martes, mayo 29, 2007

Analyst: PS3 Price Cut May Be Too Little, Too Late

Parece que siguen las opiniones encontradas con la PS3, tras ver que las ventas no despegan, algunos estudios de desarrollo están, o retrasando sus títulos o simplemente replanteando su estrategia. Esperemos que las cosas no vayan a más, aunque las voces en contra no paran de escucharse:

Analyst: PS3 Price Cut May Be Too Little, Too Late: "Sony is caught between a rock and a hard place. If they don't cut the PS3 price significantly they may not drive sales, but if they do drop price, profitability becomes an issue. Bank of America analyst Mike Savner believes a price drop may not be enough, and that the success of the Wii could actually hurt publishers.

He continued, 'Based on our analysis, we conclude that a $100 price cut for the PS3 (we have dismissed a potential $50 cut as meaningless) would still leave the 'all-in' cost for a PS3 console and basic accoutrements 20-25% higher than the comparable Xbox 360, and does not even reflect the possibility that Microsoft could also lower its hardware prices. Further, an important driver of Sony hardware last cycle was exclusive games, such as Grand Theft Auto. Unfortunately, Sony does not have a similar advantage this cycle. Halo 3, a highly anticipated game release this year is a Microsoft-published game only for the Xbox, and Grand Theft Auto IV, by Take-Two's Rockstar unit, is being released on both the Sony and Xbox platforms.'

Savner noted that Sony made a number of mistakes. Consumers are far more price sensitive than they anticipated; consumers are wary/indifferent to Blu-ray (a main driver of the PS3 cost); and Sony didn't have enough compelling exclusives at launch."

lunes, mayo 28, 2007

Halo 3 podría hacer la division XBOX rentable

No me extrañaría que terminara sindo rentable por las ventas de Halo 3, sabiendo el Hype que hay tras este título y que la gente está esperando que salga cuanto antes.
Yo seguiré esperando a GTAIV... que no es poco.

Evil Avatar - Halo 3 could make Xbox division profitable: "While Halo 3 is releasing right at the end of Microsoft's first fiscal 2008 quarter (which runs from July through September), Goldman-Sach's industry watchers are expecting the game to contribute about $170 million in revenue for the quarter, with more than 4.2 million copies shipped into the retail channel. That's nearly one copy for every three Xbox 360s in the world, going by the analysts' projections of an installed user base of 13.2 million by September."

La Union hace la fuerza en el Silent Hunter 4

Si la gente se organiza, es capaz de "obligar" a sacar un parche a una empresa como Ubi.
Bien hecho!.

Evil Avatar - Silent Hunter 4 will get a 1.3 patch thanks to fans.: "Silent Hunter 4 will get a 1.3 patch thanks to fans.
Silent Hunter 4 was release with a myriad of bugs. These bugs were attempted to be fixed via 2 different patches, however the game remained very buggy and unstable. Ubisoft was on the fence about continuing to support SH4, ready to jump ship and leave it to slowly sink beneath the problems. That is until the forum community got involved.

Silent Hunter Patch 1.3 officially announced.

As anyone familiar with the sim community knows, there are some very dedicated and demanding fans in that genre. Bug lists were formed and sent to Ubisoft, yet the official response was that a 1.3 patch was very unlikely. that is when a few dedicated SH4 fans over at the Ubisoft forums began organizing.

They formed polls and the typical forum threads to get Ubisoft's attention. Finally, krazyfrenchman over at the forums organized a 2-day call in to the Ubisoft support lines. Apparently Ubisoft received so many calls that memos were distributed to all the techs and a few days later Ubi announced that they would continue to support SH4 and try to clean up the mess that currently is Silent Hunter 4.

Some good news for the sub sim community and for all gamers who think that publishers never listen to the customer."

16 procesadores de AMD dan menos rendimiento que 8 de Intel

Una Mala noticia para AMD, que ve como Intel le gana la mano. Pot lo que parece 8 procesadores de Intel tienen mayor desempeño que 16 de AMD... veremos mas sobre esto en adelante.

