mLoaD released a new version of XexTool GUI:
[QUOTE]
XeX MiniGUI for xorloser's latest XeXTool. Thank you for your program and your hard work.
I've created this little tool so you do not always have to edit default.xex with the command tool.
Build and Tested on Windows 7 64Bit with .NetFramework 4.0.

What's new/fixed:
+ added xex compression
+ added xex uncrypt and encrypt function
+ added idc create funktion for IDA
+ added xex dump function
* fixed TitleUpdate search bug
+ added TitleUpdate search function
JQE360 and XBUC webside
* fixed a bug in the about window
+ added better xex patch function
( xex, xexp files no longer needs to be in the same folder )
+ added new backup function
+ added xex information
- remove many source code
+ added cmd control for xextool.exe
+ added create xex machine format
devkit and retail
+ added complete new ui
+ added more remove options
remove bounding pathname
remove keyvault privileges restriction
remove required revocation check
remove Zero media ID
remove Ap2.5 (Beta)

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/...puWyIyfCev.php ...

News via http://blackbird.usask.ca/wordpress/?p=124

For many years, emulator users have been able to take advantage of improved (pixel purists might disagree) image quality using well known filters such as HQ2x, SaI2x, etc. These run on CPU and incur a noticeable performance loss. On a PC, this might not be such a big deal with our new shiny CPUs that are just waiting to waste clock cycles, however, on our PlayStation 3, using very valuable clock cycles on filtering graphics on the PPU is simply not acceptable, unless you’re comfortable playing old-school games at 20 fps.



Plain nearest-neighbor




HQ2x, a classic CPU-based filter

Luckily, we have a lovely device called the GPU, which specializes in crunching through calculations in a highly parallel fashion. Graphics processing can be parallelized extremely well, and thus explains the design of modern GPUs, tons of weaker cores.

Up till recent years, graphics cards were locked into one specific function. Programming legacy OpenGL back in the day was essentially turning on a zillion different knobs of a big black box (the GPU). You wanted lighting, you enabled lighting, set some parameters here and there, and done. Easy to get started, but horribly inflexible once you want to do complex stuff. This is now called the fixed-function pipeline.

Eventually, developers understood that we needed a way to treat the GPU more like a conventional computer. Rather than turning on a tons of different knobs, you implemented the things you actually used in a simplified programming language. Full control and flexibility at the cost of a slightly steeper learning curve. These languages are what we call shader languages. The three most popular ones today are:

•GLSL: Native OpenGL shading language.
•Cg: nVidias shading language that works with either OpenGL or Direct3D. Syntax resembles HLSL.
•HLSL: Microsoft’s shading language for use with Direct3D.
Before, it was practically impossible to implement a filter like HQ2x on the GPU using fixed-function pipeline. The hardware was far too inflexible to allow this. However, with our new programmable hardware, it suddenly started to sound feasible to program filters on the GPU.

Pete’s OpenGL2 plugin
Some emulator authors started to see opportunities to use these new possibilities. One well known example of this is Pete’s awesome OpenGL2 plugin for the plugin-based PlayStation 1 emulators. Obviously there are far too many emulators out there, so I can’t make an exhaustive list or something like that. At the very least, shader support certainly isn’t very common, even today, but I believe this will soon become a “must have”-feature.





Example of some interesting shaders running in Petes OGL2 plugin

Shaders instead of CPU filters by necessity
On the PlayStation 3, Sony provides developers with a Cg shader environment, and this was basically an invitation for us to use it in our emulator ports. The RSX found on the PlayStation 3 is reasonably powerful despite its age, while the PPU unit is quite weak relatively speaking (runs conventional code very badly), so it makes perfect sense to offload all graphics processing to the RSX, where it belongs.

One problem with shaders is that they typically need to be written specifically for each emulator, even if they were written in the same language. As with normal code, where you have APIs you can communicate with, the rendering code needs to communicate information with the shader program running on the GPU. You need to tell it things like: “Where is the texture located? How big is my texture? What are the coordinates?”, and things like that. Usually, every emulator out there tended to implement their own interfaces, so shaders still needed to be ported between every emulator that wanted to use them.

With some recent developments, I believe we’re one step closer to achieve some kind of specification that other emulator authors might desire to follow.

I believe SNES9x-PS3 (and its brother ports) was the first emulator port on a console to utilize shaders, at least as a major feature. Its shader library is becoming reasonably sized. When the shader implementation was being written, it was actually first implemented in SSNES. This meant that shaders could easily be tested on the PC before being transferred over the PS3, achieving the same result, greatly helping out with debugging. Shaders are essentially simple .cg files, which are compiled at run-time and transferred directly to the GPU. No need to compile C/C++ filters straight into the emulator itself which used to be quite typical, which would be a horrible situation indeed.

Essentially, doing as much on the GPU as possible was a design choice from the start. Much, much better performance and arguably easier to program than optimizing C/assembly code. It’s a win-win situation.

Later on, I implemented a multi-pass specification for the .cg shaders, using several .cg shaders and combining them into one effect. This is known on the PS3 ports as ...

"Just confirmed that the [cloud storage] service has not gone live yet. We'll keep you posted on launch details." -- Microsoft representative.

A story that started in Europe yesterday -- and was yanked by the afternoon -- regarding Xbox 360's cloud storage coming online is still making its way through the internets. Microsoft officially confirmed to us that the service is not yet live.

We'll be sure to let you know as soon as Microsoft's online save storage, announced during E3 2011, becomes available.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/06/ps...rage-not-live/ ...

Sony has made the PSN Pass, first spotted this morning, official.

It launches this September with PlayStation 3 exclusive Resistance 3.

In a statement issued to Eurogamer this evening, Sony said PSN Pass will grant "full online access" to participating games.

