Category: Gaming

Print Your Own Games

Nintendo’s eReader, an optical card reader developed by Olympus using their “Dot Code” technology, is a small add-on for GBA users. Players can scan (hideously overpriced) trading cards into their GBA to play games and unlock extras. Each card has a dot code printed on it that stores a couple of kilobytes of code – that code can be an emulation of an early Game and Watch title, or it can even be a smart new umbrella for your Animal Crossing character.

Cards are the same shape and size as standard playing cards (though without the naked ladies on the back) and are available in packs of five or so based on popular Nintendo franchises: Animal Crossing and Pokémon unlock or upload new aspects to the games, or you can even upload the classic Donkey Kong 3 to your GameBoy Advance.

The dot codes use Reed Solomon error correction and now that the scheme has been worked out, homebrew coders can finally write their own games for easy distribution to GBA owners. Tim Schuerewegen cracked the code and is hosting an original game – BombSweeper. Coders interested in writing for the GBA can even use GNU GCC to compile code – plus the API for the GameBoy Advance is very well documented.

The eReader has been modestly successful, but never set the world alight. In fact, support for it seems to have been quietly dropped. Try plugging one into your GBA SP and you’ll see what I mean – it no longer fits. The link port on a SP is now on the opposite side of the console, so the eReader can’t slide fully into the cartridge slot.

Tim Schuerewegen’s page on the GBA

The eReader file format

Official eReader home page

N-GAGE 1.5: Back for a Beating

Nokia has announced the next iteration of their mobile gaming platform in the form of the N-GAGE QD. It’s backwardly compatible with the existing N-GAGE games, but there have been a few refinements and changes, all based on what Nokia have been learned since the first model was released.

Nokia’s Senior Vice President of Games (now there’s a crrrrrrazy job title), Ilkka Raiskinen said “After six months on the market with the N-Gage platform, we wanted to expand our device portfolio based on the feedback we’ve received. With improved gaming ergonomics, gamers can now start to play games at the push of a button and enjoy the increased responsiveness of the game keys. We also added support for hot-swap MMC and extended the battery life.”

N-GAGE Arena is pushed to the fore this time, and it’s a smart move too, as it was the multiplayer functions that made the console stand out from other hand-held gaming platforms out there. The QD now has a Arena Launcher allowing gamers to communicate, view score rankings and download content via a GPRS connection.

The N-GAGE QD has also incorporated some of the features that the (admittedly few) purchasers of the first system requested – particularly the improvements to gaming controls. As Nokia insisted that the first N-GAGE was a gaming platform first, phone second many saw the awkward placement and size of the controls as a bit of a howler.

Another welcome change is the positioning of the microphone and speaker – Raiskinen added: “For phone calls, we reoriented the speaker and microphone to support ‘classic talking’.” Previously, if you wanted to make a phone call, you had to hold the handset at a right angle sticking out from your head. At the very least, this would make you look somewhat foolish. However, we can’t imagine anyone getting mugged for an N-GAGE.

With greater emphasis on multiplayer gaming and improved ergonomics, it could be that they’ve got it right this time, especially since Nintendo and Sony’s next hand-held gaming platforms will almost certainly not support GPRS gaming.

Nokia on the new N-GAGE QD

Yahoo on the story

Nintendo Top of the Charts. In Japan.

Nintendo sold some 6.5 million software units in Japan during the financial year to 31st March, placing at the top of the charts. But for how long? The future of the GameCube in the US and Europe looks bleaker every day and Sony are about to launch an assault on Nintendo’s strongest market area: the portable games console.

The Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3, Los Angeles, May) will be the battle of the handhelds: Sony and Nintendo will be unveiling their new portable hardware to expectant crowds. We already know a lot about Sony’s PSP: the disk format, connectivity, what it looks like, even down to the wrist strap. But what about Nintendo’s “DS”?

