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PSP News is a News and downloads site for the PSP, PSVita, PS4, PS3, PS2 and PSOne, We have all the latest emulators, hack and custom firmwares, homebrew and all the downloads on this site, we also cover commercial gaming and console news., the latest homebrew and releases, Part of the
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July 24th, 2011, 22:49 Posted By: wraggster
A new PS3 Emulator has been announced, in reality its going to be years before anything decent will run and on one mega powerful PC, but anyway, heres whats new so far:
List of recent project changes over the last week:
R20
rpcs3:
- implemented ELF compiler (Asm, only for test).
interpreter:
- Fixed ADDI opcode.
SysCalls:
- fixed FileSystem syscalls..
R19
DisAsm:
- Fixed dump code.
interpreter:
- Founded and emulated more instructions.
- Fixed sc value..
R16
interpreter:
- Emulated more instructions.
ElfLoader:
- Fixed SetPc value..
R15
rpcs3:
- fixed compilation bugs for debug mode
memory:
- fixed read/write 16/32/64/128
- implemented fast read/write.
R14
rpcs3:
- emulated some file system SysCalls
- rewrote MThread mode (now use pthread 2.8.0)
- rewrote memory manager
- rewrote save (ini) manager
- main and Log frames now save current position and size
- added more opcodes
- fixed crash if Log/DisAsm/Memory Viewer frame is closed
- implemented OGL video mode
DisAsm:
- implemented MT dumping.
Homepage - http://code.google.com/p/rpcs3/downloads/list
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July 24th, 2011, 22:37 Posted By: wraggster
News from the Cobra Team
The Cobra Team is proud to present the Cobra 3.0 firmware pack, available from downloads section. In this release we enabled the Cobra USB device on 3.55 via use of our own cfw. Enjoy the release and look forward to many new features to come in future releases. Please be sure to read the updated user manual for detailed instructions on upgrading and usage!
http://www.cobra-usb.com/
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July 24th, 2011, 22:02 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://blackbird.usask.ca/wordpress/?p=318
With the release of bSNES v064, libsnes was born. libsnes is essentially a quite simple API that exposes the functionality of a SNES emulator, allowing various new front-ends to be made. A libsnes library has been developed for, bSNES obviously, and SNES9x.
SSNES is one such front end, which I feel is now somewhat mature. It does sport some features not often found in other emulators, such as a complex multipass shader implementation in Cg and GLSL (XML), and frame-by-frame rewind.
Now, there’s one interesting aspect of libsnes. It is just a streamlined interface to perform common emulator things such as:
•Init console
•Load ROM
•Set callbacks for video, audio and input
•Run main loop
This is practically how every emulator works. The difference lies in the details. The question now is, can we implement a libsnes which emulates a different system than SNES for shits and giggles? It’s not like SSNES verifies the ROM image as a SNES game at any rate. It just calls snes_load_cartridge_normal(). It’s essentially emulator agnostic, which we’ll use to our advantage.
Now obviously, libsnes is SNES specific. For example it only has concepts of things that the SNES (emulator) can do. However, there is a console which is quite similar to the SNES in terms of interfacing, the GBA.
GBA fits quite easily into the model of SNES. It has the exact same buttons, sans the X and Y buttons, so that maps perfectly over from a configuration standpoint. Graphics are 15-bit XBGR, just like SNES, 240×160 resolution (except for the weird mode 5), etc. Audio is also signed 16-bit. We have to resample the audio on the GBA to ~32kHz to match SNES, but hey.
I mocked up a VBANext build which is essentially built as a libsnes shared library. Very incomplete, but it runs the two games I care about on GBA, Golden Sun, and Golden Sun 2. Then add in support for rewind and multipass shaders and have a blast. DSP audio effects are nice too, which might help the godawful sound quality of the GBA.
One added bonus is that we’re now able to test VBANext progress and regressions easily on the PC, since we actually have, you know, decent debuggers on the PC.
I do plan on making a GBA specific libgba at some point, but I’ll see how deep the libsnes rabbit hole goes.
If you want to test VBANext/libsnes, you can build it from our git repo in platforms/libgba, and just hit make. Makefile is only set up for *nix as of writing, but hey. People compiling themselves probably use *nix anyways. 
