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Bungie’s Keyboard Vs Joystick Grudge Match
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Bungie, Culture, PC
In the first person shooter genre, there have been a number of feuds, but one of the most contentious has to be the battle between keyboard and mouse users versus gamepad users. For the most part, the two groups have had little cross-over; gamepad users play mainly console-based shooters, while keyboard and mouse users favor PC gaming.
There have been some minor skirmishes when the two classes have been able to play online. Because the Dreamcast had its own keyboard and mouse controller available, gamers on that platform could match up online against gamepad players in Quake III Arena. PC users could also hook into the Dreamcast servers, but really, the disadvantages of the console platform made the battlefield uneven. PC gamers on the original Halo could configure a PC gamepad, but lack of standardization again made comparisons somewhat ineffective.
However, when Halo 2 for Windows Vista and its integrated Xbox 360 gamepad support is released, gamers will be able to take on their console brethren over Xbox Live to try and prove which controller will lead to ultimate dominance. In a preview of this battle, Bungie’s latest Humpday event had members of the Halo 2 Vista development team put their mouse and keyboard skills up against the Bungie Community Team’s gamepad talents. Of course, the Bungie Community Team swept all three rounds, and most weren’t very close. While disparities in overall skill levels make this hardly a scientific test, it seems clear that the gamepad isn’t the handicap that mouse and keyboard gamers would have you believe.
Read More 
| Bungie
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Dell Discontinues Digital Audio Player Line
Posted by Andru Edwards -
Categories:
Corporate News,
Portable Audio / Video
Well, despite the clever advertising, it looks like Dell has finally finished selling the last of their Ditty MP3 players. In fact, it appears that Dell’s promise to get out of the DAP market earlier this year has come to fruition, as they simply decided to stop making their own branded MP3 players, and have instead opted to resell players from the likes of Creative, SanDisk, Samsung, iRiver, and Archos. Notice anyone missing from that list? Apparently Dell isn’t into the whole “help the competition make a profit” thang…
Read More | MacWorld via GigaOm
Why PS2 Succeeded, and Why PS3 Will Fail
Posted by Rob Stevens Categories: Editorial, Features, Video Games
The Sony PlayStation 2 had a lot of things going for it when it launched in October of 2000. It would launch more than a year before Nintendo’s GameCube console, a head start that proved to extend the lifespan of the console far longer than the usual five years. Normally, launching a game console outside of that five-year cycle spelled disaster (just ask Sega), Sony managed to make it work, but it wasn’t by virtue of their games. The launch lineup for the PS2 was laughable, and would not improve for the majority of that first year. No, the PS2 sold for one reason and one reason only: including DVD movie playback cheaper than a dedicated DVD player.
At the time of the PS2 launch, a home DVD player retailed for about $399. Sony was selling the PS2 for $299, taking a significant loss on the hardware and expecting to make it up on software sales (often described as the standard game industry model, despite Nintendo not following that model themselves). For the first year, Sony was taking an absolute bath on the PS2 hardware, since the initial software selection was pitiful, yet the installed user base for the machine would pay dividends in the years to come, allowing Sony to secure many exclusives.
Click to continue reading Why PS2 Succeeded, and Why PS3 Will Fail
Sony Previews Tokyo Game Show Software List
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, PSP
Sony recently released a preview list of some of the software titles that they will be highlighting at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, and Siliconera has a translated list. The PSP list seems a little light, but there are a couple of titles of interest, like the new Ace Combat, a new Ratchet and Clank, and the latest in Namco’s Tales RPG series, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. Sony’s partial list of Playstation 3 titles include the latest Devil May Cry and Armored Core releases, as well as Resistance: Fall of Man and, of course, Ridge Racer 7. Given the proximity to launch, one hopes that a great number of Sony’s announced titles will be near release quality.
Read More | Siliconera
ATI Introduces the Radeon X1950 XTX, First Look
Posted by Yuan Zhao Categories: Accessories, PC / Laptop, Video Games
ATI has just introduced its latest and greatest graphics card to date, the Radeon X1950, which is slated to be available on September 13th. Configurable in both Crossfire and XTX editions, the X1950 cards come with 512MB of GDDR4 memory, the first of its kind. With a monster of a graphics card like the X1950, it looks like the ATI brand is to stay after all. Expect price cuts on X1900’s and older models as ATI readies the market for the X1950, which has an estimated street price of $449.
