Teachers have traditionally not been keen on students bringing handhelds or games into the classroom, but a new initiative supported by Sony aims to change that. At a "PSP in Education National Launch" event held today at its '3Rooms' brand space in London, Sony Computer Entertainment UK's managing director, Ray Maguire, introduced a project organised by ConnectED that sees the PlayStation Portable being used in schools as a learning tool.

Maguire explained that Sony has been linked with education for some time--in 2003, there was a trial of using the PlayStation 2 and EyeToy as a communication method between students in different schools. However, the development of 'connected' devices such as the PSP, and the increase in the availability of wireless broadband, has really opened up the opportunities for a link with education, Maguire said. While he commented that Sony was not aiming to be a leader in the education space, he pointed out that there were lots of opportunities for content providers to make use of the portable, connected nature of the PSP as a way to provide data and programs.

Richard Owen, from Maplesden Noakes school, which trialled using PSPs in several different classes, said the experiment had been very positive. Owen said that teachers found that students benefited from being able to work at their own pace--for example, being able to rewind an audio file and listen again to ensure they didn't miss anything, or to view a video several times. Another trial is set to start shortly in Newcastle, involving 10 schools.

Continuing the 'PlayStation in education' theme, Relentless Software also used the event to demonstrate its latest iteration of the Buzz! quiz series--a version of the game designed specifically for schools. The questions are all designed to cover the Key Stage 2 elements of the National Curriculum, and Jeff Gamon, executive producer at Relentless, said that classroom trials of the game had proved extremely successful.

via gamespot ...

Microsoft today announced the latest release in its Xbox Live Arcade Wednesdays program, the 1989 coin-op beat-'em-up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Originally produced by Konami, the game is being offered on Live Arcade through an agreement with Ubisoft, the brand's current rights holder and publisher of its own line of movie-based TMNT games.

Developed by Digital Eclipse (the studio behind Live Arcade ports of Contra, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game will feature voice chat capability and online or offline cooperative multiplayer for up to four gamers.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is set to go live on XBLA this Wednesday at 2 a.m. PDT and will be available for 400 Microsoft Points ($5).

via gamespot ...

via eurogamer

Microsoft challenged four community developer teams to create four games in four days at this year's GDC, in an effort to show how simple it was to use the XNA Game Studio Express tool.

Well, they all rose to the challenge and produced a handful of gems for you to try out, providing you have a copy of the free XNA program for your PC installed, which you can grab from the official place (you'll need C# 2005 Express Edition installed to run it).

The line-up begins with DungeonQuest, created by German team Benjamin Nitschke and Cristoph Reinaecker; a 3D action RPG that lets you crawl through various dungeons in a two-player co-op team.

Then there's Simian Escape from American chaps Jonathon Stevens and Patrick Glanville, which is a 2D run-and-jump romp in a prehistoric setting. They've craftily utilised the help of the Torque X tools, available in the paid-for version of XNA.

The United Kingdom creation Damage Control came from Josh Butterworth and Maher Al-Samkari, and is a four-player siege game that challenges you with seeing off hordes of aliens that are advancing on your base.

Last but not least is AbduX from Brazillian Andre Furtado, which puts you in the space boots of a wide-eyed alien, and lets you plough through the counrtyside in your flying saucer whilst abducting scores of unsuspecting humanoids. Particularly impressive in this little chestnut is the voice recognition controls that let you command different functions of the spacecraft.

It's all part of promoting Microsoft's Dream-Build-Play competition, which is designed to create awareness of its XNA development tools. Simply make a great game using the software, win US$ 1000, and get your creation on Xbox Live Arcade.

XNA Game Studio Express is a free download that lets hobbyists, students, and independent developers create and share games for Windows. It was released last December along with the Creators Club, which is available for a yearly EUR 99 subscription and enables you to develop and play games on Xbox 360. ...

via eurogamer

Konami has moved to reassure European gamers that Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence servers will remain online for multiplay, despite the company's decision to switch off the American ones.

"The European MGS3 Subsistence Servers will stay online. Indeed, Konami recently announced a dedicated league system - http://www.mgs3league.com/ - which will continue to provide services for fans of the game," the publisher said on its website.

