At the risk of sounding like a forum troll, I have to say, I'm not too impressed with the implementation of Netflix on Xbox 360. The service, which is available to Xbox Live and Netflix -subscribers, allows you to stream movies to your TV via your Xbox 360, and on paper, it sounds ingenious. Indeed, that's why I -- along with many others -- was so excited when Microsoft announced this forthcoming feature way back at E3 in July. Unfortunately, Netflix for Xbox Live users is now here, and it's not all it was cracked up to be.
For starters, the selection of streamable movies is lackluster. Netflix users who have used the service's "Instantly Watch" section know that there aren't an incredible variety of movies to pick from. There are few new releases available. Instead, the selection is composed mainly of films like Mission to Mars, The Abyss, Superman: The Movie, Batman Forever and Scarface. There's nothing necessarily wrong with these movies. Some of them are actually grea... More »
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 »
Nimrod of Digiex.net (linked above) has shared a method to play System Link / XBox Live over 2 XBox 360 consoles with just one disc.
It could end with some pretty bad results so its not exactly an ideal solution, meaning the best solution may be to just buy two copies of the game.
However, to perform this method you will need a paperclip, the new NXE, a single copy of the game you want to play on Live/System Link and a steady hand. To quote:
Stage One: Install the game you wish on one of the consoles to the hard drive. You will be doing this on the console that will have its DVD drive emergency ejected.
Once installed launch the game and let the Xbox 360 check the disc in the drive and confirm its valid and allow the game to load.
Its IMPORTANT at this stage to wait for the DVD drive to fully spin down. If unsure, wait at LEAST 10 minutes to be safe. Feel the drive, and make sure the disc is NOT spinning.
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The guys over at Mgestyk Technologies have been playing and come up with a pretty awesome melding of gaming technology dubbed Mgestyk Fusion, currently available for Windows XP and Windows Vista.
To quote the link above: If you've tried games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the recent Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Lightsaber Duels on the Wii, you may have been disappointed that the in-game lightsaber does not always match how you are holding the wiimote.
Introducing Fusion from Mgestyk Technologies: Fusion is a patent-pending technology which combines Mgestyk's gesture processing with other sensor data such as from Nintendo's wiimote.
It looks pretty cool to me. It's a shame we won't see it on the PS3 until either someone hacks it for homebrew or Sony buys Nintendo. :)
Continued: We'll be demoing this at MIGS next week along with some of th... More »
Capcom's John Diamonon shared the following today via PS Blog:
Hey PS Fam! Long time no blog. It’s my pleasure to announce that Age of Booty will finally become available today on the PSN for only $9.99. I know there was a delay bringing this title to you, but we had to make sure we fixed all the bugs before we deliver one of the most original digital games on this platform.
Anyway, Max Hoberman, the President of Certain Affinity and the developer of Age of Booty, wanted to give you some insights into this critically acclaimed game. He’ll also answer any questions you have about the game. Without further ado, heeeere’s Max!
This is a follow-up to my previous post, where I described the genesis of our upcoming downloadable pirate action RTS, Age of Booty. I left off with us signing a publishing deal with Capcom and beginning production. That was a year ago, and since then we’ve had a lot of time to improve upon the original design.... More »
The console market today is as tough as any industry there is, but it wasn't always like this. For the past several years the PS2 has been the console to trump, and before it there was the original PlayStation which also dominated the market.
One unclear question still remains though; will the PlayStation 3 remain atop the market? Many analysts believe that this will in fact hold true, but why are they claiming this? In my personal opinion, here are the Top 5 reasons that the PlayStation 3 will eventually re-take the lead in the game industries market.
#5 The Xbox 360 and How It Matches Up
The Xbox 360 is a great console, but it has its flaws. The Xbox 360 is a very similar console to the PS3. They have similar play and they have similar specifications. The Xbox 360 has an estimated 30% failure rate and this will cost Microsoft dearly. The Xbox 360 is struggling to maintain its position in America, and if that isn't enough it can't even ga... More »
Nine years ago, the DVD of "The Matrix" shattered records and catapulted the budding DVD format into the mainstream. Can "The Dark Knight" do the same thing for Blu-ray?
The Blu-ray release of "The Dark Knight" is slated to Dec. 9, and as Video Business [via High-Def Digest] reports, Warner Brothers has more than a million Blu-ray copies of the Batman blockbuster teed up for retailers—reportedly, the most ever for a Blu-ray movie to date.
Indeed, "The Dark Knight" is perhaps the biggest gotta-have Blu-ray title yet, bigger even than "Iron Man" (which has sold about 500,000 Blu-ray copies so far, according to Video Business) and "Transformers."
But here's the big question: Will the popularity of "TDK" translate into a tipping point for Blu-ray, as "The Matrix" (which was the first DVD to ship more than 1.5 million units back ... More »