DCEmu Homebrew Emulation & Theme Park News
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by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:34- Categories:
- PS3 News
If you've been marathoning a new favorite TV show on Netflix recently you may have noticed that on the PlayStation 3 (above) and browser-based (after the break, along with a quick demo video) players it's got a new tweak. At the end of each episode as the credits roll it pops up a quick (and very basic cable TV post movie-like) prompt with info about the the next episode and, unless you select a particular viewing option, search or go back to browsing, keeps right on playing. For movies, it pops up three similar recommendations instead. This "post-play" experience takes a couple of remote presses out of long viewing sessions, and on Netflix's end probably makes it easier for folks to choose to sit through "one more episode" and keep those viewing hours boosted.
On the other hand, not every one likes the automation, either here or on the Xbox 360 app. Whether that's because viewers need an emotional pause after a particularly gripping episode of Lost or they -- and by they, we mean this blogger in particular -- tend to doze off mid-episode, the good news is that every other episode it prompts the user if they want to keep playing before moving on. Like every other tweak or announcement even this move will probably be debated amongst viewers, feel free to dive into the lone season of Terriers in the name of research before letting us know if you're a fan.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/n...-play-ps3-web/ ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:32- Categories:
- DCEmu
Students today can catch high-quality video on a variety of screens -- computers, phones and tablets are probably always within reach -- but nothing can truly replace a TV's role as the center of entertainment. Whether it's a quick Madden or Call of Duty session, inviting a friend over to catch a flick or just zoning out after class, having the proper setup makes all the difference, and there are plenty of options at every price point. Of course, walking into any big-box electronics store to peer down aisles of seemingly identical flat screens could drive anyone mad before they ever step on campus, so we've narrowed down the list for you, and even suggested a few other items to plug into those HDTVs. Expanding feature sets and universal pricing have raised average prices a bit over last year, but we can find something to fit whether your budget ranges from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand dollars.
On the cheap
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/15/b...ol-guide-hdtv/ ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:22- Categories:
- Wii U News
Our staff weighs in on the fate of Nintendo's upcoming Wii U launch
Nintendo
nintendo-europe.com
Nintendo's launch of the Wii U this holiday season will be one of the most interesting hardware launches to watch in the venerable company's long history. Both the economy and the games industry landscape have changed tremendously since the Wii was launched back in 2006. Consumers have less money to spend (or just don't want to spend as much) and there are now more options than ever, with the rise of smartphones, tablets, social and free-to-play. On top of that, price cuts and/or bundles are almost certainly on the way for Xbox 360 and PS3.
Nintendo in some ways caught lightning in a bottle with the Wii, and as the saying goes, lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Even the top brass at the company would fully admit that repeating the success of the Wii is a daunting task, to say the least.
One of the keys for the Wii U will be to engender strong third-party support - a feat that has always been difficult for Nintendo platforms, where first-party dominates sales and consumers' interest. While there are plenty of Wii U announcements to come still, the third-party software shown thus far has mostly failed to impress. With Batman: Arkham City as the third-party highlight for Nintendo at E3, and more recently, EA Sports confirming that the Wii U version of Madden 13 will be missing key features that 360/PS3 versions have (including physics), it's hard to be encouraged.
Moreover, just last week, Warner Bros. announced Game Party Champions for Wii U, an assortment of sports or arcade-style games. Is this actually the Wii U's destiny... either 360/ PS3 ports or casual fare of the sort the Wii was flooded with? Is this how third parties truly see the Wii U? And if so, how can this be anything but terrible news for the Wii U's prospects in a challenging market?
GamesIndustry International's writers share their thoughts in the roundtable below.
Dan Pearson
I think it's probably far too early to make a judgement call on this. If there's one thing Nintendo does consistently, it's to surprise those who've spelled out its doom. Having said that, software is obviously key to success, but I'm not sure that third-party is going to be what attracts buyers.
