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WSJ: The Power Players
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: Culture, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Gamecube, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360,
The Wall Street Journal has put together a great article featured in this weekend’s paper. The article’s subtitle is as follows:
Videogames are reshaping the entertainment business. But the moguls who make them are still largely unknowns. Our look at how the game is played.
The article looks at everyone from “The Game Gurus” like Shigeru Miyamoto to “Hardware Heavies” like Ken Kutaragi to “Entertainers” like Peter Jackson to “Team Players” like Tony Hawk. I’d highly recommend checking out the article - you have to been a subscriber to see it online. Otherwise, run out and grab a copy of this weekend’s paper starting tomorrow. Oh, you may learn about news issues outside of the video game world as well!
Read More 
| WSJ.com
Capcom’s hotly anticipated title, Okami, is scheduled to be released in North America sometime this summer - unfortunately, there’s no official release date yet.
Okami is a stylish action game based on Japanese folklore and presented in a traditional Japanese art style. Players will assume the role of Amaterasu, a sun god who takes the form of a wolf on Earth. Artistic ability isn’t limited to Okami’s graphics, as gamers will use the PS2’s controller to perform “brush strokes” to battle enemies and solve puzzles.
Read More | GameSpot
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Nvidia Hints No PS3 Spring Release
Posted by Brandon Gribin Categories: PlayStation 3, Release Dates, Rumors,
Following rumors of a September launch, Nvidia has hinted that the PS3 won’t be coming out anywhere in the spring.
Dean Takashi writes:
“Graphics chip maker Nvidia reported today that it doesn’t anticipate any royalties from Sony during the current fiscal quarter which closes at the end of April,” then deduces, “since Nvidia won’t be collecting royalties on the chip this quarter, that suggests that Sony isn’t going to be producing machines during the months that close at the end of April, 2006.”
No machines made by the end of April? We’d say a spring release is out of the question.
Read More | Mercury News
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Playfeed Interview: Outpost Kaloki X Creator Steve Taylor
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Features, Simulation, Strategy, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade,
We had the opportunity to talk with Steve Taylor of NinjaBee and Wahoo Studios. If you own an Xbox 360, you may know these guys as the creators of the Live Arcade hit Outpost Kaloki X. We talk with Steve about Outpost Kaloki, the process of shipping a game for Xbox Live, and the importance of Xbox Live Arcade to an independant game producer:
Steve, thank you for taking the time to talk with us today. To start out, can you give our readers a rundown of who you are and what your position entails?
I’m the president of NinjaBee and Wahoo Studios, but we’re a small company, so in practice I just manage projects and write code.
Give us some background on NinjaBee/Wahoo Studios.
Wahoo Studios is about four and a half years old. We got started as a contract development company, doing work for hire for game publishers and other developers. When we released Outpost Kaloki for the PC, we decided we needed a separate name for the “Indie” side of the company. NinjaBee is the name we use for anything we develop and release on our own.
Turning to the Xbox 360, you guys developed the hit Outpost Kaloki, which later hit the Xbox Live Arcade as Outpost Kaloki X. Can you give us some insight into how you go on board with Microsoft, and the process of virtually shipping a game for Live Arcade?
Originally, we designed what we thought was a pretty cool tycoon game for console play. It was aimed specifically for the console player in control and other gameplay elements. We pitched that idea to a ton of publishers, and while they were very complimentary of the game, nobody was willing to risk a traditional development budget to get the game on a console system. So we eventually redesigned the controls for the PC and released the game on our own in the PC downloadable market.
