March 2013 - DCEmu Turns 9 Years Old and Still Going Strong
Its Now March 2013 and DCEmu the Homebrew & Gaming Network is now 9 Years old. I actually started the sites back in 2002 but joined them under the DCEmu name back in 2004 when the site was foremost a Dreamcast Site, since then we have expanded and cover all homebrew scenes as new consoles come into play. To make sure the site gets back to what it does best i have merged the discussion forums and unmerged all the news forums, which for everyone makes for a better reading experiance, no one wants to search for PS2 news on a PS3 merged news forum because it takes ages to find it. Also this month we have launched new sites for PS4, GCW Zero and also an Open Source Handhelds website. Thanks for visiting DCEmu and please join in the discussion and remember if you are a coder then you can upload to our forum instead of using crappy internet upload sites.
Well the Summer has arrived and its time to take a look at whats Hot in the Console, Mobile, Gadget and Gaming Worlds.
Today its the turn of the PSvita or Playstation Vita, Sonys new handheld which is extremely powerful with many improvements over the PSP Console, heres our list of whats hot this summer:
PlayStation Vita
Dont bother with the 3G version its pretty much pointless, stick to the Wifi version which is cheaper but also in reality superior:
Sony's PlayStation Vita retains the familiar general form of the PlayStation Portable hardware series while dramatically improving on virtually every aspect of its use with powerful and exciting new features including: dual touch pads at the front and rear, dual cameras at the front and rear, dual analogue sticks, a 5-inch OLED screen, six-axis motion sensors and a three-axis electronic compass and exceptional built-in connectivity via Wi-Fi*. Taken together this makes for a handheld gaming device that truly signals the entry of handhelds into the world of Next-Gen gaming.
Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a single player Adventure game that brings the trademark active gameplay of the Uncharted series to the small screen like never before. The most prominent of the launch title for the Sony PlayStation Vita handheld Golden Abyss features an all-new story revolving around the adventures of treasure hunter Nathan Drake, as well as controls optimized for play on the PS Vita. Features include: a combination of touch pad and motion-sensing controls, as well as Adventure and Puzzle-solving gameplay.
Gravity Rush is a single player Action-Adventure game with RPG and Platforming game elements that is specifically designed for PlayStation Vita. Utilizing PS Vita specific functionality such as the gyro motion sensor of the PS Vita, highly refined graphics and touch control capabilities, and a rich storyline rendered in a crisp comic/animation-like style, Gravity Rush provides an engrossing 3D experience in which the usual laws of gravity cease to exist. Additional features include: simple shoulder button-based controls for gravity-altering move, varied enemy and boss battles, and beat-em-up combat.
Set in a brutal, alternate 1950s universe, the Chimera attack on America has just begun. New Jersey firefighter Tom Riley, responds to a routine 911 call and comes face-to-face with the brutal Chimera in the initial days of their invasion on the east Coast of the US. He is separated from his wife and daughter and takes up arms against the Chimera to find them.
Being a firefighter, Riley can never stand idly by when people are in peril and there are several moments in the game where the player will be faced with situations where they can perform selfless acts of bravery in order to rescue people from the Chimeran hoard. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...d_i=3010556011
Dragon Quest Monsters Terry's Wonderland 3D sold over 500,000 copies in its first week of availability in Japan. A 3DS remake of the original Dragon Quest Monsters, the game knocked Dragon's Dogma down to No.2, ahead of Mario Tennis Open, Mario Party 9 and the week's second-highest new entry, Level-5 3DS game Guild 01.Weekly 3DS hardware sales almost doubled to over 100,000, Andriasang reports. Nintendo's handheld outsold its closest competitor, PS3, by nearly seven units to one. Weekly software sales (life to date)
Microsoft and Sony are both waiting on the retail price of the Wii U to gauge whether they should reduce their hardware RRPs, a Wedbush Morgan analyst has claimed.
