New research claims that consumers consider physical product to be more important in games than in newspapers, films or music.
A survey of over 1,000 people by research firm Ipsos MediaCT found that 64 per cent preferred physical discs for their games over digital copies.
Newspapers followed closely with 63 per cent opting for hard copies. Conversely music and film were considerably lower, with a respective 45 and 51 per cent shunning digital.
“I believe the preference for physical discs amongst next gen gamers reflects the potential value they derive from the pre-owned market, which is holding up the preference for physical – this is unlike the music and film markets,” said Ipsos MediaCT director Ian Bramley.
“Physical games discs have a long and well-established history, which is a deep mindset to change – particularly when gamers build a physical collection as they fear losing digital versions. And in-store browsing is also important to buyers.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39857/64-p...scs-to-digital ...

Bulletstorm developer, People Can Fly has questioned whether players actually give a monkey's about graphics any more.

Speaking to CVG, founder Adrian Chmielarz said he doesn't really care about video game visuals that much - so it's really lucky that his shooter looks fantastically good.

"The thing is, we really do not care that much," he said of game graphics. "When you take a look at the visual quality of Gears - the density of detail, so to speak - in my opinion, it kills Modern Warfare easily. But, Modern Warfare is 60 frames-per-second, and composition of the scene in Modern Warfare is really, really good. It's excellent.

"I think right now so long as the game has a minimum level of quality, which is for us and everyone who wants to matter in this business is really high, do players really care? Seriously, if it really looks good, do we need to join race?

He added: "If people say our game looks better than another game, we will be happy, but that's not our goal. We just want to invite you on an adventure."

Bulletstorm, in case you missed it, is a Cliff Bleszinski-produced shooter in which you can impale people on giant, spike wielding plants, slide kick bizarre-looking guards, and in which a man can exclaim, "You scared the dick off me!" when he feels like it.

Cliffy B recently stuck up a six minute walkthrough video of the game in action. Watch it.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

Apple has issued an open letter to iPhone 4 owners in an effort to explain the reported problems with the handset's antenna design and signal reception.
The company says the cause is "both simple and surprising" - the formula it uses to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is "totally wrong". Here's the letter in full:
Dear iPhone 4 Users,
The iPhone 4 has been the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. It has been judged by reviewers around the world to be the best smartphone ever, and users have told us that they love it. So we were surprised when we read reports of reception problems, and we immediately began investigating them. Here is what we have learned.

To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black strip in the lower left corner of the metal band. This is a far bigger drop than normal, and as a result some have accused the iPhone 4 of having a faulty antenna design.
At the same time, we continue to read articles and receive hundreds of emails from users saying that iPhone 4 reception is better than the iPhone 3GS. They are delighted. This matches our own experience and testing. What can explain all of this?
We have discovered the cause of this dramatic drop in bars, and it is both simple and surprising.
Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.
To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.
We will issue a free software update within a few weeks that incorporates the corrected formula. Since this mistake has been present since the original iPhone, this software update will also be available for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G.
We have gone back to our labs and retested everything, and the results are the same— the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. For the vast majority of users who have not been troubled by this issue, this software update will only make your bars more accurate. For those who have had concerns, we apologise for any anxiety we may have caused.
As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.
We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/37707...-antenna-issue ...

Newly released for Pandora

The beta testing phase of HotFix 3 is over - now here is the package for everyone!

You don't need to have any previous Hotfix installed. The Hotfix will find out what needs to be done on your system.

This Hotfix has the following changes and fixes:

* Kernel: Fixed problem with broken sound on some units. Also improved ALSA Buffer Underrun problems
* Kernel Modules: Added USB Sound and Midi Modules as well as the TUN/TAN-Module
* U-Boot: Fixed LCD timings on Reset (which caused weird dots around the Logo on reboot / Reset)
* U-Boot: Added serial out via USB (ideal for debugging when trying to port new OSes to the Pandora)
* MiniMenu: Added automatic Refresh on SD Card insert and quick navigation using keyboard letters
* Battery-Settings: LED now starts blinking at 10% and shuts down at 5%. The previous values were too short.
* Bugfix: op_fbrunapp had some problems with command line parameters. That's now fixed.
* Services: Removed unneeded services from Startup - also services most users don't need (like dropbear, samba, etc.) They can be re-enabled with the new Startup-Settings
* Startup-Settings: Added enabling / disabling services
* New: Added Mass Storage mode via Mini-USB (can be enabled in the System-Menu)
* Automount: Now using Label names (if the card has one) instead of mmcblk*
* Automount: Now using Dirsync instead of sync with 2s Buffer flush. This increases SD Write speed A LOT. However, be sure to wait at least 2 seconds before removing your SD Card after you saved data
* Not yet fixed: PNDs will not run if they have a space in the filename or path (do not use spaces in your SD-Card labels for now!)
* pnd_run-Script: Changed a few things to make it compatible with spaces in filenames (still needs some other fix). Thanks to Ivanovic.
* Bluetooth-Script: Fixed save / restore settings on startup (thanks to urjaman)

Click to download

http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php...dpost&p=885599 ...

