via Gadgetell

This Shenzhen Mymedia PMP, created by Game King, combines portable media with Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance and other Game Boy devices. As if looking like a Game Boy weren’t enough, it can actually play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games!

In addition to Game Boy games, it also supports 8-bit FC/NES. Now onto the PMP part of the player, it supports both video and audio. For video, MPEG-4 and AVI formats at 25fps; for audio, MP3, WMA, AMR, WAV, PCM and ADPCM audio files. Other formats include JPEG, GIF, BMP images and TXT. An unusual feature is that it can playback audio in male or female voices with 8 different sound effects. It can also act like a voice recorder and a mass storage device.

Additionally, it sports a 2.5 TFT LCD screen with a resolution of 320×240. It comes in a few different models including 512Mb, 1GB and 2GB, it can also be expanded by SD slot for an additional 2GB. However, no word on pricing or availability as of yet.

...

via IGN

It's been revealed the version of Manhunt 2 that the British Board of Film Classification turned down earlier this week in the UK, is exactly the same as the revised edition that's been granted a mature rating by the ESRB in North America.

This revelation comes from UK trade magazine MCV during an interview with BBFC spokeswoman Sue Clark. She defends the board's decision saying that the organisation isn't any tougher on videogames than it is on movies. "Manhunt 2 is the second game we have rejected in 23 years. I'd hardly call that draconian," she said.

Clark also responded to Rockstar's criticisms that the decision was 'unacceptable' and that adults should be able to make decisions for themselves. "DVD companies don't complain when we reject their products. The creator of the Struggle In Bondage didn't get up in arms. Manhunt 2 went beyond our guidelines when it came to gross violence and we had a public duty to reject it," she added.

Rockstar must now wait to hear a decision from the Video Appeals Committee, which will decide whether or not the game can be released in the UK. ...

via IGN

Today PopCap Games announced it will bring two Greatest Hits compilations to retail: one for the PlayStation 2 and one for the Xbox 360. PopCap began offering online casual games for free and paid download, and the company's games now appear on other services like Xbox Live Arcade and mobile phones.

PopCap Arcade Volume 1 for the 360 will include Bejeweled 2, AstroPop, Feeding Frenzy, and Zuma for $29.95. Each of these games goes for 800 Microsoft Points ($10) on the Arcade, so Volume 1 will save you a bit of cash.

PopCap Hits Volume 1 for PlayStation 2 includes just Bejeweled 2 and AstroPop for $19.95. This will be the first time any PopCap games are available on the PS2.



"We've had tremendous success at retail with the PC versions of many of our games, and these new collections for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 are priced even more aggressively, so they should be a hit with holiday shoppers," said Glenn Drover, Director of Retail Sales at PopCap. ...

DJGeki uploaded a video of Donk: Samurai Duck, the upcoming commercial game for Dreamcast by Cryptic Allusion (of Feet of Fury fame). The video shows the gameplay, check it out now:


Source: Cryptic Allusion Forums ...

via X-bit labs

Plagued by initial production issues, extremely high manufacturing costs and excessive retail price, PlayStation 3 from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is even less successful than heavily-criticized Nintendo GameCube. At least, in the first ten months of sales Nintendo GameCube was sold in larger quantities than Sony PS3.

According to data from NPD, based on the first ten months of availability, the troubled PlayStation 3 sold 22% less than the Nintendo GameCube for the same period, reports GamePro web-site. In the first ten months of availability about 2.12 million Nintendo GameCube were bought by end-users, whereas only 1.742 million Sony PlayStation 3 gaming machines were sold in from November ’06 to September ’07.

Nintendo GameCube was released in November 2001 and sold in 21.6 million quantity worldwide, below sales of Microsoft Xbox, which reached 24 million, and five times less compared to Sony PlayStation 2.



Sony PlayStation 3 is currently available at $599 in the U.S., the price-point that is widely considered to be too high. Despite of the fact that Sony’s PS3 comes with built-in Blu-ray drive and features high-quality graphics games, the price is believed to be one of the major factors that keep gamers away from PlayStation 3. By contrast, Nintendo’s GameCube could offer neither DVD playback, nor high-quality graphics, nor unique motion-sensitive game controller, like that of Nintendo Wii.