Wedbush Morgan games analyst Michael PachterGames industry expert Michael Pachter believes there will be no price cut on Xbox 360 or PS3 in the short-term if Wii U retails at over $300 (around £200)."I think both Microsoft and Sony are waiting to see Wii U pricing. If it is over $300, they don't need to cut." Pachter told CVG. "When Nintendo makes a move, they [Sony and Microsoft] will respond accordingly," he added. Prior to the E3 event in Los Angeles this week, price cuts for the PS3 and Xbox 360 were a common discussion within industry circles. It was also suggested, if less frequently, that the PlayStation Vita would undergo a discount in order to stimulate sales. Pachter claimed that such a discount would be premature. "I don't expect a Vita cut till November at the earliest," he said, "and probably not until February". Sony has dismissed suggestions that PS Vita's RRP will be cut in the short-term. The console had a bright launch but since then sales have fallen sharply. SCEE chief Jim Ryan told CVG this week that "we're not at the stage of thinking about price cuts".
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe CEO Jim Ryan has told CVG the company is "very relaxed and confident about the prospects for Vita this year and beyond". In an interview published earlier today, the executive said upcoming content will help give the platform a lift Japan - where sales of the new handheld have fallen sharply since launch.
"We're not at the stage of thinking about price cuts," Ryan said. "In Europe we're three months in - in Japan a little bit longer. I think that all history in the Japanese market indicates that it's real killer content that provides the stimulus to hardware sales - and that continues to be the case. There's a lot going on - a lot of very Japanese specific content that wouldn't really resonate with the Western world. We're very relaxed and confident about the prospects for Vita this year and beyond."In the west, Ryan expects new entries in established first and third-party series to drive Vita adoption. "We obviously launched Vita with a very strong launch line-up, easily the strongest of any other platform that I've been involved with - and that's all of them. As you say though, there's still a lot of content to come. We have Little Big Planet to come, and then on the third party side FIFA, BioShock, Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. So, in my mind it's a line-up of real quality - and a good balance across various genres." Ryan added of the newly-named Black Ops Declassified: "It's fantastic that it's coming at Christmas time, and I think that it's going to provide a huge stimulus for the platform." Company CEO Kaz Hirai revealed in May that worldwide Vita sales stood at 1.8 million units at the end of the company's financial year on March 31, 2012, almost four months after the handheld's release. He called it a "good start", but acknowledged that "software and services must be strengthened" if the company's to hit its targets for the current business year, which include ten million Vita sales. Sony recently announced a limited-time Vita price cut of 50 Euros (£40) in France, which runs from June 1 to July 15.
The chief executive at SCE Europe insists the company has not abandoned its stereoscopic 3D gaming initiatives, despite the technology's absence at Sony's E3 press event this week.
During the company's E3 conference on Monday there was no mention of how the 3D PlayStation monitor announced at last year's show has fared at retail, and nor were special glasses offered to attendees to watch the latest PS3 gameplay demonstrations in 3D.But in an interview published earlier today, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe CEO Jim Ryan told CVG the company isn't marginalising 3D. "I just think that it's something that's now moving into the mature phase," he said. "You only have so much time at these things, and there was an attempt at yesterday's conference to make it shorter - which I thought was excellent. "3D was the new thing two years ago, it's not the new thing anymore - it's just part of the bedrock of content development and publishing," he added. Asked if major first party games will still be supporting 3D as standard, Ryan said: "Where appropriate, yes. Not where it doesn't make sense, but where appropriate - absolutely." In the same interview, Ryan said Sony is "very relaxed and confident about the prospects for Vita this year and beyond" due to a range of upcoming "killer content".
During last year's Sony E3 press conference, the company spent quite a bit of time talking 3D. Several titles were on the horizon with 3D support, including main entries in series like Uncharted and Killzone. Since then, the company toned down its approach to 3D integration.
