Not only is it not EOL for the N-Gage (remember: it still exists), but there’s some word on the street (more like back alley, but hey) about the specs for its possible next revision. A lot of the alleged features tip into some obscure hardware mumbo-jumbo that we can’t guarantee either ArcadeStation or perhaps even Nokia just invented out of thin air (you know how we love these purely speculative rumors), but click on for the run-down regardless.




OMAP Full Compatibility
90-nm CMOS System-on-a-Chip OMAP2420
330-MHz Central Core with Floating Point Unit ARM1136JS-F
220-MHz Digital Signal Processor for Audio TMS320C55x
Video Playback and Image Display Imaging Video Accelerator
VGA 30-fps Encode/Decode Full-Motion Video
2D/3D Graphics Accelerator with SIMD Co-Processor PowerVR MBX with VGP
TBDR (Tile Based Deferred Rendering)
200Mhz clock speed
640x480 VGA Resolution
360Mpixels, 2xOverdraw = 720Mpixels, 3xOverdraw = 1.08Gpixels
ITC™ - PowerVR Internal True Colour - 32-Bit Blending and Depth Test Precision Independent from Buffer Depth
FSAA4Free™ - Supersampling Full-Screen Anti-Aliasing With No Performance Lose
DOT3 Per-Pixel Lighting Support
Spherical Harmonics Lighting Support
Bilinear, Trilinear, Anisotropic Texture Filtering Support
Vertex Shader 1.1 Programmability with Skinning
Curved Surface Processing with Fractional Tessellation and Support for Differing Levels-of-Detail on Neighboring Patch Edges
PVR-TC (PowerVR Texture Compression)
Multi-Texturing
Fully Programmable 3D T&L (Transform & Lighting)
Over 2.5M-tri/sec ...

News from Lik Sang

Datel announced their first product for the Nintendo DS. The Action Replay Duo goes into the GBA slot of your GBA or your Nintendo DS and comes with a USB link and a Windows Software. The product is supposed to be out in a couple of weeks.

Here is some info from Datel about the device including screenshots:

This cool device slots into your GBA or the GBA slot of your DS and enables you to access cheats and manage game saves. It comes with a PC application which you can use to download cheats and saves from the CodeJunkies server to be transferred to your DS or GBA. Isn't it annoying how GBA carts usually only have room for one game save? Well, with Action Replay Duo you can back up your GBA and DS saves to the Action Replay vault itself, or on your PC. Great if you share your GBA or DS with your friends.

We'll have more detailed info on Action Replay Duo when it's released (within a couple of weeks), but in the meantime, why not feast your eyes on a selection of screenshots from the PC Application and the devices on screen display

...

You can always rely on Katamari Damacy to shine a bit of mental sunlight on even the dullest day, so news that the little lozenge-headed extraterrestrial could be rolling onto DS has us breaking out the tanning lotion.
Appropriately, word of Katamari's DS debut has entered our lives in extremely inconspicuous form. In a list of upcoming DS games published in official US mag Nintendo Power Katamari nestles quietly amongst other, previously announced Namco games like Baten Kaitos, Xenosaga and Pac 'n Roll.

If you were feeling minty you could draw comparisons between the way Katamari himself sneaks onto Earth unnoticed before tumbling himself into a sticky ball of cataclysmic proportions. Which is what we'd like to see happen with the DS game, obviously.

Of course, the PS2 version of Katamari Damacy has never yet received a release in the UK, so we shouldn't get hopes up too high. Still, the slightly less than commercially viable (although undisputedly fantastic) premise of the game would suit the DS better than a home console and the touchscreen would be perfect for Katamari's roly-poly action. And wi-fi multiplayer? Lovely.
We've been in touch with Nintendo to enquire about the DS version of Katamari but no information is available at present. Fingers crossed on this one.

Also appearing in Nintendo Power's extensive list of upcoming games are GoldenEye: Rogue Agent from EA and Age of Empires 2, which is a port of the Microsoft PC original being developed by Majesco.

Unfortunately, GoldenEye is not a straight port of the N64 original, as rumoured last year when EA announced the game. Wishful thinking, that. Rather, it's a DS-specific port of the rehashed GoldenEye that EA unleashed on home console before Christmas, and it's due this summer.

The touchscreen will act as your controller, Metroid Prime-style, as well as displaying status info and letting you trigger your GoldenEye's special powers. Wireless multiplayer for up to seven players is also confirmed.

Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings is a slightly tweaked conversion of the PC original and should bring a much-needed dose of strategy to DS. The action will be turn based rather than real-time, with the top screen being used for status info while the bottom screen displays maps and battles. Touchscreen controls are promised so you can literally craft the future of your nation with your fingers.