Details of the new Nintendo offering are sketchy and strange: it has two screens, one of which may be a touch screen. The Nintendo DS is touted as a new game play experience, but may end up dividing their market still further between products: the GBA, GBA SP and the new DS. Consumers are still confused as to what the two screen experience will bring – and Nintendo isn’t spoiling the surprise. Connectivity details are still sparse: Sony has been promoting connectivity with its PS2, PSX and PS3 products, but Nintendo have had a series of disappointments with GBA/GameCube link ups, and it’s never fully reached their expectations. Except with Animal Crossing of course, and only if you don’t use an GBA SP.

We’re are somewhat unsure of the new Nintendo offering, at least until much more is known about the console. There have been some unfortunate comparisons with Nintendo’s own VirtualBoy, which also promised a new game play experience (with two screens, oddly enough). The VirtualBoy died a horrible death, but like many doomed consoles is popular on eBay.

We’ll soon have the full picture: Nintendo are rumoured to be announcing 30 DS titles at E3, and the console itself will be out, at least in Japan, by the end of the year.

With Sony’s PSP looking to be a winner, at least in the West, the future is uncertain for Nintendo’s hand held dominance.

Piecing together the DS at Wired
PSP technical specs
Reuters on Nintendo’s success

Atari on Demand: So That’s What the Internet is For

Launching with 35 titles, Atari On Demand is a new service that allows subscribers to play unlimited Atari games for a $14.95 (€12.37) monthly fee. The games are specially packaged versions of back catalogue titles – and they use a special player application to protect their content, reduce download size and simplify the process. Subscribers don’t download and install titles – they’re downloaded to the player and it does everything else.

The Atari Player is by Exent Technologies Inc., and is based on their EXEtender application. EXEtender (Don’t. Make. Me. Type. It. Again.) technology is already used in game services in America, Europe and Asia. The service is Windows only – games are streamed to the subcriber’s PC and the Atari Player ensures that the destination PC can handle all the application-specific bits and pieces before the download begins.

Packaging the games in this way has another useful benefit aside from DRM and ease of installation – the binary files for the packaged games are 50% to 60% of the size of the full installer. It could be that these kind of sites might tempt users away from illegal P2P services just because the games take half as long to install, and are much less bother. We certainly hope so.

Before you hit the link and disappear from this article to the Atari site forever, the selection of games is a little weak at the moment. In fact, it really is very weak being comprised of recent titles from Infogrammes. Hopefully they’ll expand the range very quickly and get some old stuff in there as Infogrammes have abused the Atari brand to foist rubbish on the general public who only remember Atari’s proud arcade history. Consequently, we find it amazing that they chose to launch with a title like Trophy Hunter 2003 (shooting moose) and not Bezerk (shooting yellow robots).

Now Sega – are you paying attention?

Atari Unlimited

Atari Explorer – a beautiful site detailing the history of the company

BBC Live Quiz Show First to Use Java on mobile

Broadcasters have flirted with interactivity in quiz shows for a long time – and there have been a few examples lately using mobile phones to SMS answers. However, the BBC has teamed with Tailor Made Films to develop the next stage – proper interactivity on multiple platforms, including a mobile phone and web-based Java applets. The game can also be played on Freeview and through satellite set-top boxes.

The project has been on the go for about 18 months, and has evolved since its inception. SMS was considered in the early days, but was rejected as it was too restrictive.

Neil Pleasants, Managing Producer at Tailor Made Films told Digital Lifestyles why they favoured Java: ” Java is portable – you can take it to other countries and it’ll work. Digital TV platforms might as well be written in Martian, they don’t transfer — the platforms differ wildly as their capabilities.”

The BBC website explains the format of the quiz: “Come And Have A Go… offers viewers the chance to challenge the studio winners head to head. Playing on interactive TV, Java, or web, teams at home answer the same questions as the studio teams. At the end of the first part of the show a satellite camera is whisked off to join the top scoring home team – wherever they are in the UK. In the second part of the show, the home team competes live against the studio team for the cash prize.” The cameras are on motorbikes distributed around the country.

