Source - Hollywood Reporter

Exactly a year after it was launched in the U.S., the Sony PlayStation Portable's days as a hand-held movie-viewing device might be numbered.

Disappointing sales have slowed the flow of movies on the proprietary Universal Media Disc to a mere trickle. At least two major studios have completely stopped releasing movies on UMD, while others are either toying with the idea or drastically cutting back. And retailers also are shrinking the amount of shelf space they've been devoting to UMD movies, amid talk that Wal-Mart is about to dump the category entirely. Wal-Mart representative Jolanda Stewart declined comment on reports that the retailer is getting out of the UMD business. But studio sources say such a move is imminent, and a check Wednesday of a Wal-Mart store in Santa Ana, Calif., revealed a drastic shrinkage of UMD inventory. Several shelves of movies in the PSP section were gone; all that remained were seven UMD titles sitting bookshelf-style on the top of the PSP section, with no prices or other information.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely stopped producing UMD movies, according to executives who asked not to be identified by name. Said one high-ranking exec: "It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb -- like Blu-ray."

Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment also is said to be out of the UMD business. "We continue to evaluate the PSP platform for each title, and if it makes sense for business reasons and the target audience, we will release them," spokeswoman Brenda Ciccone said. "Our focus right now is much more aimed at HD at the moment, though."

A high-ranking executive was more blunt: "We are on hiatus with UMD," he said. "Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No one's even breaking even on them." Also out of the UMD business is Image Entertainment, while other studios -- including 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Buena Vista Home Entertainment -- have drastically slashed release schedules.

"No one's watching movies on PSP," said the president of one of the six major studios' home entertainment divisions. "It's a game player, period."

Observers speculate the studios released too many movies, too fast. Within five months of the PSP's March 2005 launch, 239 movie and TV titles already were either in the market or in the pipeline -- a significantly higher tally than games, according to the DVD Release Report.

But while sales were initially strong -- two Sony Pictures titles even crossed the 100,000-unit threshold after just two months -- the novelty quickly wore off, observers say. The arrival last fall of Apple's video iPod only hastened the PSP's decline as a movie-watching platform.

Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, was a big believer in PSP as a movie-watching platform. He still is, even though he concedes retail shelf space for UMD movies is on a sharp decline and his own studio is being "more selective" in choosing movies for UMD release.

Feingold believes the PSP's biggest drawback as a movie-watching device was the inability to connect the gadget to TV sets for big-screen viewing, "which would have made it more compelling," as well as the inclusion of memory stick capability. "I think a lot of people are ripping content and sticking it onto the device rather than purchasing," he said.

But next week, Sony Computer Entertainment executives will begin making the rounds of the Hollywood studios to discuss plans for making the PSP able to connect to TV sets. "We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback," he said. ...

E has posted a new Beta release of his PC Engine and Wonderswan Emulator for the PSP, dont ask me whats new(in japanese) but you can be sure it has a load of improvements.

Download and Give Feedback via Comments ...

Ruka has posted details of a beta version of his Nes Emulator for the PSP, this release has Support Wifi Network Play(Adhoc) & Run in Kernel mode.for PSPs with firmware versions 1.0 or 1.5. If u can believe whats written on the site (its Japanese)

No Download yet but keep your eye on the site here --> http://rukapsp.hp.infoseek.co.jp/ ...

Source - DSFanboy

DS Fanboy has a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World to give away! Of course, by "give away" we really mean "reward to whoever jumps through our most insidious of hoops". All you have to do in order to get your hands on Nintendo's epic celebration of gentle anthropomorphism and neighborly etiquette is to apply your incredible (or feeble) photoshop skills to the above image. Insert text, thought bubbles, game characters, elaborate disguises, hypnotic badgers, mutant garbage disposal technicians or a deeply melancholy trilobyte--anything, as long as it makes sense (clearly, our examples weren't very good), is irrefutably hilarious and doesn't kill us instantly. Keeping it simple might drive home the punchline (try adding some dialogue), but we're open to some wackier interpretations of this dramatic scene as well (try adding some explosions). Heck, you might even remove or replace something in there for comedic effect.

The entry we deem to be the funniest will secure the lovely prize. Send your submissions along with your e-mail address to dsfanboy.submissions[AT]gmail.com. Alternatively, you can host the image somewhere and send us the link via our tips form.

Entries close at 11:59PM on Wednesday, 5 April. Go wild. ...

Source - DSFanboy

DS Fanboy has a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World to give away! Of course, by "give away" we really mean "reward to whoever jumps through our most insidious of hoops". All you have to do in order to get your hands on Nintendo's epic celebration of gentle anthropomorphism and neighborly etiquette is to apply your incredible (or feeble) photoshop skills to the above image. Insert text, thought bubbles, game characters, elaborate disguises, hypnotic badgers, mutant garbage disposal technicians or a deeply melancholy trilobyte--anything, as long as it makes sense (clearly, our examples weren't very good), is irrefutably hilarious and doesn't kill us instantly. Keeping it simple might drive home the punchline (try adding some dialogue), but we're open to some wackier interpretations of this dramatic scene as well (try adding some explosions). Heck, you might even remove or replace something in there for comedic effect.