"What matters now is whether all of those millions of households with a Wii festering in a cupboard under the stairs will fall for it again"
Dan Pearson
Until Nintendo started hitting the 3DS with its incredibly valuable first-party IP, it was going nowhere. Labelled as overpriced and based on a gimmick, the handheld was underselling enormously. One Zelda, a couple of Marios and the odd Yoshi later and it's hit its stride magnificently, powering ahead of competition across the globe.
So yes, we'll see more of the same from Nintendo - they'll likely never stop iterating their solid-gold franchises - but they will sell, and they will sell systems. Games like Assassin's Creed III and Madden might sell a few, but I doubt anyone who really wants to get them early will wait for the Wii U version. Even more so for Call of Duty or Battlefield.
Third-party minigame collections and dance or exercise titles may review poorly and be labelled as shovelware, but they populate the system with titles you can't get elsewhere, playable in ways they wouldn't be on other systems. What matters now is whether all of those millions of households with a Wii festering in a cupboard under the stairs will fall for it again.
Steve Peterson
Yes, it certainly looks like the third-party support for the Wii U is weak, consisting so far mostly of ports and casual/party games (the interesting ZombiU and gorgeous Pikmin 3 notwithstanding). We shouldn't really be surprised; Nintendo has traditionally not worked very hard at lining up third-party support for their consoles because publishers were eager to put titles out for Nintendo's industry-leading hardware. By the time the Wii launched, Nintendo was no longer the console leader, and publishers mostly gave it perfunctory support.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...pport-it-needs
...by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:21- Categories:
- Playstation Vita News
The president of Worldwide Studios talks about what's next for Vita
Shuhei Yoshida is the affable, approachable face of Sony. The president of worldwide studios is often seen sitting quietly in his own company's presentations, looking more like an interested fan than a whip cracker, earning a reputation as one of the good guys amongst journalists and fans alike.
He's also a happy interviewee, or always has been when the sun has shone for Sony. Catching up with him today at Gamescom, during a period when Sony is under heavy fire from a lot of angles, it was hard to know what to expect from the usually chatty executive. Would the generally positive response to last night's conference have him relaxed, or was it time to don the corporate armour and deflect a few of the more pointed questions? Read on to find out what sort of mood he was in.
Q: The conference yesterday seemed to be well received. What was your agenda? What message did you want to communicate?
Shuhei Yoshida: Our focus was to feature PS Vita. One big criticism we got from E3 was where's the PS Vita, where are the PS Vita games? We spent too little time talking about it, so that was a big focus going into Gamescom.
We were very happy to announce five new titles from Worldwide Studios, as well as the new Ratchet & Clank game - so that's six new titles. PS Vita, PS3, Move, PSN, they all got new titles, so we were able to cover all of the initiatives that we have
Q: Sony has quite a range of products and initiatives now, so it must be difficult to make sure your messaging is strong across all of them.
Shuhei Yoshida: That's fair to say. But we have a lot of development employees at Worldwide Studios, so we should be able to support all of those platforms and initiatives. It's our job to makes sure that our resources are allocated well to give that support.
"We're getting really good feedback from the media and consumers...about the hardware features, as well as the games that try to take advantage of each new input method."
Q: Has the Vita suffered in that respect? It's very impressive hardware, but it can do so many things that making sure people understood it struck me as a key challenge.
Shuhei Yoshida: We're getting really good feedback from the media and consumers...about the hardware features, as well as the games that try to take advantage of each new input method. With that feedback, our developers can be smarter about how to use the new features the Vita offers.
Q: Is the Vita as popular as it should be?
Shuhei Yoshida: In terms of the reactions of the people who have already bought the Vita, we're very happy. They are happy with the hardware. In terms of the sales, we'd definitely like to see more. There are millions of people we're sure will enjoy playing PS Vita games. Our job now is to decipher what's preventing these people from making the jump. Our priority right now is definitely to bring more content.
Q: Is that why the Vita hasn't sold as well as you'd like? A lack of content and services?
