via gibiz

Redesigned handheld sees strong initial sales

Sony has revealed that the recently launch PSP Slim & Lite has sold around 17,000 units on its first week of release in the UK.

The Slim & Lite launched on September 14 and was backed by radio and online advertising campaigns that have helped boost Sony's handheld sales in the run up to Christmas.

"The first week sales have come in at 17,000, so around a four fold increase on the previous week," said a spokesperson for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe.

Earlier this month sales of the PSP were at an all time low according to Chart Track figures, but this was a result of Sony offloading the last of the original PSP stock before the introduction of the new model, said Sony.

"Of course we expected the previous weeks to be low as we moved the old stock through the channel in preparation for the Slim & Lite sku coming into retail, but now we are back on track and preparing for the launch of new products such as Go! Explore and Go Messenger." ...

via gibiz

Microsoft's UK director believes Sony "underestimated" online challenge

Microsoft's Neil Thompson has told GamesIndustry.biz in an exclusive interview that he feels Sony's delay to the Home project is down to the company underestimating the challenges of the platform.

Thompson, senior regional director for the UK and Ireland at Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, said he was disappointed in the delay, but dismissed the idea that a lack of price cut had played into Microsoft's hands in the run-up to Christmas.

"Well, what they announce at TGS and what they decide to do in any given market in time are not necessarily directly aligned, I think. But Sony will be doing things between now and Christmas I'm sure, they can't afford not to really, given the way that that particular business is going for them at the moment."

"But I think one of the disappointing/interesting things I heard from them at the Tokyo Game Show was that they just delayed the [Home] online service delivery again. That's more interesting, because I think they underestimated how challenging it is to deliver this sort of service, and to deliver the elements of the service that consumers really want."

He went on to question whether or not the final product would be quite what Sony had hoped for originally.

"It would be good to see the reality versus what they had on the blueprints - what they wanted to deliver against what they can actually deliver, because I know they generated a lot of interest based on what they said last year."

When asked about the new rumble-enabled Sixaxis controller, Thompson felt that Sony was forced to release products early in order to try and counter the progress of the Xbox 360.

"I think when I went to E3 two years ago, and they were showing a lot of their first PS3 stuff there, it felt to me like they'd rushed a lot of things out because they felt the momentum on 360 was growing at a rapid rate, and they felt they had to come out with something early."

"I think it's fair to say that over the last 12 months or so, it's becoming more and more apparent probably to the market, and Sony are a bright bunch so they'll understand this, but there are certain aspects in the way that they're offering the product out that aren't resonating enough, or perhaps they've inbuilt too much cost in things."

He pointed to Nintendo's work in the area of the original Sixaxis' main selling point, motion-sensing, and praised the way in which the Wii design approached the market.

"Perhaps where Nintendo really did a very clever thing, they went for quite simple innovation, but it was aligned to where certain broad-range consumers' demand was. That's always the tricky thing with technology - not finding out what's technically possible, but what technology consumers will actually want and desire." ...

via /.

News.com has a piece looking at the way that Halo has transformed from game to franchise for Microsoft and the Xbox. Despite the heavy advertising and branded products that seem to be everywhere in anticipation of next week's launch, the company is still trying to keep the IP as pure as possible.
"Microsoft is wary of watering down Halo, meaning it would rather walk away from deals for Master Chief pajamas or Covenant sippy cups. Microsoft had little experience in talking to toymakers and others about how to transfer an onscreen experience to real objects. But such experts exist in the licensing arms of movie studios, so Microsoft partnered with 20th Century Fox to act as the main licensing agent for the Halo brand. Items that did not make the cut were a Halo-themed lottery ticket, lingerie modeled after a female hologram character, and toy guns based on the game's weapons. Instead, fans can expect high-quality action figures from McFarlane Toys, a tabletop game from WizKids, and replica weapons for mature buyers." ...

via /.

The official PlayStation blog is reporting that the petaflop barrier has been crossed by the nodes participating in the Folding @ Home project. The article talks about what this means for computer science, and why this awesome amount of computational power was reachable.
"Just six months after we launched the program, nearly 600,000 PS3 users have registered. Second, we made several improvements to the application (v 1.2) that helped make the computations more accurate and enabled us to squeeze even more work out of each and every PS3 console -- we went from 450 teraflops to 800 teraflops. These factors, combined with the contribution from all the other platforms, helped us cross the barrier, which happened sometime over the weekend." ...

via engadget



For those of you whose salivary glands have been working overtime when thinking about Sony's new Playstation Eye PS3 camera accessory (and we're sure there's at least one or two of you), you better go get a napkin. According to reports, the interactive, VGA cam will be heading out to stores bundled with Hasrbo's RPG / card game The Eye of Judgment on October 23rd, for the shockingly low price of $69.99. No word on whether that bundle will include the EyeCreate editing software, or when / if the Eye will be available on its own. Hey -- you'll probably want the game anyhow. ...

