Showing posts with label Sony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sony. Show all posts

Thursday, 21 February 2013

Sony PlayStation 2013 Conference Tweets and Post Tweets

So, I just watched the PlayStation2013 conference. It was very long, and now it's very late 1:15am!

I'll write up some stuff tomorrow. but for the time being have a look at the tweets I wrote as I was watching it.























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Tuesday, 19 February 2013

More Pre 20th of February PS4/Orbis News!

Yup, two new articles appeared on Kotaku today as more things about the PS4/Orbis slowly leak...

According to this article: The PS4 will be released this November, and there's going to be a way to control the PS4 with your Mobile phone. Things such as purchasing downloadable games and talking to friends on PSN. It continues to say that the system will come with a new version of the PlayStation Eye that will be included with every PS4.

And according to this article: Sony appears to have trademarked the name "PlayStation Cloud". Could this be the whole Gaikai PS1/2/3 game streaming service that was mentioned before? We'll know on Wednesday night!

On a better and more positive note, this article talks about how the PS4 might be cheaper than the PS3 did at launch! Plus they found this logo on the internet, could it be the Sony's logo for the PS4?

Report: PS4 Cheaper At Launch Than PS3 Was

So, what in store for the next PlayStation? Wednesday night is coming near. Sony will show off the system at 11:00pm GMT / 6:00 pm EST. Will you be watching? You can watch it here tomorrow on GameInformer's website
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Monday, 18 February 2013

Pre 20th of February PlayStation 4 stuff...

OK, the PS4/Orbis is going to be announced this Wednesday. Either you're excited or not, but there have been a few new titbits about the system before the announcement...

The Controller



A few days a go, this image emerged on the internet. It shows a prototype version of the PlayStation 4 controller with a developer system. It was then confirmed later on that day that this is official developer hardware, and that the controller shown is simply a wired version of what's to come.


Based on the image above, Computer and Video games made up this artist impression of what we might be seeing in the final version of the controller. Interestingly, the Start and Select buttons from the previous PlayStation Dual Shock controllers have been removed to make way for a track pad similar to that of the back of the PlayStation Vita, and the centre of the Ouya controller. The controller is believed to feature a built in microphone and speaker, similar to what the Wii-U GamePad has. But the most interesting thing about the controller is it's blue light on the top of it. It's believed that the new PlayStation 4 controller will share similar functions to the PlayStation Move and can light up in different colours to represent different players, but is also thought to be similar to what's found on some new Android phones that use an RGB LED to light up different notifications such as friend requests, online game invites and emails even when the system is turned off.

It's all speculation at the moment just from a single image, but it would be interesting to see what's in store for the PS4/Orbis controller.

Streamed Games


It was announced today that the PlayStation 4 will not have any "real" backward compatibility, however Sony has a joint-venture with Gaikai to stream PlayStation 1, 2 and 3 games to the PlayStation 4 via an internet connection to a central server, just like OnLive. The only issue I have with this is that well people are going to have to re-buy their games again, either that or pay a subscription fee to play games that they already own. Now Streaming the video and audio of a previous catalogue of games make sense from a hardware point of view as you don't have to add old hardware to a new piece of hardware that might slow it down. But it still sucks that we might have to buy games again just to play them on new hardware. At this point there's almost no point in selling off our old hardware as we might not be able to play our beloved games of this generation onto the next.

Four isn't the magic number!


Recently in Japan, there's been a little bit of speculation over a piece of old cultural superstition about the name "PlayStation 4" and how it might have a totally different name to avoid the number "4". For those who might not understand this terribly well, one to four in Japanese goes like this...

Ichi (One)
Ni (Two)
San (Three)
Shin (Four)

Looks fine right? Well there's a problem with the name of number four, Shin, as it also mean death in Japanese. Over the course of Japanese history, people in Japan avoid using the the real word "Shin" and replace it with "excepted slang" for the number four, which are "Shi" and "Yol". In some cases people in Japan even use the English "four" to prevent using "Shin" to say death. Think of it as an Eastern version of our superstition towards the number thirteen.