TechAmok - Independent Technology News: "Intel is demonstrating a dual quad-core Xeon system at the Microprocessor Forum that is supposedly faster than four quad-core Barcelona processors. The machine is equipped with Intel's Workstation Board S5000XVN, 2 quad-core Xeons 5365, clocked at 3GHz and 16GB RAM. And the results are simply impressive: Intel scored over 4,900 pixels per seconds versus a little bit over 4,000 for AMD's 4 sockets quad-core (Barcelona) system. Again, this is an AMD 16 cores system versus Intel's 8 cores V8 machine."

jueves, mayo 24, 2007

EndWar beta test en November

Parece ser que tendremos la suerte de poder probar este pedazo de RTS que tiene una pinta im-presionante, en dos palabras.

Picture

News - EndWar beta test in November /// Eurogamer: "Tom Clancy's EndWar will be publicly beta-tested later this year, judging by comments made by creative director Michael de Plater in an interview with Eurogamer"

OpenGL expondrá algunas caracteristicas de DX10 en WinXP?

Features de DX10 expuestas a los usuarios de WindowsXP gracias a OpenGL?, me gustaría entender esto mucho mejor, para saber a qué se puede referir cuando dice " expose DirectX 10 features on Windows XP".


NVIDIA Developer Blog: "MA – The future of OpenGL looks interesting; it appears to have gained a certain drive which it lacked in recent years. The slimmed down interface of the future looks like it will simplify development for both the driver writers as well as ourselves. The extension mechanism has also allowed manufactures of high end cards to gracefully expose DirectX 10 features on Windows XP."

NVidia llegará al teraflop en su G92.

NVidia llegara al TeraFlop en la siguiente familia de tarjetas gráficas con procesador G92... solamente 3 veces más que la actual 8800GTX.
A la pregunta de si esto tiene fin o no, la respuesta yo creo que la veremos en unos tres años cuando empiecen a salir las primeras arquitecturas fusionadas, es decir CPU+GPU, el "Horse Power" de estos procesadores será tan brutal que creo que será el momento en que se desacelerarán los avances, mas nos vale!.

TechAmok - Independent Technology News: "NVIDIA says its G92 high-end graphics card will deliver almost a teraflop of computing performance. In an analyst webcast, Nvidian Michael Hara says that the chip will be ready for Christmas, a release cycle the company adopted with G80, where high-end products come out for Chrimbo and the mid-range and low-end products hit in the spring. The actual power of G92 might surprise some. The 8800 can rustle up about 330Gflops, which means the green team is suggesting that the 9800 could be three times more powerful!"

Blizzard hace realidad el sueño de un chaval de 10 años.

Chatterton es un chaval de 10 años que ha hecho realidad su sueño, su avatar en WoW es único, al que Blizzard le ha regalado un arco realmente impresionante, hecho específicamente para él y siguiendo las instrucciones de Chatterton.




Ole por Blizzard, me gusta.

Evil Avatar - Blizzard Grants a Wish:

"We definitely want a crossbow," Chatterton instructed Kaplan. He offered a detailed description of what he wanted: dangerous flames, curved frame and an ability to wreak havoc.
"I want it to shoot a fiery arrow at 300 damage over 10 seconds," he said.
With a few clicks of his mouse, Kaplan constructed a prototype.
"Wow. Weird. Progress is going quicker than I expected," Chatterton said.
"This crossbow will be the only one in the game and it's very difficult to get," Kaplan explained. "You're going to get a lot of questions (from other players)."

miércoles, mayo 23, 2007

Nueva actualización del firmware de PlayStation 3 (v1.80)

Sony le da vidilla a su consola con unas features, muy, pero que muy interesantes... solo le queda bajar un poco el precio...


Playstation 3
Nueva actualización del firmware de PlayStation 3 (v1.80):
"Esta actualización incorpora como novedad la posibilidad de ejecutar juegos de PSX y PS2 a una resolución Full 1080p, además de DVDs convencionales, también a dicha resolución. La unica condición que tiene es que se necesita el cable HDMI para disfrutar de semejantes calidades en pantalla.

También ofrece la posibilidad de controlar de manera remota la consola desde una PSP, disponiendo de una conexión WiFi a Internet y de la versión 3.50 de la portátil.

Además, incorpora la posibilidad de que, en caso de disponer una red local en casa, utilizar la PS3 como un elemento más de ella, pudiendo compartir ficheros y elementos de red (como por ejemplo una impresora) desde la consola como si fuese un PC más."

