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 »
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.
Gaming, like all mediums in existence, is constantly evolving. The Internet is almost unrecognizable from just 10 years ago.
Television programming has changed greatly, including such technologies as TiVo (DVR) and the unfortunate rise of reality shows on nearly every channel except Nickelodeon.
May God help us all. In the meantime, there are some trends we have noticed appearing in a lot of our favorite videogames, and those trends show a bright future for our favorite hobby. Some may disagree that these are good things, but they are indeed a part of gaming these days for better or worse.
5. Instant Co-Operative Play
Back in the day, co-op modes would typically split the screen in two in order to allow one player to move independently of the other. Split screens, however, were never very popular as they cut out the potential field of vision for both players and were often seen as a necessary nuisance. Since the Sega DreamCast... More »
Over the months there has been a lot of inaccurate information circulating in regards to how exactly the PlayStation 3's Service Mode works, and as promised in our previous Dev updates here are some of the facts to help separate the rumors and speculation.
It is a fairly simple process as follows.. For starters, the PS3 is powered off, and a special USB dongle, known as the Jig, is connected. The PS3 is then turned on, and then off, once it has detected the Jig.
After this occurs, the PS3 is then turned back on, into "Service" Mode. From here, the PS3 is re-flashed using a Firmware Update on a USB stick, specifically designed to only install from the Service Mode. Once the PS3 is re-flashed with the software, it is then used in conjunction with a PC running customized software, specifically the DEX.exe and CEX.exe's.
There are a multitude of special PS3 firmwares, basically three major ones. The first is a Core System, followed by the Service Sys... More »
Even though Twilight Princess was in development for years, in some ways, fans were disappointed. The game, while not even close to being a bad game, simply fell short of some expectations.
In a way, Shigeru Miyamoto feels the same way in that he feels as though “there was something missing” from the experience.
To quote: “That’s something that I talk to the members of my development team about on a regular basis. What I’ve been saying to our development teams recently is that “Twilight Princess” was not a bad game, by any means. But, still, it felt like there was something missing.
And while, personally, I feel like “Super Mario Galaxy” was able to do some things that were very new and were very unique, at the same time, from another perspective, certain elements of it do feel somewhat conservative in terms of how far we branched out with design.
And so this is something I’ve been talking to both of tho... More »
To quote: Beta9 would have been out a few days ago, but then Nintendo came up with the new October 23 update with perfect timing, so we had to make sure the beta9 installer was compatible (read: exploited a new bug nobody knew about until then).
Warning: We’ve updated the ELF loader to be compliant with the specs. Unfortunately, DevkitPPC ELFs currently are not (they will be in the next release), so they’ll break. App authors should distribute DOL versions. If they don’t, tell them to. If they don’t, convert it yourself:
1ra2 of PS3Gen (linked above) has discovered something quite interesting with the new PS3 Firmware 2.50. In the new firmware, a "hidden" Restore Menu has been added.
To access it, while the PS3 is in standby, hold the power button like you are doing a reset, but keep holding it down until there are two beeps, and you then can access it.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm always a fan of any hidden menu, be it in a TV, a PS3, or even a washing machine. However this is more for the technically inept. A video of it is below:
Lets go over the options available. For those who can not read French, from top to bottom:
1. Restart System
2. Restore Default Settings
3. Restore File System
4. Rebuild Database
5. Restore PS3 System
6. System Update
Restart System and System update are quite self explanatory, you can restart the system or upgrade the PS3's f... More »
Per Alan McDermott (Audio Lead, Evolution Studios) via PS Blog today:
Since Day 1, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to put a soundtrack together that would have the right vibe for a festival of racing like MotorStorm. You see, Music is one of those things that no one is ever “wrong” about. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone knows best, but no one is ever wrong!
After countless discussions with various people involved in creating the Festival Infrastructure around the MotorStorm racing events, my challenge was set: I needed to put together a lineup that not only fit with a racing game, but one which could feasibly be the Festival line up to end all Festival line ups.
It had to be Anarchic, Aggressive and Raucous. That was the easy part. The tough part was making sure that the soundtrack became as much a signature of MotorStorm as the racing itself was.
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