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July 24th, 2011, 21:56 Posted By: wraggster
Sony has launched its second digital PlayStation Store in Latin America, in beautiful Brazil. Following Mexico, Brazil now has access to 200 items of first- and third-party digital content, including Assassin's Creed II and the demo for LittleBigPlanet2. Sony is also extending the Welcome Back program to Brazil, offering two PS3 and two PSP titles to everyone affected by the hacking blackout, through August 21. Sony also established a PlayStation Blog and PlayStation Website for its users in Brazil.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/07/23/pl...ore-in-brazil/
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July 23rd, 2011, 23:48 Posted By: wraggster
via http://blackbird.usask.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?id=48
My Name is Snake Plissken. I am Chief Commander of a group known as PMW NATION. Im currently directing our groups development branch into bringing to the PS3 one great First person gaming experience by means of homebrew on Playstation Custom Firmware.
we hope to release onto the world a whole new concept in homebrew development on the PS3 by developing an “homebrew engine” that future developers can use to make homebrew with to be used on the PS3.
With the engine one could make your own First person shooter homebrew. It has been proven that other forms of homebrew can be made for and used with the engine as well. Not only that but This would offer a interface for developing homebrew outside of PSL1GHT for all types of CFWs (as we will port the engine to work with multiple types of CFW’s )
Developers would need a way to install a .pkg onto there PS3s. They would then make homebrew in form of “recourse data” with the Gaming engine’s tool chain. that is then coupled and distributed with the engine.
A user can download the engine.pkg and insert it on a USB stick along side there recourse data” followed by installing it on there PS3,
the engine would pick up on the resource data, in turn presenting the homebrew content…..
Our first release will be that of our own game using this engine. Upon that release we will release the engine for others to develop future forms of homebrew as well as hopefully more great First Person Shooter Homebrew.
Our game and its engine will have great features: such as…
:~~A version of the engine as well as its tool chain will run well under all modern versions of Windows, from Windows 95 to the new Windows Vista. If you have Linux, it works with that too. But compiling the data to work will be horrible and time consuming
:~~ Free-Looking free-view ( up-down, left-right ) pseudo-3D rendered environment
:~~ a since of basic objects that a player can interact with move, push, pull,ect.
:~~ ACS based event scripting
:~~ in game hub’s
;~~ Colored sector lighting.
;~~ Custom monsters, weapons, and items.
;~~High resolution textures.
;~~ High resolution
;~~ Many, many extensions to ACS
;~~ music formats: Ogg Vorbis, MOD, XM, IT, S3M, MIDI, and MP3,MUS.
;~~ More sound formats: FLAC MP3 and WAVE can be used for sound effects.
;~~ texture formats: PNG and JPEG are both useable for artwork.
. ;~~ Translucency (regular and additive).
;~~ Full-featured joystick/gamepad support under Windows. With other device support in development.
;~~ player network games using UDP/IP to server support, including team-based game play.
;~~ light effects, including dynamic lights, bright maps, and glowing flats
;~~ As of now: md2 and md3 model support.
;~~ True color support
;~~fog, deep water.
:~~ film focus effects
~~ Jumping.
;~~ crouching
;~~ Crosshairs.
The works.
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As stated the engine will be developed to incorporate resources data made present to the engine after its installation onto the ps3. Application tools in a windows environment would be used to develop HOMBREW in form of resource data.
Releasing PMW NATION the Video Game at first would show off the possibilities of the games engine so perhaps others could take interest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We will soon release a project webpage on the matter and I will surly filter that out to those who are interested.
With that We personally hope to contribute a lot to the homebrew café’ as we will use this as our basic means of discussing ‘certain’ forms of our game and its engine’s development to the PS3.
Help getting this underway can be used on this project by those interested and who are familiar with operating PSL1GHT ,those who have knowledge in c languages, and/or those who are familiar with software compilation with GCC, should attempt to message me personally at my email: PMWNATIONHOMEVENTS@AOL.COM.
“Hell.. Just email me for any reason, questions concerns ect. Hell you can feel free to ask me a question right now W/e.”
Our engine will be made open to anyone willing to use it in hope that great homebrew will ensue bringing us ever that much closer to a greater tomorrow where we can fully embrace the ideas that are “ the soul concept of HOMEBREW”
More information soon,
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July 23rd, 2011, 23:36 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/07/21/a...s-on-your-psp/
Sometimes a gem can go majorly unnoticed. This could be the case of JJS’s port of AGS (Adventure Game Studio) to the PSP, and that would be a shame, so I felt I had to talk about it.
