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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HD Guru is reporting that Sony will drop the price of their BDP-S350 Blu-ray player $100 and sell it for $300 beginning in September. As a result, manufacturer Funai plans to drop the price of its players (under the Philips/Magnavox, Insignia and Sylvania brands) down $50 to $250 in order to stay competitive in the market. Sony also plans to release a higher end Blu-ray player, the BDP-S550 for $399 beginning in October.
As our stack of thick, leather bound binders filled from end to end with valuable Pokémon cards will attest, we're suckers for collectible card games. You could probably also tell from our proclivity to creep around the local Wal-Mart with a black bandana crudely wrapped around our greasy mullets that we're also diehard fans of stealth action. As such, it would seem logical to assume we're big supporters of the PSP-exclusive Metal Gear Acid titles -- unfortunately, one look at our barren ludological library will show that we possess a powerful, unnatural fear of video game packaging.
Thankfully, our hopes for a downloadable version of the Acid titles were lifted somewhat by a brief blurb from series creator Hideo Kojima at Leipzig yesterday. Kojima explained that while there's currently no plans concerning the two titles, it's "possible" that the card battlers could be uploaded onto PSN. We certainly would have preferred a more substantial tease from the Metal Gear maven, a "probable" or "likely", perhaps -- but we suppose beggars can't be choosers.
Sony may be experimenting with a new retail strategy for their first-party titles, evidenced by two PSP games which will be released in stores and on the PSN simultaneously in Japan this October. Agoraphobic gamers will be pleased to learn that Bleach: Soul Carnival and Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaikida or2 will both be available via digital distribution on the same day that their respective physical manifestations are shelved at Japanese brick-and-mortars -- better still, the downloadable versions of both games will cost around 1,000 yen (a little over $9) less than their tangible counterparts.
We wonder if Gamestop's recent show of boastful confidence was in response to this seeming victory for the digital distribution business model, or whether Sony's plan just happened to make an inconvenient appearance following Gamestop's announcement -- proving that the gods of gaming retail have a wicked sense of humor.
Project Origin, Monolith's everything-but-the-name follow up to F.E.A.R., has slipped on all of that spilled gore, sliding back from the game's previous fall release until sometime in early 2009. The news came from Project Origin art lead, Dave Matthews, who took time during the Leipzig Games Convention to break the news -- and fans' hearts – confirming that players will have to wait until the first quarter of 2009 to find out just what Alma has been up to.
Softening the blow a bit, new details surrounding the upcoming shooter also emerged from last week's event, including news that the sequel will include more interactive and varied environments than those seen in F.E.A.R., while enemy A.I. has also been amped up as well. According to Monolith, the story itself will also be improved over the original, giving us all the more reason to think that maybe Project Origin is worth waiting for after all.
Last we heard, it was still up in the air somewhat as to whether upcoming PlayStation 3 consoles would house the elusive 65-nanometer RSX graphics processor. According to a curious buyer of Sony's newest 80GB unit, there is a smidgen of data that hints at a 65nm chip actually being under the hood. By using the oh-so-scientific Kill-A-Watt, he discovered that his older 40GB PS3 sucked down 125.8-watts when idle, while the fresh 80GB edition ate up just 111.9-watts. The findings were similar when looking at power draw during DVD playback and while spinning Metal Gear Solid 4. Unfortunately, this mighty fine fellow is planning to return the new unit after being disappointed by the minimal energy savings, so he's not apt to rip the thing open and prove once and for all what kind of GPU is in there. Meanwhile, we heartily suggest that someone do just that and put this question to bed.
Renowned programmer Gabest famous for Media Player Classic and the extraordinary 'GSdx' has released the WIP sourcecode for a fantastic new CDVD/ISO plugin. It was created in an aim to improve direct DVD drive access and it already shows large improvements.
Those that are capable of compiling have the opportunity to try out a WIP plugin that already offers performance improvements over P.e.o.p.s CDVD plugin in numerous situations and games, including smooth framerate in Grandia 3 intro sequence. The plugin not only is capable of running DVDs and ISOs but also rare PS2 CDs such as Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex.
