SPOnG has just received news that our most anticipated DS game of 2006 – New Super Mario Bros – will be releasing in the UK on June 30, just in time for the school holidays.

We had a tantalising little glimpse of the game at GDC last month and you can check out our hands-on right here.

New Super Mario Bros is the first game in the multi-million selling franchise for over a decade. It follows our second and third most anticipated games for the spring and summer: Metroid Prime Hunters (May 5) and - yes, really - Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? (June 9).

Now, we’ve been hassling Nintendo to let us know when it plans to release those beautiful looking DS Lite’s so that we can finally play all of these great games on the Tube and out in public without looking like an overgrown child. Being Nintendo though, it's being very tight-lipped about when we can expect to see an official release of these diminiutive beauties over in Europe. Come on, guys! Don’t make us waste our hard-earned on overpriced imports!

Surely, but surely, it has to be a joint June 30 release for the DS Lite, bundled with New Super Mario Bros. SPOnG thinks it’s probably down to whether or not Nintendo can actually make the number of DS Lites required for a concurrent US/European launch to work well enough.

At the rate they are currently moving off the shelves over in Japan, this is perhaps not looking likely. By the end of April, Nintendo plans to have sold 1,250,000 DS Lites in Japan. Just turn up the speed a bit on those production lines, Nintendo. Those underpaid factory workers will never know!

Anal-obsessive fact and world-record fans might be interested to learn that the original Super Mario Bros. still holds the record for the highest-selling computer game ever (40 million copies sold according to the Guinness Book of Records) which gives you some idea of how important this new title is to Nintendo, and to gamers worldwide.

http://news.spong.com/article/9855 ...

According to G.Rev's latest magazine entry (here, or you can see the babelfish translation here), the regular edition of Under Defeat has completely sold out and they've had to do a reprint. Apparently, there's not many of the limited edition left either. This appears to have come as a bit of a shock to them!

Wow, we knew that Under Defeat did well,(was No1 in sega's "Sega Direct" shop in their charts, when released). But SOLD OUT.... Thats cazy!

Things are look good for the Dreamcast (well in japan at least)

Thanks to NiktheGreek at Dreamcast-scene.com ...

One of the features not advertised by Sony, but widely advertised by PSP users/enthusiasts, is the ability to convert video files to a format which the PSP likes for watching on the go. I've scoured the Internet looking for "How would I convert videos for the PSP with one of my Linux machines?" - only to be skunked every time.

However, with all the tools for Mac OS X and Windows, I discovered a common theme. EVERY ONE was using FFmpeg. EVERY ONE. Well hey, FFmpeg was developed on Linux in the first place, right? How hard can this be?

Thats from the tutorial at this site --> http://www.linuxpspvideo.org/ ...

After five years its time to have a fun competition to put all the hardwork that has gone into ps2sdk, pspsdk and all the other great tools to some use. The goal is simple, write your own homebrew original game in the next 2months. The best entry for PSP and PS2 win a prize. Simple!

I(Oobles) will be the official ajudicator of the competition. I won't be entering the competition and I will be one of about five judges.

What are the prizes I hear you ask!? Well, I'm hoping to get hold of a new Homebrew compatible PSP (firmware 1.5) as a prize to the best ps2 game. And I'm hoping to get hold of a new modified slim line PS2 for the best PSP game. When I've got these things confirmed, I'll update this post! Remember if you wait to find out if we get these, you'll be giving everyone else a head start.

The Basic Rules.

- There is two competitions. Best entry for PSP game and PS2 game wins.
- Games must be entered by the end of June 5th (2 months).
- Entries will be judged on Gameplay, Originality, Graphics, Sound and Polish. Scores will be out of 10 for each.
- There will be five judges for each competition.
- All games must be suitable for a teens. No Adults only content please.
- All entries must be original. (ie no ports of games)
- All entries must be submitted here with a link to where it can be downloaded. If you need a hosting location talk to me via private message.
- All entries must include a Fourth Creation splash on the openning title. (will provide images to these images soon)
- All entries must include a readme, that describes the game, the author, contact email address, and other special info.
- All entries must be freely distributable. Source code does not need to be included, but would be nice.
- Multiple entries are allowed.
- Rules (and prizes) are subject to change without notice.

The Playstation 2 competition

- Prize is hopefully a PSP with firmware 1.5 for best entry.
- Games must be playable using the PS2LINK 1.46 via Host.
- Games should be playable on at least one of PAL or NTSC (hint: working on both counts towards polish points)
- Games can be entered which require special peripherals (eg gun controls), however, judges are likely not to own the required peripherals and final scores may be highly effected by this.

The Playstation Portable competition

- Prize is hopefully a Playstation 2 ready for homebrew for best entry.
- Games must be playable on a PSP with firmware 1.5
- Games should not run in kernel mode unless you can give a good reason.


If you have any questions, please post them to this thread. If you are interested in being a judge for either competition please send me a private message. You may not enter if you are a judge.

If you would like to provide prizes, please send me an email to oobles at hotmail dot com

Goodluck!
David. aka Oobles. ...

