Top notch multimedia gear shifters Diamond Multimedia have announced their new Diamond Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB, a super-beefy graphics card boasting no less than one gig of GDDR4 onboard memory with an ultra-wide 512-bit memory interface.
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Category: Gaming
Xbox Soundtracks Competition: UK Bedroom Musicians Awake!
Life as a bedroom DJ or budding band member has taken a number of twists over the last few years. After ages of playing to themselves (or in some cases, with themselves), they now find that the world wants to know them.
Microsoft are casting their large net out to pickup up some music skillz, which they’ll use to fit specially composed tunes to Xbox 360 game trailers.
Entering sounds like a cinch. Simply grab a trailer or two from the site (there’s twelve available), apply your musical talents to it and re-upload it.
Continue reading Xbox Soundtracks Competition: UK Bedroom Musicians Awake!
Commodore Gaming PCs Released In UK
Commodore – a name sure to turn old skool gamers of a certain age all misty eyed and nostalgic – has released a range of high end gaming PCs.
The top spec’d Commodore GX and Commodore xx models will only be available from their online store, while the Commodore g and Commodore GS range will sold in retail outlets from May.
Sadly, the trusty old Amiga OS is nowhere to be seen, with all the machines running the Windows Vista operating system.
The top of the range XX model has a price tag sure to induce “Gordon Bennett!” exclamations, serving up a £2,900 baseline spec featuring an Intel Core2 Extreme Quad-Core processor QX6700: 2.66GHz 8MB Cache, ASUS P5N32-E NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI motherboard, 2x NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB SLI graphics cards, 2x 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Raid 0 hard drives and 2GB of 1066MHz RAM, running on Windows Vista Home Premium.
And that’s without a monitor, keyboard and mouse and just a two year service and parts warranty.
For those with extra voluminous pockets, machine requirements can be customised further online, with additional options like a BluRay writer, extra RAM and bigger drives pushing the price into the stratosphere.
Mad for it gamers might also warm to Commodore Gaming’s ‘C-kins’ designs which let users select one of a 100 flashy, scratch-proof, PC case paint jobs created using a patented dye process.
“We’re extremely excited and proud to offer our range of exceptional gaming machines and since PC gaming and online gaming is about instant entertainment, this is what we intend to deliver with machines that will satisfy everyone from the casual gamer to the professional,” piped Bala Keilman, CEO for Commodore Gaming.
Commodore says it plans to roll out a European store in mid May, accompanying retail outlets in UK, Germany, France and the Benelux.
£25,000 Winnings For Getting To 100
In this decimal-obsessed society that we live in, there is a general amazement when someone reaches 100 years old.
Mr Alec Holden from Epsom, Surrey clearly understood this when he placed a £10 bet ten years ago with UK bookie William Hill that he would survive a century.
Today he’s celebrating his 100th birthday, a letter from the Queen and his £25,000 winnings.
His view on the recipe for success? Porridge for breakfast, don’t worry about anything, do as little work as possible and keep breathing!
Alec keeps his mind active by playing chess against his computer everyday and also runs a chess club.
Listening to him on Today on Radio 4 this morning he sounded bright and sprightly taking a very positive view of his age saying that he’s looking forward to “starting off again at 100.”
Although William Hill is down £25,000, they’ll be making saving all of the advertising that they’ll be getting from this story.
Interesting to hear from them that they are no longer take bets of getting to 100, but are pushing out the year out to 110.
XBox 360 HD DVD Drive Review (80%)
Microsoft have actually made a sensible decision, an external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 and it works.
With a recent software update the Xbox 360 was given HD support and suddenly 1080i and 1080p resolutions sprang to life (of course not all games support these new modes). Unfortunately the internal DVD is a bog standard DVD-ROM drive and it doesn’t support the new HD formats at all.
The external drive connects through one of the Xbox 360’s USB ports, it’s a shame there aren’t any rear sockets as the cable dangles out the front of the unit. Just plug it in, connect its power supply unit and install the software that comes with the unit and that’s it. It all just works. MS have been nice and included a DVD remote, though the normal game controllers work too.
