Sony begins to realise the grand vision of PlayStation Home today as photo-sharing is added to the virtual world.

The US PlayStation blog describes this as "the most exciting news since open beta", as photos become the first user-created content within Home.

Photos can be uploaded from PS3 hard-drives and displayed in apartments to friends and visitors. Frames can be bought from the Mall area, plus there are stock photos on offer if you have none.

Sony also launches the Buzz! space for Home today, which manifests as a group quiz game where avatars must co-operate and stand on surfaces coinciding with specific answers.

We're promised the Mall will have Ghostbusters costumes as well as designer outfits and more SFIV clobber, too.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ps...-photo-uploads ...

Xbox 360 bigwig Aaron Greenberg thinks Sony's motion-sensing wand for PS3 will share the same "fun" space as Wii, but believes Microsoft's Project Natal is "leapfrogging" them both.

"To me it looked similar to the Wii experience. You hold a remote or a wand: it looked very derivative of that - similar to other products on the market today," Greenberg told vg247. "I thought it was interesting and fun, just like the Wii is fun. I think it's great that they're sharing that space.

"What's clear is that what we're doing is, in many ways, leapfrogging over any of the experiences [demoed] today. We're trying to breakthrough... with a new controller in gaming and entertainment, and I think that will differentiate us, and in many ways remove another barrier to people who are intimidated by, not just controllers, but wands and having to push buttons and do things.

"To be able to just drive a car with your hands, or to be able to kick balls as you swing and kick your feet. It's a whole different type of experience," he added.

Microsoft and Sony both unveiled rival motion-sensing technology during their keynote addresses at E3. Microsoft revealed Project Natal, the heavily-rumoured camera-based motion sensor, which hopes to kick-start a controller-free future.

Sony, on the other hand, demoed a prototype wand controller that has in-built sensors like Wii but also a dome on the end that is picked up by the PS Eye. The technology was put through a number of on-stage demonstrations, each more impressive than the other, culminating in an archery mini-game that used two of the controllers at once.

Nintendo's conference was more subdued in comparison, but then the Wii already has motion-sensing, which improves this summer with the Wii MotionPlus peripheral.

Microsoft and Sony offered no release dates for their technology, and Greenberg wouldn't budge on providing a hint. Presumably his company will enter the market first, as developer kits have been sent out this week and Project Natal is finished hardware. Nevertheless, both could be at least two years' away.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3...-wii-greenberg ...

Xbox 360 bigwig Aaron Greenberg thinks Sony's motion-sensing wand for PS3 will share the same "fun" space as Wii, but believes Microsoft's Project Natal is "leapfrogging" them both.

"To me it looked similar to the Wii experience. You hold a remote or a wand: it looked very derivative of that - similar to other products on the market today," Greenberg told vg247. "I thought it was interesting and fun, just like the Wii is fun. I think it's great that they're sharing that space.

"What's clear is that what we're doing is, in many ways, leapfrogging over any of the experiences [demoed] today. We're trying to breakthrough... with a new controller in gaming and entertainment, and I think that will differentiate us, and in many ways remove another barrier to people who are intimidated by, not just controllers, but wands and having to push buttons and do things.

"To be able to just drive a car with your hands, or to be able to kick balls as you swing and kick your feet. It's a whole different type of experience," he added.

Microsoft and Sony both unveiled rival motion-sensing technology during their keynote addresses at E3. Microsoft revealed Project Natal, the heavily-rumoured camera-based motion sensor, which hopes to kick-start a controller-free future.

Sony, on the other hand, demoed a prototype wand controller that has in-built sensors like Wii but also a dome on the end that is picked up by the PS Eye. The technology was put through a number of on-stage demonstrations, each more impressive than the other, culminating in an archery mini-game that used two of the controllers at once.

Nintendo's conference was more subdued in comparison, but then the Wii already has motion-sensing, which improves this summer with the Wii MotionPlus peripheral.

Microsoft and Sony offered no release dates for their technology, and Greenberg wouldn't budge on providing a hint. Presumably his company will enter the market first, as developer kits have been sent out this week and Project Natal is finished hardware. Nevertheless, both could be at least two years' away.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3...-wii-greenberg ...

Xbox 360 bigwig Aaron Greenberg thinks Sony's motion-sensing wand for PS3 will share the same "fun" space as Wii, but believes Microsoft's Project Natal is "leapfrogging" them both.

"To me it looked similar to the Wii experience. You hold a remote or a wand: it looked very derivative of that - similar to other products on the market today," Greenberg told vg247. "I thought it was interesting and fun, just like the Wii is fun. I think it's great that they're sharing that space.

"What's clear is that what we're doing is, in many ways, leapfrogging over any of the experiences [demoed] today. We're trying to breakthrough... with a new controller in gaming and entertainment, and I think that will differentiate us, and in many ways remove another barrier to people who are intimidated by, not just controllers, but wands and having to push buttons and do things.

"To be able to just drive a car with your hands, or to be able to kick balls as you swing and kick your feet. It's a whole different type of experience," he added.

Microsoft and Sony both unveiled rival motion-sensing technology during their keynote addresses at E3. Microsoft revealed Project Natal, the heavily-rumoured camera-based motion sensor, which hopes to kick-start a controller-free future.

Sony, on the other hand, demoed a prototype wand controller that has in-built sensors like Wii but also a dome on the end that is picked up by the PS Eye. The technology was put through a number of on-stage demonstrations, each more impressive than the other, culminating in an archery mini-game that used two of the controllers at once.

Nintendo's conference was more subdued in comparison, but then the Wii already has motion-sensing, which improves this summer with the Wii MotionPlus peripheral.

