DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
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by Published on October 30th, 2011 17:13- Categories:
- DCEmu
"Have you ever wanted to play a new PC game, but weren't sure where your PC falls between the minimum and recommended system requirements? I don't have a whole lot of time to game these days and with new hardware perpetually coming out and component vendors often tweaking their model numbering schemes, knowing exactly what kind of experience I'm buying for $60 can be difficult. Luckily, somebody benchmarked Battlefield 3'scampaign on a wide range of hardware configurations and detail settings. If you've purchased a system in the past few years you should be in luck. The video cards tested start with the AMD Radeon HD 4670 and Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT, and go up to the brand new Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590. I hate it that my aging Radeon HD 4870 isn't going to cut it at 1080p, but am glad that I found out before buying the game."If you're curious about the game itself, here's a detailed review from Eurogamer and a briefer one from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/1...s-cards-tested ...by Published on October 30th, 2011 17:10- Categories:
- Apple iPad,
- Apple iPhone
Last we saw of C3 Technologies' 3D mapping software it was making an appearance on Sony Ericsson's X10, but if 9to5Mac turns out to be right, its next stop could be the iPhone. According to the publication, Cupertino recently scooped up the Saab spin-off and C3 execs have since been working closely with the iOS division. Earlier this year, Apple posted job listings, looking for developers to "radically improve how people interact with maps and location-based services." On a related note, the outfit previously acquired Poly9, a web-based mapping company. So is the fruity one looking to up its street (navigation) cred? Is it finally ready to give Google Maps the boot? We'll just have to wait and see.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/29/a...s-overhaul-on/ ...by Published on October 30th, 2011 17:08- Categories:
- Apple iPad,
- Apple iPhone
A little cajoling from a clever developer got Siri talking to the iPhone 4 and the iPad, but Apple's tight-lipped servers kept the conversation effectively one-sided. The last-gen port was still missing something, and developer Steven Troughton-Smith knew where to find it: a jailbroken iPhone 4S. In an interview with 9to5Mac, Troughton-Smith said that getting Siri to talk to Cupertino's data servers only took ten minutes after he had all of the pieces in place. Ready for your personal assistant port? Hold the phone, the process is a bit dodgy -- our hacking hero said that getting Siri on the older device is a 20-step process, and it requires files from the iPhone 4S that he says aren't his to distribute. When asked about distributing the hack over Cydia, Troughton-Smith said it was something he couldn't be a part of. On Twitter he suggested that a release would "anger the hive," but promised to post detailed notes on the hack after a iPhone 4S jailbreak drops.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/30/s...voiding-cydia/ ...by Published on October 29th, 2011 23:07- Categories:
- Nintendo 3DS News
Following its recent financial woes, in which theJapanese giant posted an £578m loss, president Satoru Iwata has outlined the company's fight back plan in its semi-annual financial results briefing.
Iwata began by saying he feels "greatly accountable for missing our financial forecast for the half year ended September and revising downward our forecast for the full year".
He also blamed both the lack of "continuing sales of first party support" and said that 'in the course of preparation of the next platform, could we release new key titles for the existing platform in a timely fashion due to completion delays until the latter half of this year".
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...s-rescue-plan/ ...by Published on October 29th, 2011 23:04- Categories:
- Wii U News
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says the Wii U will learn from the "bitter lesson" of the Nintendo 3DS's troubled launch.
Speaking to investors following confirmation of its huge £578m loss, Iwata promised the platform holder is going all out to make sure the Wii successor heralds a reverse of fortunes for the company.
"We are planning to launch the Wii U, which is the successor to the Wii, during the next fiscal year," he told investors in Japan.
"We would like to show the final format of the Wii U at the E3 show next year. As we learned a bitter lesson with the launch of the Nintendo 3DS, we are trying to take every possible measure so that the Wii U will have a successful launch."
In the same meeting the Nintendo boss said he feels "greatly accountable for missing our financial forecast for the half year ended September and revising downward our forecast for the full year".
He explained: "The company was unable to launch much-anticipated first-party titles for the Wii nor for the Nintendo 3DS in a timely fashion in the first half of the term. In the game platform business, creating momentum is very important, but the momentum was once lost, and it has had a large negative effect on our sales and profits."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...on-iwata-vows/ ...by Published on October 29th, 2011 23:01- Categories:
- Nintendo Wii News,
- Wii U News
Nintendo has attributed the lack of "new key titles" for Wii to "preparation" efforts for Wii U.
Besides the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the only notable Nintendo-made Wii games of 2011 are Kirby's Epic Yarn and Wii Play Motion.
"Strong momentum is very important for game platform businesses and a strong software line-up to vitalise a platform is necessary to maintain this momentum," Nintendo presidentSatoru Iwata wrote in a half-year financial briefing.
