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by Published on March 9th, 2012 00:50- Categories:
- PC News
Microsoft is talking with the streaming services company to see if it's allowed to stream Windows 7 installations to tablets
Microsoft is in talks with OnLive about whether its newest app for iOS and Android, OnLive Desktop, is a violation of Windows licensing terms. The OnLive Desktop app allows users to access a cloud-hosted Windows 7 installation, with a premium version of the app offering more features. In a post on a Microsoft Technet blog, corporate vice president of worldwide licensing and pricing Joe Matz outlined the company stance on the issue.
"Some inquiries about these scenarios have been raised as a result of recent media coverage related to OnLive's Desktop and Desktop Plus services. Additionally, the analyst firm Gartner raised questions regarding the compliance of these services last week. We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved," wrote Matz.
According to Matz, Microsoft's licensing agreements allow two streaming scenarios:
- Customers that want to work with partners to have them host Windows 7 in a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure solution on their behalf, can do so when the customer provides the partner licenses through the customer's own agreements with Microsoft. The hosting hardware must be dedicated to, and for the benefit of the customer, and may not be shared by or with any other customers of that partner.
- Microsoft partners who host under the Services Provider License Agreement ("SPLA") may bring some desktop-like functionality as a service by using Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services. Under this solution, the partner is free to offer this service to any customer they choose, whether or not they have a direct licensing agreement with Microsoft. However, it is important to note that SPLA does not support delivery of Windows 7 as a hosted client or provide the ability to access Office as a service through Windows 7. Office may only be provided as a service if it is hosted on Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...censing-issues
...by Published on March 9th, 2012 00:48- Categories:
- PS3 News
Quantic Dream's David Cage believes that developers can extract a lot from Sony's console
PS3 is already in its sixth year and there's still no concrete word on a PS4. Developers have made some beautiful games with the hardware, but even this far into the lifecycle of the machine there's still plenty of horsepower to draw upon, judging by the beautiful Kara video that Quantic Dream showed us this week at GDC. Quantic Dream's David Cage told GamesIndustry International that Sony's hardware has "much more" to offer.
When we asked Cage after seeing Kara played on a PS3 about how much power is left in the console for developers to extract, he answered, "Much more, to be honest with you. One of the reasons why we didn't show this [Kara video] a year ago was that we had discussions with Sony, and they weren't sure that we were going to show after that was going to look better than Kara. It took us a year to prove what we were going to show was a thousand times better than that."
"So we're very far from seeing everything the PS3 can do, it's very powerful hardware. There is still a lot to do with it, people will be surprised."
Cage was reluctant to put a percentage on the power currently being used by top games on the PS3.
"That's difficult to answer. Developers use the hardware in different ways. We put the focus on very close shots and the lighting is very important to us. Other developers consider what matters the size of the landscape you can display. So different developers have different views of the hardware," he said.
He added, "Personally, I consider it takes two to three games on the same path to really see what you can do with the hardware. The teams discover the hardware, they start to use it. The more it goes, the more you can discover what you can do with it."
If Kara is any indication of the power being used for Cage's next project, we can't wait to get our hands on it.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...till-says-cage
...by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:42- Categories:
- Android News
[Bjørn] combined some aging electronics he had around the house to create this Android media center. The enclosure is an FM-radio, but since he only listens to online media it wasn’t of much use to him. After sizing it up he realized it was a perfect candidate to receive his old HTC Hero Android phone.
The upper portion of the stock radio used to host controls for tuning the FM dial, adjusting volume, and switching the unit on and off. He cracked open the case, ditching the radio receiver and patching in to the amplifier. The volume knob was moved to the right side of the case, and a hole cut to receive the phone. Audio is pulled from the phone with the jack sticking out the left side. We’d love to see a future improvement using a right-angle jack (kind of like this charging hack) or patched directly into the phone’s circuit board. This way everything would fit inside the box.
Now he can listen to Internet radio, or stream some video like in the clip after the break.
http://hackaday.com/2012/03/08/old-r...media-station/ ...by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:39- Categories:
- PS3 News
Percentage of virtual item purchases on PSN described as 'extremely healthy'
PlayStation’s digital publishing arm wants developers to pitch free-to-play games for PSN, an executive at the company has said.
Ted Regulski, manager of SCEA Developer Relations, said Sony has changed its philosophy and is now “open to any business model”.
“One thing we’re working on quite a lot is free-to-play,” he said during his GDC talk in San Francisco.