When I was 9, Santa Claus brought us a computer for Christmas. It was an insanely powerful machine, with a huge 30MB hard drive, a 10MHz CPU, and 1MB of ram. Santa claus had pre-loaded the machine with a bunch of cool games. All of them had an ok level of detail (320×240, 4 colors)… but one of them was different. It had, like 256 colors or something. It was incredibly beautiful, and had an amazing story. It captivated me for months. It was called Monkey Island.
If you ever owned a PC and are as old as me, there’s no doubt you’ve tried at least once in your life a LucasArt point and click adventure, and most likely you loved it. And maybe, nowadays, you follow the updates of ScummVM as much as I do, hoping for more compatibility every release. Or you’re a dosbox fan… or maybe you moved on because even though you love the old point and click games, you don’t like to play the same 10 games over and over again.
Yesterday, I discovered a whole new world: there are thousands of dedicated fans creating games with Adventure Game Studio, a free game development platform. Some of them are free, some of them are commercial. Some of them are simply awesome. All of them are crafted with love by independent devs. I’m shamelessly announcing that I didn’t know about this before yesterday, although now that I think about it, I heard about it a lot on ScummVM’s forums.
If you’re below 20, it’s possible you never heard of point and click adventure games, they’re not cool anymore, and somehow even in my era they were a bit nerdy. They’re like a great book. you have to use your brains and a bit of imagination, and they’ll provide dreams for a lifetime (I swear I still have dreams of Monkey Island).
And now we have access to hundreds of those on our PSPs, most of them free (and legal), thanks to the work of JJS.
The first one I wanted to try was Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth (FoY), a work in progress attempting to revive the old Lucasart Indy games (Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis is one of my best memories as a gamer). FoY has a bit of a “Duke Nukem Forever” feeling to it, having been in development for the past 10 years, but a demo is available, and if you ever played the old Indiana Jones games, you’ll be excited by this one.
Another example is Gemini Rue, a critically acclaimed commercial game, released earlier this year (9/10 – “Amazing” on IGN). A free demo is available, and runs on JJS’s port for you to try. This is the game pictured in the video above.
If you think games are not only about killing terrorists in a realistic war environment, you have to try this homebrew. There’s literally hundreds of hours of game waiting for you! Thanks JJS, hoping to see more updates of this port!
Authors website --> http://jjs.at/software/ags.html
Download Via Comments
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July 23rd, 2011, 23:32 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://wololo.net/wagic/2011/07/20/release-wagic-0-16/
Wagic’s releases are more sporadic (the last release was more than 3 months ago) but always of greater quality, so I’m sure you’ll forgive us .
What is Wagic?
Damn, do I still need to introduce Wagic? Often compared to commercial games for its replay value and quality, Wagic is a heroic fantasy card game, in which you fight as a wizard against the computer. As you win battles, you unlock new game modes and earn credits that allow you to improve your army. Wagic is community driven, entirely customizable (you can create themes, mods, even new rules), available in several languages (English, French, German, spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian), and open source. It currently runs on the Sony PSP, Windows, Linux, and N900 (maemo). We are also working on ports for other devices such as the iPad, and we are still looking for devs to help on that
Changelog
As usual, this is a great release, with more than 500 new cards (including hundred of cards from New Phyrexia and Magic 2012), many bug fixes, and exciting new features. Especially, we are making Wagic even more customizable by moving more and more of the game core rules into configuration files. What this means for the player is basically that you can create your own mods for Wagic. Want to create a game where your opponent’s creatures all get +1/+1, or where your opponent gets to draw one additional card each turn? You sure can. Want to start with 100 life instead of 20, change the hand size limit, remove some phases in the game, or have two untap phases instead of one? All of this is possible too, but it doesn’t stop here. We are progressively adding more and more settings like this so that people can completely customize their games. Wagic doesn’t allow you to create an entirely new card game yet, but hopefully we’re slowly getting there, and I think some of the new features will inspire people to create new mods for Wagic.Sounds interesting? Check the detailed changelog below:
•More than 500 new cards, including cards from New Phyrexia, Commander, and Magic 2012. Wagic now supports more than 8150 unique cards (14700 total), and a total of 100 sets.
•People who want to manage their MTG collection can now go to their options and set the “grade” level to “unsupported”. This will basically unlock all the cards that Wagic doesn’t fully support, bringing the total unique cards to roughly 12’000. Coupled with the cheat mode, this will allow you to use the trophy room and the Deck Editor as a database of all Magic cards.
