Considering that an entire game's worth of content was supposedly cut from Final Fantasy XIII, one could imagine there's a veritable gold mine of content waiting to be polished and released as DLC. Apparently not, however, as producer Yoshinori Kitase has allegedly indicated, "at present we're not considering [DLC]." The quote is said to originate from a brief interview featured in an Ultima Guide for the game (via FFReunion), and Kitase apparently added that DLC is still "possible," but it's just not something Square Enix is working on right now.

Kitase cited the team's drive to create a complete experience in the final retail game as one of the contributing factors to putting DLC plans aside. He also pointed to the game's exceedingly long development time and the developers' focus on getting the game finished as soon as possible. Clearly, "asap" has a different meaning in Japan.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/27/ru...-but-possible/ ...

he Apple iPad may be great for web-browsing. It may be the best slate on which to list half of the 10 Commandments since solid rock. But, for gamers, well, thou shalt have some legitimate doubts about this thing.

Why might the iPad not become the next great player in games?

(Bear in mind, we've now played games on the iPad.}

Uh, It's A Giant iPod Touch: If our man in San Francisco is sitting at Apple's press conference, waiting for Apple to announce a revolutionary way to play games via the iPad, well, I hope he lifts his feet when the janitors come by to sweep the floors. The wait could be long.

As best we could discern from today's announcement, the button-less, tilt-sensitive, touch-screen iPad offers no game-controlling interface improvements over the button-less, tilt-sensitive, touch-screen iPod Touch. In fact, the iPad doesn't appear to even have a camera, which has been supported by some iPhone games. The iPad just shows games bigger. It shows them Beautifully, of course, but Nintendo convinced the world a few years ago that graphical improvements are not the key to modern game machine success.

The Third Pillar Might Not Stand: Back in 2004, Nintendo was preparing to release a new gaming device, the DS. The two-screened system is a hit now, but back then it seemed about as unnecessary as a third shoe. Nintendo claimed that the portable DS would become a "third pillar," as crucial a strut to Nintendo's fortunes as the home console and the portable Game Boy. But that didn't make much sense, because the DS, which could play Game Boy Advance games seemed like it would need to supplant the Game Boy line to be successful. Why, really, would someone need two portable Nintendo machines?

And so the question can now be asked of Apple: If your consumers still need a computer and a phone, needs which you already can fill, what room in their wallet, their bag and their life is there for a semi-portable, semi-desk-ready tablet computer? For gaming or otherwise?

App Apprehensions: It's wonderful to hear that the iPad will run iPhone and iPod Touch games, but those games were made to run on a screen the size of an iPod Touch, not a screen a little bigger than a Superman comic book.

Do you want to run iPad games in a window while you multi-task on the iPad? That would be the closest you'd get to having App Store gaming available on a computer you can sit down with. Well, no can do. You can't multitask on an iPad. Plus, we're talking about games that either won't fill the iPad screen or will have to be blown up by users to play at bigger than their native resolution. We're told that the iPad supports "pixel-doubling" which will compensate for that, but it's hard to get that excited about the concept of playing iPhone games, but larger. The best hope here is that the early announcements of iPad-enhanced games such as Nova and Need for Speed Shift will swiftly give way to announcements of iPad-original games.

The Cost: You could buy an iPhone 3Gs for $299, a Nintendo DS for $129, a PSP for $169, a Wii for $199, an Xbox 360 starting at $199 or a PlayStation 3 starting at $299. Or you could buy an iPad starting at $499, gamers. Tough sell?

Versus PC Gaming: You can look at the iPad as a super-sized iPhone. You could look at it as chunky big brother to the DS and PSP. Or you could look at it as the most gaming-ready computer Apple has every released. In that last respect, the iPad is a nice advance for the prospects of being able to put an Apple product on your desk and play games on it.

But in that last context, the iPad must be compared to, well, Windows-based computers. The barrier to entry for developers is low for either: Make an App for the iPad. Make your own game for the PC. Grassroots developers could flourish on either platform. But we're likely to be seeing sized-up portable games on Apple's iPad for a while. They will be compared to fully-realized PC games that can be run with controllers, keyboards and mice. Advantage, Windows gaming... for now and for a while, it seems.

Room For the Little Guys? One of the best stories about gaming on the iPod Touch and iPad has been how the App Store allowed the smallest developers to vie in the marketplace against the biggest game publishers. The result of that competition has been wonderful games from the littlest crews to the biggest, everything from Tiger Style's Spider to some of EA's best.

The bigger screen size of the iPad, however, may raise expectations for the quality of graphics on iPad games — and smaller studios may find it more challenging than the EAs of the world to create games that are as visually pleasing as they were on the iPod Touch and iPhone.

Inherited iPhone Issues Some models of the iPad will run over Wi-Fi. Others can run on the 3G network, which raises questions about whether they will run into the same networking issues that plague games played over networks on the iPhone.

Another possible problem involves Apple's control of software for its devices. ...

iPhone owners holding out hope that OS 3.2 would bring some of these fancy new iPad spoils to their devices might be in for a disappointment, because two of the big ones -- split view and popovers -- are both referred to in Apple's updated human interface guidelines as "iPad-only." Realistically, this shouldn't come as a surprise; both of these UI elements were built to shine on larger displays, and it's hard to say how you could make either one of them work on HVGA -- but it's important for devs to note that heavily investing in these are definitely going to make it difficult to make their apps compatible across all iPhone OS-powered devices. Considering that iPhones will almost certainly continue to dominate iPads for sales volume, we know how we'd be developing.