Sony PlayStation 3 console is based on the Cell processor developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, the RSX graphics chip by Nvidia Corp., wireless network and Bluetooth connectivity and is equipped with Blu-ray optical disk drive. There are several versions of the consoles available around the world with 60GB or 80GB hard disk drives and variable compatibility with PlayStation 1/2 games. In the U.S. PlayStation 3 80GB is sold for $599, whereas the hard-to-find 60GB model retails for $499. ...

via MCV

Leading industry figures have called on Sony to drop the suggested retail price of PS2 as the console nears the final stages of its hugely successful lifecycle.

The system, which burst onto the market seven years ago, currently holds a suggested retail price point of around £95.
But publisher bosses have told MCV that a cut could entice more family purchases of the console – and its software – this Christmas.

“We’re pleased to see that PS2 has shown such longevity,” said Ubisoft UK MD Rob Cooper.

“It’s already at an attractive price, but a reduction on hardware and software would undoubtedly prove an extremely tempting purchase to the more casual gamer and family member.”

Atari UK MD Jeremy Wigmore added: “Considering all of the financial turmoil going around, anything that might galvanise the market is welcome. A PS2 cut would probably give it a little lift.”

And head of games at HMV Tim Ellis said: “Well-timed price drops, which help stimulate demand without devaluing the appeal of the product, are more often welcome than not. So we can understand why some publishers are suggesting one on PS2.”

However, Sony has ruled out the idea. SCEE UK MD Ray Maguire told MCV: “There are no immediate plans to cut the price. We still think PS2 offers tremendous value for money.

"And, with continued innovative software support from ourselves and our third-party publishing partners, we concur with the comments recently made in MCV about the longevity of the system.” ...

via Wired Blog

Capcom won't be producing as many PlayStation 2 games going forward as it will PlayStation 3 games, president Haruhiro Tsujimoto says.

Speaking to Japan Corporate News Network, Tsujimoto said that the company will develop more games for PS3, even though the legacy market is still "attractive."

Tsujimoto pointed out that the company will pursue a multiplatform development strategy in order to maximize profits; the company's Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5 will be on PS3 and Xbox 360. Capcom also has a broad suite of Wii games in the works, although the article doesn't mention them. ...

New version of the Game Boy Advance/Nintendo DS emulator for PC.

Changelog:

- help: updated gbatek standalone version 2.5 (about one hundred news since 2.3)
- vram viewer: supports extended palettes in bg map windows (eg. magnetica demo)
- nds/help: added ds 3d overview chapter (basics on geometry/rendering engines)
- nds/help: added ds technical data chapter (containing some basic overview)
- nds/help: replaced ds various chapter by new ds memory control/timing chapter
- nds/sound: fixed major unreported bug in 80x86 code sound_bias SWI function
- nds/3d/help: corrected shininess formula (ie. fixed that max cos 2 angle mess)
- nds/3d/help: added caution: specular reflection WON'T WORK on camera rotation
- nds/3d/help: maths basics of vector-by-vector multiply (and purposes thereof)
- nds/3d/softlight: allows light+color nonsense double def (eg castlevania clip)
- nds/3d/softlight: much better light-accuracy, and now supports shininess_table
- nds/3d/softlight: lighting fully calculated by software (without opengl light)
- nds/timing: split timings for nds7 (fast access) and trashy nds9 (slow access)
- nds/timing: split addr_clks_table to CODE/DATA addr_clkc_table/addr_clkd_table
- nds/timing: emulates "half" cycles on 66MHz/nds9 (tcm/cache and n32/2 thumb)
- nds/timing: emulates nds7 exmemstat gba-slot timing bits (like nds9 exmemcnt)
- nds/timing/help: added detailed/tested nds7/nds9 code/data memory-timing chart
- nds/timing/cache: allows more CPU load on bios/mainram when cache is enabled
- nds/timing: emulates shared N32 access time for two NDS9 thumb 16bit opcodes
- cpu/speedup: precalculates opcode-timings on interseg-jumps (usually faster)
- cpu/speedup: faster conditional opcode handling (maybe yet another 3% faster)
- cpu/speedup: thumb: uses 16bit reads (3% faster on non-32bit-aligned addr's)
- cpu/speedup: replaced dumb jmp exec_opcode by exec_opcode_mac (ca. 10% faster)
- cpu/speedup: added more code alignments in cpu-core (not significantly faster)
- nds/help: added note that 66MHz-nds9 actually runs MUCH SLOWER than 33MHz-nds7
- nds/cpu: emulates superslow nds9 memory access time (bios,wram,vram,oam,etc)
- nds/cpu: emulates operand-independend ARM9 multiply time (eg. slow thumb time)
- nds/wram: emulates wramcnt mapping (no idea if it's used by any games though)
- nds/3d: adjusted z-rounding (avoid opengl-clip-plane in club house games demo)
- cpu: emulates cp15-trace-id, debug: disass auto-comments on trace-id and bist
- nds/help: fixed key1 [scratch] writeback lsw/msw are exchanged (thanks simon)
- nds/help: cp15 info on trace-id, bist, cache debug/test, supported cache cmds
- cheat: fixed occassional crash on delete cheat (push/pop) (thanks Hiei Youkai) ...