Shuhei Yoshida: Yeah. The good thing is that the one thing we can't change is the hardware features, but they are very well regarded by people. But in terms of new content and new system and service features, we can add that, and we can work with third-parties to get more. We're getting a very good feeling when we talk with third-parties companies, and of course we're developing our own titles. And for the people who are hoping that the PS Vita becomes more affordable, we are creating new bundles and adding new value to the package. We're hoping that this Christmas more people will jump over to the Vita.
"For the people who are hoping that the PS Vita becomes more affordable, we are creating new bundles and adding new value to the package."
Q: It was good to see new IP being launched so late in the console cycle. A lot of publishers claim that's next to impossible.
Shuhei Yoshida: Well, it's true that when new hardware launches it's a really great time to launch a new IP, because people are more willing to try out something new. The library is also more limited, so the IP gets more attention from consumers. But that doesn't mean that there's no way to launch new IP later in the cycle: looking back on PS2, we launched God of War and Guitar Hero late in the cycle, and they had a very significant impact.
Q: With a game like The Last of Us, is Sony demonstrating just how much potential could still be mined from the PS3 hardware?
Shuhei Yoshida: That could be the difference with a company like us: our developers can totally focus on one platform and really go deep into what it can offer, but third-party publishers have to create for multiple platforms.
Q: Does the Vita play a part in that for Sony? The conference featured several announcements around ways the Vita and PS3 can work in tandem. That was suggested with the PSP, but it never really took off.
Shuhei Yoshida: The PSP wasn't really powerful enough to do much. We had the Remote Play function with the PS3 and PSP, and that was technically very advanced in terms of concept, but from ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:17- Categories:
- Android News,
- Apple iPhone
The handheld video games market is being killed off by the smartphone sector, metrics firm Flurry Analytics believes.
It claims that in 2009 the iOS and Android games software market accounted for 19 per cent of the total $2.7bn handheld and mobile games market in the US. In 2001 it claimed a 58 per cent share of the $3.3bn market.
"It's really sort the biggest content revolution that we've ever seen,” Flurry’s EMEA MD Richard Firminger told a GDC Europe audience, as reported by Gamasutra. “It's exciting and it shows that indies can kill a very, very established market."
The claims come after Sony wowed Gamescom last night with a presentation packed with original ideas that focused very heavily on the struggling Vita handheld.
However, all the creativity in the world may still fall short of what’s required to even begin challenging the iPhones and Androids of this world.
Crucially, both Vita and 3DS fall short of smartphone gaming in three key areas.
Firstly, portability: A smartphone user nearly always has their phone to hand. It’s in their pocket or unobtrusively sitting in their handbag. It’s there, it’s small, it’s always in use and its convenient. Carrying a second, larger dedicated gaming device is always a choice and not a default.
Secondly, accessibility: Smartphones are arguably the most user friendly devices on the market. Give a smartphone to a child and they can use it, as if by instinct. Give them a joypad and you get a very different reaction.
Thirdly, and most crucially, content: Whether you’re accessing the internet, reading your emails or browsing the App Store, smartphones are easy and they’re fast. Furthermore, the content is either free or comparatively very cheap. Sony and Nintendo can focus on “snack sized” game development all they like – this will never be replicated on systems designed around physical storage cards and triple-A software catalogues.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/smart...r-seen/0101304 ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:14- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Resident Evil is going through an identity crisis.
Resident Evil 4 remains the series’ critical high point. Atmospheric and creepy, it was Capcom at its finest and was worshiped by critics (Metacritic score: 96) and fans alike. Resident Evil 5, on the other hand, played down the horror in favour of action set-pieces and co-op gameplay. Still very good, but not exactly what fans had come to expect (its Metacritic was 84).
So what exactly is Resident Evil 6? A survival horror? An action shooter? Or something new entirely?
Well, actually, it is all three.
RESIDENT CARE
“When we looked at Resident Evil 5, we reached a great number of sales but there were comments from fans that said it was too action based, they wanted a return to the old Resident Evil,” says Michael Pattison, Capcom’s SVP marketing North America and Europe.
