The Future of Video Games?

With next-gen gaming ignorance would have us believe that the gaming would obviously get better, and it has. Except for one thing.

Patches.

Patches are basically 'add ons' to games or a gaming system, it is a small piece of software that is designed to either update a game or fix problems. This includes fixings bugs, frame rate and graphic problems etc etc

Those without a next-gen console may be thinking, 'what the hell? I've never had to get one of those before!'. Thats because you haven't ever needed them, games were released FINISHED, glitch free! What you expect really. Thus comes the down side to patches. I fear that game developers will get lazy, release games 90% finished and then just 'patch' them up a few weeks later. Who the hell wants to shell out 40-50 quid on an unfinished game, and wait for it to be polished off. I for one, do not. It seems that the gaming industry are just taking us for fools. I just hope this does not become a regular occurrence.

This is certainly the case for many games on sale at the moment, Ubisofts much anticipated 'Assassin's Creed' (hailed as one of the iconic next-gen games to come) was released a few weeks back to much joy. How ever when gamers got their copy of it home and fired it up many told of how the game froze, the screen whited out, the frame rate was slow. This has considerably effected the games reputation in the media and amongst gamers and is quickly becoming one of the biggest disappointments in games of the year regardless of achieving global success in game charts. Ubisoft have reacted to these problems and are expectedly, 'releasing a patch'.
Why not just finish the game off properly...?

“We can confirm that we are actively working on a game update,” a Ubisoft spokesperson stated. “This update will help improve the stability of the game and will be released as soon as possible. In the meantime thank you for your ongoing feedback and patience.”

Hmmmm...

The same goes for many other games, such as Pro Evolution Soccer: 2008. Hailed for its remarkable game play. Unfortunately the "geniuses" at Konami seemed to forget the online mode. Sadly it is plagued with lag issues. You could be playing some one from America, running down the wing with ermm [insert football players name] determined to score cos your sick to death of them calling it soccer then BOOM! The game freezes for a second and the ball is in the back of your net. Fail. Again this is a severe thorn in the side as it makes online play almost unplayable with out wanting to smash your controller. Unless of course, your winning :)

"Konami Digital Entertainment has uncovered issues which can affect the online gameplay? quality of PES 2008 on PLAYSTATION 3. We are working at full strength to find a solution as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise for this inconvenience. Further announcements will be made as soon as we have additional details."

That doesn't excuse the poor front cover.



What were they thinking :|

In other news

The 'wii' is selling on eBay for up to 400-600 £/$ , :O

The PS3 sales have apparently increased by 300%.

Blue Ray is outselling HD DVDs.

Dualshock 3 controllers have been released abroad. Rumble and sixAxis \o/

Until next time.

Nintendo- 'Wii are in trouble'

It appears that Nintendo has become a victim of their own success.

Ive heard so many figures and stats from wii owners of how it has outsold PS3 by like 3 times in the first year. Yeah, well, HA. Nintendo have run out of wii hardware. Needless to say 'Sony' saw the wounded wii (alliteration ftw) and pounced on it like a cat and cut the price of the ps3.

Two weeks later PS3 have announced they have now sold 100, 000 PS3's in seven days! I mean i thought God creating the Earth in seven days was a big deal. But 100, 000! Damn.

This marks the PS3's first birthday and have sold 5.6 million units worldwide.

Click the title as usual for the full article.

In other news, the man behind the xbox and the 'Zune', has hinted at a new type of convergence for the two devices. So i guess thats good for all those 'Zune' fans out there, all 3 of you.

Comprehension for Vodafones 'MusicStation'

Record labels are predicting that this month's launch of three new mobile phone music services will usher a return of rising sales after years of decline.

Apple's music-playing iPhone grabbed the headlines with its arrival in Britain last week. But music executives are just as excited about the new unlimited downloads service launched on Vodafone. Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, has also opened a digital music store here.

The world's biggest music company, Universal, is backing the MusicStation, the Vodafone service. Rob Wells, head of digital at Universal's international division, predicts the £1.99-a-week subscription service will have mass market appeal. "We are at a turning point in the UK," he says, predicting digital music sales here could offset falling CD sales within a year.

Global sales have been falling since 2000, down another 5% to $19.6bn (£9.4bn) last year, according to industry group IFPI. Although digital sales are rising fast, at a tenth of the total market, they have yet to make up for tumbling CD sales.

There are already indications that mobile music sales are picking up in the UK. The Orange UK network says its music sales jumped 70% over the past six months and it expects them to double by the end of 2007.

They expect the UK mobile music market to almost double from a predicted $83m this year to $156m in 2011. Four out of 10 UK mobiles can now play music.

There are hopes handsets will improve further from a music-playing perspective thanks to the iPhone. At £269 with an 18-month O2 contract, Apple's handset is not seen by the record labels as a big driver of revenues but it has been credited with raising the bar for phone manufacturers.

