FASA Interactive founder Jordan Weisman has spoken out about Microsoft's acquisition of his highly-regarded studio, saying that the corporation "destroyed" its development culture and came close to doing the same with Halo developer Bungie.

"When Microsoft bought FASA Interactive and incorporated it into Microsoft... the two reasons they bought us was, one, they wanted the catalogue of intellectual properties and, two, they felt that we had developed a really good development culture. And the reality is that, pretty much from the day we moved to Redmond, that development culture was destroyed," Weisman told GamesIndustry.biz.

"I don't think the studio ever really had a chance. It was destroyed right in the beginning."

And Microsoft came close to repeating its mistakes with Bungie, added Weisman, who was working for the corporation as creative director at the time the Chicago-based studio was acquired.

"When we were acquiring Bungie, they wanted me to sit down with the owners of Bungie and tell them how well the transition went," he explained. "And it was like - 'what planet are you guys on?' This transition did not go well. And actually I became the lead vocal pain in the ass to get things done very different for Bungie.

"I tried to convince them to leave Bungie in Chicago, but not winning that I did succeed in getting them to put them in a walled off room, which didn't follow any of the other Microsoft stuff. We were much better able to defend Bungie's culture than we were FASA's culture."

Weisman established FASA, creators of the MechWarrior and Crimson Skies franchises, in 1980, and the company was subsequently merged with Virtual World Entertainment then acquired by Microsoft in 1999.

In 2007, FASA became one of the first studios closed by Microsoft as part of a series of cutbacks.

The reasons for this are clear for Weisman, who had already left the company to start up new venture WizKids by the time Microsoft pulled down the shutters on FASA.

They moved everybody into Microsoft's standard organisation, he said, and then changed his role so his staff were no longer reporting to him. "I was creative director for the entire group - all 300 people, not just the 60 that came with me from Chicago - so that didn't help either."

Since FASA's downfall, Weisman has successfully licensed some of his own IPs back from Microsoft and today plans to, in turn, licence them out to creative teams and publishers. The venture forms a part of his new company - Smith & Tinker - which yesterday announced it had successfully raised capital of USD 29 million to further fund its first release, Nanovor, and subsequent kids' entertainment projects.

The game designer plans to work with Vancouver-based studio Piranha Games to make a new MechWarrior title - "if we can put a deal together with a publisher - we're operating under some pretty tight restrictions of the licence that make publishing the games kind of challenging."

It's a situation Weisman admits is far from ideal.

"I guess one of the disadvantages to being old is that you outlive your children sometimes. And in this case, my children are owned by different people around the world and so it becomes a different kind of relationship."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ulture-weisman ...

Hi All,

ColEm is one of the best emulator of the ColecoVision videogame system running
on FreeBSD, HP-UX, SunOS, Solaris, Linux, and other Unix systems.
There are also ports to MacOS, MSDOS, Windows, OS/2, PocketPC and other systems.
See http://fms.komkon.org/ColEm/ for further informations.

WIZ-Colem is a port on Wiz of my previous PSP port version of ColEm.

What's new in version 1.1.0 (compared to original or even my old gp2x version) :

- A thumbnail image is now displayed in the file requester
while selecting any file with the same name of a previously
saved game (roms, keyboard, settings).
It might be very helpful to recognize that game later if you
have thousand different games in your rom folder !
- Save state dates are displayed in the emulator window
- Save state files are now saved using gzip compression
(with STZ as file extention). It's much faster to save
or load states now.
You can use gzip or 7-zip to convert old STA to STZ.
STA file format is still supported for loading, so you
convert your previous saved files inside the emulator.
(it's now easier to identify and to load the right save state slot)
- Cheat support !
- Memory monitoring engine to find your own cheat code !
- Text editor to modify the global cheat.txt file
- Text editor to write your own comments on games
- Display first comment line while browsing game files
- Auto fire support for second joystick
- Zip rom files are decompressed in memory (much faster !)
- Improve file requester with virtual keyboard to choose
sequentially rom files beginning with a given letter
- Add documentation for settings in help menu
- Auto-fire mode, press RTrigger+X to switch it on/off
- Add several new hotkeys :
. settings such as fps, render mode, auto fire speed
can now be directly modified inside the emulator
(no need to enter in the settings menu)
. quick save / quick load current state
(no need to enter in the main menu)
- Add ntsc/pal option and fix issue with default speed
(emulator was too slow in ntsc mode)

Sources are included, and this package is under the GNU public license,
read COPYING.txt file for more information about it.

http://zx81.zx81.free.fr/

Enjoy,

Zx

Download here and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

Noticed this DIY iPhone dock while trolling around on Flickr earlier; it's a bit old, but i couldn't pass this one up.

Apple included an iPhone dock with the first release of the iPhone but has since removed the dock as a prepackaged accessory. The dock, a little bit of plastic with some little connection bits costs a ridiculous $49 via the Apple Store. That price was just too high for Flickr user sayesbury so he came up with his own innovative and unique DIY dock using the iPhone's packaging.

Quote:
I wanted a dock stand for the iphone, but I could not believe Apple want £35 for it.

http://modmyi.com/forums/iphone-news...ouch-dock.html ...