“I think the developer took a lot of that to heart. When we went into the RE6 planning, we did a very deep post-mortem on RE5. We obviously want Resident Evil to reach the maximum number of consumers, but we’re never going to take out the heart of Resident Evil.
“It’s important that we retain that fan base because they are the core of the sales. They define what that product is. We look to just tick as many boxes as possible and I sat down with a checklist from a marketing perspective on where we should go and the developers came back with exact same list. They’ve almost over-delivered in that respect where you’ve got the three different storylines each offering something unique to different types of fans and newcomers to the franchise.”
Resident Evil 6 launches on October 2nd and features three separate (although interlinking) stories. The first, featuring Leon S Kennedy of Resident Evil 2 and 4, is the traditional survival horror that fans have been calling out for. Chris Redfield’s story (of Resident Evil, RE:?Code Veronica and RE5) is more action packed, with lots of hiding behind cover and shooting. Meanwhile a third storyline, starring new hero Jake Muller, is something entirely different, with intense chases, dramatic set-pieces (akin to Uncharted) and melee-based combat.
And then there’s various multiplayer options, a Mercenaries mode, the chance to play as the monsters and a fourth story – starring femme fatale Ada Wong – that can be unlocked when the game is finished. It is probably the biggest and most ambitious shooter out this Christmas.
“It’s a way to try to satisfy everyone,” adds Pattison. “You can be concerned sometimes when you go out to try and satisfy everyone that you end up satisfying no one. But I truly believe that we’re going to satisfy the largest audience than we ever have with this franchise.”
Retail clearly agrees. Last week MCV asked our Retail Advisory Board to pick their top games for Q4, and aside from the obvious Call of Duty and FIFA, Resident Evil 6 was the only game to be picked by every respondent – High Street specialists, online retailers and supermarkets. And these are the companies that will play a crucial role in how big Resident Evil 6 becomes.
Pattison adds: “The environment is tough, particularly at retail. I think we’re in an interesting phase between retail and digital. I don’t think the world is ready for complete download takeover. We absolutely still need retail. And looking at the line-ups, not just from Capcom, there’s some bloody good games coming. You can’t all be doom and gloom.”
HORROR SHOW
The reveal of Resident Evil 6 was notable for being unlike anything that Capcom has done before. Rather than revealed on stage at E3 or Gamescom, the game was first teased with a viral campaign before a trailer – depicting an almost finished game – was shown to the public in January. Capcom even announced a released date. This was more akin to an Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty announcement.
“Historically we’ve been wedded to physical events,” says Pattison. “We’ve got a lot of good marketers at Capcom who understand social media and can use those tools to reach a large audience. It took a while to convince our Japanese colleagues that we didn’t need somebody on stage, standing up in front of all the press making an announcement, that we could actually do this via YouTube and via the social networks and spend some money around it.
“Recently, we’ve seen that people are trending more towards fewer, bigger hits rather than long campaigns. That’s something we really took on board with RE6, to have something engaging to say and we want to do that every time we say something about the product.”
In fact, Pattison feels that long-running campaigns can be off-putting. “If you’re just on repeat, showing the same things all the time, people get weary, particularly if it’s a long protracted campaign. People have shorter attention spans these days so you’ve got to go in hard and have something exciting to say.”
MOVIE MAGIC
It is a big year for Resident Evil. RE6 is the third new Resident Evil game out this year ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 23:12- Categories:
- PC News
Three big PC brands are spearheading Ubisoft’s push into free-to-play.
The firm told MCV at Gamescom in Germany that it can use core games brands with freemium models to attract new audiences. The Ghost Recon, Might & Magic and Anno series are first up.
At Gamescom this week, the firm announced that a freemium version of city-builder Anno will launch before the end of the year. Later in 2013 that will be joined by two Might & Magic games, an MMO and an RPG. Lastly, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online has now come out of its closed beta and is open to all players.
“Ubisoft is taking the quality of core games and combining it with the best characteristics of online play,” explained Stephanie Perotti, Ubisoft’s chief operating officer.