Neil went onto explain how Java has enabled them to sell the programme into other markets with the minimum of trouble: “We’re taking the programme worldwide. When we went into countries and explained the idea, they loved it. But they didn’t know about the actual technology. We’ve made the technology as simple as possible and that’s the key, because that is so essential everywhere.” Tailor Made films even have an idea for a branded phone.

Their first phase was getting the programme into Western Europe, America, Australia and Scandinavia – the second phase will be Eastern Europe, Middle East, Japan and China.

Java also allowed Tailor Made to build high levels of security into the quiz applet to prevent cheating, including timestamping. This is just as well: the guaranteed minimum prize is UK£30,000 (US$55,000, €45,000) the largest ever weekly prize ever given out on a British television programme.

Neil believes that content is maturing to match the platforms available: “This is as interactive as it gets.”

The official website

Tailor Made Films

Sun’s Java home

XBox: Huge US Price Cut

Microsoft have generally been slower to cut XBox prices in the US than they have in Europe – possibly because it started out at a much lower price there in the first place. Now, they’ve made a massive cut – possibly because sales of video games in the spring/summer months traditionally slump.

The XBox has been cut by $30 (UK£16.50, €24.60 ) to $149 (UK£81.75, €122.12). This makes it cheaper in the US than a GameBoy Advance SP is in the UK (a GBA-SP is currently UK£84.99 on Amazon, making it nearly US$155).

Microsoft are planning similar price cuts for Canada and Mexico, but would not say if other markets could look forward to a discount.

Many games such as Counter Strike and Project Gotham Racing will also see price cuts to $29.99.

Microsoft also released a rather striking limited edition “Crystal” XBox in the UK this week – it’s entirely transparent and is only £139, which sounds like good value until you compare the Dollar price with the new US price for the ordinary model (US$253, €207).

Crystal XBox

NPD Group: Online Console Games Exceeded US$1 Billion Sales in 2003

2003 saw a 182% increase in the number of online-capable console titles sold in the US, and we think this demonstrates that the market is finally taking off.

Predictably, the majority of the sales have been first person shooters (FPS) and sports games. Sports games, such as EA’s Hockey and Football offerings are immensely popular in North America, much more so than in Europe and the rest of the world, and so they claim 69% of the market. FPS games, with 22% of the online console game market, have long been popular online (or at least on corporate LANs) ever since the early days. This is because they are easy to pick up and play and appeal to the demographic who are buying most of the games – there is an easy shift for those brought up playing multiplayer Marathon and Doom on PCs and Macintoshes to picking up a console FPS.

Role-playing games (RPGs) take up only 4% of the online console market as they are more traditionally in the realm of the PC: requiring a hard drive, a huge commitment to learn the rules and world involved, and, of course, absolutely all of your spare time. Not many publishers have taken the risk of investing in online RPGs – Final Fantasy XI and Everquest Online Adventures being notable and popular exceptions.

Racing games are currently worth 15% of the market – but watch this change dramatically when an online version of Gran Turismo finally hits the shops.

Almost all console games currently on sale with online components can be played offline – it’s a brave publisher who will make a console game that cannot be played off line, and the aforementioned Everquest Online Adventures is the only exception we can think of. This will change as consumers get more used to the idea.

However, not all games with online functions are bought because of that feature: Richard Ow, senior industry analyst, The NPD Group comments: “It’s important to note that the increase in sales for online-capable games does not mean that the masses are moving to online gameplay, in some cases, consumers aren’t necessarily aware they’re buying games with online capabilities, but whether they’re aware or they aren’t, the onus falls in the laps of the software developers to provide games with multiple playability features.”

Now, Nintendo – why is it just about impossible for us to get the broadband adapter for the GameCube in the UK? Think we’re going to play Phantasy Star Online on a dial-up?