The International Trade Commission is investigating Apple for a possible flash memory patent violation after BTG International, the patent holder, filed a claim.

Quote:
The complaint alleges that (the companies) unlawfully import into the U.S., sell for importation, and sell within the U.S. after importation certain MLC flash memory chips and products containing the same, which allegedly infringe BTG’s U.S. Patent Nos. 5,394,362, 5,764,571, 5,872,735, 6,104,640, and 6,118,692,

Specifically the patents "relate to methods and apparatuses for programming and reading Flash memory cells that store more than a single bit of information per cell;” which Apple has implemented in ALL of its current iPods and iPhones except for the iPod Classic.

BTG International is requesting the the International Trade Commission orders that chips and products that have chips that violate the patents are barred from importation into the US. BTG International is also lobbying for a cease and desist.. ...

News/release from whiteRabbit

Hi all,

Raw is a re-implementation of the engine used in the game Another World. This
game, released under the name Out Of This World in non-European countries, was
written by Eric Chahi at the beginning of the '90s. More information can be
found here : http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/p,2/gameId,564/.



Download Here and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

If you're wanting some quality analysis of what's under the PlayStation 3 Slim's hood, you're still gonna have to wait for that. However, if you're the sort that just needs to see hardware broken down into as many simple pieces as possible, boy have we got some pictures for you.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/25/p...-torn-asunder/ ...

MediaMall is on the verge of announcing their Wii PlayOn beta, which has been in quiet testing for a while now. What this means to you: For about $40, you'll be able to stream Hulu and Netflix to your Wii.

PlayOn's been around on the Xbox and PS3 since last year, as well as on all kinds of DLNA-compliant TVs—it's essentially a super-compatible web interface for video services that don't work on certain platforms—and we knew it was headed Wii-ward from the start. This is a step, and a sign that the service will actually materialize sometime soon, but it probably won't include a specific, formal release date. [PlayOn]

-PlayOn support for Nintendo's Wii in Beta.
-This is the first time PlayOn is able to control the user interface (and we spent significant time designing it)
-It is available for a free 14-day full-featured trial at www.playon.tv; after that it is a one-time $39.99 fee to purchase a license
-It is the same software that supports the PS3 and XBOX360, so if you already have a license or active trial, it will work on your Wii as well
-PlayOn uses the "Internet Channel" on the Wii
-How it works: You can find the PlayOn Media Server(s) by opening the "Internet Channel" web browser on the Wii, pressing the "WWW" button, and entering the web address playon.tv — We recommend you add this page to your Wii Browser "Favorites" to make it easy to return to. To upgrade your Nintendo Wii with the "Internet Channel" web browser, visit http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/sys...#downloadOpera
-We are very proud to offer Wii support as it has been one of the most requested features from our users and shows our commitment to expanding consumer access to PlayOn
-PlayOn offers the broadest selection of premium content available from Internet – to – TV providers (Hulu, Netflix, CBS, ESPN, CNN, Amazon VOD, You Tube) and our selection of niche content is growing daily via our open plugin architecture:

o Academic Earth
o Adultswim
o Cartoon Network
o Channel9
o Crackle
o Food Network
o GameTrailers.com
o HGTV
o Local Files
o NBA
o NFL
o Southpark Studios
o Spike TV
o Podcasts (OPML Player) — with dozens of available feeds!
o International channels: Danish DR and Spanish TVE
- PlayOn works on a broad range of devices, including the Playstation3, XBOX360, Nintendo Wii, Digeo's Moxi HD DVR, Verismo's VuNow Device and many DLNA-compliant devices
- You can see video demos of playon for the PS3 and XBOX360 at http://www.themediamall.com/playon/lp200907 (sorry - the Wii one isn't ready yet since we are still in Beta and hope to get feedback on the UI before it is set in stone!)

http://gizmodo.com/5345357/playon-wi...lu-to-your-wii ...

Knowing us, we're going to need some extra Modern Warfare 2 accessories when the game releases this November -- and no, the $150 collector's edition certainly isn't enough! Mad Catz is thankfully answering the call from those of us yearning for more ways to spend money on non-essential MW2 items (non-essentials being everything other than the game disc, of course), detailing today its previously announced accessories.

The damage ranges from $15 to $100 for 10 different items, such as custom controllers, mice, faceplates, and even something dubbed "skinz." We've been promised images of said items later in the week, so we'll just have to wonder what a "Throat Communicator" could possibly look like until then.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/25/ma...icator-for-mo/ ...

Did Dirty Harry ever need a second Model 29 to mop up the streets? No sir. Likewise, you'll get by just fine with one PS3 motion controller on your person. "We are approaching the launch [of the PlayStation motion controller] by making sure that all games that we create can be played with one controller and the camera," Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida assured penny-pinching purchasers during a recent interview with Eurogamer.

Of course, adding a second motion controller to your loadout could really make the magic happen: "It's like putting your arms into the TV, like a gaming space, and you have total control of the 3D space in front of you," Yoshida described of the experience of dual wanding.

Woah. Did anyone else just feel that? For a second there we were totally transported into the fourth dimension.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/08/25/ps...-not-required/ ...