Wired has up a very thoughtful article examining the current anti-violent gaming trends in Germany, and reflecting on their connection to WWII. Article author Bruce Gain discusses some of the history of post-Nazi Germany, and points out how violent games rile politics in that country by reminding it of its past. Says Gain:

via /. ...

2006's rumour that ZX Spectrum 2D shoot-'em-up JetPac is heading to Xbox Live Arcade has re-emerged.

The latest word on the revival of the classic is pointing to the website for USK (the German monitoring organisation of entertainment software) where the product JetPac Refuelled is listed, with Microsoft named as publisher. The game's described as an arcade shoot-'em-up.

A call to Microsoft turned up nothing new and no confirmation on JetPac Refuelled, but with JetPac original being developed by Rare - albeit under the developer's former moniker Ultimate - Play the Game - and the recent news that the developer is to focus on Xbox Live Arcade games, things are starting to add up for a Live Arcade outing.

JetPac was released in 1983 and saw a jet-packed space man attempting to construct a spaceship, fill it with fuel and blast off from a planet surface while under assault from a variety of bizarre enemies.

via cvg ...

Right now it seems to be nothing but good news for Nintendo. At the end of January, the company reported record results for fiscal-year 2006, shortly after raising its profit forecast by 20 percent for the year. Not only that, but the Wii is currently outselling the PlayStation 3 in Japan at a rate of four to one.

But it's not only Nintendo that benefits from this success--peripherals companies are reaping the rewards, too. Tokyo-based Mitsumi Electric, a manufacturer of human-interfacing devices, has raised its net profit forecast for the financial year ending March to 10.2 billion yen (approximately $84.54 million), reports Reuters. The 59 percent rise in the forecast is primarily due to the Mario factory, with results "far above market expectations" on sales of key parts for the DS and Wii.

The company expects sales to top 276 billion yen ($2.27 billion), up from its previous forecast by 15 billion yen ($123 million), and approximately 9 billion yen ($74 million) will come from game components.

Mitsumi, which was founded in 1954, is the maker of Nintendo's motion-detecting controller, and it also makes a variety of peripherals including remote controls, mice, keyboards, and other game controllers.

Mitsumi shares gained 96 percent in 2006, and it also enjoyed a 14.9 percent jump on the Nikkei to 3,090 yen ($25.5).

via gamespot ...

via gamespot

Last year, North Carolina legislators pondered giving companies that make games in the state--like Gears of War developer Epic Games--a 15 percent tax credit for equipment and labor costs. This year the state's lawmakers are considering game-centric legislation of a different sort.

As reported by Game Politics, North Carolina State Senator Julia Boseman introduced Senate Bill 87, which would add violent video games--possibly including the sort made by Gears of War developer Epic Games--to the list of material considered harmful to minors. If it became law, the bill would make it illegal for anyone except a parent or legal guardian to sell, rent, or otherwise expose a minor to a game deemed harmful to minors.

Retailers and arcade operators would not be able to advertise that the games are available or display them except in a separate section of their stores labeled "adults only." Also, all retailers and arcade operators, regardless of whether they carried games that qualified as harmful to minors, would be required to post signs explaining the industry's gaming rating systems.

As for what games would be covered, the law would classify as harmful to minors any game featuring "the realistic visual depiction of serious injury to human beings…" if it was found to fail a modified version of the three-pronged obscenity test. The graphic violence in the game would need "a predominant tendency to appeal to a morbid interest of minors in violence," the violence would have to be "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community concerning what is suitable for minors," and the game would have to lack "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

If it comes to a vote, the bill appears to have a good chance of passing the North Carolina Senate; 29 of the state's 50 senators have signed on as co-authors of the bill. If passed by the Senate, the bill would then need to be passed by the House of Representatives and approved by the governor to become law. If it passes all that, it would go into effect December 1. ...

Phil Harrison on his speach over at DICE 07

via gamespot


So the PSP isnt well suited for Homebrew eh, so the hundreds and hundreds of Homebrew Games, Demos, Emulators and Applications arent suited for the PSP??

Nice to see that Dark ALex and our Homebrew scene got mentioned to the Sony Boss, pity he thinks that the PSP isnt well suited :P

DIGG THIS ARTICLE ...

via gamespot

With the PlayStation 3 supply now steady in North America and Japan and the console's European launch around the corner, people are pondering Sony's next move. Many speculated the electronics giant might tip its hand at the D.I.C.E. summit in Las Vegas. The annual event takes place each February at the sprawling Green Valley Ranch complex, and it draws a select group of elite game-industry glitterati together for an extended weekend of schmoozing and boozing.

Today, Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison sat in front of this high-powered crowd for an "informal" question-and-answer session with Newsweek games correspondent N'Gai Croal. GameSpot is on the scene with live updates of what the affable executive has to say.

10:29: Phil Harrison and N'Gai Croal have taken to the stage, and Croal is making a statement that his questions have not been preapproved by Sony. Harrison's stating that there are two topics that he can't cover--anything related to Sony's stock price and Phil's personal life.

10:31: Harrison is comparing part of Sony's process as an A&R-style process when they choose to work with external developers. They're looking for something exciting, something that has that creative spark, but something that also has commercial potential.

10:32: The next question is about how this relates to developing downloadable games for the PlayStation 3. This is where Sony is seeing some interesting innovation and some interesting risks.

