[Thomas Pfeifer] has taken the PPM signal produced by model aircraft wireless controllers, and with an ATMega8, converted the signal to act as a USB joystick. Which means you can now use a standard R/C remote control to fly model aircrafts on your computer. Of course now with PPM decoded you could also use the signal to control any electronic device. Like your mower, iPod, and we’ve even seen remote controlled pellet guns. Catch a video of [Thomas] flying a simulated quadrotor helicopter after the jump.

http://hackaday.com/2010/10/02/rc-ppm-hacked/ ...

Motion-sensing golf game controllers that appeared 20 years before the Nintendo Wii and the 1980s handheld console that operated on solar power are just two of the gems unearthed in this article about retro gaming secrets. Davey Winder has delved into his extensive personal collection of retro hardware to unveil the first handheld console to play '3D games' from 1983, the 'the most realistic "gun" game controller ever produced' from way back in 1972, and the device that offered multiplayer computerized Scrabble almost 30 years before the iPad.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/3615...gaming-secrets

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/1...ore-Their-Time ...

3D games don't crumble under immense CPU hunger: that's "bollocks", MotorStorm maker Matt Southern has said.

"You do need a little bit more processing power, but I don't think it's quite the hit that some people are claiming," Southern said at his Eurogamer Expo 2010 presentation. "That might just be the fact that we've been doing it for years now and have kind of got really optimal code.

"I've seen people say that it takes a huge chunk of the processing power. Bollocks. It takes a little.

"The main thing is drawing the game twice, and if your code's efficient and you've done a decent job of optimisation then it's not going to have a massive effect on visual quality."

Southern is in charge of what will be a flagship 3D title for Sony. He did concede that adding the stereoscopic view does affect resolution as "you're basically drawing the game twice".

"It's a bit like split-screen," he explained, "which is why there's no 3D split-screen, because then it would look like a Spectrum game."

He added: "We're still aiming for 1080p in 3D and split-screen. I say aiming - I'm certainly not going to promise it. But right now it runs in 1080p."

MotorStorm Apocalypse was (and is) playable at the Eurogamer Expo 2010 this weekend. But don't panic if you missed out, because a public beta is planned.

"We'll do a closed one initially that's within a week-and-a-half with Sony staff," said Southern. "And providing that isn't a disaster we'll roll it out one to the public and initially to members of things like MotorStorm Monday.

"People who use the forums a lot will get personal invites and a unique livery for taking part."

MotorStorm Apocalypse takes the off-road series into a destroyed urban cityscape. And with the change in setting has come a change in mentality, and a focus towards this generation's flock of successful action games rather than the apparently dwindling racers.

"What all of those [racers] have in common is an acknowledgement that racing hasn't quite been doing it in this generation," declared Southern

"What we decided to do from a very early stage is taking inspiration from games that are doing it on this generation.

"So that means we've looked very rarely at other racing games and looked a hell of a lot at action games and shooters in particular."

Southern's presentation also revealed an early prototype called Urban Smash, which eventually became the foundation for MotorStorm Apocalypse. A video from 2007 showed buses taking chunks off giant untextured buildings. "Doesn't that look bloody awful," chirped Southern when the video ended.

The game was designed to be "a bit like X-Factor with less bland singing".

MotorStorm Apocalypse will be released exclusively for PS3 in spring 2011. "Not got a finite date yet but it's looking like it's going to be early March," Southern said.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-cpu-evolution ...

The developer behind stereoscopic 3D-enabled racer MotorStorm: Apocalypse has insisted gamers who own a flashy 3DTV will not benefit from an unfair advantage.

In July Sony senior director Mick Hocking described in detail why playing PS3 exclusives Gran Turismo 5 and MotorStorm: Apocalypse in 3D is better.

"You can judge or brake a distance to a corner that much better than you could before," Hocking said.

"You can position your car on a track with greater certainty. You can judge relative speed to the other cars or relative speed to the track better than you could before."

"With this [3D] your brain can pick up more cues from the digital image because there's more information there, because we have depth. We find that players can play this a bit more accurately than they could before.

"For our hardcore, this could mean a competitive edge. Racing simulations, if you can get a better lap time, in shooters, if you can get more kills, this all appeals to our hardcore gamers. Anything that gives them a competitive edge is worth having."

While MotorStorm: Apocalypse's game director Matt Southern admitted 3D makes playing games "more intuitive", he insisted there is no advantage to be gained from it.

"I'd be very keen to stress that that doesn't mean it's unfair on people who don't have a 3D display, which, when we launch is still likely to be the considerable majority of users.

"It does make the racing experience a little more instinctive. Judging racing lines, approaching bends, judging your position in space in relation to the AI or the online opponents, is all that little bit more intuitive and easy to understand.

"The analogy would be, if you're playing a game on a fifty-inch high definition set and someone else is playing it on a CRT with a coat hanger hanging out the back. The analogy essentially works in the same way. The flashier your kit the more flattering it is and the more likely it is to make games that involve understanding and judging the environment a little more intuitive.

"But we're never going to be in a situation where the only people setting the best scores online are the ones with stereoscopic 3D. They're just going to be the ones with their jaws closest to the floor."

Southern was speaking to Eurogamer ahead of his developer session at Eurogamer Expo 2010. MotorStorm: Apocalypse

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...motorstorm-dev ...