Microsoft and Sony offered no release dates for their technology, and Greenberg wouldn't budge on providing a hint. Presumably his company will enter the market first, as developer kits have been sent out this week and Project Natal is finished hardware. Nevertheless, both could be at least two years' away.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3...-wii-greenberg ...

Patrice Desilet, Ubisoft producer on Assassin's Creed 2, has explained that the sequel to one of the most talked about games in the past year has had the entire mission structure changed for the new game.

Speaking in an interview on the official Ubisoft E3 website, Desilet revealed that there are many more mission types in the game, while the number of missions in total is around 200.

"In Assassin's 1 there were five or six mission types, but this time around there'll be 15 or 16," said Desilet. "With that we construct bigger [missions] because we can start with an escort mission, which then becomes a chase mission, and we finish into an assassination mission - out that together and it creates an entirely different mission.

"We got rid of the entire structure of the first game, where we had the investigation part, then the assassination part - that's gone. Now the world is open, with mission-givers in people you meet. We have around 200 missions now in the entire game - 100 for the main narrative, and 100 on the side."

And executive producer, Jade Raymond, added that the jump between scenarios for the first and second next-gen games will be revealed in the publisher's forthcoming PSP title from the franchise, Bloodlines.

"We've made the link, and really explained that whole back story in the PSP game, so we're making a PSP game which continues Altair's adventures," she said. "In that, if you play that game, you'll understand the link that happens to Assassin's Creed 2 on PS3, 360 and PC."

Both titles are expected to ship towards the end of 2009.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...assins-creed-2 ...

Last year, Nintendo only had three playable games from Wii Sports Resort: Disc Dog, Power Cruising, and Swordplay, all of which were used to show the precision of the Wii MotionPlus device. This time, twelve games are available for play, and we were able to get our hands on two of those, which we think do an even better job of displaying the difference between a MotionPlus-enabled Wiimote and a stock controller.

First, we tried the canoe game, in a two-player race. The goal in this game variant is to cross five checkpoints before the other player. In this game, the Wiimote is a surrogate for the canoe's oar, held vertically with both hands as if it were an actual oar.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/04/ha...-and-canoeing/ ...

Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi has revealed that the forthcoming PlayStation 3 racer, Gran Turismo 5, is feature complete and could be released now if the company chose to.

However, in an interview with Eurogamer, he explained that they're continuing to work on the game in order to polish it and make it as close to perfect as possible.

"[The game is] at a point we can release it any time we want," he said. "I want to release it as fast as I can, but GT5 for us, when you talk about its status, it's at a point we can release it any time we want, but we can always keep working on it.

"It's very important for us to make sure everything is done perfectly and everything is done in detail."

He added that the team was working on the connectivity between the PS3 and the PlayStation Portable version of the game.

"We're hoping maybe to make it so you can share the garage with the PSP version so that cars you unlock on PSP will be available immediately on GT5," he explained.

Meanwhile, Turn 10 - the developer behind Microsoft's highly-acclaimed racing franchise Forza Motorsport - has turned up the heat on Yamauchi-san and his team by claiming that it is creating "the definitive racing game of this generation".

Forza 3 is scheduled for an October release, while the GT5 date is unconfirmed but thought to be early 2010.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...dy-for-release ...

Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi has revealed that the forthcoming PlayStation 3 racer, Gran Turismo 5, is feature complete and could be released now if the company chose to.

However, in an interview with Eurogamer, he explained that they're continuing to work on the game in order to polish it and make it as close to perfect as possible.

"[The game is] at a point we can release it any time we want," he said. "I want to release it as fast as I can, but GT5 for us, when you talk about its status, it's at a point we can release it any time we want, but we can always keep working on it.

"It's very important for us to make sure everything is done perfectly and everything is done in detail."

He added that the team was working on the connectivity between the PS3 and the PlayStation Portable version of the game.

"We're hoping maybe to make it so you can share the garage with the PSP version so that cars you unlock on PSP will be available immediately on GT5," he explained.

Meanwhile, Turn 10 - the developer behind Microsoft's highly-acclaimed racing franchise Forza Motorsport - has turned up the heat on Yamauchi-san and his team by claiming that it is creating "the definitive racing game of this generation".

Forza 3 is scheduled for an October release, while the GT5 date is unconfirmed but thought to be early 2010.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...dy-for-release ...

An interview between Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata and the hardware team responsible for the Wii MotionPlus add-on has been posted on the official Nintendo website, as the latest in the Iwata Asks series.

The long and wide-ranging interview was conducted with project leader Junji Takamoto, mechanical designer Noboru Wakitani, circuit designer Kuniaki Ito and SDK developer Keizo Ota.

The interview reveals that development of the MotionPlus began in early 2008, after Integrated Research and Development division head Genyo Takeda suggested connecting the Wii remote to a gyro sensor.

Takamoto further explains that the concept was originally suggested because "the original Wii remote could only detect movements along straight lines".

Asked by Iwata why a gyro sensor was not included originally Takamoto answered: "We actually looked into the idea of including a gyro sensor at the very start of the Wii remote's development. But the idea was rejected due to issues of both space and cost which attaching a gyro sensor would entail."

Describing the technology as "awkward" to implement, Ito explains how the accuracy of a standard gyroscope was increased fivefold, to measure 1600 degrees of movement per second. The device had to be further customised to work in two separate modes: one for slow movement and one for fast.

The Nintendo designers also found that changes in temperature, humidity and sudden impacts could radically change the device's reliability. These difficulties appear to have been the reason for the delay of the MotionPlus and bundled software Wii Sports Resort until June/July this year.

In summing up, Iwata himself states: "With Wii MotionPlus, people might think that we've just tacked on a gyro sensor, but in fact it was a product that necessitated a huge amount of trial and error, whether it was collecting Pokemotion shop displays, making steel hooks and breaking the Wii remote or simmering the components in a pressure cooker."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...otionplus-team ...