via Computer and Video Games


Football Manager 2008 will emerge from the console dugout on March 28 for Xbox 360.

Sports Interactive's football management series is no stranger to Microsoft's console, having already graced it twice. This new version will be fully updated for the new season, including transfers being made in the mid-season transfer window.

The developer explains that the 360 version boasts the same feature set as the already-available Football Manager 2008 on PC. However, the console iteration has seen online play revamped "permitting you to challenge friends to one-on-one matches and even host tournaments."


Screenshots ...

The situation of console sales last week in Japan are below as thus:


Nintendo DS Lite: 266,568
Playstation Portable: 218,234
Nintendo Wii: 207,797
Playstation 3: 64,183
Playstation 2: 32,010
Xbox 360: 9,763


The DS lite tops the list as usual while the PSP trails just behind it, beating the Wii by about 11,000. Lagging beind is the PS3, PS2 and Xbox 360, faring the worst out of all on the list. No sign of Game Boy Micro, Game Boy Advance SP/Original, Nintendo Gamecube or the original Xbox. ...

via Computer and Video Games


It's not a bad update this week for PSN shoppers, but if you were looking out for Sony's stylish bullet-dodger, Riff: Everyday Shooter, you'll be disappointed.

Instead, you'll find two new PS1 games: N20 (puzzle) and Hardcore 4x4 (racing), each costing the usual £3.49, the new Motorstorm map pack and a bunch of other trailers and videos for Devil May Cry 4.

Riff is due out this month, so get those fingers crossed for next week. And, you should drool with envy while watching us playing the game in these sweet videos.

Oh, and the full PSN update list is below:


PSN Store

Game

• N2O - £3.49
• Hardcore 4X4 - £3.49

Packs

• Double track pack (MotorStorm) - £3.49
• Pigly (Folklore) - Free

Video

• PixelJunk Monsters Trailer - Free
• DMC4 TGS Trailer 2 - Free

Wallpapers

• Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 1 - Free
• Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 2 - Free
• Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 3 - Free
• Devil May Cry 4 Wallpaper 4 - Free

PC store

Game

• N2O - £3.49
• Hardcore 4X4 - £3.49

...

via Eurogamer


US telly therapist Dr. Phil has heard how Microsoft is not doing enough to combat racist bullies on Live.

On the show this week, concerned and irate father Terry told viewers he had been called a "monkey" and been threatened with lynching when playing on the service.


Worse for Terry is having to prevent his children from using the console online in an effort to shield them from the abuse.


But despite the atrocious comments made by spotty boys in their underpants, Microsoft needs at least 10 complaints about a particular customer before it does anything about it, says Terry. And Terry is not happy.


His family are genuinely scared, too, even if Terry tries to hide the worst of it from them.


As a result of the show, Terry had a Microsoft investigator assigned to him to check it all out and Dr. Phil called the anonymous abusers bullies. ...

via Computer and Video Games


We've got HD TVs now, so what's next from the world of TV tech? Well Toshiba has few ideas for screens powered by PS3's Cell processor.

Toshiba contributed to the development of the PS3's Cell chip along with Sony and IBM, and its new flat-panel TV is the first fruit of its investment.

These new uber-screens use the raw grunt of the Cell chip to provide some sweet new features.

Gone will be the days of having to flick through channels one-by-one - Toshiba's TV has enough processing power to render and display 48 standard-definition thumbnail videos simultaneously.

Click on one thumbnail and it'll be displayed on the bottom half of the screen for you to check out in more detail, while 16 thumbnails remain streaming on the top half. Clicking the same channel again makes it full screen.

With HD video, it can render six streams at once, said Toshiba spokesperson, Hiroaki Komaki, at the CES demonstration.

The Cell chip would also provide more powerful upscalling opportunities. It could upscale standard-def video extensively, in real-time, to achieve a picture quality that's far closer to HD than current sets do.

It could also offer a zoom feature that would upscale the portion of the video you zoom in to, resulting in minimal loss of quality.

So, 48 streams at once, and ultra-zooming features - that's a porn fan's dream.