Los juegos que nos esperan este año. Segun Evil Avatar

En Evil Avatar llevan un tiempo haciendo una lista de los juegos que valen la pena que aun no han salido en cada plataforma, en la primera mitad del año y en la segunda... vale la pena echarle un vistazo!.



Evil Avatar - 2007 Second Half Preview - PC Stand Alone Titles: "2007 Second Half Preview - PC Stand Alone Titles"

ATI trabaja en la nueva serie 2950XTX

Después de su fiasco con la 2900XTX, parece que ATI se centra en la nueva serie para desbancar del trono a la poderosa 8800GTX... NVIDIA no se duerme en los laureles, y hace ya algunos meses que comentó estar trabajando en 8900 y 8950, parece que ATI va a tener que hacer un sobre esfuerzo para limpiar un poco su imagen, despues de la desilusión de su procesador R600.


TechAmok - Independent Technology News:
"ATI is working hard to launch Radeon HD 2950 Series - [hardware]
10:51 AM EDT - May,21 2007 - post a comment

The chaps over at Fudzilla report that ATI is working hard to release its R650 chip. The 65 nanometre chip is getting closer to launch day by day and aims for some high clocks. This won't just be a simple die shrink of an existing marchitecture as ATI plans to redesign some parts of the chip. The major architectural difference is that R650 will have more texture power as this was recognizes as one of the weakest points of R600. ATI aims for higher clocks, closer to 1,000MHz and obviously it will improve the usage of the available bandwidth. As the chip is going to be shrunk, you can expect significantly less energy consumption. All together this will be what R600 was suppose to be, a Geforce 8800 GTX / Ultra killer, but the problem is that Nvidia will also have something new by the time ATI finishes R650.

The R650's cards (Radeon HD 2950 XTX and HD 2950XT) should be available in August/September 2007. But can we really trust ATI in its plans? :-)"

35 Millones de Wii vendidas en USA para 2012, al menos eso dicen...

Nada, una minucia... en realidad nos parece una cantidad enorme (y lo es, sin duda), pero comparado con los 125 Millones de PS2 vendidas, se queda bastante corto. Creo que nunca se volverá a repetir una generación con unas ventas tan abultadas como las de Sony y la PS2.


Nintendo Predicts 35m Wii Sales in U.S. by 2012 : Next Generation - Interactive Entertainment Today, Video Game and Industry News:
"Nintendo has forecast that it could sell as many as 35 million Wii consoles in the U.S. by 2011 or 2012, a figure approaching the record 38.2 million PlayStation 2s sold by Sony."

StarCraft II, al fin.

Cuatro años de desarrollo para Blizzard, y sin decir ni pio... :). Esto da idea de lo que supone crear un título hoy día...


News - StarCraft II unveiled // PC /// Eurogamer

http://www.players4players.com/fotosnoticias/614467040464f24518347c.jpg
Blizzard unveiled StarCraft II on Saturday in Korea, revealing that the long-awaited PC real-time strategy sequel has been in development since 2003.

Planificando tácticas con los mapas de Halo 3 beta

No lo conocía, pero esto es genial para los juegos en red y poder planificar las tácticas!... recomendado que lo probéis todos los jugones! :D
GRAW ATC con los mapas de Halo 3

Planificando tácticas con los mapas de Halo 3 beta: "Esta utilidad, originalmente pensada para los Ghost Recon y actualizada para GRAW para Xbox 360 y PC, permite cargar un mapa personalizado a partir de una imagen. Luego se puede utilizar en red, de forma que todos los miembros de un equipo se conectan a una sesión, y se planifican las tácticas con herramientas para pintar la posición de los jugadores, los movimientos, etc. En la web de Foolish Entertainment, los desarrolladores, hay más información.


Por cierto, que tienen versiones de ATC para Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory y Pandora Tomorrow, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, Ghost Recon 2 y GRAW."