This is one of the reason why the Japanese are more supportive towards the Orbis name rather than PlayStation 4. OK it's not quite PlayStation Shin, or even PlayStation Shi or PlayStation Yol; but the Japanese in general just have a silly little fear about their number four. But what makes the whole "Shin" word silly is that it has many other meanings rather than just the number four and death, it also mean "Body", "Heart" and "Soul", so looking at it from a western stand point, the whole "Shin" being a scary word about death isn't really a huge issue at all. To be honest it would make sense to call the system PlayStation 4, since every system before has been named "PlayStation" with a number after it. More on this can be read on Kotaku.
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Wednesday, 23 January 2013

SO MUCH NEWS!

OK, I can't understand how in one day SO MUCH HAPPENS IN THE GAMING WORLD! ...I better report on it!

*Insert Inception "BOW" sound here*
First off, details about the PlayStation4/Orbis came out today revealing some specifications and details about accounts and the next PlayStation controller.

Here were a few specs that were announced today...
  • System Memory: 8GB
  • Video Memory: 2.2 GB
  • CPU: 4x Dual-Core AMD64 "Bulldozer" (so, 8x cores)
  • GPU: AMD R10xx
  • Ports: 4x USB 3.0, 2x Ethernet
  • Drive: Blu-Ray
  • HDD: 160GB
  • Audio Output: HDMI & Optical, 2.0, 5.1 & 7.1 channels
OK...  8 Gigs of RAM, check, my PC has that, 2.2 gigs of Video memory, impressive, that's twice as much memory than what's on my PC's graphics card. 8 core processor, wasn't the "Cell processor" an 8 core anyway...?

...But here's the interesting bit, the GPU is an AMD R10xx, there isn't a lot said about this GPU, but from what I've read it appears that it can share GPU time from the main processor, and if requested, the CPU can get more time from the GPU. Meaning that load balancing between graphics and maths can be met even if More maths, or more graphics are required.


What's this in layman terms? Well, it simply means that the machine could potentially do a lot more than what it says on paper. AMD created a CPU, called the APU, where cores could switch between a CPU, for maths, or a GPU, for graphics. But what the R10xx is either boost the CPU speed, for times when you need more processing power, but in turn, the CPU can assist the graphics card for when really intense graphics come in and the GPU alone might not be able to handle. This means that the hardware in the PS4/Orbis might have some potential to a great deal of stuff, even when it doesn't look so great on paper.

Plus there's news and rumours about what the next PlayStation controller might be like. What's been speculated at the moment (yes it's not quite official yet) is that it'll have an Ouya style track pad in the middle of the controller, and that it will have a built in memory for user accounts, meaning that purchased games are not going to be tied down to a console, rather they'll be tied to a controller. Meaning you can take your controller to your friend's house and play your PSN purchases on his/her PS4/Orbis without account complications.

Xbox 720: New name, turbo specs and a tablet revealed!

The Gadget Show announced details about the next XBox, and it's just called "XBox"...  Yeah, what's what it says in the article. Let's just hope we don't confuse this new XBox with the original 2002 XBox... It's been confirmed that the "New XBox" will run a system that's based on Windows 8 (really now?) and uses an AMD 8 core processor (Oh really now! funny that, so is PS4!).


According to The Gadget Show, Microsoft's Illumi Room technology, which was shown off at CES a week a go, will be used in the "New XBox". Illumi Room is a technology where by using projectors, you can increase the size of the game screen to the whole room, or use more subtle effects such as red flashes when you get shot in a first person shooter.

The "New Xbox" (I'm getting sick of calling it that by the way), isn't going to be the only piece of gaming hardware from the next generation Microsoft hardware. It's been rumoured that Microsoft is building a gaming tablet called the "X Surface" in similar vein to the Microsoft Surface, will be another Windows 8 based tablet that works in conjunction with the "New XBox" either for media controls or Wii-U style game play.

...Seriously, I'm not getting a new XBox, Microsoft can suck Xbox Live, seriously...

So, the trifecta of gaming news ends with Nintendo, as they announce new games for the Wii-U on their latest Nintendo Direct that was broadcasted this morning.


Nintendo is celebrating the Famicom's thirty year anniversary by releasing a Wii-U "Gamepad-i-fied" virtual console game each month for the dirt cheap price of 30 cents.

UPDATE: The 30 cents offer works as a 30 day rental, after 30 days, the game expires, you you have the choice of purchasing it or not. But users who own the Wii version of the virtual console game can purchase the GamePad-i-fied version at a discounted price of 99 cents.