DS games bonanza or what? Expect Age of Empires 2 and hope for Katamari Damacy DS before the end of the year ...

Imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery. So should Sony therefore be flattered that Microsoft is looking into the potential of an EyeToy-like device for Xbox 2? Probably.
News of camera action on Microsoft's next console has come via a recent Bloomberg News interview conducted with Microsoft Vice President and XNA Chief Architect, J Allard.

According to reports, Allard spoke to Bloomberg News of a camera situated on top of television sets that would allow players to control games with body movement, the device rivalling Sony's EyeToy.

Allard admitted that Microsoft is "trying to take some learnings from what our competition has done with cameras that let players control games," also saying that: "We've got a couple of those answers. We're going to turn that into a couple of solutions."

Microsoft is widely expected to unveil Xbox 2 at E3 in May so, should that occur, we'll no doubt learn more about these "couple of solutions" then. ...

The Nintendo DS's upcoming online gaming service will be run in conjunction with GameSpy, will be free to DS owners, and will be simple for developers to exploit, according to the latest issue of Nintendo Power.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata spoke candidly about the birth of an online DS multiplayer service at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco recently, but concrete details about how the system will actually work have been thin on the ground.

However, Nintendo Power, the official Nintendo magazine in the States, has managed to shed a little more light on the issue. The GameSpy connection (you may be familiar with GameSpy's PC gaming networks) is proclaimed as being "simple to set-up" and should offer a "seamless experience for players."

DS owners all over the world will be able to connect to the service for free, so long as they are within range of a wireless internet hotspot. These are springing up in public places like cafes and stations. Wireless internet in the home should also allow you to play DS online.
Game finding and matchmaking should be included, making playing DS games online as easy as getting within range of a hotspot, logging onto the service, and kicking international ass.

Iwata-san also promised that the jump from wi-fi multiplayer to wireless online multiplayer would be easy for developers, suggesting that the technology used will be extremely similar. Online DS dev kits are expected to reach developers before E3 in May.

So we can expect to see loads of DS game enabled for online play relatively early. In terms of new online titles, Iwata-san showed off Animal Crossing DS during his GDC keynote speech. With online trading and village-visiting in the mix, AC is expected to be the service's flagship title.

Nintendo has also suggested a similar service is in the works for its upcoming next-gen machine, the Revolution. The DS service may well serve as a 'test run' for the home console's online gaming network.

A spokesperson for Nintendo declined to expand on the DS's online service. "Nintendo expects to reveal more at E3," they said.

The DS online service is expected to roll out before the end of this year. ...

Tyne posted a new patch for his Quake brawling mod in this DCEmulation topic. Here's what's new:

- Blood is better looking, way better looking and is now 2D based and spills on the ground
- Added angular checks to some of Vigil's animations (do a headsmash on sloped ground for example)
- New graphical effect, speed lines have been implemented ...

Franxis has released a new version of his Mame Port to the GP32, heres whats new:

Here it is MAME GP32 1.1:

- Support for Williams games into a separate FXE file (mwilliams.fxe) (19 new romsets): blaster, bubbles, bubblesr, colony7, colony7a, defcmnd, defence, defender, joust, joustr, joustwr, lottofun, robotron, robotryo, sinista1, sinista2, sinistar, splat, stargate.
- Screen Correction fixes (Slap Fight, Tiger Heli, Twin Cobra...)
- Optimizations in sound library.
- Sound volume increased.
- Sound panning volume corrected.
- Minor optimizations.
- START+SELECT during game = Reset game (i.e. is needed to start Williams games)
- L+R in the selection menu = Reset GP32
- Fire with START button when screen is rotated
- Analog controls emulated (i.e. for Return of the Jedi)
- Second joystick emulated with joypad
- YM3812 emulator is always activated with sound ON. Removed option "Sound ON+YM3812".
- Palette Intensity Bit set to 0

Download Here. ...

PhoenixRising and Lynx have released a neato little demo for the Nintendo DS:

http://www.dspassme.com/demos.shtml

Emulator and PassMe versions above. ...

This is a reminder to the current PD Roms Coding Competition #3. The theme based compo is all around "shooters". There are lots of prizes and everyone who submits an entry will already recieve a small prize Now there are three weeks left, enough time to still start an entry!

Allowed are: Gameboy Classic, Gameboy Color, Intellivision, Neo Geo Pocket Classic, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Odyssey 2, Wonderswan Classic, Wonderswan Color, Game Gear, NES, Master System, Pokemon Mini, Watara Supervision, Gameboy Advance, Megadrive, GP32, PC Engine, SNES, Dreamcast, Arcade Hardware (NeoGeo, NeoGeo CD, CPS1, Sega 32x).

http://www.pdroms.de/pdrc3-rules.php ...