Nintendo's upcoming Revolution gaming platform, which is rumored to be officially named "Go," may not go as fast as had been originally hoped, at least if you believe the numbers that were dug up by ign.com. The website obtained updated documentation, showing the IBM "Broadway" CPU that powers the box will run at 729MHz. That's slightly slower than the original Xbox CPU, which ran at 733MHz. By comparison, Xbox 360 has a three-core chip running at 3.2GHz.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) on the Revolution, dubbed "Hollywood," has a clock speed of just 243MHz, compared to the original Xbox's 233MHz speed. At least that's better than the original Game Cube's GPU, which ran at 162MHz.

Those are a lot of numbers, but they may not mean much. Nintendo presidents past and present say they're more concerned about the controller than the speed of the hardware, where they think what you hold in your hands is more important to gameplay than the horsepower under the hood. And then, well, there's the quality of the games, too. ...

Source Gamesindustry

Alabama's Supreme Court has given the go-ahead to the lawsuit filed against Sony, Take-Two and US retailers by relatives of police officers murdered by a Grand Theft Auto fan.

A trial judge refused to dismiss the suit, and the defendants have been given no leave to appeal the decision. As a result, the trial could commence later this year or some time in early 2007.

However, the defendants do have the option to launch a challenge over whether the Alabama courts have the power to try the case - which could mean further delays.

The lawsuit was filed by the families of two police officers and a dispatcher who were murdered by 18 year old Devin Moore in June 2003. Moore pled not guilty by reason of mental defect, but was convicted of the crimes and sentenced to death. The plaintiffs claim that Moore trained to become a killer by playing Grand Theft Auto.

Their case was initially presented by anti-videogames campaigner and lawyer Jack Thompson - but he withdrew from the case last November following accusations that he had violated legal ethics. ...

Microsoft has made a minor update to the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list, adding patches to allow three new titles to run on the new console - namely Black, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Winning Eleven 9.

The update, which is the first change to the list of backwards compatible titles in several months, also fixes issues with a number of games which previously worked with the Xbox 360 but had bugs in the compatibility code, including Ninja Gaiden, Fable, Half-Life 2 and GTA San Andreas.

Details of the new update were posted on the popular blog of Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hyrb (better known by his GamerTag, Major Nelson), and the update appears to apply to European users as well as US users, according to comments left on the blog.

As with all previous backwards compatibility patches, users can download these new updates by putting the Xbox game that requires them into the Xbox 360 drive while connected to Xbox Live. They can also be downloaded to a PC from the Xbox.com website and transferred to the Xbox 360 on a CD-R.

Although only a small number of games have been added to the list with this update, Microsoft's stated goal is to eventually have every Xbox game working on the Xbox 360 - although at this rate of progress, it looks like it could take a long time for that objective to be met. ...

New Commercial DS Game:



One of Japan's most well-received comic and cartoon properties goes portable thanks to Konami in this second portable title (and first for DS) of the series. In this action-RPG, you play as Ginta Toramizu, who longs to travel to a fantasy world. He gets that chance one day when a door to another world suddenly appears before him. Ginta enters the door and his taken to a mysterious new world. Ginta's adventures begin as he gets a hold of a special "ARM" item found in this world. These items can be used both as weapons and for casting magic. The DS game features 3D character graphics and battle gameplay for up to four players.

More info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...2&lsaid=219793 ...

New Commercial DS Game:



One of Japan's most well-received comic and cartoon properties goes portable thanks to Konami in this second portable title (and first for DS) of the series. In this action-RPG, you play as Ginta Toramizu, who longs to travel to a fantasy world. He gets that chance one day when a door to another world suddenly appears before him. Ginta enters the door and his taken to a mysterious new world. Ginta's adventures begin as he gets a hold of a special "ARM" item found in this world. These items can be used both as weapons and for casting magic. The DS game features 3D character graphics and battle gameplay for up to four players.

More info --> http://www.yesasia.com/?/info.php?pro...2&lsaid=219793 ...

Nintendo has gone on the offensive again today and has been speaking in an exclusive interview with Next-Gen.biz about the Revolution's innovative controller (or wand or nunchuck, whatever you want to call it), claiming it's both extremely easy to use and likening it in the intuitive stakes to DS's touchscreen interface.
Beth Llewelyn, who is Nintendo's senior director of public relations, has assured anyone who reckons the controller looks too complex holds that opinion simply because they haven't played around with it. "The single controller is extremely intuitive,"

Llewelyn said, "You pick it up and maybe you press a button and maybe you just move it around and things happen on screen. That is very non-intimidating".

"I don't play games that often," continued Llewelyn, "but I love DS because I love the easy interface so this is very familiar to me. I think the nunchuck seems a little strange to many people but once you get it in your hand it feels completely natural," Llewelyn added.
Pheweee, well that's a huge weight of our minds because we were beginning to wonder, what with the controller being nicknamed the nunchuck and all, whether we'd have to undergo intensive ninja training before we could play a Revolution game. Llewelyn went on to say that, while as far as she's aware the controller has yet to tested on or by the public, response from the home crowd - i.e. Nintendo - and third parties who have dabbled has been "very positive".