With the success of DCEmu Reviews a site that has its content showing up on our PSP, DS, Wii, PS3 and Xbox360 and the main DCEmu Portal site. I Wanted to create a new Guide/Tutorials site where new guides and tutorials will show up on any of our network sites.

Just like our news where any coders can upload their releases and post releases and WIP News this will be extended to our Guides and Tutorials Site.

We will be accepting Guides and Tutorials for any Console Scene We Cover and the beauty of it is because the creators will be you the DCEmu Members which means that if you please you can update as you want. What this will mean that if all goes well then this new site could be a great help base for the whole Homebrew scene.

The forums are already set up here and you can submit new Guides and Tutorials in our new Submit Tutorials/Guides Forum

The Site is still being worked on but will be ready at the weekend.

So if you have any guides and tutorials for PS3, Wii, Xbox360, PSP, Nintendo DS, GP2X, GBA, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox, Gizmondo, Iphone, iPod, Tapwave Zodiac, GP32, Dreamcast, Sega Saturn and others, then we want them ...

Via pdroms

Sqdef is a tower defense game. The goal is to prevent enemies from getting from one side of the map to the other, by placing towers along their way. There are 9 different buildings, with upgrades, tech research, difficulty levels, and a whole lot of maps to try your defense skills on!

Changes:

- fixed money going negative (thanks prairiefire)
- added status messages to the loading screen
- fixed crash when selecting maps with large hiscores (thanks the_fizk)
- fixed a rounding error when upgrading a turret more levels at a time
- fixed crash when loading a saved game from a map that does not exist anymore
- fixed the cursor not automatically selecting a building after loading a saved game
- fixed crash at the splash screen if you did not skip it in 2-3 minutes (thanks yaustar; that was a weird, weird bug)
- fixed the selling menu appearing too fast after just building the secret tower


See also: http://artraid.com/gp/ohnobetas/sqq/Sqdef_1_1E.zip ...

Via pdroms

A version of Navizon Virtual GPS is now available for the iPhone.

For those of you who are not familiar with this stuff, Navizon is a positioning system that triangulates signals from Wifi access points and Cellular towers. It is based on a collaborative database where users who have a GPS device can contribute data on Cell towers and Wifi APs locations that will let other members of the community simulate a Virtual GPS on their phone.

The best way to install Navizon is through Installer.app (if you have it installed on your iPhone already). You can also download the zip file directly.

This application will be fully functional for 15 days. If you like it, you can purchase it for $24.99. But for those of you who of you who may wonder what this money is used for, it isn't going in the authors pocket. It is used to pay the ones who do the hard work of collecting the data without whom this service wouldn't be possible.

PDRoms Note: This software isn't exactly 100% free, but as the author doesnt make money from it and the money is used to improve the given service, it made it on the main page.

See also: http://navizon.typepad.com/my_weblog...ion-of-na.html ...

Via pdroms

Would you like to jot down notes on your iPhone's gorgeous touch screen? Are you missing a way to sketch a simple diagram as a quick reminder? Will your children like to draw on your iPhone, maybe on top of a picture you shoot with the camera? Sketches is a native iPhone application that will allow you to do all that. Scribble your thoughts quickly, select a picture from your photo album to draw notes on top, or shoot a photo of your friend just for the sake of putting a moustache on her face You can even erase your drawing by shaking your iPhone, as if it were an etch-a-sketch!

Release notes:

Sketches 0.2 alpha already allows you to draw on the screen, select a picture from the photo album or shoot a photo to draw on top of it. It will save your work automatically, unless you clear it using the button or shaking your iPhone like an etch-a-sketch. You can draw full-screen: the UI will hide when you tap on the screen.

Future releases will include many improvements, such as the ability to select pencils and colors, a library of stationary to use for your background, geometric shapes, complex shapes (stamps), saving your work to the photo library (so that you can synchronize back to your computer), and many other ideas we will be thrilled to develop.


See also: http://sketches.latenitesoft.com/Home.html ...