The sets shown were just for demo purposes, and the final features of a Cell-based TV are yet to be finalised, but they certainly they won't include PS3 gaming integration, says Toshiba. ...

via Eurogamer


Konami says that Metal Gear Solid 4 is "on the eve of entering bug-checking phase" and that the developer is still committed to the game's Q2 release date.

"The next few months are going to be hell," assistant producer Ryan Payton said in the latest Kojima Productions podcast, confirming that it's the "big push". "Yeah, and we're committed to this quarter-two release date, or release timeframe."

"We're committed. Mr Kojima of all people is committed to it because he really hates to disappoint people, and I know that he is embarrassed by what happened with the 2007 slip into 2008, because we even put it in our trailer with Raiden slashing away '2008' and when you go that far you put a seal on it and then he has to delay it - that really hurt."

Payton expects the game to see a "simultaneous worldwide release" - albeit not exactly the same day - and dismisses any specific dates from retailers. "Any date that you're seeing is just speculation," he says. Apparently as recently as last Sunday they were "going back and forward with marketing" about when to do the release.

Asked about the specifics of current development, Payton said that it is possible to play the game from start to finish, although certain elements such as the opening cinematic aren't finished yet.

Indeed, the way Kojima Productions works means that they may continue adding small features throughout testing. "We could be adding stuff two weeks before gold submission," he said, which is apparently what happened on MGS3. But, he explained, "For the majority of the team, this is the end."

But is it the end for Hideo Kojima? Who knows. What we do know is that we were quite impressed with the playable demo at Tokyo Game Show last September and that we'll be bringing you more impressions very soon. ...

via Games Industry


Sony plans to give PSP titles a new lease of life by making them available digitally over the PlayStation Network.

Games that have been dropped by retail but are still in demand by consumers will head to Sony's online store, as well as short "bite-size" titles, according Sony's senior product manager John Koller.

Speaking to Kotaku, Koller said that PSP titles which "retailers aren't interested in carrying at this stage, games that we hear a lot of demand from PSP owners," will be re-released over the service.

Sony has already released a handful of retail PSP titles via the newly re-launched PlayStation Store, most notably first-party releases B-Boy and Fired Up.

Demos, trailers and classic PSone titles are already part of the offering, but Koller said the company is keen to experiment with shorter, more immediate gaming experiences.

"We have an opportunity to bring bite-size experiences to the system, ten minute, pick up and play content that can be downloaded from the store," said Koller.

Movies on the UMD format are likely to benefit from a price reduction, and Koller also said Sony was happy to see Blu-ray movies come with an embedded PSP-formated version of the title, as recently announced at CES.

"Any way we can help get that multimedia content onto the PSP, we're going to take it," he said. ...

Hey all,

This is the pdf covering my DVD compatiblity of modchips reseach. In this pdf I put several of the most well known modchips to the test and check to see if their compatibility with media (and I don't mean i.e. just not supporting rewritables) is different. Suffice to say, I was very surprised when I saw the results!

<quote introduction>
I started testing the compatibility of media of my Wii because I bought a set of +rw discs which didn't seem to work. Before taking them back to the store saying it was bad media I figured I would give it one more go. Now for some reason I switched mod-chips earlier and surprise surprise, the +rw disc which I though didn't work with my Wii suddenly started up and I was greeted by SDload! Because I couldn't quite believe what happened I switched around the chips again and indeed the other chip didn't work with the +rw discs. Putting the chip back in that worked before made me able to run SDload again.... Both chips advertise with being able to run +rw (and -rw) media though.

So I started thinking “ Maybe more of the media I rejected in the past wasn't bad media. Maybe there was a similar situation with those discs. Let's test! ”.
<end quote>


Cheers,
Scorpei ...

Dark Alex is in the matter of hours to unleash a beast of a new custom firmware for the PSP with the ability to play your own backed up games, full speed Playstation games and the hundreds of Emulators Games and Applications.

Not only will this release allow you to have full homebrew capabilities but also to update to it without the need to find other files and the whole messing around that all that entails.

In short this is the greates release ever, we wait with baited breath at what is to come

Your thoughts on the new features and that you can update like you would an official FIRMWARE.

Digg this news and let the Gaming World know that Homebrew has taken over

...