She described the firm’s new wave of online games as “titles that will stand out from the crowd”.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ubi-u...y-push/0101320 ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 21:30- Categories:
- PC News
Epic Games says that Unreal Engine 4 is increasingly being adopted by major studios who have traditionally used their own tech as the next generation of hardware approaches.
Speaking to us in Cologne on the eve of Gamescom Mike Gamble, Epic's European territory manager, said that the increased scale of next-generation games had several companies thinking about using Epic's hugely popular engine over the proprietary tech they have used in the past.
"What we're seeing now quite rapidly as we approach new generations is that the guys who use proprietary tech are nearly all now thinking - they all have a decision to make," Gamble said. "Do they continue with their proprietary, or do they go with a proven engine?
"And we're seeing a lot of success in that space - a very surprising success, actually. It's nothing we can actually say yet but there's some people who you'd think, 'Oh my god, who would ever have thought they'd abandon their own technology?"
Gamble admits that there have always been clear advantages to developers using their own technology. Bespoke engines can be honed and tweaked to do exactly what you need them to do, and the resulting games will be visually distinct from games made using a widely available engine, as we've seen this generation with UE3.
"Of course, as you go through transitions, it gets more and more expensive to keep upgrading it," he explained. "And you've got to make sure that it's built and documented in such a way that when staff leave, it can continue, and that's a burden.
"At that point you may as well be thinking about buying, to be honest, because you get all of that as part of it."
All of which begs one obvious question: who could he be talking about? Bungie, perhaps, which under Activision's ownership is working on an ambitious project called Destiny and has already shown its willingness to licensing middleware by using Umbra Software's lighting tech? Maybe Avalanche, the Swedish developer of Just Cause 2 which is hard at work on an ambitious open-world game? Could Capcom, clearly aware of the ageing MT Framework's shortcomings, be looking to reduce development overheads by using a thirdparty engine?
We have no idea, of course, but Gamble's suggestion that some of the game industry's most technically capable companies are leaning towards Unreal Engine is an intriguing one. While it's been long accepted that a new generation of console hardware means increased development time and cost, many of UE4's improvements are aimed at making the game creation process more efficient. With that in mind, perhaps it's not so surprising that big names are prepared to make the switch to Epic's engine.
http://www.edge-online.com/news/epic...l-engine-deals ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 21:10- Categories:
- Playstation Vita News
The message from Sony's Gamescom 2012 press conference couldn't have been clearer: the company is taking Vita seriously. With a new Media Molecule IP, some of PlayStation's biggest franchises, and the arrival of PlayStation Plus and PSOne classics, much of Sony's 80 minutes on stage was devoted to its ailing handheld. Will it be enough to revive Vita's fortunes?
Media Molecule's Tearaway was the highlight, with studio co-founder Alex Evans on stage to reveal the company's first new IP since LittleBigPlanet. It's a 3D adventure starring Iota, a cartoony figure with an envelope for a head who has a message for you, but is stuck in his papery world. Helping him out of his world and into yours is the aim, a simple goal that lays the foundations for inventive uses of Vita's unique features. Rear touch featured heavily, with rhythmic taps on the back panel increasing airtime from trampoline-like jump pads, and stabs replicated on the Vita's screen, human fingers poking through the ground to clear enemies. It looks delightful, and has clearly been designed with Vita's feature-set in mind - AR was also shown off to good effect, the demo closing with the camera pushing up and out of Iota's world and into the Gamescom audience, captured by the Vita's rear camera.
Then came Killzone Mercenary, a Vita exclusive developed by Guerrilla Games using the same engine that powered Killzone 3. However, it seemed that the only justification for SCEE president Jim Ryan's claim that this was "an FPS that could simply not exist on any other platform" was a heavy emphasis on touchscreen melee kills. Guerrilla's hand could certainly be seen in the visuals, the quality of which was put into stark context when Ryan closed the show with a first look at Call Of Duty: Black Ops Declassified.