“Some developers say we’ll never allow freemium games on PlayStation but that’s really not the case.”
Regulski pointed out that freemium games, such as Free Realms, already exist on the PlayStation Network, and described the percentage of virtual item purchases as “extremely healthy”.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...-play-projects
...by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:37- Categories:
- DCEmu
Tools to enable developers to create new games and import existing titles to deviceThe software development kit for upcoming handheld console GameGadget will be released on Friday, the company has revealed.Developers will be able to create games and import existing titles for the open source device, although the console won’t be released till March 30th.Titles will appear on the GameGadget marketplace for download, and its creators say devs will be able to set their own pricing.The new handheld will include minimal specs, featuring 65mb of internal ram, a 433mhz dual core CPU and a 3.5” LDC screen, whilst its interface includes four action buttons, a D-pad and two shoulder buttons.“After two years in development we are very excited to see new content and licensed games being developed for GameGadget,” said the handheld's creator Jason Cooper
http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...ts-SDK-release ...by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:29- Categories:
- DCEmu
At the Game Developers Conference, a day after Fez creator Phil Fish responsed to an audience question with "modern Japanese games just suck," renowned ex-Capcom developer Keiji Inafunedelivered his own damning judgement of the modern Japanese videogame industry.
Speaking through a translator, Inafune bemoaned what he sees as a lack of innovation in the nation's output: "What happened to Japanese games? Where are they going? Will they continue to go downhill? What are the Japanese creators of today thinking and where are they heading?"
At the 2009 Tokyo Game Show, Inafune stated that the Japanese games industry was "over", and today he discussed the negative reaction and shock he got from the Japanese industry for these remarks. "'How dare you say our industry and our games are dead?' they said."
However, in the years that followed, Inafune has observed many of his critics coming around to agree with him. "They’re in a situation where they realise perhaps my prediction was true," he said.
For Inafune, who was still at Capcom at the time he made the remarks, Capcom was the only Japanese developer keeping up with the Western creations at the time. "[We] thought on a global level," he said. "We were able to see our own industry through an unfiltered lens." This understanding of the 'global level' is what Inafune believes most Japanese developers are lacking: "So I want to light a fire under Japan before it is too late."
Inafune explained how he became "a little ashamed" when he travels overseas because these days, "Japanese games are becoming a blast from the past." Just like "The Beatles were great!" or "Steve McQueen was a great actor!" Japanese games are now merely "great, great memories."
But just as The Beatles will never release a new album, and Steve McQueen will never act in a new film, Inafune thinks the Japanese games industry is damaging itself by an over-reliance on brands popularised in previous decades.
"I feel like we rarely see new creations from Japan anymore," he said. "We just stick to our memories and we re-release HD versions of games. That is the upper limit of what we are showing to our users today and that is not what our users want."
However, Inafune admits that even he is guilty of sometimes falling back on the pre-existing brands for support. Just yesterday, he explained, a fan asked him for a signature and he immediately, without thinking, scribbled a doodle of Mega Man.
But there is a middle ground, Inafune believes, where the past can be respected and remembered, but does not become a crutch. "I don’t want to get carried away," he said. "You may never see another Mega Man doodle from me after today."
Japan has become slothful on its own successes, believes Inafune. But he understands that this is just human, "We as humans don’t want to take the hard route." After decades of success, it was all too easy for Japanese developers to use the existing brands as a crutch. But, Inafune insisted, Japanese developers must start forcing themselves down the hard route if the country's videogames are to improve.
Inafune gives the example of the first Resident Evil; many within and without Capcom thought it would fail, but the studio, determined, worked on and created a massive success. He contrasted this with his own work on Mega Man Legends - a Mega Man game just trying to be another Mega Man game - and how it was an utter failure.
Inafune says this taught him a priceless lesson: "Establishing a brand takes a lot of work, but at the same time you cannot rely too much on that brand." Inafune compared the state of the Japanese games industry to Apple. "If Apple tried to stick to the glory of the old days with their old computers, they probably wouldn’t be around today," he said. "But Steve Jobs chose to develop the brand and not just maintain it."
This was Inafune’s main plea, that he repeated several times. "Japan must understand the importance of rebuilding our brands, and we must do it now," he urged. "It will be too late when our brands hold no power.
"Time is running out, and we should have realised this when I made that bold statement a few years ago."
http://www.edge-online.com/news/gdc-...n-says-inafune ...by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:26- Categories:
- PS3 News
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim won game of the year at last nights Game Developers Choice Awards at GDC in San Francisco last night.