10:34: Phil brought a PlayStation 3 with him, and he's threatening to play MotorStorm if the questions get boring. He's currently showing SingStar for the PS3. It will be out later this spring. As previously announced, the game will work online with the SingStore, an online mode where you can navigate through different album covers, view music video previews, and purchase content for use in the karaoke game. Video downloads appear to be around 38MB. The game will download songs in the background, which gets a cheer from the crowd.

10:36: SingStar will also have downloadable wallpapers for its menu screens and USB camera support. You can save those videos and upload those performances online. Other users will be able to rank your uploaded performance.

10:38: The next question is about the game's user interface. The game will offer various community elements. You'll be able to find users that like the same music as you via the "my SingStar" menus, which is meant to offer MySpace-like social networking within the context of the game. The next question is about the popularity of MySpace and whether that sort of functionality should be integrated on a game level or across the entire system. Harrison claims that we'll start to see more, deeper community functions in the PS3 XMB in the coming weeks and months.

10:41: Now we're moving on to developer support, with the question boiling down to "how does Sony intend to improve its developer support," with the sidecar of "Microsoft's is better." He says that the rumor of most of Sony's developer support coming in the Japanese language only is merely a myth, and that since most of the parts of the PS3 were developed in English-speaking countries, the developer support is primarily in English. He says that Sony has taken a lot of strides to improve, but that there's always more to do. Croal is looking for a specific example, and Harrison points to the nearly 40 games that are available and says that they're adding people internally, as well.

10:43: Now we're moving on to the difficulty involved in developing for the PS3 compared to the relative ease of the Xbox 360. Harrison is talking about how the PlayStation 2 was very difficult to develop for--actually, his word was "voodoo." He says that developing for the Cell chip in the PS3 strikes a good balance between an abstract, tools-driven development experience and that deep, "coding to the metal" path. And that it's a very different process than developing for the competing platforms.

10:47: Moving on, we're now talking about development-kit distribution. The question claims that PS3 dev kits were primarily sent to Japanese developers. Harrison basically says "Nuh-uh!" And that's that. He turns to someone from EA in the crowd and asks him to verify. The man in the crowd says that EA got their kits at the same time, but that they could always use more.

10:52: The next question is about how the PS3 hasn't matched Xbox Live's feature set for its online support. Harrison starts talking about how the PlayStation 3 is continually updated over time and that how the system looks today might not be how the system looks tomorrow. He says that there will be forthcoming announcements regarding the future of the PS3's online features.

10:53: He's now talking up MotorStorm's 12-player online gameplay. So that makes the "how many times will he mention MotorStorm" count up to two. If you're playing the MotorStorm drinking game, drink!

10:54: Sony will be adding deeper online functionality for the PSP later this year.

10:55: Croal ...

Could Apple be getting ready to finally kick those hard drives to the curb and go with flash memory across its iPod lineup? At least one man seems to think so: Prudential Equity Group analyst Jesse Tortora, who compares the swap to Apple's move in 2005 from the 1-inch HDD iPod mini to the NAND flash iPod nano. "Flash memory is clearly more expensive on a $/GB basis than hard disk drives," he says. "However, the late 2005 Nano transition to flash provides a guide as to the point at which the previously mentioned non-cost advantages of flash memory outweigh the cost premium." Apple is in a position to bump its HDD capacities to 120GB thanks to recent advances in perpendicular recording, but while that's great for video capacity, the fact remains you can only get 5.5 hours of video playback out of one of the current models, making additional capacity seemingly a low priority. Tortora sees 32GB as being cost-feasible for later this year, but we'd be surprised to see Apple segment its market with low capacity flash-based video iPods and high capacity HDD-based video iPods, so perhaps they'll manage to swing a 64 gigger by then. Speaking of video iPods, Tortora also claims the next generation of iPods will include an iPhone-esque wide touchscreen, WiFi for Apple TV streaming, and GPS functionality -- something that's been hinted at in certain Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard rumors. Jesse Tortora's track record isn't the greatest, his calls on the iPhone were pretty well off the mark, but the move to flash he details sounds reasonable, and while WiFi and GPS in an iPod seems like a distant dream at the moment, we're sure we could make room in our heart for such functionality.

via engadget ...

via engadget

Sorry everybody, we hate to be the bearers of bad news for you iPhone obsessives, but that iPhone FCC letter dating it at June 15th? It was a hoax. Our eagle-eyed friends over at Phone Scoop noted that the confidentiality agreement document is, in actuality, photoshopped. We looked into the original filing for that new Airport Extreme base station (FCC BCGA1143), which expired January 15th (days after the Airport device was announced), and is so far as we can tell they're wholly identical (save a bit of photo manipulation). That confidentiality agreement outlines a device for use on all the right frequencies for an 802.11a/b/g/n device (5180 - 5240MHz, 5190 - 5230MHz, 5745 - 5825MHz, 5755 - 5795MHz, 2412 - 2462MHz, 2422 - 2452MHz), too, so there's not a whole lot of doubt left. So, to everyone who thought they'd be getting their iPhone this June: sorry, we're all still in the dark on when Apple's going to launch. ...

NJ has also updated his NeoGeo Emulator for the PSP.

Heres the translation by that awesome translation machine google:


Yeah makes no sense to me either but its another great release for the PSP scene.

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