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Microsoft has revealed what else the incoming Xbox 360 dashboard update will do, besides adding Zune and Kinect functionality.

The update also brings with it improved voice chat, reproportioned avatars, a redesigned virtual keyboard and a host of other performance tweaks.

We'll hand over to Microsoft for the finer details:

Improved voice quality – the audio codec is being updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party chat audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game, catch a big sports event, watch a movie or do all three.
Improved experience for changing your Gamertag – choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you're looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.
Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard – we've taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, for example when signing up for Live within the dashboard.
Improved Xbox Live Marketplace UI and browse experience – the Games Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the games and content you want, reducing the number of steps it takes to get to a download.
Avatar changes – we've made your Avatars slightly more proportional so you can better play Kinect games.
Easier to get on a wireless network – trying to connect to a wireless network? With the next update, you'll see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings. From there, you'll be able to select a new network or further configure the network you're connected to.
Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI – we're adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.
New browse experience for 100 per cent completed games – you spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so instead of only being able to view your first dozen completed games, we're giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.
The update goes live on 4th November.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...dates-unveiled ...

Capcom has announced another batch of classic arcade titles for the Wii's Virtual Console service.

According to Andriasang, rock hard 1985 platformer Ghosts 'n' Goblins and classic 1984 top down shooter 1942 will be up for download soon.

Obscure but ace 1987 title Black Dragon rounds out the latest batch of titles to get a dusting down. It's a fiendish side-scroller very much in the vein of Ghosts 'n' Goblins. You might have played it on Capcom Classics Collection Volume 2 on the PlayStation 2 or Xbox.

No word on a release date for any of the games yet but expect to pay 800 Points (£5.60) each.

These three titles join the recently announced Commando, SonSon and Exed Exes on Capcom's VC slate.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...assics-for-wii ...

Microsoft's UK studio Rare originally made prototype button controllers for Kinect, as it struggled with the early concept of peripheral-free motion control.

According to Nick Burton, development director for Kinect at Rare, it wasn't until the first successful game prototypes began drawing a crowd in-house that it dawned on the team that there were multiple ways to interact without holding moulded plastic.

"I remember those first few weeks of us having the tech in November 2008, we were going 'but you've got to have a button!' To the extent that we built little buttons that you could hold in your hands, just to try it," he said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"The acid test turned out to be a couple of prototypes we worked out quickly. We weren't thinking about sports, these were just ideas we were chucking around for three or four days at a time. We had a little goal kick game that was to test accuracy of avatars and it worked well because we could place a virtual ball in front of the player. And at the same time as that, we realised that kicking doesn't involve a button, there doesn't have to be a button press.

"That was the shared moment where we realised we don't need buttons," he added. "At that point it really evolved for us. It turns out there are lot of ways to interact, it's just a case of finding the right way to do it for your product. It was interesting at that time to go from the assumption that we've got to have buttons to the realisation we don't need them."

Although it took a while for the game designers at Microsoft to throw out old conventions, Burton believes gamers will warm to Kinect much quicker, as the launch titles are built around instinctive actions.

"Once you say to somebody, 'that's you on the screen,' they realise it does what you do. If you show them a table tennis table and ball coming to them - even if it's a wireframe - they naturally move to hit it.

"It's in-built life experience. I think we've lowered the barrier because once a user sees himself on the screen having an effect in the world, it clicks. Sports is a no-brainer. You don't have to tell anyone how to play football."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ols-for-kinect ...

Hi All,

Caanoo Chess uses the GNU Chess version 5.07 for the Artificial Intelligence.

Thanks to Pedro De quintana for his help on Caanoo beta-testing !

How to use it ? Everything is in the README.txt file.

Sources are included, and this package is under the GNU public license,
read COPYING.txt file for more information about it.

it's on my blog ...

Enjoy,

Zx ...

This is a great move to stop piracy but sucks for those who are really interested in the homebrew scene. However, this does not affect USB development boards.

Source: GamersMint ...

This is a great move to stop piracy but sucks for those who are really interested in the homebrew scene. However, this does not affect USB development boards.

Source: GamersMint ...

Nintendo has refused to attribute low sales of Wii and DS games solely to piracy.

In a recent investor call, CEO Satoru Iwata explained, "I do not think we should attribute bad software sales solely to piracy.

"Even with piracy, as long as we can create products which can attract attention from many consumers and which can greatly entertain them, that software can make it to the number one position of the hit software sales chart.