Oobles the admin over at PS2Dev posted this news:

After five years its time to have a fun competition to put all the hardwork that has gone into ps2sdk, pspsdk and all the other great tools to some use. The goal is simple, write your own homebrew original game in the next 2months. The best entry for PSP and PS2 win a prize. Simple!

I(Oobles) will be the official ajudicator of the competition. I won't be entering the competition and I will be one of about five judges.

What are the prizes I hear you ask!? Well, I'm hoping to get hold of a new Homebrew compatible PSP (firmware 1.5) as a prize to the best ps2 game. And I'm hoping to get hold of a new modified slim line PS2 for the best PSP game. When I've got these things confirmed, I'll update this post! Remember if you wait to find out if we get these, you'll be giving everyone else a head start.

The Basic Rules.

- There is two competitions. Best entry for PSP game and PS2 game wins.
- Games must be entered by the end of June 5th (2 months).
- Entries will be judged on Gameplay, Originality, Graphics, Sound and Polish. Scores will be out of 10 for each.
- There will be five judges for each competition.
- All games must be suitable for a teens. No Adults only content please.
- All entries must be original. (ie no ports of games)
- All entries must be submitted here with a link to where it can be downloaded. If you need a hosting location talk to me via private message.
- All entries must include a Fourth Creation splash on the openning title. (will provide images to these images soon)
- All entries must include a readme, that describes the game, the author, contact email address, and other special info.
- All entries must be freely distributable. Source code does not need to be included, but would be nice.
- Multiple entries are allowed.
- Rules (and prizes) are subject to change without notice.

The Playstation 2 competition

- Prize is hopefully a PSP with firmware 1.5 for best entry.
- Games must be playable using the PS2LINK 1.46 via Host.
- Games should be playable on at least one of PAL or NTSC (hint: working on both counts towards polish points)
- Games can be entered which require special peripherals (eg gun controls), however, judges are likely not to own the required peripherals and final scores may be highly effected by this.

The Playstation Portable competition

- Prize is hopefully a Playstation 2 ready for homebrew for best entry.
- Games must be playable on a PSP with firmware 1.5
- Games should not run in kernel mode unless you can give a good reason.


If you have any questions, please post them to this thread. If you are interested in being a judge for either competition please send me a private message. You may not enter if you are a judge.

If you would like to provide prizes, please send me an email to oobles at hotmail dot com

Goodluck!
David. aka Oobles. ...

Davr posted this:

Sketches of Q is the name of my favorite sketching app. It was written to run on Sharp’s Linux-based Zaurus PDA. The features that make it stand out, are:

The canvas is actually twice the resolution of the screen, and as you draw, it draws onto the larger canvas, which is then scaled down smoothly to give nice smooth, sketchy lines
The paint bucket tool: Instead of instantly filling all connected areas, ink would slowly pour out as long as you held the pen on the screen. This let you fill shapes that weren’t completely closed
I’ve duplicated the first feature in a proof-of-concept app for Nintendo’s DS handheld. It's a bit slow, and touchscreen support is not perfect. And no color selector. But I like it so far.

More info --> http://blog.davr.org/ ...

Davr posted this:

Sketches of Q is the name of my favorite sketching app. It was written to run on Sharp’s Linux-based Zaurus PDA. The features that make it stand out, are:

The canvas is actually twice the resolution of the screen, and as you draw, it draws onto the larger canvas, which is then scaled down smoothly to give nice smooth, sketchy lines
The paint bucket tool: Instead of instantly filling all connected areas, ink would slowly pour out as long as you held the pen on the screen. This let you fill shapes that weren’t completely closed
I’ve duplicated the first feature in a proof-of-concept app for Nintendo’s DS handheld. It's a bit slow, and touchscreen support is not perfect. And no color selector. But I like it so far.

More info --> http://blog.davr.org/ ...

Sony has announced more details of Tekken Dark Resurrection, the first PSP instalment in the hit beat-'em-up series.

It'll feature more than 30 customisable characters, including newcomers Dragunov and Lili, our old friend the Armor King and lots of other familiar faces. You can spend the money you earn from fights on new stuff for your character - apparently there are twice as many items to choose from than there were in Tekken 5.

Game modes will include Arcade Battle, which sees you fighting your way to fame and glory, and Quick Battle, which lets you take part in one-on-one or team battles against the CPU. Team Battle allows up to eight players compete in a knockout tournament.
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Story Battle lets you find out all about your character's history, while Tekken Dojo sees you fighting for the title of Tekken Lord as you battle in a series of Dojos based on a private island owned by Mishima Zaibatsu.

Then there's Ad Hoc Mode, for wireless battles against real life opponents, and three attack modes - Time Attack, Survival and Gold Rush. And finally, there's the obligatory Practice mode, complete with tutorials, freestyle training and command training.

Tekken Dark Resurrection is out later this year.

(Taken From www.eurogamer.net) ...

skate2live has released a new game for the GP2X, heres the info:

A simple shooting/dodge cars game. Very early version. Later version may be more like popular flash game "StickRPG"

Download Via Comments ...