As of revision 848 there no configuration dialog, but the drive or iso path can be placed in the source code within the cdvd.cpp file
for those that are interested the source is available HERE
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Don't mix beer and wine. Ever. And don't dabble in Golden Axe: Beast Rider when suffering from intercontinental jet lag. Let my folly become your wisdom. See, the Secret Level-developed update to the Golden Axe franchise is probably more... let's say... relaxing than it should be. That's a nice way of saying rather bland, as the rainbow of browns that permeate the game may lull hack 'n' slash fans into a restful slumber.
I mean, even the purple chicken things are brown.
That's not to say Golden Axe: Beast Rider is a bad game, from our hands on time with it. Just a bit uninspired, lacking in some tangible oomph, in the graphics department and the swordplay.
Beast Rider star Tyris Flare looks fantastic though. Whomever is responsible for her model and those perfectly modeled lower back dimples deserves a raise. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game does have its moments, visually. Hopping on a ridable beast that can camouflage itself with a Predator like effect looks pretty snazzy too.
The hand-to-hand action though, feels like a sludgier take on Heavenly Sword's combat system. Prior to attacks, Death Adder's minions will glow blue or orange, indicating whether you should parry or evade. If they glow green, it's ladies' choice. Respond accordingly and your next attack will be of the flaming sword variety.
Golden Axe: Beast Rider definitely gets some things right. The inclusion of throwback elements like the green and blue gnomes that drop refreshing meat ad magic potions return, as do the multi-tiered magic spells.
But many of the series' main draws — bright environments, co-op multiplayer and dazzling, increasingly ridiculous spells, metal bikinis — have been overlooked. And Flare's magic abilities just ooze boring. Where are the giant, fire puking dragon heads, guys? It's a game that appears to be full of good intentions — middling, road to Hell paving stuff.
We're not quite writing it off yet. Golden Axe: Beast Rider may have been only a semi-enjoyable slog, but we can see ourselves playing through a good portion of it, if only wanting for a thrill. Who knows if we'll leave the experience disappointed, because the game showed at least promise, even if it was a bit bland around the edges.
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now the NEO Summer Coding Compo 2008 is closed, we start to collect all files and test them, and sure,we start to wait your great review too (the review deadline is Sep.5th 2008)
Last May Pioneer told us that autumn would bring a "super duper" Blu-ray player--the most powerful Blu-ray player ever built. It makes up for the current crop, which are lower in price but are missing key features like BD-Live for internet-based content. Well, not a leaf has fallen off a tree, yet here it is already, the $2,200 Elite BDP-09FD. Feature-wise, the best Blu-ray player on the market has been the PS3--turns out, an extra $1,700 will buy you something that kills Sony's game console as far as Blu-ray and other media are concerned.
As you probably guessed, Pioneer finally accepts the need for 2.0. This will come with Ethernet and be fully capable of BD-Live playback, no firmware updates needed at the get-go. Unlike other BD-Live players, which require SD cards, this one comes with 4GB of internal memory for downloads.
The thing is a Mack truck, 45 or 50 lbs. of steel and aluminum with everything mounted carefully to eliminate vibration. The bottom layer of the aluminum-housed chassis is a quarter-inch plate of solid steel, and it's even got feet from a Japanese company called TAOC, supposedly the most vibration-free platform you can get. There are no wires inside either; all connections are physically mounted from the circuit board to the walls to reduce noise.
Pioneer says all of the engineering is so that this can be a single box that replaces some home theater snob's high-end CD player, DVD player and previous-gen Blu-ray player, blowing each in turn out of the water.
In the audio department, Pioneer recommends using this for decoding all music and movie soundtrack, and going analog out with those gold-plated 7.1 RCA jacks. It's decodes all known codecs from DTS and Dolby using a separate digital-to-analog converter for each channel. This is a little like having a separate motor for each wheel of your car. Combining this with some crazy audio engineering, they created a way for "completely perfect noise-free signal" to come through RCA jacks instead of the costlier old-school XLR jacks. "It's far better than what you find in most receivers," says Pioneer's Chris Walker. In fact, everything, including speaker preferences and other receiver-like tweaks, are adjustable from inside the player.
It's also got that crazy CD-playback technique first seen on Pioneer's summer models: When used with certain Pioneer receivers, it produces jitter-free disc playback.
In terms of video, it has 1080p/24 for Blu-ray and DVD content too, as you might expect, with a best-on-the-market image processor also found in Meridian's crazy 10-megapixel projector.