•Improvements to thread support for images, and overall cache/performance improvements. The experience on the PSP should overall be smoother than in Wagic 0.15.
•Files in the rules folder are now loaded dynamically, allowing people to create their own mods without hijacking existing files such as mtg.txt. As an example, added two new game modes : Hermit Druid and Stone Hewer. Also added a file modrules.xml, which in the long run will contain most of the needed information to define a Wagic mod.
•Decks and rules can be “unlocked” (useful for mod creators).
•Added a “hint” system for AI decks, giving some “guidance” on how to use a deck (experimental)
•Many improvements in the mouse handling on non PSP Platforms
•Some new abilities/keywords in the engine, including a “tutorial” message system, allowing mod creators to introduce the rules of their mods to players.
•Switched the windows version to SDL, merged the “keyboard” and “mouse” versions together, there is now only one Windows version.
•Countless bug fixes in cards and the engine
Download --> http://wololo.net/wagic/download/
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July 23rd, 2011, 13:14 Posted By: wraggster
News via http://blackbird.usask.ca/wordpress/?p=277
Since I did a similar post for the Xbox 360 XDK a while back and since this is intended to be mostly a developer-oriented blog, I thought it would be in keeping with that spirit to let people have a general idea of what to expect from a debug PS3 – which recently arrived.
Profiling/debugging
There are some limitations as to what you can do with regards to profiling – even on a Debugging Station. Code instrumentation through gcov is entirely possible, but this was not very appealing to me anymore given that we have been able to do this more or less even on Retail with Themaister’s net-stdio implementation. Gprof seems to have been made unavailable as Sony started moving more and more away from the open source GNU toolchain they originally based their development environment on. What’s left is a proprietary profiler that will not work on Debugging Stations but requires a Reference Tool instead – it has 256MB extra main RAM, bumping up the main system RAM in total to 512MB (plus 256MB RAM for the RSX) – which, together with the unit’s Communication Processor, gives it the extra horsepower it needs to do real-time profiling on-the-fly amongst some other things like realtime video capturing and graphical analysis through GPAD – which I’ll touch on in a moment.
LibGCM HUD
A very nice feature which seems to be only available on debug PS3s is the ability to run code with an RSX profiling tool called ‘GCM HUD’. As the name would imply, this is a Heads-Up Display overlaid on top of the application you’re running that neatly provides you with a point-and-click interface giving you access to features such as as:
•Fragment/Vertex program debugger (with the ability to set breakpoints and step through the code line by line from the console itself – with no PC having to be involved or connected to the PS3.
•RSX Performance Counters (telling you how effectively you’re utilizing the RSX).
•RSX Command Buffer log (showing you the workload of the RSX in real-time)
The whole interface is mouse-driven – so to interact with it, you have to hook up an USB mouse to be able to control it. This is not where the usefulness of this tool ends, however – GPAD (Graphics Performance Analyzer and Debugger) allows you to interface your PC with this HUD and dump all the performance data to your PC. However, again, some options – such as live video capturing – can only be done with the Reference Tool.
GPAD on a Windows PC interfacing with a debug PS3 running GCM HUD
Samples
A brief rundown of the samples that struck my eye -
Deferred shading
Deferred shading lends itself well to the architecture of the PS3 where you have a comparatively humble GPU (RSX) and up to 6 SPEs each running at 3.2GHz – the idea is to essentially subdivide the result of a shading algorithm into multiple parts that can be spread across different render targets/CPUs only to combine them at the end into one composite whole. Using this approach, the RSX can simply offload a lot of the vertex and fragment computations that are done in shaders to the SPEs which in turn crunch through the calculations (the original shader algorithm having been subdivided into parts for each SPE to chew through) only for the RSX to combine all these separate parts and render the picture.
Commercial game developers like DICE have started using this approach for games like Battlefield 3 to achieve graphical results and performance which normally would have been unattainable if all that was available to them was the RSX alone. A link to a slideshow presentation is available here.
Deferred shading sample pics
Yes, the FPS count starts to drop heavily once you start adding extra spot lights.