The entry we deem to be the funniest will secure the lovely prize. Send your submissions along with your e-mail address to dsfanboy.submissions[AT]gmail.com. Alternatively, you can host the image somewhere and send us the link via our tips form.

Entries close at 11:59PM on Wednesday, 5 April. Go wild. ...

IGN has gone on record to claim it has been privy to some hitherto secret information regarding what will be under the hood of Nintendo's looming Revolution console, offering specifications allegedly obtained from senior development sources which point to a GameCube-based next-generation console.

According to the site:

Insiders stress that Revolution runs on an extension of the Gekko and Flipper architectures that powered GameCube, which is why studios who worked on GCN will have no problem making the transition to the new machine, they say. IBM's "Broadway" CPU is clocked at 729MHz, according to updated Nintendo documentation. By comparison, GameCube's Gekko CPU ran at 485MHz. The original Xbox's CPU was clocked at 733MHz. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 runs three symmetrical cores at 3.2GHz.

Revolution's ATI-provided "Hollywood" GPU clocks in at 243MHz. By comparison, GameCube's GPU ran at 162MHz, while the GPU on the original Xbox was clocked at 233MHz. Sources we spoke with suggest that it is unlikely the GPU will feature any added shader features, as has been speculated.

The overall system memory numbers we reported last December have not greatly fluctuated, but new clarifications have surfaced. 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. By comparison, GameCube featured 40MBs of RAM not counting the GPU's on-board 3MBs. The original Xbox included 64MBs total RAM. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 operate on 512MBs of RAM.

It is not known if the 14MBs of extra D-RAM we reported on last December are in the current Revolution specifications.

Worthy of note is the fact that both CPU and GPU clock speeds mooted for Revolution are almost exactly 1.5 times faster than the GameCube, leading some to vocalise doubt that IGN's report comprises little more than 'outsider' developer information from a second-hand source at last week's Games Developers Conference.

The fact that no shader technology has been mentioned has surprised many, leaving Nintendo somewhat out in the cold in the eyes of technophiles as the next-generation of home consoles come online.

As you would imagine, the very suggestion that the Revolution will be underpowered when compared to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 has caused fanboy meltdown, in spite of the fact that Nintendo has repeatedly outlined it is focusing on gameplay innovation over graphics. The row over what element of gaming boils the videogame community down into two main factions. Those who care about pixel-shaded sweat beads appearing on the face of Dante in DMC7 and those who would rather play Bishi Bashi-inspired competitive interactive cookery using a magic wand.

The fact that no mass storage has been announced for the Revolution has also caused some to turn their nose up at Nintendo's new machine, though SPOnG believes Nintendo will release a first-party hard disc soon after the Revolution ships. Company president Satoru Iwata briefed some developers during GDC to expect HDD support, explaining that the Revolution can make use of any USB storage medium.

As to whether Nintendo's gamble with power, and understand, it is a gamble, pays off remains to be seen, though SPOnG, for the record, believes it will and in a massive way.

Should these specs prove accurate, essentially every studio on the planet with GameCube experience can begin making games for Revolution. Then bear in mind these games will cost a fraction of those being readied for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The result will be more games available at lower price point. Then throw into the mix the ever-impressive online service from Nintendo and of course, the Revolution's word-defying new controller and a whole new world of quick, accessible fun gaming opens up.

The same games but prettier or a whole new way of playing. A no-brainer for people on both sides of the divide.

We'll leave you with this. Ask anyone who owns both a DS and a PSP which they play and enjoy the most. The technophiles will back PSP and the gamers with take DS every time. ...

Hamsterburt has posted some WIP news on the state of his emulators for the PSP, heres what he posted:

Dispite being very busy this week, I have found a few hours to do some more psp coding. Here is what I have been working on:

PSPFceultra: I've added options to load custom palletes, cheats, and FDS images. I am still working on adding nes movie playback, and improving the sound and I might have a version with adhoc support before too long.

PSPadrive: I've made a start rewriting the graphics rendering code to use the psp hardware to render the background tiles. This should give a decent speedup aslong as I can get it working better.

Unnamed new gameboy emulator port: This is progressing quite nicely. I am writing a new gui lib for use in my other ports using this emulator as testbed. It will be interesting (for me at least) to see how it turns out.

More info --> http://hbert.dcemu.co.uk/ ...

According to comments made by a Hudson online marketing manager to 1UP, Saturn Bomberman — considered by many to be the best version of Bomberman and one of the greatest multiplayer titles of all time — is "under evaluation" for Xbox Live Arcade. The original Sega Saturn game featured a frantic 10-player Battle mode that would likely be a huge draw for 360 owners looking for a simple, but addictive multiplayer experience. Let's hope the evaluation process comes to that same conclusion. ...

Microsoft released its latest Xbox 360 backwards compatibility update, marked by the additions of BLACK, Star Wars Battlefront II, and World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 to the growing list of playable Xbox titles. In addition, the following titles — previously compatible, but buggy — received tune-ups:

Darkwatch
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Half-Life 2
Fable
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Forza Motorsport
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden Black
SSX 3
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
kill.switch
World Series Baseball 2K3 ...