Newly released for Pandora



Sega Master System and Game Gear emulator. Beta release, not fully optimised.

Dega: "You can use this software freely as long as you don't use it commercially."

Master System image courtesy of "Rlan" used according to GNU Free Documentation License. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ms1v1.png

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/...0,0,0,0,71,131 ...

The following Documents have been submitted and approved to the database (in submitted order oldest to newest):

PlayStation Video Format (STR) (File Formats)
How to encode quality Playstation videos (Miscellaneous)
Various Saturn Hacking Docs (Miscellaneous)
Displaying a 2BPP Tile (Graphics Hacking)
Stat growth (Source Code)
Metroid Source Code Expanded (Assembly)
Megaman Xtreme Graphics Decompressing (Assembly)
Pharaoh Man AI (Assembly)
GBA “Sappy” sound engine information (Game Specific)
Power-Up Card Data Doc (Game Specific)

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/inde...pic,11072.html ...

The Lavalit Team have released a new version of Openbor for Consoles,Wii, PSP, Dreamcast, Dingoo, Gp2x and Wiz.

OpenBOR is a continuation of Beats Of Rage originally created by the wonderful
folks over at http://www.senileteam.com


History
----------------------
As fans of the 'Streets of Rage' series that originally appeared on the SEGA
megadrive/genesis, we always wanted to see streets of rage 4. But the waiting
proved futile, and streets of rage 4 never came. That's why we tried to correct
this mistake and fill the void by making the ultimate tribute to Streets of Rage:
Beats of Rage!!


Development
----------------------
Beats of Rage was created by Senile Team. However, the character sprites and
some parts of the backgrounds are taken from 'the King of Fighters' games by
SNK Playmore. Therefore special thanks go out to SNK Playmore and SEGA who
unknowingly helped in creating this game.

Beats of Rage and OpenBOR are a free, fully functional game, which includes
music, and features six playable levels plus a bonus level. It is available
for many systems

Author: plombo

Log message:
Merged more code from AnotherOne's Symbian port.

...

The Lavalit Team have released a new version of Openbor for Consoles,Wii, PSP, Dreamcast, Dingoo, Gp2x and Wiz.

OpenBOR is a continuation of Beats Of Rage originally created by the wonderful
folks over at http://www.senileteam.com


History
----------------------
As fans of the 'Streets of Rage' series that originally appeared on the SEGA
megadrive/genesis, we always wanted to see streets of rage 4. But the waiting
proved futile, and streets of rage 4 never came. That's why we tried to correct
this mistake and fill the void by making the ultimate tribute to Streets of Rage:
Beats of Rage!!


Development
----------------------
Beats of Rage was created by Senile Team. However, the character sprites and
some parts of the backgrounds are taken from 'the King of Fighters' games by
SNK Playmore. Therefore special thanks go out to SNK Playmore and SEGA who
unknowingly helped in creating this game.

Beats of Rage and OpenBOR are a free, fully functional game, which includes
music, and features six playable levels plus a bonus level. It is available
for many systems

Author: plombo

Log message:
Merged more code from AnotherOne's Symbian port.

...

The Lavalit Team have released a new version of Openbor for Consoles,Wii, PSP, Dreamcast, Dingoo, Gp2x and Wiz.

OpenBOR is a continuation of Beats Of Rage originally created by the wonderful
folks over at http://www.senileteam.com


History
----------------------
As fans of the 'Streets of Rage' series that originally appeared on the SEGA
megadrive/genesis, we always wanted to see streets of rage 4. But the waiting
proved futile, and streets of rage 4 never came. That's why we tried to correct
this mistake and fill the void by making the ultimate tribute to Streets of Rage:
Beats of Rage!!


Development
----------------------
Beats of Rage was created by Senile Team. However, the character sprites and
some parts of the backgrounds are taken from 'the King of Fighters' games by
SNK Playmore. Therefore special thanks go out to SNK Playmore and SEGA who
unknowingly helped in creating this game.

Beats of Rage and OpenBOR are a free, fully functional game, which includes
music, and features six playable levels plus a bonus level. It is available
for many systems

Author: plombo

Log message:
Merged more code from AnotherOne's Symbian port.

...