Upscaled content
A nice feature is that the Xbox 360 will upscale content to whatever your output is set to (tested using 1080i), so a normal standard def DVD can be output at 1080i or 1080p. It works surprisingly well. There were very occasional artefacts or blocking – but it’s eminently viewable, even on a high action film (shame the film itself wasn’t). There are quite a few DVD players that offer some kind of upscaling feature, but it generally adds to the cost significantly.
Silence is golden
DO NOT EVER watch a film with quiet bits in it. The major downside to this set-up is that the Xbox 360 sounds like a train rumbling through your living room, it’s incredibly loud. As soon the the film quietens, there it is. You cant quite block it out.
Current Xbox 360’s also don’t support HDMI (the newly announced Elite will) so the best resolutions require component video and that means a separate audio output. The cable does have an optical out, but it doesn’t support newer digital modes like Dolby TruSurround.
Verdict
For around 130 quid, a bargain HD-DVD drive that upscales as well, but it’s bulky and noisy.
Features: 88%
Ease of Use: 90%
Value for Money: 97%
Overall Score: 81% (let down by Xbox 360 noise)
Wii Warm-up!
The London Times has a piece the drags up the now-old idea of the Wii being bad for you physically, with them highlighting “aching backs, sore shoulders and even “Wii elbow”.”
We’ve recently been playing the Wii intensively for two weeks and did find that our right (playing) wrist aching, but that’s probably because we haven’t used it for much besides mousing-around for the last couple of years.
At the bottom of the ‘we’re out to bash the Wii’ piece, there’s something that we can’t work out if this is meant as a joke or not – a Wii Warm-up.
Here it is, just in case you’re concerned about your Wii-age.
Tim Hutchful, of the British Chiropractic Association, gives a guide to a pre Wii warm-up:
1 Shoulder shrug — slowly shrug your shoulders towards your ears. Hold for two to three seconds, then relax. Repeat three times. Because it is easier to relax a muscle after you have tightened it, you will relax the muscles in the shoulder and allow the blood to flow into the arms.
2 Wrist stretch — slowly stretch the wrist backwards, hold for two to three seconds, then slowly stretch it forwards and hold for two to three seconds. Repeat three times. This exercise prevents tightening of the wrists.
3 Make a fist — hold the arm at right angles from the elbow. Make a fist and tense it, and the whole of your arm. Hold for two to three seconds, then relax and let the arm flop to your side. Repeat three times. This will help the blood flow and tone the muscles.
4 Neck muscle stretch — try to make a double chin, to stretch the muscles at the base of the neck. Hold this position for two to three seconds and repeat three times. Always stretch very slowly.
5 Lower back loosen — standing with your feet a shoulder-width apart, slowly circle your hips five revolutions to the right and then five revolutions to your left.
Resident Evil x 2 on Wii: European Details
There have been mutterings for a while about the classic, long-running gore/terror-fest, Resident Evil, coming to the Nintendo Wii in Europe.
Official confirmation of the European release has this morning been announced – and it’s to arrive in two flavours.
The first, on 29 June, will be Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition, which is a “re-mastered version” of the game, utilising the all-new motion sensitive controls that make the Wii what it is.
Resident Evil 4 has already been on the GameCube, PlayStation2 and PC is confusingly the sixth instalment of the Resident Evil series.
Coming “later in the year” will be Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, which looks to us like it’s been designed to appeal to those who are long-in-the-tooth Resident Evil players.
It’s a brand new title for Wii that allows players to gain a greater insight than ever before into the back story behind the outbreak. Capcom, the developers of both titles, describe it as an “action/shooter hybrid,” which has locations from Resident Evil 0, 1, 2 and 3 as well as new never-before-seen locations, such as Umbrella’s stronghold. Woooo!
One enterprising site has even mocked up a version of how they think the Wii-mote might be used to play Resident Evil.
The Umbrella Chronicles has been designed to use gun controllers – shooting is a large part of Resident Evil after all. Those in the frame are the yet-to-be-released Wii Blaster gun and possibly the now-selling JoyTech Sharp Shooter.