HardOCP got to put the card through a few tests, and reports back with their results.
Read More | ATI Press Release
Nintendo Unveils Two New Games At Leipzig
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii
Gamers looking for a big announcement from Nintendo about the pricing and availability of their Wii console will probably be disappointed from the news coming from Leipzig. In lieu of hard information about when gamers would be able to get their hands on the new console, Nintendo instead announced two new first party games along with promised availability of the pink Nintendo DS Lite in Europe. The two new games are nothing to sneeze at, really; according to a press release on Nintendo Europe’s site, games can expect to see Battalion Wars II and Mario Strikers Charged (working title) on the Wii. Had Nintendo not hyped up their conference at Leipzig so much, gamers would probably have been happy to see the new titles. But with maybe two or three months (depending on Nintendo’s final launch date) until the Wii hits shelves and with pricing rumors flying around, it would have been really nice to get this information now. Still, Mario Strikers looks particularly good, and promises to translate well to the Wii controller. Overall, its hard not to be disappointed in Nintendo’s decision to continue to hold launch information close to their chest.
Read More | Nintendo of Europe
SanDisk Launches Sansa e280 8GB Flash-based DAP
Posted by Yuan Zhao Categories: Music, Portable Audio / Video
With so many purported “iPod killers” these days, one wonders if any company will ever be able to take down the legendary iPod line. SanDisk, a distant second to Apple in the portable music player market, announced a new member to their Sansa line on Monday, the e280. The e280 Sansa player offers 8GB of storage with a built-in microSD slot for an additional 2GB. At a starting price of around $250, roughly equal to that of the high-end nano, the new Sansa poses a potential problem for Apple by offering a product with a similar form factor with many enhancements. The lower-end versions of the Sansa player also received price cuts.
These upgrades are intended to help boost the company’s market share, which currently hovers around 10%; however, SanDisk is a top supplier of flash based storage and has a distinct advantage over Apple in terms of pricing. Their new releases come at a time when speculation about a revised iPod nano with larger storage, among other features, is at an all-time high. Regardless, it remains to be seen if SanDisk can in fact depose Apple.
Read More | MSNBC
According to Macworld, Apple shareholders have filed a suit against the Cupertino-based company in light of the ongoing investigation concerning Apple’s stock scandal. According to the suit, Steve Jobs and other executives changed their option-grant dates in order to “reap millions of dollars in unlawful profits.” Recently, Nasdaq has put Apple on notice for not complying with the exchange’s rules and is demanding that the company submit its latest financial report. If the company were to be taken off the stock exchange, stockholders would likely lose out. Until this latest development, Steve Jobs had not been implicated in the matter. We’ll just have to watch how this one plays out.
Read More | Macworld UK
Insomniac: Resistance “Could Only Be Done On PS3”
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: First Person Shooters, PlayStation 3
Resistance: Fall of Man should be one of the more anticipated launch titles for the Playstation 3. The game garnered a lot of positive attention at E3 for its next generation graphics, gameplay, and back story. Ryan Schneider of Insomniac Games recently demonstrated a current build of the game for MTV. According to Schneider, what MTV saw “could only be done on the PS3.” Insomniac dropped some details from the backstory for the game, but more interesting were the technical details. The company is still working on implementing tilt functionality in the game, but indicated that the controls would be used for close quarters combat. Also interesting was the size of the game; the current version takes up 22 gigabytes on the Blu-Ray format. Schneider declared that 1 gigabyte is used for music and vocals; the rest of the space is used by “graphics, level data and programming code.” Finally, Insomniac discussed some of the unique weaponry in the game.
Read More | MTV
Texas Hold ‘em FREE on Xbox Live Arcade for the Next 48 Hrs only
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Casual, Hot Deals, Release Dates, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade
Just in case you forgot, starting tonight at 1AM Pacific time and for the next 48 hours, you will be able to download Texas Hold ‘em from the Xbox Live Arcade. After that, you have to pay 800 MS points and admit that you were a lame gamer that didn’t check Playfeed often enough. 
One of the cooler features in this release is the “Persistent Bankroll”, a system which should keep the betting fairly realistic:
Your virtual bankroll is tied to your gamertag and keeps a running tally of your chip count. If you lose all of your chips in a poker game, you’ll have to play lower stakes buy-in games to make back your stack and earn your way to the big tables.
This should be a great chance for all of those frugal gamers out there to break into the XBLA scene!
Read More | Xbox Official News
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