September 16th, 2009, Wednesday, 13:13
A developer has laid bare the not so shocking truth of just how Namco was paid off by Microsoft to secure an “exclusive” release, but instead merely used the Xbox subsidy to reduce development costs on the PS3 version, which it expected to sell better.
However, Sony intervened and Read the rest of this entry »
September 12th, 2009, Saturday, 22:55
Looking for a noise-dampening cooling solution for your obnoxiously loud Xbox 360 console? A-Tech Fabriction might have just what you need, but after looking at the price tag, you may conclude it’s not that loud anyway.
To be fair, the company’s HeatSync Three-Sixty ‘only’ costs $700 (plus shipping, which runs around $25 for UPS Ground) without any add-ons. But should you decide you also want a one-piece rack mount faceplate, black or silver aluminum case feet, memory card ports, accessory ports, Read the rest of this entry »
September 10th, 2009, Thursday, 16:36
Microsoft Game Studios has big, big plans for the XBox 360’s Project Natal. After the overwhelming reception upon it’s E3 2009 showing (not to mention the “smoke and mirrors” controversy surrounding some of the demonstrations), MGS is prepping it’s motion sensing peripheral to exceed any classification as a simple “add-on”.
Relja Markovic is Technical Director at Microsoft Game Studios, currently working on an unannounced title for Project Natal. He designed the Gesture Recognizer System and it’s workflow, and has been on the project from it’s beginning stages to the actual product, building a team from scratch along the way. What’s more is the work he’s done in the past for MGS, which includes “representing the interests of more than a dozen MGS titles to the Platform team, working across the entertainment division”. The most interesting part are the patents currently associated with Natal – Markovic himself has “contributed to over 20 Natal related patents”.
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September 8th, 2009, Tuesday, 00:10
Today, we’ll cover one of those things a gamer never wants to see. No, we’re not talking about frame drops, random encounters or a broken camera. We’re talking about the dreaded Game Over screens. Maliciously waiting for any mistake to jump on you and tease you with their messages while you lament yourself, they have been an integral part of gaming since the first games were made. Most of the times, they would simply show a “Game Over” screen that’s just plainly boring. But, every now and then, there’s a game that does more than that, a game so twisted that it enjoys picking on you for your fail. Or maybe it feels sorry for you and wants you to have a good laugh, even in defeat. We picked the ones that, in our opinion, are the 10 best ever game over screens, ten screens that go a bit further than just tell you that you lost.
So, without further ado, let the top 10 begin!!!
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September 3rd, 2009, Thursday, 22:35
Black Rock’s Jefferies talks LCD screen resolutions
Here at Black Rock we use 26-inch widescreen Sony Bravia LCD TVs. We chose these devices because they gave good image quality and were very popular; the theory being that we should develop games on hardware as similar as possible to that which our customers use.
This LCD model advertises its display format as 720p, but on closer inspection it’s not 1280×720 like you’d expect. In actual fact, it’s got a pixel resolution of 1366×768. Of course, LCD TVs can only display images at their native pixel resolution; if they try and display any other resolution then they need to first scale that image or letterbox it. The Bravias we use don’t have the option to display letterbox through HDMI-A and, in any case, even if they did it’s doubtful the consumer would know about it. Read the rest of this entry »
September 1st, 2009, Tuesday, 23:51
If you thought playing video games was a total sensory experience, here is the big shocker: it still was not a total sensory experience until Kate Huthmaker designed the X-Gear. The X-Gear is a wearable computing device which allows you to play video games wherever you are and that too with total sensory input and output.
If the game you are playing requires that you need the whole equipment, it would be sold along with that particular game. Moreover, the X-Gear comes with a built in GPS receiver and Bluetooth and it can also communicate with your CPU wherever you are. With the help of the Bluetooth, the wearable computer communicates with the rest of the components of the X-Gear system.
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