New version of the Game Boy Advance/Nintendo DS emulator for PC.

Changelog:

- help: updated gbatek standalone version 2.5 (about one hundred news since 2.3)
- vram viewer: supports extended palettes in bg map windows (eg. magnetica demo)
- nds/help: added ds 3d overview chapter (basics on geometry/rendering engines)
- nds/help: added ds technical data chapter (containing some basic overview)
- nds/help: replaced ds various chapter by new ds memory control/timing chapter
- nds/sound: fixed major unreported bug in 80x86 code sound_bias SWI function
- nds/3d/help: corrected shininess formula (ie. fixed that max cos 2 angle mess)
- nds/3d/help: added caution: specular reflection WON'T WORK on camera rotation
- nds/3d/help: maths basics of vector-by-vector multiply (and purposes thereof)
- nds/3d/softlight: allows light+color nonsense double def (eg castlevania clip)
- nds/3d/softlight: much better light-accuracy, and now supports shininess_table
- nds/3d/softlight: lighting fully calculated by software (without opengl light)
- nds/timing: split timings for nds7 (fast access) and trashy nds9 (slow access)
- nds/timing: split addr_clks_table to CODE/DATA addr_clkc_table/addr_clkd_table
- nds/timing: emulates "half" cycles on 66MHz/nds9 (tcm/cache and n32/2 thumb)
- nds/timing: emulates nds7 exmemstat gba-slot timing bits (like nds9 exmemcnt)
- nds/timing/help: added detailed/tested nds7/nds9 code/data memory-timing chart
- nds/timing/cache: allows more CPU load on bios/mainram when cache is enabled
- nds/timing: emulates shared N32 access time for two NDS9 thumb 16bit opcodes
- cpu/speedup: precalculates opcode-timings on interseg-jumps (usually faster)
- cpu/speedup: faster conditional opcode handling (maybe yet another 3% faster)
- cpu/speedup: thumb: uses 16bit reads (3% faster on non-32bit-aligned addr's)
- cpu/speedup: replaced dumb jmp exec_opcode by exec_opcode_mac (ca. 10% faster)
- cpu/speedup: added more code alignments in cpu-core (not significantly faster)
- nds/help: added note that 66MHz-nds9 actually runs MUCH SLOWER than 33MHz-nds7
- nds/cpu: emulates superslow nds9 memory access time (bios,wram,vram,oam,etc)
- nds/cpu: emulates operand-independend ARM9 multiply time (eg. slow thumb time)
- nds/wram: emulates wramcnt mapping (no idea if it's used by any games though)
- nds/3d: adjusted z-rounding (avoid opengl-clip-plane in club house games demo)
- cpu: emulates cp15-trace-id, debug: disass auto-comments on trace-id and bist
- nds/help: fixed key1 [scratch] writeback lsw/msw are exchanged (thanks simon)
- nds/help: cp15 info on trace-id, bist, cache debug/test, supported cache cmds
- cheat: fixed occassional crash on delete cheat (push/pop) (thanks Hiei Youkai) ...