The best thing about the Windows Phone 7 – due out in the UK before Christmas – is Xbox Live integration, Microsoft has said.

The snazzy phone will allow users to take their Xbox Live profile on the move, and includes staple features like Achievements and friends lists.

60 games will be available at launch. Some, such as Zynga's Farmville, are aimed at the casual gaming audience. But others are clearly targeted at the Xbox's traditional fanbase, and have fancy 2D and 3D visuals. We had a play with a few games on the Windows Phone 7 last month and can report that the look pretty indeed.

Matt Thompson, who as general manager of developer and platform evangelism for Microsoft has possibly the most abstract job title of all time, said Xbox Live will be the "hook" that helps sell the phone, according to Venture Beat.

"Clearly the phone is you, so the most unique thing we're trying to do is bring Xbox Live so you can carry the online 'you' into the rest of the world," Thompson said.

Windows Phone 7 will go up against iPhone, Android and other devices that have in recent years invested heavily in gaming.

Microsoft is working on real-time phone-to-console gaming, likely initially through Wi-Fi, but the feature won't be ready for launch. Instead, "turn-by-turn" gaming, where you play a level on the phone and it may unlock a level or a weapon or an Achievement on the console game, will available on day one.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...indows-phone-7 ...

Nintendo is looking into making the 3DS automatically download firmware updates from the internet.

The move may enable Nintendo to combat piracy more effectively than it has done with the DS.

During an investor question and answer session (translated by Andriasang), an attendee asked CEO Satoru Iwata if Nintendo will implement anti-piracy measures via the internet. He replied: "As part of the functionality of SpotPass, we're looking into having automatic system updates via the internet."

SpotPass means 3DS units set to sleep mode will not only communicate with other 3DS units but the internet via Wi-Fi.

However, Iwata said piracy prevention is secondary to offering new functionality to owners. Once the system has found an access point, it will download rankings, ghost data, free software and notifications.

Meanwhile, Iwata said Nintendo expects to keep game prices around the same price point as current DS releases.

"We don't believe that the world is in a state where high priced software will sell well, so we don't believe it will be in a price range too far off from current DS software," Iwata said.

The 3DS, revealed at E3 2010 and dated and priced for Japan last week, is due out in Europe and the US in March.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...rmware-updates ...

Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka has revealed he cancelled his first two projects for motion controllers Kinect and Move.

Naka, now heading up own studio Prope, did not give further details on the lost games, but remained optimistic about Microsoft and Sony's new add-ons.

"I am very much excited about those new developments," he told the crowd at the Eurogamer Expo in London today. "I do enjoy working with new hardware. So I am hoping to create something exciting using those new technologies.

"Actually I worked on two games which unfortunately didn't come out, but those games were using those two technologies."

The Knights and Phantasy Star producer seemed somewhat less inspired by mobile platforms, however.

"I think all the new technologies including Android and iPhone are very fascinating for a game creator," he said, "but Prope is quite a small team - we haven't had time to think about using those technologies."

Naka also addressed recent comments by Capcom's Keiji INafune, claiming that Japanese development was five years behind the West.

"You could say that Japanese developers today are behind Western competitors in terms of technology," he admitted.

"But at the same time Japanese developers still come up with new game ideas and styles that are very much different from Western counterparts. I also think that Japanese development is catching up to the West in terms of technology too.

"So I do agree with [Inafune's] comments to some extent, but I believe Japanese games technology has its own strong areas to compete with Western titles."

Naka, who was presenting his upcoming DS and Wii title Ivy The Kiwi, also revealed that the original Sonic game remains his proudest creation.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-move-projects ...

Hi All,

Stella is on of the best emulator of Atari 2600 game console, running on many different systems,
such as Linux, Solaris, Windows, MacOS/X, WinCE, OS/2, GP2X.

It has been written initially by Bradford Mott, see Stella site for details.

Here is a port on Caanoo of the version i've previously ported to Wiz.

I haven't any Caanoo, and i would like to thanks Pedro De quintana for his help on Caanoo beta-testing !

You may find binary and source code on my blog : http://zx81.zx81.free.fr

Enjoy,

Zx. ...

Hi All,

fMSX is a famous emulator of the MSX, MSX2, and MSX2+ 8bit home computers.
It runs MSX/MSX2/MSX2+ software on many different platforms including Windows and Unix.
See http://fms.komkon.org/fMSX/ for further informations.

It has been first written by Marat Fayzullin, and later Vincent van Dam ported it on SDL.

Here is a port on Caanoo of the version i've previously ported to Wiz.

Many new features have been added compared to original version.
Here is a copy of the changelog :

- Cheat support !
- New background images
- Text editor to write your own comments on games
- Text editor to modify the global cheat.txt file
- Display first comment line while browsing game files
- Memory monitoring engine to find your own cheat code !
- Zip rom files are now decompressed in memory (much faster !)
- Improve file requester with virtual keyboard to choose
sequentially rom files beginning with a given letter
- Add documentation for settings in help menu
- Add gzipped disk file support, reduce disk file size from 700k to 50k !
(you may gzip original dsk file using www.7-zip.org)

How to use it ? Everything is in the README.txt file.

It's distributed under Marat Fayzullin's license for the original MSX part, and under GNU license for all the GP2X part.

Enjoy,

Zx. ...