Online games at X Box Live

Sony Central Station

Warp Pipe – getting your GameCube online

Sony Launches Hard Drive for PlayStation2 in US

Sony have finally launched the PlayStation2 hard drive in the US, some might say a little late into the console’s life cycle. The drive is identical to the one that has been shipped with the Linux kit for the last 18 months – but then the drive in the Linux kit wasn’t compatible with game saves or downloading content.

So why now? The hard drive is needed to play Final Fantasy XI, the first online iteration of the baffling (hey, only if you don’t play it) role-playing game, and sales of the FF series more than justify marketing a $99 peripheral that was already in production. The drive comes with FFXI pre-installed, and players will be able to sample the game free for 30 days – but will have to cough up $12.95 a month as a subscription to keep going.

But that’s just one game – there will be a huge range of downloadable content and media available for subscribers: new levels, music, perhaps even full-length films. Given that the average game save is about 200kb and you could fit roughly 200,000 of those on the new disk. Sony obviously have a lot planned – and if the peripheral takes off, suddenly Sony has a potential installed base of more than 70 million broadband-enabled, game playing media hubs in living rooms and bedrooms around the world.

We’ve been quite looking forward to the hard drive, the endless fiddling about with memory cards is annoying: one card for RPGs, one card for all our EyeToy pictures, and Bahamut help me if I lost Sesame’s card with her Grand Theft Auto and Silent Hill saves on it.

Sony’s press release

“But your chocobo just squashed my level 76 Beastmaster!”

 

Two Way TV diversify to content from iTV

Two Way TV, well know producers of interactive TV content, have announced two content deals.

First up is an interesting and significant deal with long-standing UK commercial network ITV which moves them away from just iTV (interactive TV) content to using the interactivity to supply additional types of content. The exclusive ITV contract allows viewers to browse and buy content through their remote control, whilst watching ITV interactive content and have it delivered to mobile handsets.

Initially video clips, ring tones, logos, wallpaper and Java games, will be offered to ITV viewers through an interactive service behind ITV1 and ITV2 on Sky Satellite. It will also be available through ITV’s 24:7 interactive services menu.

The first service to launch will be based around ITV’s football programming. Football fans will be able to buy classic terrace tunes, download pictures of their favourite players and buy video clips of classic football moments. They will also be able to get football related Java games.

TwoWayTV will also be offering a pop-themed service to provide chart ring-tones, celebrity logos and Java games.

Jane Marshall, the controller if ITV Interactive, said about the deal: “Interactivity is all about providing extra value for viewers and giving them more of what they want. This is a great way for us to broaden our relationship with our viewers, as well as creating new revenue streams for us.”

The ITV mobile content service will launch during the second quarter of this year. Two Way TV will also launch similar services on NTL and Telewest in the walled garden under the Two Way TV brand. Viewers will be able to buy games and ring tones from these services.

Secondly, Two Way TV is renewing its partnership with the Israeli broadcaster Connect-TV and is licensing of a new set of games to the company. Connect-TV has been broadcasting Two Way TV’s games services on the MATAV and TEVEL cable networks in Israel for the last two years.

“Two Way TV’s games have proved very popular in Israel and we are delighted that they have agreed to renew our games licenses. Their innovative games have carved out a strong niche in the marketplace.” says Tammy Friedman, the chief operating officer of Connect-TV.

Two Way TV

CeBIT: PSX Will Make its European Debut at CEBIT 2004

The specifications are expected to have changed from the version launched in Japan a few months ago, but Sony are expected to unveil the European version of its exciting PSX media centre.

The Japanese PSX shipped with a few of the key features missing (namely MP3 playback and the ability to play some image formats), but they were later addressed in a firmware upgrade and it is hoped that the European PSX will hit the market with all of the proposed features enabled. We’ll have to wait and see if the box that Sony show at CeBIT is the proper European version, of if they will simply demo a Japanese unit – the later would be deeply disappointing.

The Register