Yes, it does mean that you'll have to download a new version of a Virtual console game after buying so many for the Wii. But for 30 cents it's not TOO bad, it's just a shame that they can't just upgrade all your Virtual console games to have GamePad support for 30 cents a game. Guess you can't win all the time huh?



Each month, Nintendo will release a single Wii-U-i-fied virtual console game with GamePad support each month, starting with Balloon Fight for this month of January. Personally I'd rather see more games, but for 30 cents a game, maybe Nintendo is seeing the whole iOS/Android 99 cents games as being a big deal and wants to join the Apps bandwagon.


More details on Bayonetta 2 were announced, such as a peep at Bayonetta's new clothes and guns. New locations such as a Cyberpunk world and a broken down cathedral. I loved the first game, and if there's a game that might get me to buy a Wii-U it might very well be this one!


A Shin Megami Tensei - Fire Emblem crossover!? I so didn't see this coming?! Not a lot of details about this one, though it would be interesting to see how they match these two franchises...


Titled "X", this is Monolith Soft's (the creators of XenoGears and XenoBlade) next game for the Wii-U. They haven't announced if this is, or not a sequel to Xenoblade on the Wii. But looks at the game's HUD and combat, it's clearly a sequel, and I'm kind of excited for it!


Eiji Aonuma has announced that he's working on a high definition version of Zelda Wind Waker for Wii-U. Adding a lot of detail with light and textures, and it looks very pretty! Mind you Wind Waker isn't the best game in the Zelda franchise, but it isn't the worst either. It'll be nice if they add more content in this version such as new dungeons and temples, as Shigeru Miyamoto didn't have a chance to truly finish working on Wind Waker.

Update: Here's the full Nintendo Direct video that was broadcast this morning.


So yeah, lots of console news and talk today! So much in one day! It's like super early E3! Hope you like what you've heard today. Write down any comments below and I might reply to them!
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Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Before the internet... Part 1

Before there was the internet there was Television, and what television was good for back in the eighties and nineties was advertising and commercials. It was a time where if you weren't reading gaming magazines, you would find out about games through television Adverts. Here's a few I remember from back in the day...


This advert for Super Mario Bros 3 was just epic, as a kid I always wanted to know how they pulled off having so many people to make that mosiac of Mario across the United States...  Well it was all computer generated!


"To be this good takes Sega" was a set of adverts I really remember well with it's crazy mechanical and robotic themes with a dude living inside a huge American eighteen wheeler lorry. As much as I was a Nintendo Fan Boy at the time, they used to show these adverts a lot in the early nineties.


I got into reading gaming magazines when I saw a cover of Nintendo Magazine System with Super Mario Land 2 on the front of it, I had to have it! I needed to know what the next Mario game is like, and just as I saw this Magazine cover, this advert appeared on TV around the same time in winter of 1992. Just the crazy look on Wario's face in this advert made Wario Mario's next big enemy!


Sony's "Double Life" TV ad in 1998 is by far, the darkest, but powerful advert I've seen, that makes people know that as much as society has a habit of labelling gamers as antisocial individuals, we have witnessed a form of art they are not aware of...


"Up to 6 Billion Players" was the slogan Sega used for their adverts when the Dreamcast started to release Online games such as Chu-Chu Rocket, Phantasy Star Online and a bunch of Football and sports games.


With the internet age on our hands, at least I don't need adverts to tell me what game to get, websites, blogs, podcasts and game news and reviews can be seen on the web. However in Part 2 of "Before the Internet", I'll be blogging about TV shows about video games in the early nineties.
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Thursday, 13 December 2012

What made this Nintendo fan-boy broaden his horizons?

As a kid in the nineties, Super Mario was my hero, and Nintendo is where you played Mario games. My first experience with Sega and Sonic wasn't a great one as I thought it was too fast and too hard for my 7 year old mind. So through out the nineties I was a big supporter and fan of Nintendo, disliking Sega, and eventually disliking Sony due to the PlayStation's “slow” loading discs. But by the turn of the Millennium, my tastes in video games were going to grow a lot, but how did this once Nintendo Fan boy buy himself a PlayStation in 2001 you ask?!




Dance Dance Revolution and Dancing Stage...

