Video Game Buttons Blog

October 18, 2006

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Yesterday, Linux developer Terra Soft Solutions announced the launch of its Yellow Dog Linux operating system for the PS3. “It’s not about eye candy and unnecessary special effects, it’s about finding balance between a lean, uncluttered desktop and a personal environment that is both familiar and powerful,” said Terra Soft’s system administrator Cesar Delgado.

Terra Soft CEO Kai Staats said that Linux will be available “immediately” from the company’s online store and from selected retailers. Terra Soft has said that it would like to see its Linux distribution bundled with the PS3 at some point in the future. Staats sees the combination of Linux and the PS3 as the development of a significant post-PC computing platform: “From our standpoint, what better way to enjoy games, movies, music, and Linux than on a single, low cost, highly integrated, small system. It is in essence, from our point of view, a ‘Linux appliance’ with an incredible feature list,” he said.

At the E3 gaming conference and expo in May, Sony indicated that it had plans to bring the Linux operating system to the console, and Sony’s Izumi Kawanishi has been quoted in the Japanese press supporting the proposal of running Linux on the machine.

Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle group commented on Sony’s jumbled internal structure: “The PC division and PlayStation division have always been at cross purposes.” Enderle still feels, however, that there is a potential market for Sony to capture: “There is still an opportunity for a ‘PC appliance’ in the home and the belief is that Microsoft is vulnerable there.”

So how seriously is Sony taking the PlayStation as a computing platform? Technologically, the device is more than up to the task, but whether Sony will put enough resources into Linux or even whether the famously complex Linux can be suitably tamed for home user remain to be seen. Terra Soft will demonstrate its Yellow Dog Linux for PS3 at the SC2006 tradeshow in Florida in November.

October 17, 2006

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For Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam, Activision called upon developer Toys for Bob to work its magic for the Wii-exclusive installment of the popular Tony Hawk series.  According to Toys for Bob producer Alex Ness, the developers have “kept the best parts of the Tony Hawk games, the core mechanics and the trick system, and given the audience a new way to play with them.”

The tracks include urban settings, outdoor environments, and “everything in between.” As you play through different events, you will unlock certain goodies, some of which are clothing and skateboards. The skateboards enhance player stats, and each board unlocked is better than the one previously used. The clothing? Just for looks.  

The game features three types of main events: races, slalom, and tricks. The racing is pretty straightforward: make it down the course before the other guy. The slalom requires hitting the gates with precise skating, and the trick events are scored based on your downhill trickery prowess. There are also special task-specific events, such as tricks, knocking people down, and destroying things, all of which fill up the “boost meter,” which is similar to a power-up. Collecting the letters S,K,A,T, and E will double your total score.

 ”I think combat is another cool aspect of our game,” said Ness. To win races, skaters can knock other skaters off of their boards. For the game’s “ghost feature,” Toys for Bob has saved ghost runs down each of the events. “You can actually see our skater on their run while you play. People can compete directly against our ghosts and if they win, they unlock what we call the super jewel ghost. The super jewel ghost is basically the best anyone here can do. Beat the super jewel ghost and it means you’re better than we are. Suffice to say, this is ridiculously difficult. I’d be amazed if anyone can do it.”

Ness says that the Wii remote, unlike conventional wireless remote, enables players to steer, tilt, and turn to control the skater. Shaking the Wiimote activates a speed boost and allows the skater to get up after a spill. Front and back flips (in the air) are completed by tilting the remote forward or backward.

Downhill Jam also has a split-screen mode for 2-4 players. Ness believes the development team is on its final version of the game and says the game will be ready for the Wii launch.

October 16, 2006

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Game Boy Advance:

Justice League Heroes: The Flash

Noddy: A Day in Toyland

SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: Tipton Caper

Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2

GameCube:

Flushed Away

The Sims 2: Pets

SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab

Nintendo DS:

Contact

Flushed Away

Justice League Heroes

Nintendogs: Dalmatian & Friends

Scooby Doo! Who’s Watching Who?

SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab

Strawberry Shortcake Strawberryland Games

PS2:

Bully

Cabela’s African Safari

Destroy All Humans! 2

Eureka Seven Vol. 1: The New Wave

Family Guy

Flushed Away

Justice League Heroes

Kim Possible: What’s the Switch?

The Sims 2: Pets

SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab

Tokobot Plus: Mysteries of the Karakuri

PSP:

Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception

Cabela’s African Safari

Family Guy

FIFA 07

Ford Bold Moves Street Racing

Scooby Doo! Who’s Watching Who?