PSGL samples
At one point, Sony was asking developers whether they would be interested in having PSGL conform to the OpenGL ES 2.0 specs (link here). This has unfortunately never happened however, as developers seem to have mostly preferred to go with libGCM as their main graphics API of choice on PS3. This has meant that the development environment has started becoming more libGCM-centric over the years with PSGL eventually becoming a second-class citizen – in fact, new features like 3D stereo mode is not even possible unless you are using libGCM directly.
However, this has not deterred them from still making available a couple of nice samples that illustrate what PSGL is capable of in conjunction with Cg shaders (which is mostly what we use with the homebrew emulators up until now). Some nice examples show Cg being applied to render hair, skin mapping, normal mapping, parallax mapping, and sophisticated water effects (the latter ones definitely being a cut above our own water.cg shader – made by Themaister).
Conclusion
What the debug PS3 will allow us to do is to finally start getting rid of bugs – memory leaks that were simply impossible to flush out with a retail box because of the inherent limitations of printf debugging. There are quite a few memory leaks that can now be tracked down in FBANext PS3 through crash dumps and live TTY logging.
Most ambitious of all, it will finally allow us to start writing code for SPUs – which I didn’t even want to attempt doing before because of the pain that was the retail environment. It remains to be seen whether we can really offload much if anything in the emulators to the SPUs – however, I have seen many creative uses for PPU-to-SPU offloading in some samples already, including function/virtual function call offloading to specific SPEs amongst a host of other things I didn’t even consider before.
Expect to see some real solid progress on MAMENext PS3 very soon, and for the emulators to improve immeasurably overall. Still, there are some inherent limitations even to the Debugging Station – the proprietary profiler will only allow me to do static analysis right now with a Debugging Station – if we wanted real-time profiling, we would have to be in possession of a Reference Toolkit, which is simply above anybody’s budget to be honest. This means that it might be impossible for any homebrew dev to ever do a serious attempt at porting a demanding emulator such as PCSX2 or Dolphin even with a debugging station because libgcov will only carry them so far – definitely forget it altogether on the retail units and the limited development environment they have available to them (whether it be the PS3 SDK or PSL1GHT).
The debugger that comes with it however is a seriously powerful tool and can carry us a long ways since it shows us live disassemblies of the code – meaning we can at least set a breakpoint somewhere, look at the ASM that the ’shitty’ PS3 compiler turned our C/C++ code into, and then rewrite the code ad nauseam until the code generation starts to make more sense of our code and translate it to faster ASM code.
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July 23rd, 2011, 13:06 Posted By: wraggster
Glasses-free stereoscopic 3D has "inherent limitations", Sony has said.
Responding to complaints about having to wear glasses to view games and movies in stereoscopic 3D, the PlayStation 3 manufacturer explained why it's the best solution – and will be for a good while.
"There are already glasses-free TVs, big screens and small screens out there," Mick Hocking, Sony's 3D gaming boss, told Eurogamer at the Develop conference this week.
"The problem with glasses-free, or auto-stereoscopic as it's called, is that it has inherent limitations.
"With stereoscopic 3D, however you do it, you've got to get one image to the left eye and one image to the right eye to produce the stereoscopic effect. So with all these screens they typically have a sweet spot for where you need to put your head in distance and in angle, and if you move your head relative to it, you break the 3D effect until you get into the next pair of images, and you see artefacts going across the screen.
"We've also seen with mobile devices, if it's a mobile device you move relative to your head and it's got a 3D screen, that will break the 3D effect. It won't work very well.
"There's lots and lots of work going on on auto-stereoscopic screens because people wearing glasses is something extra for them to do to enjoy the content. We've been saying over the last 12 months, if the content is good enough and compelling enough, the only way at the moment to enjoy full high definition 3D is on TVs with the glasses."
In March Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung doubted glasses-free 3DTVs would be released within the next 10 years.
"Considering our current technology, we can make glasses-free 3DTV in R&D level, however it can be viewed from only a few viewing spots," Samsung said.
"To make naturally viewed glasses-free 3DTV, for instance in a living room where several people can watch TV from various angles, it needs at least 32 viewing spots.
"We believe that creating a prototype for lab-grade glasses-free 3DTV, broadcasting system and display will take about five years.
"For mass commercialisation to become possible manufacturing costs must come down and TV broadcasters will have to upgrade infrastructure, which includes securing transmission band.
"Attempts to put glasses-free 3DTV to market within the next 10 years will be difficult."
Sony has of course bet big on stereoscopic 3D, investing heavily in the tech for its TVs, movies and gaming on the PlayStation 3.