Phantom Back In News
The company behind the Phantom console is back in the news.
Word of the Phantom games console started way back in February 2004, when the industry couldn’t work out if it was real or an elaborate hoax.
In May 2004 it was ‘made flesh’ and was shown at E3 and we heard about them gaining $50m credit investment.
It was all quiet for about a year, then there was an interesting twist in the story as it appeared to be re-born as a content console, as the Chinese coalition-backed IDV Global Media On-Demand platform. At that time we were told that it was expected to launch in China early 2006.
Since then, we can’t recall hearing about it, until today, when we hear that the renamed body, Phantom Entertainment, has signed a deal with Ione Technology to manufacture the Phantom Wireless Lapboard and Wireless Laser Mouse under Ione’s brand name throughout Asia and through Ione’s distributors in the US and Europe in return for royalty and design fees.
Greg Koler, President and CEO of Phantom Entertainment, said Ione plan to “begin production and distribution of the Ione wireless lapboard and Ione wireless laser mouse in the third quarter of 2007.”
Where’s the console?
From what we can tell, the Phantom console itself has hit the dirt – it’s not listed under their products on the Web site, but the Phantom Game Service does look like it’s alive.
The fate of Kevin Bachus, founder of Phantom and ex-Microsoft Xbox game console designer, is unknown as he doesn’t appear to be on the list of the companies officers.
UK PS3 Sales Down 82% In Second Week
The news for Sony and their PlayStation 3 just keeps getting worse.
Early pre-UK-release signs weren’t promising, nor were they looking any better when the UK PS3 was selling for £100 under their release price, a couple of days beforehand.
On the positive side, Sony did claim to sell 165,000 consoles in the UK in the first week – making it the UK’s fastest selling home console to date.
Now the official Chart Track figures, that follow sales in the UK are reporting to gamesindustry.biz that sales of the PS3 in the UK have dropped by 82% during its second week of release.
Software sales are also suffering with “sales of the top two PlayStation 3 titles, Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm, had dropped by over 60 per cent.”
It’s not looking much better for the PS3 in Japan, where Bloomberg is claiming that Sony has sold 812,000 PS3s since November 11, against a mighty 1.95 million Wii consoles by Nintendo.
Xbox 360 Elite Announced
There’s been lots of speculation going around the various blog sites about the release of a new version of Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
Yesterday Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox 360 Elite is a real product and will begin arriving in US stores on 29 April with an expected retail price of $480.
The confirmed spec of the 360 Elite is a combination of a 120Gb hard drive, new accessories bundled in, and to all of those HD TV fans, an HDMI port built in. Oh, and a return to a black case like the original Xbox. Microsoft tell us that the retail price of all of the bundled bits is over $600 if bought separately.
The HDMI port is an interesting move – yes it will make it simpler to get High Def screens connected (if you have a screen with an HDMI in port), but importantly it will let Elite owners play protected HD-DVD discs on the long-discussed add-on HD-DVD drive. HDMI connection is needed for the HDCP content protection scheme.
The new, large hard drive is a big step up from the previous version of 20Gb to 120Gb – all the more space for Microsoft to sell you TV shows, films and software to download – oh … and save you game positions to as well of course.
The hard drive is detachable and will also be sold separately so standard Xbox users will be able to get hold of them too. Expected US price is $180.
Alongside the goodies above are an Xbox 360 Wireless Controller in black and a headset, in … err, black. Do you get the black theme? There’ll be a couple of other new bits available separately too, a Play & Charge kit for the the wireless controller ($20) and a black rechargeable battery ($12)
Peter Moore, Corporate Vice President – Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft, turned the hyperbole meter way up to deliver the following, “Today’s games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content. Xbox 360 Elite’s larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer.”
It’s worth noting that the first shots of the Elite, while looking slightly underground, are in fact taken by ‘Major Nelson,’ the pseudonym for Larry Hryb, Xbox Live Director of Programming. So ‘leaked’ photos are now coming from official sources!
Images courtesy of Major Nelson