WTF: Work Time Fun 

Xbox:Destroy All Humans! 2

October 13, 2006

A Florida circuit court judge said he would review the unreleased video game Bully(Rockstar Games) on Thursday to determine if it should be sold to consumers under age 18. The review was ordered after a complaint filed in the 11th Judicial Circuit Court by attorney Jack Thompson, a long-time critic of the video game industry. The complaint accused Bully of being a “Columbine simulator” and inappropriate for children. A company spokesman had no immediate comment on the review. Bully, scheduled to be released across the nation next Tuesday for PS2, lets gamers live out the life of a 15-year-old student who must handle the academics and everything else associated with boarding school. Thompson wants the game’s rating to be changed from “T,” for teenagers age 13 and older, and also wants to preemptively block the sale of the game in Florida by Rockstar’s publisher, Take Two Interactive Software, as well as Wal-Mart Stores and GameStop. “How to plan your revenge and rehearse your bullying back strategies, that dynamic is something we don’t need to be teaching,” said Thompson, who has reportedly neither seen nor played the game. Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Ronald Friedman planned to review the game in his chambers with the help of a representative from Take Two.

October 12, 2006

Nintendo and tools company AiLive have teamed up to produce LiveMove, a “groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence product” available to Nintendo Wii developers that enables the Wii remote to learn.  The companies explain: “Instead of complicated programming, developers need only take a few minutes to train the Wii Remote by examples.  LiveMove lets developers focus directly on creative work without the burden of onerous coding requirements, helping them quickly unleash the potential of Wii.” 

The tool also lets designers create a LiveMove move relevant to their game “in minutes,” just by performing motions that can then easily be integrated into games.  The tool can recognize up to 40 different motions on 8 Wii remotes or nunchuks simultaneously using less than 5% of the Wii CPU.  Total memory usage is typically below 700K, and creators can use LiveMove to recognize any motion for their Wii title, including complicated curves and nuances. 

Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director/General Manager of Integrated Research & Development Division, Nintendo Co., Ltd, commented, “This revolutionary tool liberates the imaginations of game creators. We are more than happy to share this collaborative LiveMove tool with independent Wii software developers all over the world.  From a cowboy’s lasso to a samurai’s sword or a chef’s cooking utensils, we just can’t wait to play the developers’ new, ‘unexpected’ applications.”

According to the AiLive website, LiveMove also recognizes tennis strokes, lasso movements, sword thrusts, the writing of letters and numbers, and more.  LiveMode’s “capacity” refers to the measure of how may ways of performing a movement the machine can recognize.  LiveMode capacity can be set high, and a higher capacity means that more contexts can be created to learn all the details of the training set. 

LiveMove also features a “slack” controller setting.  A high slack setting will more easily classify fuzzy or inaccurate movements as vaild ones.  A very high slack setting can yield “false positives,” which, as the site explains, can be good and bad.  In a boxing game, for example, any punch is better than nothing and can be effective.  In a stealth action game, however, false positives can be dangerous since a “wrong” move may set off an alarm or something of that nature.

Finally, LiveMode tuning allows a players “to further genralize and enhance a recognizer by providing their own examples of the moves when they’re playing the game.”  The players’ examples, however, must match the essential form of the moves and are then used in creating additional contexts.  As a result, you wind up with a fast recognizer from the developer that the player customizes at run time to yield incredibly accurate, personalized recognition.

October 11, 2006

In a conversation between Satoru Iwata , Nintendo president and CEO, and Kouichi Kawamoto of Nintendo’s software planning and development division, some details of getting MP3 files to play on the Wii console were revealed.

Iwata: I’m sure that for many people, just being able to see their digital camera pictures on the big screen will feel really fresh. Pictures they’ve only ever seen either scrolling through them on a 2 or 3 inch screen or on their computer, they’ll be able to easily view them on their living room TV. People will get into the habit of sticking their SD Card into the Wii as soon as they get home after they’ve taken pictures. I think that will change the way people view digital camera photographs.

Kawamoto: Another thing which people have really enjoyed is the Slide show function. This allows you to play music as the console automatically displays your pictures in turn. If you put MP3 files in your SD Card, you can have your favorite songs as background to your Slide show.

Shortly after, Kawamoto states the following: A photo’s mood will change simply by switching the music. I was careful, however, not to allow the photos to be upstaged. I mean, it would have been easy to make a flashy, stylish Slide show, but a lot of people felt that this would distract the viewer from the photos, which are after all the most important part of the show

Hmmm…

Xfire representatives have announced that it has partnered with Sony’s PS3 Tools and Middleware Development and License Agreement to bring tracking and multiplayer communication services to select PS3 titles.  Using the Xfire SDK (not yet developed), PS3 developers can use the service to, among other things, allow the Xfire PC users to see when their friends are playing Xfire-supported PS3 games.  Each company, however, will need to reach an agreement with Xfire to do so since Xfire is not a universal PlayStation 3 service; it is supported on a game-by-game basis.  Xfire has also announced that the first such game to integrate the service is Sony Online Entertainment’s Untold Legends Dark Kingdom.  With Xfire technology, gamers will be able to track Dark Kingdom players and chat with players on either a PC or a PS3.  By connecting their PS3 to the internet, Dark Kingdom players will be able to log in to Xfire from the front end of Dark Kingdom, which will send messages when friends have logged into the service and allow in-game chat during gameplay (whether the friend is on a PS3 or PC).  Previous reports claimed Xfire was to be a completely separate service from those offered by Sony itself through its PlayStation Network Platform and would be used in Untold Legends only.  While the service is still separate from Sony’s own, with this announcement, any other developer wishing to integrate Xfire can do so.