We later had the chance to show the game to Ross Erickson at Microsoft and explain our original vision for the game. He believed in it enough to get us signed up for doing Outpost Kaloki as an Xbox Live Arcade game. For us, this meant a return to the original vision we had, but also an expansion into a bunch of new areas including a ton of Xbox 360 specific features, new gameplay, new technology, new graphics, new stories, and more…
Click to continue reading Playfeed Interview: Outpost Kaloki X Creator Steve Taylor
No, that’s not a periscope sticking up out of the cooktop above, it’s the pop-up ventilator for Gaggenau’s Modular Cooktop System. A short time ago we brought you the Kuppersbusch Cooktop which was smooth and sleek, but as some of you pointed out, lacked the one thing professional and aspiring chefs prefer - gas burners. Well, the Gaggenau system isn’t nearly as svelte, but it does have the versatility factor covered. You can assemble your own cooktop design with everything from gas burners to glass-ceramic cook surfaces, steamers, deep fryers, dedicated wok burners, griddles, and even a conventional downdraft system should the pop-up ventilator prove too strange looking.
Prices aren’t listed, but if it’s anything like the Kuppersbusch system, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
Read More | Gaggenau via Trendir
iChair - Allowing You and Your iPod to Get Cozy
Posted by John Goulden Categories: Accessories, Home Entertainment, Smart Home, Portable Audio / Video,
iPod this…iPod that. Every time you turn around it seems as though another iPod accessory has come out. Many are merely variations on a theme (seriously, how many different iPod docks are there?), but every now and then there’s something slightly different (heavy emphasis on slightly). A quick search on the web turns up more than one iChair, with none of them being the same thing. It almost makes you wonder why there isn’t some kind of copyright litigation going on, but I digress. The iChair from Pottery Barn Teen has a micro-suede finish, a pocket to hold your beloved iPod, and a volume control built right in. Speakers located on both sides of the chair’s headrest, plus a subwoofer (if you can call a 3-inch speaker a subwoofer) directly below your posterior envelop you with a “surround sound effect” - their words, not ours. All yours for $399.
Read More | Pottery Barn Teen via BornRich
3G Technology for Every Boy and Girl From Intel and GSM
Posted by John Goulden Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News, PC / Laptop, Wireless / WiFi,
Wi-Fi is fantastic assuming you can borrow bandwidth from your neighbor get a signal from a public access point. A cellular data connection however, whether it be 2.5G (GPRS), 2.75G (EDGE), 3G (UMTS) or 3.5G (HSDPA), is a great alternative when you’re traveling or merely away from metropolitan areas
civilization. This week Intel and the GSM Association signed an agreement to incorporate 3G technology into notebooks, eliminating the need for add-on hardware to access high-speed GSM networks. One such product to have the new technology later this year will be Lenovo’s ThinkPad line of notebooks. Intel’s vision is for notebooks to have access to an array of communication possibilities and for the SIM card to be the gateway to them all.
Read More | ExtremeTech
We just received a Kodak EasyShare V570 camera, and figured we would share the love. This is the one that Kodak was trying to pimp hardcore at CES, touting it as the world’s first dual lens digital camera. So far, we are very impressed with the build, responsiveness, and overall quality of this particular EasyShare camera. In the past, it seemed that the Kodak EasyShare line was geared towards the budget consumer, but the V570 looks like it can definitely compete with the best of them. Check out a couple more images after the jump, or head on over to the gallery to check out the whole set. Stay tuned for our full review.
Click to continue reading Unpacking The Kodak EasyShare V570
Oh, happy day. A few members of Apple’s discussion forum are reporting that they finally received confirmation that their MacBook Pros have finally shipped. As you can see in the screenshot above, the original MacBook that was ordered was replaced with a new one with a faster processor as Apple has bumped up the processor speed across the MacBook Pro line. Oh, and the reason it says the product shipped on Feb 18 is because these are shipped from China, where it is essentially “tomorrow” already. If anyone gets one in, go ahead and send us a few images.
Read More | Apple Discussion Forum
It looks like Microsoft is finally going to take their FrontPage web design software out back, and put it to pasture. According to PC World, Microsoft FrontPage sees the end of it’s life cycle with the release of Microsoft Office 2007, formerly known as Office 12. FrontPage became popular in the mid-ninties, when people were just starting to realize what the internets were all about and decided they wanted a piece of the action. This was the first mass-market WYSIWYG web editor on the consumer level. Once Dreamweaver was noticed by the masses, FrontPage became seen as a joke. I mean, who wants 15 font tags in a block of text that only requires one?
Read More | PC World
