There's general agreement that Sony stumbled out of the gate with the PlayStation 3. Months of intense hype were followed by a late launch (fully a year after the Xbox 360) and a staggering $600 price tag for the deluxe model.
Even worse, the PS3 didn't initially have any real must-have exclusive titles, and despite the power of its vaunted Cell processor, multiplatform games from third-party developers didn't look appreciably better than the respective titles on the Xbox 360.
Since then, the company's been modifying the PlayStation product line to better fit the competitive market landscape. As of August 2008, a new "bargain" PS3 is available with a larger, 80GB hard drive, and a "deluxe" model is due in November, doubling the capacity to 160GB.
Both, however, lack backward compatibility with PS2 games and do not come with flash card readers. If those features are a must, it might be best to pick up the 80GB "Metal Gear" bundle version on eBay w... More »
Movie pirates are distributing fake Blu-ray movie titles in China, which are essentially ordinary DVDs passed off as Blu-rays.
According to a WSJ report, the counterfeit Blu-ray discs are ordinary DVDs that hold the same movie content as the original Blu-ray but it is encoded in the AVCHD format. AVCHD is based on the MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video format, enabling recording of high-definition 1080i and 720p video onto cheap DVD discs.
"We are concerned and are assigning priority to this issue," said Mike Ellis, the Asia-Pacific managing director for the MPA.
The issue came into the surface last month when authorities raided a big stash of the new pirated discs in China, which is often at the leading edge of piracy trends.
The MPA estimates that within the next six months the high-definition discs could account for 10% of $224 million that its m... More »
PlayStation Portable developer AhMan released PSP iR Shell 4.7 last week, and today he has updated it once again to revision 4.8.
Those interested can find it below, along with the updated changelog.
Download: PSP iR Shell 4.8 / PSP iR Shell 4.8 [Mirror]
Changelog:
This is mainly a maintenance release with a few bug fixes. It also adds a new feature to support homebrew to use extra slim memory.
New Features for PSP Slim:
- Added support to homebrews that are built with the option PSP_LARGE_MEMORY, that is, to use the extra slim memory. When running these homebrews under iR Shell, they will have access to another 26MB slim RAM. Pls note 2MB of slim RAM is reserved for iR Shell.
- Enhance th... More »
The quest for perfect Nintendo 64 emulation on the PlayStation Portable continues with Daedalus X64 BETA 1.
This is a continuation of the original port by StrmNrmn and features a number of changes including: TV out support, ME audio support, increased buffers for better sound quality and a changed set of logo and graphics to represent the new name of the project.
Download: DaedalusX64 BETA 1 for PSP
Changelog:
[+] TV Out Support (Chilly Willy)
[+] ME Audio Supported (Small speed-up with sound on.) (Chilly Willy)
[+] Increased audio buffers for better sound quality (Kreationz)
[+] Changed logo and graphics to represent new name (graphic by SynGamer)
[!] Fixed screen shots (Chilly Willy)
[!] Fixed an OoT custom clend Mode (Wally)
[!] Fixed Shaking using double displa... More »
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In parallel with the development of Windows 7, Microsoft is also taking Windows Vista to the next level. The Vista evolution is synonymous with the jump from SP1 to SP2, and Microsoft is already offering a taste of the second service pack for the operating system.
In mid-October, the Redmond company delivered the first pre-beta bits of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to a selected pool of testers.
Subsequently, just as Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Management announced on October 29, the pre-beta Vista SP2 testing program was extended to a small group of Technology Adoption Program customers.
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) Build 16497 is available for download here.
“Windows Vista SP2 adds Windows Search 4.0 for faster and improved relevancy in searches,” Nash stated at the time. “Windows Vista SP2 ... More »
The Consumerist reported over the weekend that electronics retailer Circuit City was closing 155 stores in an effort to cut costs.
Today, the company made it official via the Press Release linked above. Liquidation sales at the affected locations will begin on November 5. Below is the complete list.
Store Location Closings:
Store # / Store Name / Street Address / City / State / ZIP
3280 ANNISTON 704 SOUTH QUINTARD AVE ANNISTON AL 36201
829 TRUSSVILLE 3555 ROOSEVELT BLVD TRUSSVILLE AL 35235
3240 FAYETTEVILLE 744 EAST JOYCE BLVD FAYETTEVILLE AR 72703
441 AVONDALE 10140 W MCDOWELL RD AVONDALE AZ 85392
3330 CHANDLER 3456 WEST CHANDLER BLVD CHANDLER AZ 85226
3580 GILBERT 2817 S MARKET ST GILBERT AZ 85295
3760 GOODYEAR 15433 WEST MCDOWELL RD GOODYEAR AZ 85338
436 MESA 1530 WE... More »
Though many previously bundled applets now will ship separately to Windows 7, Windows Media Player remains part of the core OS. Windows 7 will ship with Windows Media Player 12, which includes some surprising new features.
The UI itself is brighter and lighter than WMP11. Some buttons and toolbar items have been moved around, but the experience should be pretty familiar to users of version 11. What does represent a big change is the removal of the Now Playing button, which in WMP11 switches to a view showing the current playlist.
This is because WMP12 completely separates library management from what's currently playing, with two distinct player modes; Now Playing view, and Library view. Library view contains all the library manipulation features that should be familiar from WMP11. Now Playing view contains the current playlist, visualizations, and videos.
There's also a new taskbar miniviewer that works with the new Windows 7 taskbar, and WMP... More »
Version 5.0 and Version 2.5 of their respective Firmwares gave the PSP and the PS3 some much asked-for features. So what's in store for Sony's PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3 consoles?
For answers, we turn to Munechika Nishida, who posted his latest Random Tracking column to Impress Watch over the weekend.
This time around, the well-connected technology writer managed to get commentary from Naoya Matsui, Koujiro Umemura, Masaki Takase, and Shinji Noda, all high ranking Sony Computer Entertainment employees directly responsible for firmware and network issues regarding the PS3 and PSP.
The column first recapped some of the major points of the recent firwmare updates, with particular attention given to the inclusion of Flash 9 support in the PS3. This was a heavily requested feature, said Matsui, with Japanese fans hoping to view videos from Nico Nico Video, a Japanese... More »
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