But for many, having to wear active-shutter glasses to see 3D visuals turns them off to the tech.
In October last year a study suggested 80 per cent of gamers were willing to wear 3D glasses to play video games, and Hocking told us the glasses are getting better.
"The glasses are getting cheaper and lighter all the time, and less invasive in the process," he said.
"With the way it's going, you could see a point in the future where someone will come up with a way of doing glasses-free technology without any of the restrictions.
"At the moment, if you want to sit there and watch a film or play a game, if you keep your head still you could do it on a glasses free. It would be OK. Then if your family or friends want to sit and watch it with you they can't share that experience with you at the moment.
"So it's not an easy problem to solve. Certainly in the short term, HD 3D is best enjoyed on an active shutter glass solution and big screen TV, and that's what we've been focusing on."
According to latest statistics, about 2.5 per cent of HDTVs in the UK are now 3D, and data suggests by 2015 nearly 40 per cent of all new TVs sold will be 3D-enabled.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ses-complaints
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July 22nd, 2011, 22:33 Posted By: wraggster
PlayStation players have donated more than 129.7 million yen (over £1.01m) to Sony's Japanese earthquake appeal.
Thousands of gamers answered Sony's call for support following the devastating natural disaster in Japan earlier this year.
North American PSN users raised £260,955, those in Europe and PAL territories stumped up £538,122, while Asian countries other than Japan coughed up £16,673. Japanese gamers themselves put down £181,751.
The money is being donated to organisations in each region already supporting relief and recovery efforts in earthquake and tsunami hit areas. Beneficiaries include the American Red Cross, the British Red Cross for Europe and the Red Feather Community Chest Movement for Japan and Asia.
PSN users who donated have now been given several unique PS3 themes as a reward for their efforts.
Sony itself initially donated 300m yen (£2.34m), a figure matched by Nintendo. Sega, Namco Bandai and Tecmo Koei were among other companies to make sizable contributions.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...quake-donation
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July 22nd, 2011, 22:23 Posted By: wraggster
If pre-orders are anything to go by EA's on the right track with Battlefield 3 ahead of the game's release this October.
According to Cowen & Company analyst Doug Creutz, channel checks "indicate that pre-orders are roughly comparable to those of Call of Duty: Black Ops last year, which has gone on to sell over 20 million units".
Creutz expects EA's game to be a "major hit" and has upped his first year sales forecast from eight to eleven million units, although he added that Modern Warfare 3 pre-orders are tracking ahead of both BF3 and Black Ops, confirming reports from retailers GAME and GameStop.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...k-ops-analyst/
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July 22nd, 2011, 11:30 Posted By: wraggster
One of Sony's major insurers has sued in a New York court to seek protection from any liabilities arising from cases centred on the PSN data breach, asking judges to rule that it will be exempt from any claims "asserted in the class-action lawsuits, miscellaneous claims, or potential future actions instituted by any state attorney general."
The basis of the case is that Zurich American believes that general cover insurance such as that which it sold Sony doesn't cover costs arising from cyber-warfare and digital attacks, claiming that the policy only covers "bodily injury, property damage or personal and advertising injury."
The insurer is also suing a number of other Sony insurers to try and establish shared responsibility should the court deny the exemption.
"Zurich doesn't think there's coverage, but to the extent there may be a duty to defend it wants to make sure all of the insurers with a potential duty to defend are contributing," attorney Richard Bortnick told Reuters.
55 cases have been brought against Sony in the US as a result of the attacks, some of which have resulted in claims on Zurich's policy by the platform holder.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-non-liability
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July 22nd, 2011, 11:29 Posted By: wraggster
Japanese publisher Irem, which owns the IP for arcade shoot-em-up R-Type, has announced that it will pull a number of its games from PSN on August 11, as well as removing all themes and wallpapers relating to the titles.
The company's Home presence will also be largely closed down from September 1, although a couple of areas will remain.
