Today, 7-Eleven announced that they will start carrying certain video game titles for sale, including Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
Additionally, they will make several prepaid game cards available for companies (and games) like Nexon, Habbo, Gaia, Guild Wars, Runescape, Aeria, City of Heroes, ijji and Neopets.
Press Release: Gamers never die; they just grow up … and continue to play ... and play ... and play. Today, the average gamer is not in his teens, but in his early 30s and, not surprisingly, most likely male. They play at home, at social gatherings, at work (shhhh) and online.
That’s good news for 7-Eleven, Inc. whose customer base skews heavily male between the ages of 18 and 34. The world’s leading convenience retailer is ready to take the proverbial plunge into video game sales after dabbling in it over the past years with successful Slurpee® beverage promotio... More »
Sony confirms its recently announced network numbers include accounts from both the PlayStation 3 and PSP, but no duplicates; analyst estimates 50 percent of PS3s have gone online.
On Tuesday, Sony made a stir when it announced that its free PlayStation Network had attained 14 million "active users."
The number, revealed to celebrate the PlayStation 3's second birthday, was remarkable, as it appeared to match the 14-million-strong subscriber base for the pay-to-play Xbox Live. Microsoft's online service launched in 2002 and has been a central pillar of its strategy since the Xbox 360 launched in 2005, one year before the PS3.
Three days later, Sony has now clarified what exactly it counts as an active PlayStation Network user. "Seeing as PlayStation Portable does include PlayStation Network services (i.e. games store natively on PSP), yes those numbers do include all PlayStation Network registrations," said a Sony representative.
Sony's Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller announced via PS Blog today the following:
I wanted to give you some details on the two PSP ad campaigns that also kicked off recently. One campaign focuses on the new PSP-3000 and the other on the big games that are available this holiday season (or coming soon after), including Resistance: Retribution, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Madden NFL ’09 and more favorites.
This campaign is one of my favorites because not only does it gives a nod to the awesome ‘POV’ TV spot that we aired when the PSP first launched back in March 2005, but it places the PSP within a colorful and diverse blur of urban activity. As someone who spends a lot of time in San Francisco and travels the country often, I see the way that people in different cities use their PSPs and I think we’ve captured that in a fun and interesting way.
Video game consoles left running round-the-clock can send your annual electricity bill soaring. That's probably no surprise for most gamers. But the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based conservation group, has conducted a study of gaming machine energy use to raise awareness among gamers and pressure manufacturers into making more energy-efficient machines.
The NRDC's study found that Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii machines in the U.S. use about as much electricity in a year as every home in San Diego combined. Much of the energy comes from machines that are left on, but not in use, the NRDC said.
Of the three consoles, Sony's PS3 was the biggest energy hog, followed by Microsoft's Xbox 360. Nintendo's Wii is by far the most energy efficient-and even uses less electricity than its predecessor, GameCube.
To quote: With more efficient devices and by utilizing existing power-saving features, consumers ... More »
To quote via PlayStation Underground: Tomorrow, we are releasing a new version of PlayStation Home called PlayStation Home 1.0. This version will add some exciting new features and fix several known bugs, preparing us for launch into Open Beta. You can find the full list of new features below.
Highlights include new emotes and dance moves for avatars, new arcade games, new ways to launch into games from PlayStation Home, a new game rewards system, and much, much more! We think you’ll enjoy these many changes and improvements.
Home will be down for a period of time tomorrow to prepare for the launch of Version 1.0. I will let you know in the forums when it is back up.
We will be inviting a tremendous number of new beta testers soon, and conducting a massive load test this Friday night, November 21st. We will have an event to celebrate the moment. Stay tuned for further information as your assistance with this event is greatly appreciated.
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- Convert Portable Network Graphics (.png) to C array in header file (.h), works with GRRLIB 3.0 and libwiisprite
- Convert Images (.gif, .bmp, .jpeg or .jpg) to header file (.h), works with GRRLIB 2.0 or less
- Convert XML (.xml) to C array in header file (.h)
- Convert GRRLIB 2.0 (or less) screenshot (.grr) to Portable Network Graphics (.png)
- Load Wii executables files (.dol) from a computer to a Wii with the Homebrew Channel, IP address must be entered in the Settings
- Compile Makefile to (.dol and .elf), you must have "make" available in your path
You just need to drop a file in the list box. If drag-and-drop is not working (Wine), you could simply right c... More »
Looks like the New Xbox Experience dashboard update is experiencing some not-so-new Xbox woes. November 19: launch day for the NXE update. Not 24 hours after it went live, complaints
are already piling up.
Various forums online (such as the one linked above) have threads and threads of people reporting anything from connection freezes, slow downs, lock ups, broken TV connections, and so many other different numerical errors that, if all of them were strung together, could potentially measure all the way from Earth to the moon (and back).
There are even reports of brickage - yes, the famed red ring of death is back. Some say it's limited to modded consoles only (no surprise there) but other untainted units seem to be affected by the same problem too.
We've yet to hear any official response from Major Nelson or any of the Microsoft staff. Some say the slow downs are caused by the simple fact of surging traffic accessing XBL, but the oth... 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 »
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