The 09's next-level achievement is that it upconverts color information to 16 bits, previously unheard of because nobody had a system that could handle 16-bit color data. (Pioneer had to build their own for this mission.) That means that each picture can have up to "2,800 trillion" (um, 2.8 quadrillion??) colors, which the processor interpolates by looking at each frame of the Blu-ray's 8-bit color movie. Though most TVs only process 10-bit, Walker says that it's better to send over a richer signal that the TV has to tone down, than letting the TV upgrade the Blu-ray data itself. When TVs hit 16-bit, this sucka will be ready.
Cooler to me are the two HDMI jacks on the back. It's a first for a Blu-ray player (or PS3), and it means you can hook up the same player to both your projector and your flat-panel display without a splitter or some on-the-fly rewiring. You can even split it up so that HDMI 1 only does audio, while HDMI 2 does video, freeing up more video bandwidth, especially in those pesky longer cables that might get a bit choked. The HDMI can detect the source, and automatically determine what audio and video to send over.
Obviously, some people are going to be content with their PS3s for the time being (after all, they are only $500, a small price by comparison). And Walker acknowledges that speed is always going to be the saving grace of the game console. ("If we were to build a Blu-ray player around an Intel or Cell processor, we'd have those kinds of speeds too.") But as far as picture and audio output, nothing quite resembles this "super duper" machine. And on top of all that, we can stop bitching about Pioneer ignoring BD-Live, and getting on with the future. Now, seriously, why would ANYONE buy Pioneer's last batch? Save your money, home-theater snobs. This badass will be out soon.
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We're confused, Mr. Pete Smith, producer of upcoming platform-a-thon LittleBigPlanet. When we spoke to you during today's LittleBigPlanet breakdown session you said that "the game will have a global server." Now we hear that you told CVG something a little different. User generated content will be region locked? Normally we'd say "we're not sure who to believe" at this point, but seeing as both statements come from the same person, we're doubly confused.
Maybe you meant that the gameplay servers would be global. But what good is that if the people playing with each other can't access the same content? Will we be limited to playing with our foreign friends in one of the 50ish levels included on the game disc? Kind of defeats the point of the game, doesn't it? Sadly, we're not able to find out for sure until after the weekend, but rest assured we're actively looking to get confirmation either way.
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According to a listing at the ESRB, the formerly XBLA exclusive puzzle game GEON: Emotions is headed over to the PSN. GEON's gameplay is somewhat similar to Pac-Man, where you collect pellets known as emotes on a two-sided grid. When the cube is charged after consuming enough emotes, you attempt to score a point by landing in the central area of your opponent's side of the grid. You also choose an emotion at the start of each match, which then determines which power-up gives you the strongest effects. Check the trailer for the XBLA version of the game, after the jump.
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So, looks like Valve cannot ignore the success of the PS3 anymore. Gabe Newell, head of the critically acclaimed studio sparked a bit of controversy when he repeatedly attacked the PS3's difficult development architecture, calling it a "waste of time." His studio refused to work on a PS3 version of The Orange Box, leaving it to EA to do the eventual PS3 port.
However, it looks like the continued success of the PS3 has the studio taking back some of his words. "We're always evaluating what's happening in the marketplace and certainly something that's happening in the last couple of months is that Sony's managed to sell some boxes," said Doug Lombardi to CVG. "So whether or not you like developing for that platform, if they've got millions of people connected to that platform and buying their games you have to take it seriously."
While there's "zero chance" for a PS3 version of the upcoming zombie multiplayer game Left 4 Dead this year, there's now a "50-50" chance that it will happen some time next year. While we're fans of Valve's work, we're not entirely sure if the PS3 audience will welcome them with open arms.
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Two new passwords have been revealed for Metal Gear Solid 4. Inputting the access codes in the 'Extras' menu gives players two new weapons: Thor .45-70 large-caliber hand rifle and The Boss' Patriot from Metal Gear Solid 3. Here are the two codes, respectively: tshsniammr and pkhhnwhsjt.
In addition to the new codes, there's also new music for the in-game iPod titled "Battle." It's a track from the Plant Chapter in MGS2. It seems Konami is really cranking up the fan service ... and we like it!
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Check out the readme too for full instructions on how to install it
Lots of new stuff. Hopefully we'll see online servers now too!