"So, we would like to consider it from both perspectives simultaneously. It is true there is always the influence of piracy, but it is important for us to increase the number of our consumers who are willing to shell out their money to purchase our products."

Maybe he's onto something. The phenomenal Super Mario Galaxy 2 shifted 4.09 million copies in its first five weeks on sale. Pokémon Black/White, which recently secured a perfect 40/40 from Famitsu, is rapidly approaching a similar figure in Japan alone.

Then again, maybe he's not. The excellent Metroid: Other M failed to trouble the UK all formats top 10 when it launched last month.

Iwata went on to re-emphasise that Nintendo will be making new efforts to tackle piracy on its forthcoming handheld, the 3DS.

"Of course, as a responsibility of the platform holder, we will tackle piracy. For example, when we launch new hardware, such as Nintendo 3DS, it is a good opportunity to beef up the countermeasures, and we are actually working on that now."

The 3DS launches in Japan on 26th February 2011 before heading to Europe and the USA shortly thereafter.

Nintendo's next big releases include Donkey Kong Country Returns, arriving on Wii on 3rd December, and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn for the DS a week later.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ind-poor-sales ...

Shigeru Miyamoto has explained that the evolution of technology is what kept Mario fresh. Had videogames been a stationary medium like books, then Mario would have departed a long time ago.

"I'm always asked how I make the Mario series, but it's like we're thinking the games up on the run. I can only answer that each time is different, so I don't know," Miyamoto told famed Japanese copywriter - and one-time Nintendo employee (and inventor of the name Game Boy) - Shigesato Itoi (an interview conducted in place of Iwata Asks).

"Looking back, what's been easy about making the Mario games is that they could naturally change along with the progress of technology. For example, when you make live action SFX movies and as special effects technology advances, then you have new methods at your disposal.

"In the same way, as technology advances, the Mario games change, too. On the contrary, books have basically always been made the same way. If it had been necessary to keep making Mario games in the same way like that, we couldn't have done it. In that way, making the Mario games has been easy.

"But the technology changes, so we just have to adjust to that. And as technology changes, so does what you want to do.

"If it weren't for that," he added, "I don't think I could have stuck with it this far."

Itoi and Miyamoto talked at length about the nature of ideas and inspiration. The hope was that Itoi could help Miyamoto put into words how he created an icon like Mario. The interview marked the moustached plumber's 25th birthday.

One recurring theme was simplicity, something Miyamoto teaches young Nintendo game designers who provide needless explanations of tiny details. Miyamoto himself was taught this lesson - at least in part - by the technology restrains of the NES.

"We were making the software for the NES system back then, so there were also capacity limits," Miyamoto recalled. "Having said that, however, even when we are facing such limitations as capacity constraints, if anything bothers me, I would really apply myself to it. For example, deciding to have Mario enter a Warp Pipe from the top. Having him cross in front of it from the side wouldn't work.

"I thought it was strange how Mario was already standing there underground when that level begins. Why is Mario, who just passed in front of a castle, standing underground? I couldn't fit in a sequence showing him falling underground, so I decided to have him just plop down from the top of the screen, and-surprisingly-that was just fine. If someone had said, 'You should provide a little more detail here,' it would have turned out differently.

"The restrictions were often a big help. Players were able to imagine the details that weren't put in."

Other interesting tid-bits were Miyamoto remembering a discussion with "my master" Gunpei Yokoi, who in a meeting told the Mario-maker "you're pretty negative." "That really shocked me," Miyamoto said.

"But I wasn't intending to be negative," he added. "I thought about what he might mean and realized that when I think about something, I have a tendency first to draw up a list of what can't be done. For example, when it comes to what can and can't be done with the NES system, it was really important for me to know a lot about what can't be done

"So when I think about something, I draw up a list of everything that won't work. If there's an idea according to which doing one thing means something else won't work, I focus on what won't work. Certainly, that is negative. So which is better, negative or positive? Well, both are important, they need to coexist.

"Someone who only sees the positive is just a blind optimist," he declared.

"And while it's important to know the negative, someone who only talks about what's negative is just a pessimist."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...pt-mario-fresh ...

Mozilla has released the first beta of its Firefox 4 for Android and Maemo. The browser is based on the Firefox 4 core and should be released in the same time frame as the big brother. The mobile browser includes Firefox Sync, a cloud feature that enables users to sync browsing history, passwords, form-fill data and bookmarks, as well as open tabs."
Android news site Androinica also mentions the release, and provides a small tutorial on installing beta apps for Android.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/...-Android-Maemo ...