At E3, Sony had only shown a logo for Call Of Duty's Vita debut, and it seemed the company was trying to get away with it again when Ryan briefly discussed the game partway through his presentation. And having seen it running at last, perhaps that might have been the better option. Looking disctinctly rough around the edges for a game due in November, Declassified's multiplayer is capped at 4v4, and it's being developed by Nihilistic Software, whose last game was Vita's original great shooter hope,Resistance: Burning Skies, and we all know how that went. Despite Ryan's claim that the multiplayer would feature new maps designed from the ground up for Vita, the trailer leant heavily on Black Ops' Nuketown, a tiny map presumably highlighted to offset disappointment at the meagre online player count.
A look at Assassin's Creed Liberation was more positive, though concerns over crowbarred control options remain after heavy emphasis on touchscreen combat and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of protagonist Aveline riding on the back of a crocodile. It's in development at Ubisoft Sofia, and while there's no disputing that both Liberation and Declassified will be two of the biggest names on the Vita shelves at Christmas, neither dispel the notion that Sony's new handheld is repeating the same mistakes as its predecessor, playing host to cut-down versions of major IP farmed out to B-teams.
There was more LittleBigPlanet Vita, with Pete Smith - the man who revealed that Sony lost a potential Limbo exclusive because it wanted the IP - showing off Cross-Controller, using the Vita to play through a specially designed level on PS3, with the Vita showing objects and traps that are invisible on the big screen.
CrossBuy - where buying a game on Vita nets you a copy of the PS3 game, and vice versa - has previously been reserved for downloadable games like Motorstorm RC and Sound Shapes, but is now to be offered on full retail games. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale will lead the charge upon its release in November, with Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time and Ratchet & Clank Q-Force to follow. The PlayStation Plus subscription service, whose appeal to PS3 owners will be further boosted next month with a free download ofRed Dead Redemption, was also confirmed for Vita.
A firmware update due on August 28 will finally bring support for PSOne classics on Vita, though it seems that compatibility will be restricted similar to current PSP support. The update will also bring Cross-Controller implementation and a host of minor tweaks including, at last, the option to control the home screen using buttons as well as the touchscreen.
It was a much, much better showing than Vita got at E3, and even though that's a low bar to clear Sony deserves praise for giving its ailing handheld the support it deserves - and one assumes there's more on the way, too, with its plans for Vita's Japanese recovery coming next month at the Tokyo Game Show. PS3 was hardly ignored, either, with two new announcements from Sony's Japan Studio and the Move-controlled Until Dawn. There was no Vita price-cut, despite predictions, Sony's hardware announcements limited to Black Ops, LBP and PS All-Stars bundles, with the ...by Published on August 15th, 2012 21:08- Categories:
- Apple iPad
John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a thoughtful piece about the design of Apple's smaller iPad, which the company is expected to announce on September 12. Simply shrinking the current iPad's dimensions to a new form factor is unlikely, he says, and the bezel surrounding the display is more likely to be a cross between an iPad and an iPhone. He also discusses evidence of Apple's PR team getting the rumor mill going immediately after the announcement of Google's Nexus 7, and how Apple has probably bet on having a thinner and lighter tablet than Google, rather than worrying about a better display. Quoting:"Apple product designs are true to themselves. Each thing has proportions suited to its own nature. Consider how the iPad doesn’t look like a blown up iPhone. They share a few similar design elements — a family resemblance, if you will — but the proportions are different. The iPad has a thick bezel surrounding all four sides of the display; the iPhone does not. Why? Because you need a place to rest your thumbs while holding an iPad. ... Should not the iPad Mini fall somewhere in between? Not as close to the aspect ratio of its display as the iPad-as-we-know-it, but also not as far away from its display aspect ratio as the iPhone. You might need more thumb-rest room on the sides than you do on the iPhone, but not nearly as much as you do on the full-size iPad. If that assumption is right, the proportions of a 7.85-inch 4:3-aspect-ratio display iPad Mini are likely not the same as the proportions of the 9.7-inch 4:3-aspect-ratio display iPad."
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/0...-the-ipad-mini ...- Search DCEmu
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Catherine: Full Body’s English translation for the Vita