I'll run through a quick list for those too lazy :P
Skyboxes added to the engine!
Coloured lighting and effects!
Completed the first chapter!
New boss!
New multiplayer maps!
Fully customizable deathmatch options!
And more!
Please post servers here you make so others can join it
Also please post any bugs. Thanks.
Hope you enjoy!
- MDave.
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If yesterday's demo for The Last Guy -- a PlayStation Network title that has you saving humanity from zombies -- got your special places tingling, we've got good news for you; Sony has announced that the game is coming Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008, and is only going to cost $9.99. The Last Guy will pack more than ten cities for you to sprint through in your red cape and lead survivors to safety.
Get ready for top-down madness!
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Metal Gear Solid superdad Hideo Kojima has told Eurogamer that it's "possible" the Metal Gear Acid games could end up on PlayStation Network, although he stressed nothing is in production.
Kojima was in Germany at Games Convention to chat in the aftermath of June's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot release, and as big fans of the PSP Acid series, we couldn't resist checking on its future.
"I'll say yes to that idea, but not because it is already running or anything," Kojima told Eurogamer when asked about the possibility of porting the turn-based strategy titles to PSN.
"I'm just saying yes because it's possible, I think it is possible. Sorry to say we don't have specific plans at the moment, but it is possible, yes."
There have been two Metal Gear Acid games to far, both exclusive to the PSP. The idea in both is to manoeuvre Solid Snake (and eventually another character) around traditional MGS-style environments trying to avoid being seen and reach your goals.
Movement and actions are turn-based, with longer cool-down periods for more energetic activities like firing rifles. To add additional intrigue, actions are powered by a customisable deck of cards, each of which has certain properties and uses.
It takes a little getting used to (although the second game removed some of the barriers for entry), but still we still miss it. Hopefully Kojima will go home and issue orders to his Kojima Productions pals.
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Sony Computer Entertainment Japan has announced a partnership with the world's largest global WiFi community FON - to create a new service, PSP×FON.
Under the partnership the two companies plan to roll out FON access points in the region for a free internet browser via the Sony PlayStation Portable.
Starting today, there are approximately 44,000 FON spots across Japan and over 2,200 FON livedoor spots, which primarily cover central Tokyo. Through this service gamers can use their PSPs to download game demos, clips, wallpaper and the like.
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Camp Rock US US$ 34.99
Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert US US$ 35.99
Hymns For Peace-Live At Montreux 2004 (~Santana) JPN US$ 49.90
Justice League of America: Season One US US$ 59.96
Life Before Her Eyes (~Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, ...) US US$ 34.98
Live At Montreux 2003 (~Yes) JPN US$ 49.90
Live At Montreux 2006 (~Deep Purple) JPN US$ 49.90
Magic Kitchen (~Sammi Cheng, Jerry Yin Sing Yuk, ...) HK US$ 28.90
Nixon (~Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, ...) US US$ 34.99
Prom Night (~Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, ...) US US$ 38.96
PTU (~Simon Yam Tat Wah, Maggie Shiu, ...) HK US$ 29.90
Retto Judan Tetsudo Noritsukushi No Tabi JR20000km Zensen Soha Aki-hen JPN US$ 159.90
Street Kings [dts] (~Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, ...) US US$ 39.98
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - The Complete First Season US US$ 39.99
The Proposition (~Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, ...) US US$ 19.98
The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior [dts] US US$ 39.98
There Will Be Blood (~Daniel Day-lewis, Paul Dano, ...) JPN US$ 46.90
Vantage Point JPN US$ 47.90
Charnold has released the sourcecode to his excellent fps homebrew for the PSP, heres the details:
This package contains:
- sourcecode of the Dungeons Engine 2
- sourcecode of the Dungeons 3D Editor
- sourcecode of Dungeons Assault Run
- MSVC++ 2003 project of the Dungeons 3D Editor
- MSVC++ 2003 project of Dungeons Assault Run
- makefile to compile the Sony PSP version
- Data to run Dungeons Assault Run + Dungeons 3D Editor
To compile Dungeons Assault Run for Mac / Windows, you need the following libs:
- OpenGL
- GLEW
- OpenAL
- SDL
To compile the Dungeons 3D Editor, you also need:
- wxWidgets