Yup, it's a little embarrassing to admit it, but when I went to the Millennium Dome in London back in 1999, there was a tiny arcade inside, and one of the few machines inside, with a couple of Pinball machines and crane games was a Dancing Stage. For those outside Europe, Dancing Stage was the name to Dance Dance Revolution in Europe, no idea why, hunting on Google and Wikipedia didn't give any results either, but regardless to the name change, it was the same game by Konami with a couple of licensed tracks thrown in. I popped in a £1 coin and began to play the game. As to anyone playing a dance machine for the first time, I was terrible at it, but at least I got to my third and final round before failing. There was a lady in this tiny booth watching me play the game. And when I had finished she walked out and pulled out a plush toy from one of the crane games and had told me that I was the only person who had gotten to the third round since the Millennium Dome was opened. I was kinda chuffed, accepted the toy, and began to think on how to could get that game home.






That's where it struck me. The only Nintendo versions of Dancing Stage and Dance Dance Revolution were only available in Japan, there was a version on Game Boy Color that came with a mini platform you mounted on top on the portable as you make your fingers do the dancing. I thought that was pretty silly (I say that when most people think stomping your feat on pink and blue glass panels is silly!), there was an actual version of DDR on the N64 in Japan, but it was the Disney Rave Mix, Disney “Rave” Mix? I'd hate to see what happens to Mickey when dropping Es at a rave. In the mean while, I was waiting to go on holiday to the coast to scour the piers and arcades for actual Dance Machines. The waiting and hoping that a version of DDR and Dancing Stage could appear on the N64, Dancing Stage Euro Mix got released in 2001 for the PlayStation. At that point I thought to myself, I can't play DDR on the N64, I gotta go and get myself one of those “Slow Loading” PlayStations. At the time the PS2 was reaching it's first year in Europe, and I didn't care for it then, I wanted to see how cheap I could get a PlayStation 1 just so I could get my DDR fix. Before Christmas of 2001, I managed to buy an original PlayStation 1, not the PSOne, from a bloke at a Market/Car Boot sale for £40 (I still regret paying that price for a second-hand PlayStation) and got myself a copy of Dancing Stage Euro Mix and a dance mat from GAME. So I got what I wanted, a system that I got my DDR fix from. But as time slowly moved on, I would return to the same car boot sale for other PlayStation games that might grab my interest.

Someone bought this for £94.90!? Ouch...

Going with the Rhythm game theme, Europe got Beat Mania, think DJ Hero before DJ Hero existed, and was made by Konami, the same people who made Dancing Stage and DDR. It was a pack that came with a poorly made turn table controller that broke on me. I handed it back to the bloke at the car boot and demanded a refund, but he refused; at around the same time I noticed that GAME were selling off copies of Beat Mania to clear space in their warehouses for a fiver a piece, I bought one, then handed over the one I bought from the Car Boot Sale inside the box that I got from GAME to get my money back.





And into more Rhythm Games, I got a copy of Vib Ribbon. Now this is an interesting game as it never got a US release. Developed by Nana Onsha, the same team behind Parappa the Rapper. Vib Ribbon was a simple game whereby you jump over obstacles of different shapes generated from the sound being made from your music CDs. There are 8 different obstacles, each obstacle had to be jumped over in a different way by pressing a different button on the PlayStation controller; some required you to press two buttons at once. Think of this game like a Canabalt or Temple Run; you play as a wire frame bunny rabbit character who is running to the right (or the left depending on the camera angle) and you jump over holes and walls, it's a rhythm version of an endless runner game, except it's not really endless as the level would end at the end of the track.


Something a little different from Rhythm games, Final Fantasy IX. Before I got the PlayStation, I owned the PC version of Final Fantasy VII, and loved the crap out of it. There was a version of Final Fantasy VIII for the PC, but I didn't know where to find a copy, and Final Fantasy IX never had a PC release. But with my own PlayStation, and a WH Smith £10 book voucher, I got myself a copy of Final Fantasy IX. For the time I had it I enjoyed it, though I didn't beat it, and by the time the GameCube came out, I traded it in for a copy of Super Smash Bros Melee at a local small Games Shop that I would eventually hate big time.

After this revelation in gaming, this Nintendo Fan Boy was fan boy no more, my taste in games were broaden, and soon after picked myself up a DreamCast, and used eBay and Car Boot sales to pick up other consoles such as the Master System, a Mega Drive, and later on pick up a TurboGrafx and an Atari 2600.

So yeah, DDR made me like other systems, Let's dance!


Dont ask me why exercising anthropomorphic rabbits and Cotton Eye Joe have in common...  Only Konami knows! lol!
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