"I think we'll get some positive feedback at E3. The reaction we've got so far has all been very good. That's just with demos so when we show actual games it should be very rewarding," Llewelyn continued, calling this year's E3 "the big coming out party for Revolution."

"The big thing is to get everyone to experience it. It's about the nature of the gameplay, the controller and the movement. People need to experience it for real and E3 will allow them to do that."

Llewelyn also responded to questions about Virtual Console and the recent news that Sega's pledged support, saying it's an "exciting way to build up the library. We certainly have a great library of legacy games and it adds excitement to add Sega's in as well."

Judging by Llewelyn's comments, it's highly possible that Nintendo will get other publishers and developers on board too. Apparently, "There are discussions going on all the time behind closed doors," in connection with the download service and she didn't rule out going back as far at the Commodore 64 for content.

It was announced at GDC recently, of course, that part of Nintendo's battle plan for Virtual Console is to support and make available new games too. "Mr. Iwata touched on that, talking about offering developers the tools to create new games. The idea is that there is an opportunity there for new games. Discussions have also been going on with publishers", Llewelyn stated about the Xbox Live Arcade-style aspect of Virtual Console.

She concluded: "We've shown that we are willing to disrupt the norm and go out on a limb and be successful with games like Brain Training and that shows third parties what can be done. Developers don't always have to go with massive budgets and two-year development schedules."

Similar opinion on supporting 'smaller' new games on Virtual Console has been voiced by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in an interview in CNN's Game Over column.

"If we can come up with an addictive, but simple title - such as Tetris 15 years ago - my attention should be focused on containing costs," Iwata commented. "So, I would make it available through the Virtual Console. I think the opportunity for ourselves will be much larger than software that costs $50-$60." Interesting stuff, although he did add that "Of course, there are a number of people waiting for a 'masterpiece' title. For those games, we'll utilized traditional distribution channels." ...

It's always been Nintendo's contention that it won't be taking on either Xbox 360 or PS3 in terms of sheer head-to-head horsepower, and latest reports from the US would seem to back this up, with a bunch of Revolution developers apparently revealing the tech specs of Nintendo's forthcoming console to IGN.
Speaking under conditions of anonymity, Nintendo devs have revealed the following tech info on the GameCube's successor (see below), and quite revealing reading they make too, indicating that Nintendo is indeed going its own third way.

We've reprinted some of the key specs below for you to mull over, but it seems Revolution can be thought of as GameCube squared or possibly, ahem, cubed at a push. According to the report, some of its features - especially in the GPU department - aren't that much of an advance over the original Xbox as we reported way back here.

However, perhaps direct comparisons aren't quite so fair as an ATI boss John Swinimer recently opined , and Nintendo will be able to really push its dedicated Revolution graphical hardware to the limit. Let's face it, not too many people were complaining over Resident Evil 4's graphics and Twilight Princess doesn't exactly look shabby, so it may just be up to devs to maximise what they've been given.
That's not to say Nintendo hasn't also got some intriguing technical ideas to make the most out of the Rev's horsepower too, but if these specs are true, then the console is certain to be the lower powered, lower spec console aimed at the mass market which we've long predicted.

Chew over the specs and let us know what you think in the comments field below.

Revolution runs on an extension of the Gekko and Flipper architectures that powered GameCube.

IBM's "Broadway" CPU is clocked at 729MHz. GameCube's Gekko CPU ran at 485MHz. In comparison, the original Xbox's CPU clocked at 733MHz.

Revolution's ATI-provided "Hollywood" GPU clocks in at 243MHz. By comparison, GameCube's GPU ran at 162MHz, while the original Xbox's GPU was clocked at 233MHz.

"The 'Hollywood' is a large-scale integrated chip that includes the GPU, DSP, I/O bridge and 3MBs of texture memory," a studio source told IGN.

Revolution will operate using 24MBs of "main" 1T-SRAM. It will additionally boast 64MBs of "external" 1T-SRAM. That brings the total number of system RAM up to 88MBs, not including the 3MB texture buffer on the GPU. ...

Another release of Xports port of this Genesis/Sega CD/32X emu, heres the news:
Core:
- CUE sheet loading for ISO/MP3 is fixed
- Loading state from BIN/CUE would not restart the CDDA
being played. Fixed.

GUI:
- Brought up to date with most recently added features
No dl, info here ...

Source - NextGen

Reuters reports Hollywood sources saying that Wal-Mart is pulling out of UMD. The reports adds that UMD sections at retail are shrinking fast.

One unnamed president of a major studio is quoted as saying, "No one's watching movies on PSP. It's a game player, period."

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has ceased UMD production. One exec told Reuters, "Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb."

Paramount is also considering its future with PSP's format. An exec said, "We are on hiatus with UMD. Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No one's even breaking even on them."

Image Entertainment has moved out of UMD while 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home Entertainment have reduced commitment. ...