The games affected are:
R-Type Tactics (PSP)
Mousukesu based on Carton-kun (PSP)
Bumpy Trott Beagle Battle Tournament (PSP)
Ikuze! Gensan Yuyake Daikou Monogatari (PSP)
R-Type Tactics II Operation Bitter Chocolate (PSP)
Sengoku Esatsu Yugi Hototogisu Ran (PSP)
Sengoku Esatsu Yugi Hototogisu Dairan (PSP)
Narisokonai Eiyuutan: Story of the Sun and Moon (PSP)
R-Types (Game Archives)
R-Type Delta (Game Archives)
Gussun Paradise (Game Archives)
Irem Arcade Classics (Game Archives)
Influential ex-Irem developer Kazuma Kujo left the company in May to form Granzella, a new studio in central Japan, taking a number of staff with him
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...games-from-psn
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July 22nd, 2011, 00:02 Posted By: wraggster
A PS3 dev has spoken out against one PS3 hacking site:
Update (Halsafar): Original post http://pastebin.com/gc0036Qg
While I don’t wish for this site to start devolving into scene drama, I felt a post was necessary on why it is that I’ve recently decided to part ways with psx-scene and what led me to taking the drastic decision I felt was necessary in order to make a statement. This affects all other homebrew developers in the grand scheme of things – and I acted accordingly as the situation demanded it.
New TOS waiving your rights
After the acquisition by QJ.Net, they quietly injected into the already existing Terms of Services a new law that expressly authorizes PSX-scene to effectively assume ownership of any and all material you make available to the public on their community site. I will let this quote do the talking so that there can be no debate about this -
Psx-scene Terms of Service
“User Provided Content, License. You are solely responsible for all content or materials that you post, submit to, or transmit through the Service. By submitting materials or content to PSX-SCENE.COM, you grant PSX-SCENE.COM a license to copy, use, display and create derivative works of the material or content submitted for any purpose, including, without limitation, the promotion and marketing of the Service and the operation of the PSX-SCENE.COM system. By submitting materials or content, you automatically agree (or, to the extent you do not own all rights to such materials or content, you represent and warrant that the owner of the content or materials has expressly agreed) that without any particular time limit, and without the payment of any fees, PSX-SCENE.COM and anyone it permits may reproduce, display, distribute and create new works of authorship based on and including the content or materials. You may not submit content or materials trademarked or copyrighted by anyone other than yourself.”
Now, obviously, this is disingenuous on its face. Stepping aside for a moment the fact that they can not simply waive your rights like this – the fact remains that there are licences to obey when you as a porter decide to port an emulator to another system. Those licences are very clear on ownership rights and your ability or permission to be able to buy or resell them. For psx-scene to put themselves into the enviable position where they believe they can ‘reproduce, display, distribute and create new works of authorship’ speaks to the audacity and clear disrespect of these new site owners who happen to view developers as a bunch of schmucks to be hoodwinked and cajoled into servitude.
‘Successful business != Conning people into waiving their rights’
As a response to that, I took down all emulator threads on their forum that I have personally worked on ( seeing as the previous owner on there granted me Moderator status with no strings attached). Also, I complied with the wishes of many former members who wanted all their content to be removed because they have similar misgrievances about this new ‘clause’ they added to their terms and they don’t like this site profiteering or benefiting in any way from it. Now, obviously, that resulted in my ban – it couldn’t have gone any other way – you know once you throw down the gauntlet like this, what the consequences of that are going to be. I personally requested for them to cast the first stone and ban me – I had no more desire staying on there and feel no need to associate myself with that site anymore.
Now the sad thing is – this kind of profiteering has become fashionable now over the past few years – when you mistake being a ‘good entrepreneur’ with being a ‘con artist’ and a ‘profiteer’ and, worst of all, you don’t even care about any of the amoral connotations that brings along with it – then obviously you’re going to have friction between developers who are doing this mainly out of a passion and then these kinds of cynical businessmen following in the grand footsteps of PT Barnum and his ilk.
http://blackbird.usask.ca/wordpress/?p=267
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July 21st, 2011, 23:41 Posted By: wraggster
Phil Harrison, former head of Sony Worldwide Studios, has offered his thoughts on the next generation of consoles - and foresees a business model that breaks away from the one that's served the industry for the past 30 years.
Speaking at this week's Develop in Brighton, Harrison saw consoles moving towards a service-based model over the retail one that's previously defined the industry.
"I think the era of the console where hardware companies spend $3-4 billion to build a chipset and then it's supported on a tax on the software - that's the business model of the last 25-30 years - that's over," said Harrison.
"The new business model is going to become a combination of retail and services, and it's going to be an interesting decision for the likes of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, is the next console race about chips and CPU, clock speed and graphics, or is it about business models and monetization and discovery, and I think it's probably going to be about the latter."
