Hardware and Technology

The world’s biggest game show continues in LA with E3. It’s Sony’s turn to take to the stage and stake their claim for bragging rights for the next year of releases. 3D gaming is gets a real push and like Microsoft, motion control is going to be play a big part in the show. But will they be ignoring gamers in favour of the casual market too? We’ll tell you below while also looking at some proper games.

3D

As you’ve probably heard we’ve already had some patches to current games to make them 3D, namely: Pain, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, Super Stardust HD and WipEout HD. Sony said other publishers are working on more, by March 2011 we’ll have at least 20 3D titles. We’d suspect a mix of old and new games to get the 3D. Still, can you really save £1500 for a 3D TV by then?

Some games that are already confirmed as 3D at launch are: Gran Turismo 5, MotorStorm: Apocalypse, Sly Collection, Crysis 2, Mortal Kombat, Shaun White Skateboarding, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Tron Evolution and NBA 2K11. Unfortunately there are only a few fleeting glimpses of these games during the rest of the presentation. All three Sly PS2 games in HD? That’s pretty damn awesome. Read More  »

It's now common knowledge among most gamers that the Wii is primarily a box for parties, novelty games and the quirkier titles that make up your games library.  There's nothing wrong with this, afterall the 360 and PS3 have got the more serious end of the market sown up very nicely with quality game after quality game.  Nintendo have made a spectacular success and fortune out of what the Wii is and the latest addition to the Party Box identity of the Wii comes in the shape of We Sing and 4 USB microphones.

We Sing follows in the footsteps of Singstar and Lips and definitively brings the karaoke genre to the Wii.  Up to 4 players can sing along at a time (apparently the first time this is possible) and some pretty cool features looks set to bring the title alive.

Coming with 30 tracks at launch (though I would expect more to be available via download later) and spanning a range of genres, they will include: 

UB40 – Red Red Wine
Amy Winehouse – Tears Dry On Their Own
Charles & Eddie – Would I lie To You?
Sugababes – Girls
OneRepublic (ft. Timbaland) – Apologize
Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha
Shampoo - Trouble
Spice Girls - Wannabe
Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite
Moloko - Sing It Back
Lady GaGa - Poker Face
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Lily Allen - The Fear
Tom Jones - Delilah
Kylie Minogue - Loco-Motion
Roxette – It Must Of Been Love
The Automatic – Monster
Duffy – Mercy
Madness – Our House
James Morrison and Nelly Furtado – Broken Strings Read More  »

Physical media and dedicated gaming consoles, we are told, are dying breeds.  And the prime suspect for their expected demise is “The Cloud”.  Cloud Gaming is on it's way and may shake up the gaming world for all of us so I'm taking a look in to this to see exactly what it is, and what it means for the gaming community.

The Cloud is already present in most of our daily lives. Every time you check your Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail emails via a web browser, you're accessing, retrieving and interacting with them stored in The Cloud. Most internet users have also interacted with The Cloud when using Google Docs in which your docs, spreadsheets and presentations are all edited online without ever being saved or used on your PC itself.  The analogy of 'The Cloud' is the 'place' where the files you view and use online are stored and means not only do we save our hard drives from the abuse of saving thousands of emails and documents, but also that we can access them anywhere on the world.

Looking at gaming, Cloud Gaming is set to cause one of the biggest shake ups of the way we play games since the early 1970's when the first dedicated gaming consoles hit the shelves.  The “Cloud Gaming” generation will not own physical media nor will they store video games on a hardrive. Instead, they'll connect via the internet to central servers, on which the games are stored and the processing required to run them takes place.  With all of the processing and media storage happening remotely, the only hardware the user will require is a PC with an internet connection and a 3rd party box to manage the flow of information from PC, through the internet to their servers, and then to receive that information back and translate it onto your TV or monitor.  With the industry leaders currently claiming to have all but eliminated latency (down to 1 millisecond), the gamer's interactions with the servers through the internet is planned to be as seamless and quick as interacting with a console in the same room.

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Since it's UK release in March 2007 the PS3 has failed to impress me with any stand out gaming titles. Despite the PS3's bigger and better processing and graphics capabilities these have yet to be shown off in a way that I feel can't be replicated by the Xbox360. The 360 hit our shelves in December 2005 which has given developers a 2 year headstart in getting the most out of it. The early titles in particular I felt showed a clunky, shallow graphical experience which lacked the depth and thoroughness of Xbox titles being released at the same time. Launch title Resistance Fall of Man looks remarkably unimpressive compared to the original Gears of War, which was released 4 months previously in November 2006.

There has also been a number or art-style and experimental games that have failed to whet my personal appetite for what it can offer. Experimental and arty games are great, but mid-range gamers need a core substance of quality shooters, racers and action games that they can't get from the 360 to justify shelling out the £300 required for a decent bundle. Related to this, the loss, or to-date lack of, PS3 exclusive franchises which mid range gamers can feel passionate about. The loss of the GTA series exclusivity was a big blow and Gran Turismo and God of War are all games we can get excited about but can't yet buy.

But as with so many things, these issues are coming to light again now because they're hopefully about to disappear. With big name titles like Gran Turismo 5, God of War III, Heavy Rain, Massive Action Game (MAG) and Uncharted 2 on the horizon, the PS3 is hotting up. Massive Action Game is getting me particularly excited and we'll be taking a look at this in more detail. Read More  »

Recent monthly sales figures now show that the Playstation3 has outsold the Wii in Japan for the first time in just under eighteen months with the PS3 achieving individual sales figures of 146,948 compared to the 99,335 units sold by Nintendo.
 
Is this a downward spiral for the Wii in Japan?
 
In my opinion no. It was recently announced that the Wii was now the fastest selling games console in history, outstripping the previous record held by Sony's Playstation2. The Wii has now clocked up unit sales of over 50 million consoles which is a staggering amount of units sold in such a relatively short space of time and amply demonstrates the appeal of the Wii across the consumer spectrum, a point alluded to by Nintendo. The family and friends orientated appeal of the Wii is something that the PS3 and Xbox360 cannot seem to compete with and with the release of the new DSi looking to set new sales records across the globe, I don't see this as anything but a market blip and nothing connected to a potential downfall for Nintendo. In fact, recent software releases are seen as the driving force behind this upturn in sales of the PS3 with Capcom's Resident Evil 5 being cited as a main reason.
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