Jonathan Arber, analyst at telecoms experts Ovum, agrees, users want more simplicity in terms of being able to play what they buy across various devices. That is already happening with developments such as Sony Ericsson's Walkman phones, which synchronise with computers, he says.

1. What is it known as when companies mix 2 different applications such as phones and music players?

2. Will this service be good for CD sales or not? Why?

3. Who is this new service and new type of walkman phone primarily aimed at?

4. Why do you think CD sales have plummeted and sales of ‘digital’ mp3’s have boomed?

Playstation Threeeee

As i have already said, recently i got my self a 60 gb ps3 over a xbox 360.
And damn i am glad.
As soon as i got it out of the box you could just see it was made of win. Yes, it was bloody heavy, but o so shiny.
Plugged it in and off i went! Well kind of, that was after i went to 'Currys' and bought an extra 4 scart ports i didn't need dressed as a..person who dresses really stupidly.

When i plugged it in and it all got to work properly, i noticed some thing, it would not stop updating itself! I sat there for a good ermm 15 minutes waiting for it to update with the latest firmware. Days later i found out that the update was released on that day i got the ps3 and i was lucky as other stupider ps3 owners had been waiting a year for it
:D
I plugged in my ipod into one of the four usb ports and within 10 minutes i had all my music on it ready to go. Tested a blue ray dvd i got with it. Came out in black and white :| as i do not have a HD TV. What a con i thought. But still...this machine can deflect bullets....
With the new firmware came a series of new themes and abilities to change the back ground to the XMB screen (XMB- Cross Media Bar, the colours of which change with the time of day :O if wanted that is). Plugged in pro evo 2008 and off i went! Game wise it is quality. What i expected and more. Online, it is quality, what i expected and more. I was online within the day, easily, sooo sooo easily! Downloading demos from future games, its the mutts nutts! So after a few hours of hardc0re gaming i thought, 'this is living, how can it get any better?'

Alas! The ps3 read my mind and i give you, 'Playstation Home'

Basically, what it is is, 'The Sims' online really. If any one has ever heard of the PC game 'second life' it is like that, but free :D
What you do is sign up and what not, create a character avatar, get given your own online 'apartment' (how sad, yet o so great is that) and you can customise your apartment, adding in furniture that you can buy from the 'Playstation Store' or gain by completing certain games. Same with the look of your character, you can change its wardrobe with different clothes from default options, the store and/or completing games. People who enter each other's "homes" can stream the host's music and videos from their HDD. Videos are viewed via virtual Sony TV's, such as the BRAVIA. As well, pictures can be viewed via a virtual picture frame.
At the time being on release you will be able to play things such as pool and bowling with your totally real and not fake online buddies. But in the future Sony looks to integrate cinemas and live events such as sports and even concerts.

Communication will also be a doodle. You can use blue tooth head sets, USB keyboards, on screen keyboards and use emoticons like on msn.

It is scheduled to be released in Spring 2008. And after that, you'll never need to leave your house again.


Click the title for Wikipedia's all knowing view on it.

HAIL!

What else will it be able to do!

In my first 'non cat related post', i spoke of some of the marvels that the 'next gen' gaming consoles can in fact achieve and compute.

Jokingly in rival gaming arguements, i would regularly say how 'PS3 can deflect bullets' or 'PS3 cures cancer'. Little did i know that it does in fact do the latter.

Well it doesn't exactly cure cancer so to speak. But it does do its part to help.

Basically the PS3 uses a programme known as 'Folding at Home' which is a type of 'distributed computing'(a method for solving large complex problems by dividing them between many computers.), its is a project that harnesses the power of idle PS3's and uses them to generate computing power that is needed to 'crunch' small packets of data and then send them back over the internet to a central computer (holy moley!)

What does this have to do with cancer? Well its not only just cancer its malaria and Alzheimer's too, but F@H uses all this distributed power to examine protein folding and how it maybe linked to diseases.

"It is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PSased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds," said Prof Pan
Hes a Prof, he must know what hes talking about.

Questions

1. The PlayStation 3 is considered as a part of new media technology, but what specific category does it fall into?

2. What is more powerful, the average home computer, or Sony’s PlayStation 3?

3. What does ‘Folding At Home’ Consist of?

For more detail, and probably a article that makes more sense on this, just click the title.


In other news (what the hell, you cant underline o.O )

Any way, again in my 'first non cat related post' i said how i didn't know whether to get a ps3 or a xbox 360.
I got a comment from close friend Michael Bond saying how i should get a xbox, so being a good friend, i did the opposite and got a ps3.

Will keep you posted as to what its like in the future.

Holy Mother of God :o

Last lesson Mr White spoke of how he can see the 'school desk' becoming redundant, replaced with a more technological one.

Will this do?


Really Cool Microsoft Technology - Watch more free videos

:O

'Microsoft Surface' For The Win!