While Nintendo has already announced its next console - the Wii U, complete with its innovative controller - Microsoft and Sony are being coy on their plans, although some picture of what they'll be technically capable of has recently started to emerge.
But could the rise of streaming services such as OnLive and Gaikai spell the end of traditional consoles? "I don't think this means PlayStation the brand goes away or Xbox the brand goes away, but it just manifests itself in a different way."
"The technology to stream high-quality games directly to your living room or computer or TV is not some kind of science-fiction fantasy - it works, and it'll only get better over time. I think that's clearly going to be a future for our industry."
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-new-xbox-ps4
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July 21st, 2011, 13:10 Posted By: wraggster
SCEE presents tech and tools groups supporting new handheld
Sony’s next generation handheld has at least 16 middleware and tools companies supporting the system, the platform holder has said.
Kish Hirani, head of developer services at SCEE Research and Development, took stage at the Develop Conference this week to present all the companies throwing their tech behind PS Vita.
According to Hirani, the middleware firms on board include:
AiLive
Audiokinetic
Autodesk (including Scaleform)
Blitz Games Studios
CRI
Epic Games
Gamespy Technology
NVIDIA
Premium Agency
RAD Game Tools
RakNet
SpeedTree
Terminal Reality
Umbra
Vicious Cycle
Web Technology
Hirani said the list was only of middleware firms ready to publicly announce their support – a suggestion that more are optimising their tech behind the scenes.
Elsewhere in the presentation, Hirani said PSP successor boasts four times higher resolution, and 600 times increased contrast, in comparison to PSP 3000.
The platform features an 4ARM Cortex A9 processor, Hirani said.
http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...ifbh+(Develop)
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July 21st, 2011, 13:07 Posted By: wraggster
Getting your PlayStation-certified gaming fix on just got 50 percent cheaper. Verizon's cut the price of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play in half on its website, selling for $100 with contract only four months after being greeted with open arms. The price cut is a result of Big Red's "Back to School" promotion, though it's difficult to believe this one will come out the other end of the sale any costlier than this. Was this sudden reduction made to instigate a price war with AT&T now that it's introduced the model to its lineup? Or, is this a last-ditch effort to bolster lackluster sales before the Play is discontinued? It's hard to say -- given its meager selection of PlayStation Suite titles, we can't imagine that the product's flying off of shelves. Still, five Jacksons is much more reasonable for anyone who just has to have The Sims 3 on the go, right?
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/20/v...andicoot-spin/
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July 21st, 2011, 13:03 Posted By: wraggster
Sony is determined to push 3D graphics into the realm of gaming, but the company seems to be aware that quality, not quantity, is what can win over gamers. They've been telling game developers to take the plunge only if it makes for a better gaming experience, and not just to take advantage of an industry buzz word. Sony's Mick Hocking said,
"We need to, and we're trying to encourage everyone to learn about 3D properly and come and talk to us so we'll support them when they convert the games. But only deliver the best quality 3D. As we've seen in some other industries, if you make great quality 3D, in film you could say Avatar – it's the most successful film of all time, it's the highest grossing film of all time – but since then that hasn't been followed up with the same degree of success. ... If people see great quality 3D it does enhance the experience. It's a great feature for a game. But if they see poor quality 3D it can put them off. Unfortunately some people are producing poor quality 3D, in all mediums. Over the last 12 months we've seen TV, film, some games, where the quality hasn't been there. It's just a case of people need to understand how to work with 3D, how to make it technically correct and then how to use it creatively. Only add 3D where it makes a difference to the gameplay experience. It must add something. Don't just add depth for the sake of it."
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/0...Sake-Says-Sony
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July 21st, 2011, 02:08 Posted By: wraggster
Newly released today:
Between Afghanistan and China, the world’s next flashpoint is about to erupt. The valleys, towns and mountains of Tajikistan will become bloody frontlines for the might of the People’s Liberation Army, insurgent guerrilla fighters and the United States Marine Corps.
You and your fireteam can make a difference. How much is up to you. It’s not the soldier with the most expensive gun or the biggest heart who wins on the battlefield. It’s the smartest. Semper Fi, Marine.
The ticket to the battlefield is now available at a new bargain price. Operation Flashpoint: Red River is available at an unbeatable bargain price of US$ 18.90 only. The Asian PlayStation3 version is region free and completely in English. The maximum amount of purchase is set to 2 copies per person.
http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...-2xr-84-n.html
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