SCEA's VP of product marketing Scott Steinberg outlines his vision for PS3's future, and the benefits he believes will drive it to market dominance
In a Keynote, he covers the benefits Sony will be promoting to consumers this Holiday season. They include PS3's Blu-ray drive, first party games, PSN's increasingly diverse product portfolio and community features.
Steinberg writes, "In the next few years, you're going to start to see us separate from the herd. Some of the other platforms are going to look very dated because their life spans are so much shorter than ours."
He adds, "If you're a competitor I've got bad news for you because we've got some absolute blockbusters that are in the works, some of them new IP, some of them existing IP, that we're building specifically for the PS3
"From a competitive standpoint our competitors are going to have a tougher road now then even in 2008. But for PlayStation 3 consumers, it means m... More »
A 'bionic eye' may hold the key to returning sight to people left blind by a hereditary disease, experts believe. A team at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital have carried out the treatment on the UK's first patients as part of a clinical study into the therapy.
The artificial eye, connected to a camera on a pair of glasses, has been developed by US firm Second Sight. It said the technique may be able to restore a basic level of vision, but experts warned it was still early days.
The trial aims to help people who have been made blind through retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited eye diseases that affects the retina.
The disease progresses over a number of years, normally after people have been diagnosed when they are children. It is estimated between 20,000 to 25,000 are affected in the UK.
It is not known whether the treatment has helped the two patients - both men in their fifties - to see and any success is only likely to be ... More »
What happens when you put videogames, human imagination and the eternally democratic outlet of the internet together? Two words: fan fiction.
Name a game and there's a very good chance you'll find at least one person has bothered to contribute something to its universe in writing, be it a prologue, sequel, a random offshoot set in the same world or an unlikely romantic encounter between two of its characters.
For instance, do you remember the 2003 platformer, Tak? No? Well, at least nine different people thought enough of it to upload their own tributes to fanfiction.net, including TOONSRULE's epic 'Beginnings' ("With an evil laugh, the dark energy shot in every direction killing everything it touched, including parents of a boy"). When even the most obscure and unlikely games enjoy such tributes, how can we fail to be intrigued, amused and disturbed by the untold history behind Shadow of Colossus, the epic adventures of Joe Chief (Master Chief's even more aw... More »
Nasa has released details of its strategy for sending a human crew to Mars within the next few decades.
The US space agency envisages despatching a "minimal" crew on a 30-month round trip to the Red Planet in a 400,000kg (880,000lb) spacecraft.
Details of the concept were outlined at a meeting in Houston, Texas.
In January 2004, President George W Bush launched a programme for returning humans to the Moon by 2020 and - at an undetermined date - to Mars.
The "Mars ship" would be assembled in low-Earth orbit using three to four Ares V rockets - the new heavy-lift launch vehicle that Nasa has been developing.
Notionally despatched in February 2031, the mission's journey from Earth to Mars would take six to seven months in a spacecraft powered by an advanced cryogenic fuel propulsion system.
Estimates of the cost of mounting a manned Mars mission vary enormously, from $20bn to $450bn.
One of the more unique games that we got to play for the first time at this year's Tokyo Game Show was Echochrome, the PSN puzzler that uses optical illusions as its gameplay foundation. Making use of really simple visuals -- black outlines on a white background, or vice versa -- the game has you rotating the environment in order to see your character progress through various optical challenges. See a gap between two ledges? Rotate the screen so that a column obstructs your view -- now that gap is gone.
The first thing the game teaches you are its five basic laws.
1. Subjective Translation: Changing your perspective can connect paths.
2. Subjective Landing: If an object looks to be below you, your character can land on it.
3. Subjective Existence: If you can't see a gap because it's obstructed, a path exists.
4. Subjective Absence: If you obstruct a hole from your vision, it no longer exists.
5. Subjective Jump: By rotating your p... More »
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