"We are always evaluating new programs for our online offering, and starting with Resistance 3 this September, we will be instituting a network pass program for PS3 games with online capabilities," Sony said.

"This program will be game-specific. Games that are a part of this program will include a single-use registration code that grants the account holder redeeming the code full online access for that title.

"This is an important initiative as it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhancing premium online services across our first party game portfolio."

The implication is that second-hand copies of Resistance 3 will not include PSN Pass, forcing pre-owned buyers to pay for full online access.

With PSN Pass Sony is following the lead of EA, THQ, Codemasters and Warner, all of which have implemented an Online Pass scheme.

Will other upcoming PS3 exclusives, such as Uncharted 3, use PSN Pass?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-pass-official ...

PlayStation Plus is a year old, and in that time it has given subscribers over £700 worth of content, Sony said today.

PlayStation Network product manager James Thorpe said on the EU PlayStation Blog the figure amounted to "a pretty good deal" for gamers.

"We've been having a look back at what content has been available to Plus members in the first year and have discovered something we thought you guys might find interesting – while we said we'd deliver over £200 of content during the year, we totted up the totals for all the games, discounts themes and avatars and the value actually came to over £700," he said.

"In anyone's eyes that's a pretty good deal for under £3.50 a month!"

Sony's £700 figure is an approximate value based on average RRP of available content during the first year. It excludes discounts, and is calculated using exchange rates as at June 2011.

The monthly cost is based on the price of a one-year subscription.

To tie in PlayStation Plus' birthday, Sony has launched some new sign-up offers, available from 6th July to 3rd August 2011.

You can sign up for a 12 month Plus subscription and get an extra three months for free, or sign up for a 12 month Plus subscription and get Sega Rally Online Arcade for free and to keep forever. Or you can do both.

Meanwhile, the PS Plus content for 6th July to 3rd August includes Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars and Golden Axe free from PSN, PSOne game Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, and minis Dr. Maybe and the Adventures of Scarygirl and JellyCar 2.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rth-of-content ...

Microsoft hopes to boost Kinect sales in Japan with games that are familiar to Japanese players.

Microsoft's Japanese Xbox 360 General Manager Takashi Sensui admitted today in a press conference (reported by Andriasang) that the motion-sensing Xbox 360 add-on, which has sold 10 million units globally since its November 2010 launch, did not sell to expectations in the Japanese market.

He hopes to give the device a new push this year with IPs that are familiar to Japanese players, along with titles that appeal to core gamers.

At the Tokyo Game Show last year Microsoft announced a number of Japanese-made Xbox 360 exclusives, some of which support Kinect.

These include Codename D, Haunt, Project Draco, Rise of Nightmares and Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor.

The Xbox 360 has suffered a difficult time in Japan. Last month Microsoft announced it had finally managed to shift 1.5 million Xbox 360 units in the country. It launched there in December 2005.

Xbox 360 hit the million mark in Japan in March 2009, after three years and three months on shop shelves. The extra 500,000 sales took another two years and three months to notch up.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...boost-in-japan ...

The iPhone 5 looks set for launch in September after more rumours of the inevitable device hit the internet.

Sources at component makers told DigiTimes Taiwan-based notebook maker Pegatron Technology has landed orders for 15 million iPhone 5s (iPhone 4S) from Apple, with shipping set for September this year.

Apparently, according to the sources, the iPhone 5 "does not seem to have any major update from iPhone 4".

The DigiTimes report backs up a Bloomberg story from last month that claimed the iPhone 5 "closely resembles" its predecessor and will launch in September.

The iPhone 5 will reportedly sport a speedier A5 processor – the same chip that powers the iPad 2.

It'll also supposedly boast an eight megapixel camera – a significant jump up from the iPhone 4's five megapixel lens.

The phone will run the new iOS 5, which apparently adds improved messaging and photo-sharing features.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rumours-emerge ...

Darkness 2 project director Sheldon Carter has said he believes that mobile devices, including the Apple iPad, will become a real competitor for gamers' attention in the future.

"I think the home console experience is going to be with us for a long time. Do I think that the iPad will encroach? Absolutely, it has to," said Carter in an interview with CVG. "You think about how many iPads are out there already, iPads and other mobile devices. But I don't think it'll be exclusive, I don't think that just because somebody buys one of those things they wouldn't buy a console."

"I think there's always going to be a market for high-end, for people who just want to play the most cutting edge.I think there's always going to be a market for, I want to flop down on the couch and sit back."

Carter was also open minded about the idea of creating a Darkness game for the Apple tablet.

"As a thought experiment yeah I think it'd be pretty awesome. Swiping with the demon arm and grabbing with the demon arm on an iPad, that'd be pretty cool."

Digital Extremes is based in Canada. As well as developing The Darkness 2, the team has a strong background in assisting other developers with multi-platform releases, including Homefront for PC and Bioshock for PS3.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...oles-territory ...

The German Resistance 3 bundle has led to speculation about the launch of a new online initiative called PSN Pass.

The game and console bundle packaging clearly refers to something called "PSN Pass," along with the disclaimer "PSN Pass Network features only available in countries that have PlayStation Store."

Resistance 3 is set for release on September 9, suggesting that the PSN Pass will either be launched simultaneously or in advance of that date.

The new feature will most likely be similar to those used by EA and THQ, which discourages consumers from buying pre-owned games by locking multiplayer modes and special content to specific codes. Players who buy second hand must then purchase a new code to access that same content.

Sony hasn't yet commented on the discovery, but has previously spoken to GI about online passes. In August last year Andrew House, then president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said Sony was supportive of the model.

"On the principle of making online portions of the game available or unlocked from the disc-based release for a fee, we’re broadly supportive of that. And we’re exploring actively the same option for our own content."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...aunch-psn-pass ...