Brazil, an emerging market for the videogames industry, has finally seen the official launch of Sony's PlayStation 2 in the country.

However, with a price point of BRL 799 (USD 462) it's not clear quite how much impact the console will be able to have on a market that's considered to have a high threat from piracy.

It's expected that games will cost BRL 119 (USD 69) for new releases and BRL 99 (USD 57) for catalogue titles, with 14 games available at launch - including Gran Turismo 4 and God of War II.

"Brazil is home to a large community of gaming enthusiasts, making the country an ideal opportunity for SCEA to introduce the PlayStation experience to a new legion of fans," read a company statement.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ly-hits-brazil ...

Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment has revealed its PSP games have been far more profitable for the company than its Wii releases in 2009.

Of its five PSP releases in the fiscal first half, four have returned profits for the company, it said. However, from its four Wii releases, only one has delivered a return.

Data presented to investors and reported by Siliconera, show that Marvelous's PSP games sold in higher units than its Wii titles. Combined with lower development costs, the games, in turn, delivered profits.

In Japan, PSP titles Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Hitman Reborn! Battle Arena 2 and Half-Minute Hero sold 47,000, 41,000 and 70,000 units respectively.

The Wii's Little King's Story, used as a comparison, sold just 26,000 units in Japan. Although it did fare better in Europe where sales of 67,000 were achieved.

As well as having lower development costs, Marvelous added that it believes its PSP games did better because they were based on established IPs.

Next year, the company will release its first multi-platform PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 titles, No More Heroes: Hero's Paradise in Japan, and Deadly Premonition in North America.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...an-wii-in-2009 ...

Sony has listed 3D gaming as one of the five key advantages to the PlayStation 3 platform, and confirmed that the release of 3D games onto the console will form part of its 3D strategy in the future.

In a presentation to investors, the company revealed its plan to add 3D capabilities to the PS3. "All PS3 units will be firmware upgradable to 3D", it said.

Offering 3D tools to third party developers in the future will form part of the plan as Sony aims to "lead to the 3D market."

Not only will it look to bring 3D technology to the PlayStation 3, but it is also looking to implement it into the Blu-ray format and its high-definition televisions.

3D gaming was specified as one of the five key advantages PlayStation 3 offers, alongside motion control, Blu-ray, PSN and PSP linkage.

Sony also revealed, reported yesterday, it was expecting to return its PlayStation business to profitability by the fiscal year ending March 2011.

Higher revenues would be generated, it said, by further cost reductions, greater hardware and software sales, and the development of the PlayStation Network.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ncorporate-ps3 ...

Microsoft's Neil Thompson has told GamesIndustry.biz that retailers must choose for themselves the price points they're going to set for the sale of videogames - but has issued a warning about the sustainability of some of the aggressive discounting seen recently for games such as FIFA 10 and - particularly - Modern Warfare 2.

"Retailers have to make their own decisions about how they price in the market," he said this week. "I suppose the challenge when retailers do go aggressive on pricing in the way that some people do: is that sustainable over the long-term both for the industry and for themselves? Retail just have to make their own decisions."

He added that there was also a danger, when the public can pick up key titles on release day for as little as GBP 25, that the issue of value was being distorted.

"As an industry, I think we want to ensure consumers understand the value of the products they're buying, because these products cost tens of millions of dollars to create," he explained. "So as long as people appreciate that and understand that, as I say retailers have to make their own decisions on pricing, but we do want to ensure the value is created in this industry and this industry has a long and fruitful future ahead of it."

Thompson, who was speaking at the launch of the new functionality for Xbox 360, which include Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm, also gave his thoughts on the way that Modern Warfare 2 caught the public attention with the controversy surrounding the game's terrorist scene.

"My view is it was an 18-rated game, it's a game designed for adults, it should be consumed by adults and as long as retailers are responsible when they're selling it to adults, and as long as parents are responsible in ensuring their kids who are under 18 don't get access to it and don't play it, then I think it’s a great product," he said.

"There are scenes in it that some people won't like, but you pay your money, you take your choice - as an adult - to make those decisions. And I think it was marketed in an appropriate way and it is appropriate content for an adult community."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-about-pricing ...

After Sunday's epic fail of a 1.0 release, I am proud to anounce version 1.1 of PSPEText, the text reader you can use while you play PSP and PSX games.

I rewrote about half of the application for this release, making it a proper kernel-mode module, eliminating heap allocation, drastically reducing stack allocation, and nearly perfecting the game suspend functions.

This was tested on about two dozen games between myself and a very kind soul (thanks Joe!). Now all games load without issue when the module is installed (because it is a proper kernel module). The text reader works on every game tested except for Exit. In that game the suspend routine just can't cleanly stop the game, so it hangs for a few seconds and then resumes the game.

Project Homepage: PSPEText at QBRADQ's Code Corner

ABOUT Section of the Read Me:

PSPEText is a kernel-mode plugin that allows you to suspend any PSP game at
any time and read text files stored on the memory stick. This is useful for
reading FAQs from sites like www.gamefaqs.com while playing your favorite PSP
games.

This text reader features an 80-column display, which is a must-have for
reading FAQ files.

Please find download attached or at the project homepage. ...

News/release from pspflashsystem


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Finally, a working g_ether module for the WIZ. This makes it much easier possible to use the WIZ for development.
You can now copy your compiled programs directly to the WIZ, run them and check their debug output.

1. Run the "NetworkUp.gpe" script from the Launcher.

The NetworkUp.gpe script will configure the usb0 interface with '10.0.0.2/24'. I guess I didn't have to use a /24 but it is easier to type on the host side slightly.