Sony Senior VP of Product Development and Worldwide Studios Scott Rohde doesn't see the change as so stark. "It's just not necessarily the focus and newsworthy. Last year it was," he told Joystiq during an interview this week. Due to an internal initiative within Sony last year, 3D became a main talking point of its E3 showing – that's simply no longer the case, Rohde said. "A couple years back, even three years ago, because PlayStation is a big pillar in the overall Sony structure, Sony and Kaz [Hirai] came to us and said, 'Hey, we know that you guys can make a big impact by showing a lot of things on 3D.' So we're sort of the fire starter, if you will," Rohde said.
Now that the fire's been started, however, it doesn't look like PlayStation has to keep it going. Beyond God of War: Ascension, Sports Champions 2, andLittleBigPlanet Karting, no other 3D titles have been announced for the PlayStation 3. Rohde chalks that up to Sony's internal development studios having autonomy, despite company-wide initiatives last year. "If it's going to enhance an experience, then absolutely. But if it's not core to the experience, then it's not gonna be a focus," he said.
But if that's the case, and internal studios aren't embracing 3D on their own, it stands to reason that 3D wasn't the success story Sony hoped for. As you might imagine, Rohde doesn't agree. "I don't look at it that way, because it enhances some games better than it does others," he said. Rohde compared it to 3D in film. "I'll show up and I'll watch some in 3D or some not. Honestly, for me, it almost depends on when movie times are. If it's a convenient movie time, I'll go see the 3D one, right? But it's kind of the same thing – the same thing is kind of occurring with games as well."
You can do a lot with LittleBitPlanet 2's upcoming Vita Cross Control patch. In a game already filled to bursting with creative opportunities, the additional Vita features are honestly a little staggering. Sure, you could make intricate levels, leveraging every touch and tilt gimmick, every unique cooperative possibility.
You could do that, but why bother when the Vita opens up a whole new world of ways to screw with your friends? Check out our demo with Media Molecule's David Dino above.
With a new console comes a world of new accessories. I encountered my first Wii U accessory in PDP's booth, and it's glorious. To go with the Wii U version ofScribblenauts Unlimited, PDP has concocted a cover for the WiiPad designed to mimic Maxwell's "rooster hat."
Now that it exists, every Wii U controller that isn't in a rooster hat is a missed opportunity.
Sony isn't talking next-gen at this year's E3. Nor is Microsoft. Nintendo's Wii U, however, got its big debut this week, and the console is planned for a holiday 2012 launch. As we learned in the last hardware generation and the generation before that, being the first out of the gate in terms of launching hardware can mean the difference between first and third place. SCEA senior vp of product development and worldwide studios Scott Rohde, however, isn't worried about the potential for Wii U to lead the next hardware generation due to its launch lead.
"Not at all. That's the simple answer," he told Joystiq in an interview this week. "In very similar fashion to the way I'm talking about game development," he said, referencing Sony's hands-off approach to internal game development. "We have a very strong vision in what we believe we're gonna do for the next generation. And we're not talking about it at all yet," he added with a smile.
"The reality is let's build a great machine. And we'll talk about it then." With Unreal Engine 4 getting a big debut recently, and it being held up as the harbinger of the next hardware generation, we expect we'll be hearing from both Sony about that potentially "great machine" not too far from now.
There's nothing quite so enlightening as a solution to a problem you didn't realize you had. RaptorFire's booth, tucked away in the back corner of the LA Convention Center's South Hall was offering up just that, in form of Cronus, a little USB stick that the company promises will "change how you look at gaming." While the little USB adapter's functionality isn't quite so grandiose (same goes for the company's assertion that it's "the greatest invention in gaming since the controller"), the peripheral offers up an interesting proposition -- being able to control your Xbox 360 with a PlayStation 3 controller -- and the other way around. Oh, and Wiimotes are in the mix, as well.
The Cronus is a black USB dongle with a small single digit display on the top and a USB input on the rear. Plug it into the console of your choice, sync it up and you should be good to go. We played a round ofBattlefield 3, using an Xbox 360 controller on a PS 3 -- and things went smoothly. We didn't get a chance to actually try out the syncing process, but the device's manufacturer assured us that it's quite smooth, for what that's worth.
March 2013 - DCEmu Turns 9 Years Old and Still Going Strong
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