"In the first half of this year, however, we could not make the continuing sales of the first-party software released last year as we had planned, nor, in the course of preparation of the next platform, could we release new key titles for the existing platform in a timely fashion due to completion delays until the latter half of this year."
A number of questions surrounding Wii U remain, despite developers receiving updatedWii U dev kits this summer. Just how powerful is Wii U? And what can it do online?
We'll find out next summer, apparently. "We would like to show the final format of the Wii U at the E3 show next year," Iwata announced.
He went on to offer update on a Wii U release date.
"We are also planning to launch the Wii U, which is the successor to the Wii, during the next fiscal year," he wrote.
Nintendo's financial year runs from April 2012 to March 2013. But the absence of Christmas 2012 from his vocabulary suggests Nintendo may intend to use those final three months, January to March. The 3DS launched in Japan in February, and in the US and Europe in March - is Nintendo planning something similar for Wii U in 2013?
Perhaps - but Iwata is adamant that the Wii U arrival will not suffer the same setbacks as the 3DS did.
"As we learned a bitter lesson with the launch of the Nintendo 3DS, we are trying to take every possible measure so that the Wii U will have a successful launch," he pledged.
Nintendo yesterday revealed a big financial loss for the first six months of its financial year (April to September). This in turn led to the company predicting its first full-year loss in decades.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...me-development ...by Published on October 29th, 2011 22:57- Categories:
- Wii U News
So Nintendo posted a six-month 70 billion yen loss (-£579.3 million / -$926.3 million), and now braces for its first yearly loss in decades. But it's Nintendo - are things really that bad?...
"For Nintendo, yes, things really are that bad," Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter answered Eurogamer.
"Nintendo started out this cycle with a dominant handheld position and made a conscious decision not to compete with Xbox 360 and PS3 on graphics. They expanded their handheld dominance, and their decision not to compete with Xbox 360 and PS3 worked, and five years later, they are dominant on both console and handheld. However, their momentum has stalled, as iPods and smartphones proliferate, and as the 'high definition' consoles have overtaken the Wii."
"I called for the Wii HD in 2009 and again in 2010 because I saw all of this coming, and had enough respect for Nintendo management that I presumed they had to see things the same way that I did. It is clear that they didn't share my view, and this week's earnings report and sharply lower forecast are the consequence of their decision to stay the course in the blue ocean rather than compete in the red ocean.
"Unfortunately," he added, "this week's results show that Nintendo's blue ocean is no longer blue; the sharks are not only circling, they are devouring Nintendo's market share at will."
Nintendo's flagship Wii console has lost momentum and is now outsold consistently by Xbox 360 in the US, PS3 in Japan and PS3 in Europe.
The 3DS was supposed to catapult Nintendo back on top. But it didn't, so Nintendo did something it hadn't since 1997, and slashed the price of the 3DS after not quite five months on sale (in Europe).
Selling hardware at anything but a chunky profit isn't Nintendo's style, and the company yesterday attributed a significant portion of the six-month "huge loss" to lowered revenue from 3DS hardware sales.
But for Screen Digest analyst Piers Harding-Rolls it's still "too early to call the death knell of the 3DS". "This Christmas will tell us a lot more," he told us, "and its performance over the next two months will also be key in convincing third parties to increase investment in the platform.
"Nintendo's blue ocean is no longer blue; the sharks are not only circling, they are devouring Nintendo's market share at will."Michael Pachter, Wedbush Morgan analyst
"At present, a lot of publishers are taking a wait-and-see approach and, even with a strong Christmas, I don't see major 3DS investment from third parties until the end of 2012."
Nintendo expects Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 to bring home a big Christmas for 3DS - a handheld that has so far suffered from a lack of key Nintendo games. Will Christmas 2012 be the turning point for 3DS?
Whether it is or isn't, Michael Pachter believes 3DS will never achieve the same money-spinning success as DS.
"I said that the iPod Touch and the emergence of smartphones made it easy to deliver simple and fun games to the masses, carving out a sizeable chunk of the DS target market," Pachter said. "That has clearly happened, as is evidenced by Nintendo's lowered DS forecast and sharply lower DS/3DS software forecast.
"It's pretty clear that the potential for Nintendo handhelds is smaller now than it was when the DS was launched," he added, "and software sales are going to continue to suffer, as the value proposition of 'shovelware' on the handhelds has declined precipitously with the emergence of free-to-play and $0.99 games on iPods and smartphones."
Nintendo now expects to sell not 9 million DS consoles by the end of March 2012, but 6 million. Wii sales expectations are still 12 million for the full year, although Wii and DS software sales expectations declined.
