Software

Chatpad On Xbox 360 Announced
Microsoft have confirmed that they will be releasing the Messenger Kit for the XBox 260 in the US this September, after a long period of building up anticipation for it.
As well as a headset for voice chatting – which have been around since the original Xbox – the interesting part is the introduction of a full-sized, if mini, qwerty keyboard, letting you IM your mates until your thumbs bleed.
While Microsoft aren’t disclosing any plans for Europe or the UK, they say it should retail at $29.99 when it goes on sale on 6th September.
16 July, 2007
PS3 Price Drops, Or Not: Sony Lose The (Gaming) Plot
I don’t what the people driving the European wing of Sony think that they’re up to, but they appear, of late, to be perfecting the art of making the wrong decision.
We learnt last week that Sony will be dropping the price of Playstation 3 in the the US by $100, but will not be offering a reduction in the UK or Europe.
Do they think that no-one in the UK reads the International press? Do they not realise that UK gamers already feel insulted by their action on the PS3?
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16 July, 2007
Sony PSP A Hit In Beijing
Writing about the announcement of the new PSP brought the following little ditty to mind – one we’ve been meaning to write for a while.
You may be thinking that the Sony PSP hasn’t been the hit that it might have been, because in and around Europe you don’t see many on the street.
It’s easy to lull yourself into a false state of knowledge when you’re in a major capital, leading you to think that the behaviours that you see around the street are representative of the world as a whole.
This was clearly show in our recent visit to Beijing, where PSP usage told a distinctly different story. There were tons of the things knocking around, primarily on the Beijing Underground.
Used mostly by the under 30s, but not limited to males, we often saw people playing games on them during the crushed morning rush hour (and it was a serious crush). The other frequent use was using them to catch up on TV or film programming.
Alongside the genuine PSPs, we also spied quite a few copy PSPs having a similar form factor, but a rougher, less-engineered finish.
12 July, 2007
New PSP Shown at E3
Sony made a big song and dance at E3 yesterday in showing the new version of the PSP.
Much press reaction is pretty unimpressed – which seems to be a increasingly reaction to Sony news these days. A shame for a company that five years plus ago could do no wrong.
The changes for the new PSP centre around the reduction in size and weight – and video output.
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12 July, 2007
Wii Sales 6:1 Against PS3 In Japan
Further news of the power of the Wii arrives, with Japanese data service Famitsu Marketing Data Service reporting that the Nintendo Wii outsold the PS3 again in Japan.
June saw another factor of one being added to the previous two months of PS3 thrashing with Wii outselling it 6.5 to one. The figure quoted are 270,974 Wiis against 41,628 PS3s.
April saw a ratio 4:1 of Wii to PS3 sales and May a 5:1.
Clearly these latest figures are just one territory, but we’ve been pointing out how much more popular the Wii was with the public since before its UK launch.
The Xbox 360 is relatively no where with a tiny 17,616 being sold, putting the Wii outselling it at 15 to one!
4 July, 2007
T-Mobile Launches Mobile Jukebox
T-Mobile has announced their new Mobile Jukebox service which lets roaming customers download purchased DRM-protected tracks to both their phones and their PCs for a quid a pop.
The service uses a mobile application which is available for downloading to a selected range of 32 T-Mobile phones, including 3G, GPRS, contract and prepay handsets.
Users can rummage freely through the 500,000+ track output of major record labels like Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music, EMI Music and Warner Music International, and independent labels like V2 and Beggars Banquet.
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4 July, 2007
Video Gamers Do Less Reading And Homework
Kids playing video games on school days spend up to a third less time doing homework than those who do play games.
Figures from a study in America revealed thath video gamers spending far less time reading and doing homework, with fragging boys found to spend 30 percent less time reading, with the girls registering a 34 per cent reduction in homework.
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3 July, 2007
Universal in Dispute With Apple Over iTunes
Universal, the planet’s biggest music corporation, has told Apple that it won’t be renewing its annual contract to sell music through iTunes.
According to an anonymous executive cited in the New York Times, the mighty Universal Music Group of Vivendi will now market music to Apple at will, leaving the company free to remove its songs from the iTunes service at short notice if pricing and terms can not be agreed.
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2 July, 2007
WiiWare: New Original Games Channel Opening
Everyone’s favourite games console manufacturer (except Sony, perhaps), is opening up another channel of content for its Wii.
Nintendo have announced WiiWare, letting people purchase and download original games software.
Nintendo have offered a service to download reworked classic games – Super Mario Bros, etc – to the Wii since last November. Indeed, earlier this month they announced that 4.7m of these classic games had been downloaded already.
WiiWare will attempt to get legions of small software developers to create compelling, less-expansive games, without them having to be concerned with the hassle and cost of creating games on disk.
Nintendo expect the first WiiWare content to arrive early 2008 – so coders, get coding!
28 June, 2007
BBC iPlayer To Finally Launch
This morning, BBC boss Mark Thompson announced that the corporation’s long-awaited iPlayer on-demand TV service would launch, as an open public beta, on 27 July this year.
Unveiling details of the peer-to-peer download service, Thompson predicted that the iPlayer (nee iMP) would be “at least as big a redefinition of broadcast TV as colour TV was 40 years ago.”
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27 June, 2007