More than a week ago, GamingConfidential reported that a Microsoft customer service representative foresaw an outbreak of the Red Ring of Death (RROD) issue once the New Xbox Experience becomes available.
While most scoffed at the idea, the prediction held true and MS service lines are white hot with calls from angry customers.
"I hate what the company did this year," says the rep. "They released the New Xbox Experience a few days after the extended warranty period ended for most users and it's tough to explain that to raging callers. How do you say that MS just screwed them all?"
He adds "our bosses really fed us to the lions this time. We're getting everything from crying kids to death threats from angry adults. It's an orgy, I tell ya."
The rep ended the short chat by lamenting how Xbox 360 owners are blaming the update for even the most far-fetched issues. An example, he says, is a call from a 32-year old man claiming that his ho... More »
The new version of YDL was released. I think the most important new feature is that you can now use the memory of the RSX-GPU as a swap partition.
You should notice a great increase of speed while using linux.
The free version can be downloaded in four weeks. For now only owners of YDL.net Enhanced Accounts can access YDL 6.1.
Press Release: AUSTIN, Texas - 19 November 2008 - From the show floor of SuperComputing 2008, booth #1915, Fixstars today released Yellow Dog Linux v6.1 for Apple G4/G5, Sony PLAYSTATION3, PowerStation, and IBM Power Systems. Built upon the CentOS foundation, a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, YDL v6.1 offers several end-user and development tool improvements over the previous v6.0.
"This marks the final release of Yellow Dog Linux by Terra Soft and the first by Fixstars," states Owen Stampflee, Fixstars Solutions' Director of Engineering, "In my five years with Terra Soft we have made incremental impro... More »
A week ago,“An Evening With Kevin Smith 2″ through the Netflix streaming service on my Xbox 360 but didn’t finish. Now, I can’t watch the rest.
Joystiq broke word this evening that Netflix stopped Xbox 360 users from streaming movies distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment.
This restriction only applies to Xbox 360 users. PC, Mac and other Netflix-enabled on-demand devices can still stream Sony Pictures Entertainment films, and is not a glitch.
“In the case of Xbox 360, a few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console,” Netflix VP of corporate communications Steve Swasey told MTV Multiplayer in an e-mailed statement tonight.
“Those titles are still available to be watched on subscribers’ computers and on TVs via other partner devices, and we hope they’ll be licensed for Xbox 3... More »
The US space agency NASA said it successfuly conducted a first test of a deep space communications network modeled on the Internet.
"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet," Adrian Hooke, NASA's manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards, said in a statement.
The US space agency said Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA spacecraft some 20 million miles (32.4 million kilometers) from Earth.
NASA said the software protocol, which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space, was designed in partnership with Vint Cerf, a vice president at Internet search giant Google.
DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal Internet's Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP... More »
Will splashing out on expensive RAM make a real difference to PC performance? And if so, how much should you buy? We supply the benchmarks and lay the details bare.
According to legend, Bill Gates once concluded that “640KB of memory ought to be enough for anyone” (a legend he’s at pains to repudiate). These days it takes more than 800 times that much RAM just to make Windows Vista work smoothly.
But as the idea takes hold that more RAM is always good, we’re increasingly seeing home systems armed with a vast 4GB of storage. Indeed, with 64-bit Vista gaining traction, we’re sure the 8GB home PC can’t be far away. Is there any need for this much memory, or is it a waste of money beyond a certain point?
This month we set out to discover the truth. Armed with a comprehensive set of benchmarks and a big stack of DIMMs, we’ve tested performance on both XP and Vista to find out how much memory you really need.
Below is a recent interview with the very friendly Ben LeRougtel of Capcom, who enthusiatically answered some questions on Resident Evil 5 courtesy of XCN.
XCN: What makes a classic Resident Evil game?
BL: It’s fear and tension. If you look at some of the enemies you encounter in Resident Evil games they’re always grotesque and you’re not sure what they’re made up of - sometimes they’re part human, sometimes they’re complete abominations of nature. But Resident Evil 5 has moved away from that survival horror tag that was there in the beginning.
It has more of an action feel to it but still the tension is there and it’s intensified with the addition of co-op. It’s a very different experience - normally your Resident Evil mindset is “me, me, me!” and it’s just about your survival. Now you’ve got to worry about someone else as well, and if the other person is only out for themselves it makes the game ver... More »
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo may dominate the global market for video games, but they don't rule in every corner of the world.
The extremely high cost of new video game consoles and games in Brazil has led to unusual market conditions in that emerging country – and a potential market for video game hardware makers. Due to high import taxes, new consoles like the PlayStation 3 regularly fetch in excess of $1,000 USD in Brazil.
However, an intrepid Brazilian company called Tectoy hopes to capture a portion of the young, casual gaming market in Brazil with the launch of their Zeebo home console.
This innovative piece of hardware presents the first credible challenge to the popularity of the other big three manufacturers, and lights the way toward other potential opportunities in markets south of the equator.
Under the hood, the Zeebo is no slouch, especially considering that i... More »
Why EA would promise both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners fresh DLC, when everybody knows that Mirror's Edge PS3 is getting the exclusive?
We asked our friendly neighborhood EA representative.
To quote: “It’s downloadable content for both platforms,” a spokesperson told GameCyte.
While PS3 might well have some token exclusive DLC (just look at how EA is handling Dead Space), DLC in and of itself will apparently not be exclusive.
(7) 