October 10, 2006

Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter predicts that Wii game sales will be double those of the PS3 in North America this holiday season, based on hardware sales that are also almost double as strong for Wii.  “We think it is important to note that we expect total U.S. software sales of only $144 million for the PS3 and only $288 million for the Wii, with additional European software sales of $156 million for the Wii in 2006,” noted Pachter, who also says that game revenues for the Wii will be around 3 times that of the PS3 in the West.  “These figures are based upon an estimated sell-through of 1.2 million PS3s in the U.S. and a tie ratio of only two (given the likely limited release slate), and sell-through of 2 million Wii hardware units in the U.S. and 1 million in Europe with a tie ratio of three.”  Pachter believes that there may be approximately 20 PS3 games at launch in the U.S. with an additional 5 titles by the end of the year.  “We have made many assumptions, and speculate that Electronic Arts and Sony will have the greatest number of titles in the U.S. at launch with five each, followed by Activision and Namco Bandai with three each, although we note that there are many games with uncertain release dates. Most titles will be priced at $59.99,” he said.  Nintendo, Pachter continues, has announced that approximately 24 games will be available at Wii’s launch with another six by year-end. Ubisoft is expected to deliver the greatest number of launch titles with nine, followed by Activision with five (two are budget titles), and Electronic Arts and Nintendo with two apiece.  These publishers and others have several additional titles planned (but unconfirmed) for release at or near launch. Most titles are expected to be priced at $49.99, although it is possible that a handful of premium titles could be priced higher.

October 6, 2006

Logitech officials have revealed the company’s upcoming PlayStation 3 ChillStream controller, which makes use of Logitech’s patented ChillStream technology currently featured in its line of PC game controllers. ChillStream technology is designed to keep a player’s hands cool by way of a fan built into the controller fan. The fan will circulate up to 3.41 cubic feet of air every minute and will generate very little noise, Logitech promises. Three vents on each side of the controller push air out onto the player’s hands in a high or low setting (or turned off altogether). The Logitech PS3 controller will be available in metallic silver or glossy black and will retail for a suggested $39.99 in the U.S. It will also be available in Japan and Asia when the PlayStation 3 ships in November. “The PlayStation 3 is sure to be a powerful gaming platform and we are pleased to offer a range of peripherals available at launch,” said Ruben Mookerjee, Logitech’s director of product marketing for gaming. “And by extending our ChillStream technology to a controller designed for PlayStation 3, we are able ensure that gamers will have the best experience and play with one of the most advanced technologies on the market.” Logitech has also confirmed that several of its products already on the market, including the Logitech Driving Force Pro wheel, will be fully compatible with Sony’s upcoming PS3 console.

October 5, 2006

Ethernet Kit for Wii

Nintendo revealed yesterday that it will release an Ethernet Kit for Wii that allows users to connect the console to a standard internet router without wireless support.  For people without a wireless-enabled router, this would mean purchasing a new router or the almost non-existent Nintendo WiFi Connector.  With the Ethernet Kit available, however, non-wireless gamers have nothing to worry about.  If you connect your DS to the internet with the Nintendo WiFi Connector, you can use the same device to connect the Wii.  Most wireless routers will also be compatible with the Wii’s built-in WiFi technology.

Pro Evolution Soccer Playable on Wii

Konami has PES playable on Wii and is working on how to implement the Wii controller. PES producer Shingo ‘Seabass’ Takatsuka has told a British gaming site that Konami’s PES for Wii in development and testing right now. Seabass claims the game is playable on the Wii system, and various controller options are the subject of current experiments. The team is said to be looking at using the Wii remote and nunchuk for throw-ins, passing, and even shooting. Seabass also revealed that he’s heard through the rumor mill that EA could be a similar research and development phase, by looking at strapping a remote device to a player’s foot for shooting. Hmmm…

Opera Free until June ‘07

Through an Opera Software press release, it was revealed last week that Nintendo, as part of a special promotion, will offer the Opera browser for Wii for free until June 30, 2007.  Users will be able to download the browser from the Wii Stop Channel.  As of July 2007, consumers will be required to cough up Wii points to purchase Opera.  Opera Software commented, “With support for Flash and AJAX-based content such as Google maps, Wii users will benefit from a feature-rich Internet experience that is uniquely customized for the Wii.  Opera for Wii boasts the same complete standards support as the Opera 9 Desktop browser, and it includes the added functionality of ‘Zoom’ and ‘Bookmarks.’  The Wii remote control will also be an integral part of browsing, allowing users to intuitively control the Web with their Wii remotes.”