn’t tolerated. Certainly friendlier than random Live games although looking at the forums sometimes you wouldn’t think so. It’s also full of folk that are over 20 so you don’t feel like an old duffer when posting at the forums or playing online with them. If interested pop over to the forums and sign up.

XBMC How-To

A great guide has been created on ProductWiki – How to mod your Xbox and install XBMC. The media playing capabilities of XBMC have to be seen to be believed – I really struggle to think of a better media playing device (at this moment in time). Well worth doing if your thinking of buying some sort of media playing device that would sit near your TV. Further info can be found at the XBMC Homepage or on the forums at Xbox-Scene.

Playstation Network?

Semi-interesting article discussing potential Xbox Live killer from Sony. It plods through the potential weapons that Sony has at it’s disposal if it builds it’s own internet service for the PS3.

Sony needs to do this. Despite the lead MS has had on a developing a gaming service it has only just brought out the marketplace functionality which when used is clunky and not thought out properly. PS3 will sell more than the 360 and hence a network service that connects Sony’s platform – video, music, photo’s and games would be adopted by a lot more people than Xbox Live. I guess the key is at what price and when? The hardware is all still rumours and it could be this time next year before us in the UK get to play with the new toys.

MS also need a challenger in this field. Many games still only support 8 players as they use peer to peer hosting. Increased broadband speeds haven’t seen the jump in the number of users that can be hosted but that’s more to do with latency (ping times) being the key to a good host – not 10Meg download & 500k upload speeds. Server based hosting (even paid) is required so we can see the numbers that PC games can support on consoles. Sony having a similar service would also see a lot more development from Japan where originality can be found more often than the sequel fueled USA & European markets. MS also dropped their XSN sports network which had so much potential. It sorted out leagues and scoring and meant that joining online tournaments was easy and the admin work zero for all competitors. Sony would win a lot of friends if this type of functionality was added to Pro Evo 6 for example.

So many hardware vendors are chasing the all in one media player but very few have come near or have the infrastructure to do it. I would have said Sony a year ago wouldn’t stand a chance as they still didn’t support mp3 playback on their devices. They’ve changed a lot though in a short time. Looking at all the different parts of the puzzle surely a unifying network/service on the PS3 would deliver PS3 users a killer app without even buying a game. I can dream…especially as I’ve got all the other Sony hardware to make up the jigsaw.

Not convinced by PGR3?

Have a look at this gaming forum – http://www.xbox360-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=593 – one of the guys was visiting Japan and took some shots of the places he recognised from PGR3. He then set up the same shots in the game. It’s amazing how accurate the game is – it’s a shame it all moves so fast as you rarely get chance to see the detail unless you watch a replay. Stunning.