In other news, running the updated iPhone simulator in iPad mode gives you the option to take photos, which doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense considering that it doesn't have a camera. There are plenty of plausible explanations for the muck-up, but our guess is that Apple's left the vestigial capability on-board since the framework's already in place for the iPhone and there could very well be iPads down the road that have a cam (or two). Follow the break for a shot of the iPad's Address Book imploring you to take a photo -- and savor it, since it's probably the closest you'll actually get to snapping a shot on the device any time soon.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/i...s-split-views/ ...

The iPad really is a giant iPhone—so much so that if you want to get a laptop-like experience out of it, you'll need adapters to change the typical 30-pin connector into USB, SD, or AC power.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5458376/apple-i...-usb-sd-ac-bbq ...

Only way to interpret the launch of the iPad? Apple has declared the PC dead. Well-crafted but closed devices are their future of consumer computing. And if no one else can match the iPad experience, they may be right.

"In many ways this defines our vision, our sense of what's next." – Jonathan Ive

PCs will be around as expert devices for the long haul, but it's clear that Apple, coasting on the deserved success of the iPhone, sees simple, closed internet devices as the future of computing. (Or at the very least, portable computing.) And for the average consumer, it could be.

It's the "internet device" vision of a decade ago all over again, except now Apple can offer what is arguably the best user experience for internet and media consumption combined with a very reasonable (for a brand new gadget) price.

It may not be good for you, because you're an internet dork who wants to do heavy video editing or run Photoshop. (Or, you know, multitask.) But for the average person off the street walking into a Best Buy, their laptop money may now be going to an iPad.

What happens when they find the iPad is all they needed in the first place? They never buy a laptop again.

In the meantime, here are a few things to think about for we full-time dorks.



Does it kill netbooks?
If there's anything that you can take home from today's announcement of the iPad it's this: from here on out the battle between physical keyboards and touchscreen ones has moved beyond smartphones and into every other area of computing. Get ready to hear someone say "I touchtype just fine on a soft keyboard on my PC" very soon.

I'd be lying if I said the giant bezel doesn't ward me off a bit, even if I understand why it's necessary to be there. But it isn't as sexy as it could be, all things considered.

But a 1.5-pound device with a (theoretical) 10-hour battery life? Done and done. Heck, I'll haul two.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5458349/apple-i...sinate-laptops ...

Before launch, we spent a lot of time thinking about how you might be able to type on the iPad, seeing as plain onscreen keyboards one 10-inch tablets are just, well, awkward. But apparently, Apple doesn't think so.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5458397/the-ipa...olution-at-all ...

Apple unveiled its iPad tonight, with the biggest surprises being its price - starting at $499 - and the fact that it runs almost all existing iPhone apps with no modifications required.
But looking beyond that, what is the iPad's impact on the mobile entertainment industry - including existing iPhone developers, and external industries like book publishing and print media?
It's certainly a seismic thing for the latter, even more so than Amazon's Kindle was. Judging by tonight's launch, Apple has created a hugely powerful platform for e-magazines and e-newspapers.
Well, as long as they take advantage of its interactivity: embedded videos, contextual pop-up menus, weblinks and hopefully social features and comments.
For e-books, it's too early to tell if the ability to change font will trump Kindle's reader-friendly e-ink display. Even if not, it's still going to be a big new market for publishers.

What about iPhone developers though? The fact that they don't have to do anything for their apps to be iPad-compatible is good.
That said, there will be few additional revenues here: iPad users can sync across their existing iPhone or iPod touch app libraries to the new device - and I'd be willing to bet the majority of iPad purchasers will already own one of the devices.
So, developers will be faced with a decision about whether to develop new tabletised versions of their apps and games to take advantage of the iPad's bigger screen and more powerful processor, not to mention those contextual pop-up menus.
There are some unresolved questions. Will the device allow several apps to run at once, some in the background? It was unclear from tonight's launch - but will be of huge interest to developers.
What about push notifications? The question of what OS the iPad is running exactly, and whether the iPhone OS will evolve along those lines too, will also be exercising the minds of developers.
Even so, this much is clear: lots of people are going to buy an iPad because it's a sexy new product from Apple - but judging by tonight's event and the price of the device, it has a shot at winning a more mainstream market too.
These two groups of users are going to want iPad-optimised apps - with particular focus on games, entertainment and social networking.
Thus, the iPad is an important new mobile entertainment device. Not least because it's not the only tablet in town. Believe the hype or not, tablets will now be high on the agenda of mobile developers and media companies alike.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/35807...-entertainment ...

Hi All,

Wiz Chess uses the GNU Chess version 5.07 for the Artificial Intelligence.

What's new in this version ?

- Touch screen support !
- Add skin selector feature (see README)
- Add chess piece skins from NinJato
- Bug fix (memory corruption)

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

Sources are included, and this package is under the GNU public license,
read COPYING.txt file for more information about it.

http://zx81.zx81.free.fr/

Enjoy,

Zx ...

ropspdev has posted news in our forum of an unnofficial update to the Gen Custom Firmwares, some great news is that you can seemingly upgrade from 5.00 M33-X to 5.50 GEN D3

for more information and the download check out the release thread here --> http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/sho...d.php?t=287147 ...