2. Now on the host side, check 'dmesg', and then configure the host side of the interface so the two can speak (automating this step depends largely on host OS and is up to you):

usb 5-2: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 18
usb 5-2: not running at top speed; connect to a high speed hub
usb 5-2: new device found, idVendor=049f, idProduct=505a
usb 5-2: new device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
usb 5-2: Product: OpenWiz Ethernet
usb 5-2: Manufacturer: Linux 2.6.24/lf1000_udc
usb 5-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
usb 5-2: unsupported MDLM descriptors
usb0: register 'cdc_subset' at usb-0000:00:13.4-2, Linux Device, 76:63:3c:8b:35:72

# ifconfig usb0 inet 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0
# ping 10.0.0.2
PING 10.0.0.2 (10.0.0.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=4.69 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.986 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.0.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.959 ms


At this stage, the Wiz is attached to the host by networking. What network applications to build, install, or configure, and how to use them, is a howto for another day.

Note that again while the LF1000 device is in use, the Wiz cannot be used as a block device to mount the SDRAM or NAND devices. To remove the g_ether module and restore these functions while the Wiz is running, simply run the NetworkDown.gpe script included in the same directory. This will take the Wiz off network. You may also safely simply restart the Wiz.

Download Here ...

Finally a way to get serial out via the normal WIZ USB Cable!
Makes developing much more comfortable!

HOW TO USE

Launch the "USBSerialUp.gpe" application located in the USBSerial directory
on your SDRAM card.

Connect the stock USB serial cable that came with your Wiz to a PC.
In this example, we will use a linux box. First, as root, you must install the usbserial module with flags to identify the USBSerial module:

modprobe usbserial vendor=0x0525 product=0xA4A6

You should see in 'dmesg':

usb X-Y: generic converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Use any serial manager of your liking to attach to the ttyUSB0 device and
thus to your Wiz. The author prefers kermit, so it is exampled here;

# kermit
> set line /dev/ttyUSB0
> connect

Wait for the getty process on the Wiz to detect carrier and launch. This
generally takes 0.5-1.5 seconds. When presented with a login: prompt, login
as root (as suggested by the text preceding the login prompt):

login: root

At this point, you should now be logged in with interactive access on your
Wiz.

When you are done (to free up the resources used by the serial interface),
just restart the Wiz to remove the serial listening daemon and modules.

Download Here ...

News via http://emu-russia.net/en/

NES/Sega Master System/Arcade emulator for Windows has been updated. Changes:
-[EMU] Added cycle accurate Game Gear emulation
-[EMU] Added multiplayer support (same machine) to NES, SEGA-E arcade and SMS drivers.
-[EMU] Fixed bug in NES PPU that was causing crashes for certain games upon loadup
-[EMU] Fixed a fews bug in NES APU that were causing slight issues with sound generation when DMC was used
-[EMU] Added korean mapper to SMS and corrected a few CodeMaster mapper games
-[EMU] Cleaned up the SMSVDP core (used by SMS, Gamegear and SEGA-E arcade cores) and made it more accurate using the new information found about the TMS9918 graphics processor.

-[CORE] Can now select whether to start playing on the emulated 3D television or in "fullscreen mode"
-[CORE] Added configurable input, you can now change every input to whatever you want including using key modifiers like SHIFT, ALT, etc.
-[CORE] Added joystick/joypad support. Up to 4 joysticks/joypads plugged in at once are supported.
-[CORE] Fixed issue with ENTER or SPACE causing the menu buttons to be pushed if you had focused a button while playing a game
-[CORE] Replaced most of boost::filesystem with own disk layer functions to reduce exception handling
-[CORE] Changed file functions to morph any "indirect" paths to a full path name to resolve any issues with working directory being set to something other than the RetroCopy directory
-[CORE] Added texture cache
-[CORE] Moved all system specific dat files to a dat subfolder to reduce main directory clutter
-[CORE] Added the emulator benchmark ROM internally into RetroCopy to avoid issues with not having the file
-[CORE] Can now run RetroCopy in a window on your desktop or fullscreen (default).
-[CORE] Every option is now saved in a config file
-[CORE] Now convert "unknown games" in the directory to a default GAME file so that they can possibly be played if valid
-[CORE] Fixed a few issues with GAME conversion, made it more reliable

-[3D] Added new 3D furniture into the Virtual Game Room
-[3D] Added a new 3D TV, it is more modern and has a widescreen aspect ratio to give more options for playing games accurately
-[3D] Added game gear 3D model upon which you can play games on. Even has a semi accurate LCD flicker effect.
-[3D] Changed shader code to only allow 5 active lights to improve performance.
-[3D] Fixed issue with camera tilting on Y axis after entering game room
-[3D] Added antialiasing and VSYNC options
-[3D] Fixed possible bug that may have detected shader capable cards when they didn't support all features needed

-[AUDIO] Can now change sample rate up to 192000Hz for those seeking insane audio quality. Minimum allowed is 22050Hz which gives a tiny speed boost over the default of 44100Hz.

-[GUI] Tweaked the 3D game browser to make it easier to use
-[GUI] Fixed a very random crash bug that was caused by scrollbars not being properly initialized in some instances
-[GUI] Now show a 3D arcade machine in the area gameboxes go when viewing the arcade games since they don't have gameboxes
-[GUI] Changed the theme of some buttons/windows to make a more cohesive looking interface
-[GUI] Added an animation effect when switching areas within RetroCopy
-[GUI] Added a random message generator on the main part of the interface that shows "witty" slogans.
-[GUI] Added login panel

http://www.retrocopy.com/ ...