While Bethesda's sprawling RPG took home the most coveted award, the big winner of the night was Portal 2, the Valve title winning Best Audio, Best Narrative, and Best Game Design.
Skyrim executive producer Todd Howard accepted the award on behalf of his hundred-strong development team. "We never imagined the reception the game would get or the success that it has had," he said, according to VG247. "Thank you to everyone who supported us. Thank you to everyone who’s making games that inspire us."
Indies were well represented as well, with Supergiant Games winning Best Debut and Best Downloadable Game for Bastion, Capy Games' Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP winning Best Handheld/Mobile Game, and Die Gute Fabrik's Johann Sebastian Joust winning the Innovation Award.
Three special awards were given out at the ceremony: Warren Spector won Lifetime Achievement, while Missile Command andTempest creator Dave Theurer won the Pioneer Award. Ken Doroshow and Paul M Smith, heads of the legal team which successfully argued that content-based restrictions on games violated the US Constitution, won the Ambassador Award.
- Best Audio - Portal 2 (Valve)
- Best Debut - Bastion (Supergiant Games)
- Best Narrative - Portal 2 (Valve)
- Best Visual Arts - Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (Naughty Dog)
- Best Downloadable Game - Bastion (Supergiant Games)
- Best Game Design - Portal 2 (Valve)
- Best Technology - Battlefield 3 (DICE)
- Best Handheld/Mobile Game - Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Capy Games)
- Innovation Award - Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)
- Game Of The Year - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda)
- Lifetime Achievement - Warren Spector
- Pioneer Award - Dave Theurer
- Ambassador Award - Ken Doroshow and Paul M Smith
by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:24- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Upcoming XBLA platformer Fez won the Seamus McNally Grand Prize, the top honour at last night's Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards at GDC in San Francisco.
Developer Phil Fish caused controversy earlier in the week when he told a Japanese developer that his nation's games "suck", but he is now in the headlines for all the right reasons, and has won $30,000 as a result. As our GDC diarist reports, he celebrated bycutting a rug to The Cure.
Thechineseroom's haunting adventure Dear Esther, which has sold 70,000 copies since its Steam release last month, won the award for Excellence In Visual Arts, while Beat Sneak Bandit took home the Best Mobile Game award. The Audience Award, the winner of which is selected by public vote, went to Frozen Synapse.
- Student Showcast: Way
- Technical Excellence: Antichamber
- Excellence In Design: Spelunky
- Best Mobile Game: Beat Sneak Bandit
- Excellence In Visual Art: Dear Esther
- Excellence In Audio: Botanicula
- Audience Award: Frozen Synapse
- Nuovo Award: Storyteller
- Seamus McNally Grand Prize: Fez
- Microsoft XBLA Sponsorship Award: Super Time Force
by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:21- Categories:
- PC News
Gaikai has announced a deal with Warner Bros that will make two of the publisher's MMOGs playable instantly, streamed from the cloud, in web browsers.
The Lord Of The Rings Online is available to North American players now, with Turbine's Dungeons & Dragons Online to follow soon. Players can launch the full, free-to-play version of both titles from the games' official websites.
Gaikai EVP Robert Stevenson said: "MMOGs have always been one of the key genres we've wanted to deliver via the cloud - never before has it been possible to play MMOGs in this way.
"And we couldn't be more pleased to showcase Gaikai's technology by streaming Dungeons & Dragons Online and The Lord Of The Rings Online, which are both fantastic multiplayer gaming experiences with legions of loyal fans."
Craig Alexander of D&DO developer Turbine added: "Gaikai's game streaming service will make it easier than ever for new players to start their epic adventures in our immersive online worlds.
"Anyone wishing to try these popular MMOGs can now instantly launch the games inside their web browser, completely eliminating any download waiting time."
The deal currently only applies to North America. We've sought confirmation on if and when the games will be made available elsewhere, and will follow up when we hear back.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/gaik...er-mmogs-cloud ...by Published on March 8th, 2012 23:15- Categories:
- PC News
The first shipment of Raspberry Pi devices has been delayed, after the factory manufacturing the cheap educational computer used non-magnetic jacks instead of ones with integrated magnetics. The problem is already nearly fixed, but new jacks need to be sourced for subsequent shipments, so those could be delayed slightly. 'It's inevitable, isn't it — you're freewheeling along perfectly happily and then you get a puncture,' said spokeswoman Liz Upton, apologizing for the delay."
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...-assembly-flub ...
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Catherine: Full Body’s English translation for the Vita