Nintendo expects 3DS will still sell 16 million units by the end of the financial year, but the software prediction has fallen considerably from 70 million to 50 million units. Piers Harding-Rolls reckons hitting that 16 million hardware target will be "a challenge".
But, argued M2 Research analyst Billy Pidgeon, "slowing Wii and DS sales were expected". It was "the yen's relative strength against the US dollar and the Euro [that] was the real inhibitor here".
"Unfortunately," Pidgeon added, "the negative economic factor of a strong yen may continue to plague Nintendo and other Japanese companies dependent on American and European markets."
But what does all this mean for the future? What if 3DS sales don't pick-up, and what if Wii and DS sales also continue to decline - what will the ramifications be for Nintendo's new console, Wii U?
"The pressure is on for Wii U."Billy Pidgeon, M2 Research analyst
"The pressure is on for Wii U," acknowledged Pidgeon. "Wii and DS will continue to decline, so Nintendo needs a good uptake on Wii U hardware coupled with a good attach rate.
"Wii U is not likely to match Wii performance, but the attach rate should be better if enough quality software titles are available as a smaller base will be more enthusiastic."
"Both 3DS and Wii U innovate," Piers Harding-Rollsby Published on October 29th, 2011 22:47- Categories:
- Apple iPad
[Phillip] and the crew at Voltaic Systems took a look at the Sunnan solar powered desk lamp from IKEA a while back, and while they thought it was pretty useful, there were definitely some things they wanted to change.
First on their list of revisions was to increase the capacity of the stock battery pack. Taking the lamp apart and unscrewing the pack’s lid revealed a set of 3 AA cells, which they swapped out for higher-capacity models with more than double the watt-hour rating.
A beefed up battery is a good start, but the lamp’s tiny solar panel has no hope of topping off the batteries outside of Death Valley. To ensure that they get a nice full charge, a small jack was wired into to the battery pack, allowing the group to connect any size external solar panel they pleased.
Finally, [Phillip] and Co. wanted the ability to charge an iPad2 from the lamp’s battery pack. They hacked in a small USB connector and a slightly modified MintyBoost board to provide a little extra juice to their tablet.
While they are still testing the modifications, they say that everything is working nicely, citing that the extra battery capacity and charging abilities are a great addition.
http://hackaday.com/2011/10/28/upgra...harge-an-ipad/ ...by Published on October 29th, 2011 22:42- Categories:
- Nintendo Wii News
Make sure your health insurance premiums are all paid up; if you decide to replicate this project you may need it. [Corey], [Kris], and [Jess] built their own go cart which is controlled with a Wii remote. The website has a poor navigation scheme, but if you hover over the horizontal menu bar you can get quite a bit of information about the build.
The cart has two motors which use a chain to drive each of the rear wheels. A pair of H-bridge controllers let the Arduino interface with them. It’s also has a Bluetooth module that makes it a snap to pull accelerometer data from the Wii remote. The front end looks like it uses rack and pinion steering, but you won’t find a pinion or a steering column. Instead, a linear actuator is mounted parallel to the rack, moving it back and forth at the command of the Arduino.
We can’t help but think back to silent movies where the steering wheel comes loose in the middle of a car chase. See if you get the same image while watching the demo after the break. This doesn’t seem quite as dangerous as adding remote control to a full-sized automobile, but we’ve played MarioKart Wii before and know how lousy the accelerator performance can be. Hopefully the firmware kills the motors if the batteries in the controller die.
http://hackaday.com/2011/10/29/wii-r...ure-riding-in/ ...by Published on October 29th, 2011 22:40- Categories:
- Android News
[Ytai], the lead developer for the IOIO breakout board for the Android Open Accessory kit, figured out how to control just about anything from an Android phone wirelessly over Bluetooth.
When [Ytai] first announced the IOIO breakout board for Android devices, one of the commentors on his post said a standard Bluetooth dongle could stand in for the USB cable between the phone and the IOIO. Wireless control of home automation project and robots was just too good of an idea to let go, so [Ytai] dove into this new Bluetooth project.
After getting a cheap Bluetooth dongle from DealExtreme, [Ytai] found btstack, a lightweight Bluetooth stack that was perfect for an embedded environment. Dealing with the USB driver for a no-name Bluetooth adapter didn’t come as easily, but after a few long nights, [Ytai] emerged victorious.
He still has a few more problems to overcome. Namely, supporting environments where more than IOIO board is available. [Ytai] is thinking about adding support for WiFi dongles, something we’d love to see. Check out [Ytai]‘s demo of wireless control of a servo after the break.
http://hackaday.com/2011/10/29/bluet...n-accessories/ ...
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