Presumably this is because MGS3: Subsistence only came out here recently, whereas it's been out in the US since March of last year. We thought it was pretty amazing, if you're wondering.

Mind you, keeping your servers online for one year seems a bit tight. Even EA does better than that. What do you reckon, chaps? Would this affect your decision to go with a Konami online game in the future? ...

Lylat Wars is expected to appear on Virtual Console very soon, but Nintendo is keeping quiet about exactly when.

The US version of the game - StarFox 64 - tops the list of recent recipients of an ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) certificate in the US (it's been rated "E", in case you're interested).

That's not enough for Nintendo to confirm anything though, with a UK representative declining to comment when we made contact this morning.

Still, if recent trends are anything to go by then Lylat Wars should pop out from behind an asteroid and start costing 1000 Wii points in the nearish future.

via eurogamer ...

via engadget

For now at least, Zune hacks appear to be far outweighing the Zune cracks, although we doubt neither are making Microsoft very happy these days. The latest on hack front comes to us courtesy of Zune Boards member Marshilboy, who whipped up a little something that does away with the Zune's guest sync feature, instead letting you sync any Zune as if it were the "home" Zune. That also does away with the need to erase everything on your Zune and start over from scratch should you ever somehow completely mess things up with it. Of course, as with all such hacks, it's probably not be the best idea to start modifying software you're dependent on unless you know what you're doing, so proceed at your own risk.

More Info ...

via newscitech

A popular video game could provide doctors with a way of diagnosing depression.

With some illnesses, such as diabetes, a simple test can usually quantify how severe a person's condition is, but depression is more complicated. The condition has been linked to a shrunken hippocampus, a part of the brain that also plays a role in spatial memory, so Neda Gould at the US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and her colleagues wondered whether a video game that tests spatial memory could help measure the severity of the illness.

To test their idea the researchers developed a game based on some scenes from Duke Nukem, a game in which players navigate around a virtual town. The participants, who were already familiar with the town, were asked to find their way to as many landmarks as possible within a set amount of time.

Depressed people found their way to an average of 2.4 locations compared with 3.8 locations for healthy controls. Indeed, the more depressed a person was, the lower the score (The American Journal of Psychiatry, vol 164, p 516). Gould hopes the test may eventually provide a quantifiable measure of depression. ...

News from Divineo China of a new Nintendo Wii Modchip that allows for Region Free Gaming. Details Below



We are taking preorders for a new Wii mod called Wiid. This mod, produced by one leading modchip maker will be released within 9 days and appears to be a high quality slighty improved version of the Wiikey.

More details:

The WiiD is a fully featured Nintendo Wii mod, easy to install, easy to upgrade, compatible with every single Wii console system.
Ideal for Wii advanced users. More features to be added in future with software upgrades.

- Non Swap/Direct Boot for Homebrew in GC mode
- Non Swap/Direct Boot for NTSC region Wii games/ on US and JAP consoles
- Boots PAL Originals on NTSC WII consoles (partially without swapping)
- Boots NTSC Originals on PAL WII consoles (partially without swapping)
- Boots different region GC Games Original Imports (partially without swapping)
- EUROPE/USA/JAPAN Wii Console Supported
- Double soldering option, 6 wires or Quicksolder (No wires Required)!
- Compatible with all the WII Console Versions/Drive currently available
- Full D2B Drive Support
- Built-in audio fix
- Full support for DVD-R/DVD+R and DVD+RW/DVD-RW without Booktype
- Supports Multi-Disc/Multigames games for BOTH Wii and Gamecube
- Recovery Mode for incomplete/Bad Upgrades
- Stealth mode
- Firmware fully Upgradable by DVD! ...

News from Divineo USA

Good news for the hard core Nintendo DS/DS Lite user: The ultimate device for their machine, the DS-X, is now below $100!

And one good news never coming alone, we are also taking preorder for the huge 16Gb version, available end of this month.

For those who don't know the DS-X, this is the most complete, advanced, greater compatibility device on NDS. If you only need one device, you need the DS-X.

Preorder the DS-X 16GB Version from Divineo USA for $124.99 ...