Valve no cobrará por nuevos contenidos

Yo siempre he defendido que con los actuales costes del desarrollo de juegos, una de las vías de supervivencia para las desarrolladoras es el cobro por nuevas features y contenidos para los juegos y las expansiones, que al crearse con el mismo motor supone un esfuerzo de personal y económico mucho menor.
Sin embargo hay quien se sale de esta doctrina y continua con las antiguas costumbres de no cobrar por nuevos contenidos... bien hecho por Valve.
http://game-joint.com/images/half-life-2-episode-2/a%20(5).jpg
News - Valve won't charge for DLC // None /// Eurogamer
Valve has told Eurogamer that it has no intention of charging customers who download additional content for games like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, despite the widely spread increase of paid-for updates in the PC and console world.
Counter-Strike is number one and has been since '99 because we kept the game interesting, not because we tried to charge people more, and that's come back in sales of Counter-Strike

Tom Clancy's EndWar To Be Voice Controlled - News and Siteseeing

Ubisoft no para de innovar, y su mania de ser el primer desarrollador por delante de EA para el año 2009, se terminará cumpliendo de seguir así. Ahora parece que podremos controlar el RTS End Of War con commandos de voz... bien!

Tom Clancy's EndWar To Be Voice Controlled - News and Siteseeing: "According to Eurogamer.net, UbiSoft revealed today during their UbiDays press event that their upcoming PS3-Xbox 360 military RTS game Tom Clancy's EndWar can be controlled by the player entirely by their voice commands. Controlling the game via a regular hardware joypad will still be an option, however."

Gamasutra - Crytek Opens New Studio In Budapest

Crytek tenía en mente abrir un nuevo estudio y tenía claro que no sería en Alemania , así que estuvo mirando por Europa a ver en donde tocaba... por desgracia no fue España, aunque sinceramente tampoco albergaba la más mínima esperanza, Hungría (mercado emergente, con mano de obra barata y muy cualificada) ha sido la "premiada"...


Gamasutra - Crytek Opens New Studio In Budapest: "Independent developer Crytek (Far Cry, Crysis) hasCrytek Opens New Studio In Budapest announced that the company has opened a new studio in Budapest, Hungary. According to company officials, the expansion serves as part of the developer's larger strategy to expand on the number of types of games developed by Crytek, as well as leverage its CryENGINE 2 middleware technology."

Gamasutra - Kyoto Introduces DS English Training To Classrooms

Kyoto Introduces DS English Training To ClassroomsAl fin un uso educativo de los vídeo juegos, más allá de todo el marketing que le imputa todas las culpas de los asesinatos en serie americanos a los juegos... Qué culpa tendrán los juegos de que en USA estén tan zumbaos que hasta las viejas llevan armas en el bolso?, los vídeo juegos, Obviamente!


Gamasutra - Kyoto Introduces DS English Training To Classrooms: "According to the report, the trial was noted as a success. While students are expected to know 1300 English words for a standard level three proficiency test, over the course of the trial one group of 24 students saw their vocabulary rise to an average 1386 words, and the other 25 saw theirs grow to an average 1436 words."

martes, mayo 22, 2007

Otro Header para el BLOG de noticias.

La verdad que no soy nada manitas... y tengo bastante poco "arte"... así que me he buscado un Header mejor que el que hay.
Si a alguien le apetece ayudarme con un Header mejor, no dudéis en mandármelo y lo subiré con mucho gusto.

Ubidays 2007 | Official Website | Ubisoft

Ubisoft nos prepara sorpresas para el 23 de Mayo... estad atentos!

Ubidays 2007 | Official Website | Ubisoft
Accede el miércoles 23 de Mayo a las 5 de la tarde y sé el primero en descubrir nuestros nuevos juegos!

Necesitarás una cuenta en Ubi.com para entrar en la web. Si no tienes aun, haz clic aquí.

Assassin's Creed Limited Edition, se anunciará mañana



Parece ser que para todos aquellos que estamos esperando Assasin's Creed, tendremos al menos una edición limitada para ir haciendo boca hasta que tengamos la edicion "pata negra"... hasta entonces me parece bien esta edición ;), a ver qué tal es.

Evil Avatar - Announced Tomorrow: Assassin's Creed Limited Edition: "Though the limited edition's gameplay content will be identical to that of the standard version, Assassin's Creed LE will boast a number of bonus supplemental content items. In addition to a specialized tin packaging, the game will also include a figurine of lead character Altair, Penny Arcade comics, a miniature strategy guide, and Assassin-themed short films. Behind-the-scenes videos, official trailers, developer diaries, producer interviews and other unnamed goodies are also planned."

lunes, mayo 21, 2007

Gamasutra - Modded Xbox 360s Blocked From Xbox Live

Parece que Microsoft se está poniendo durilla con aquellos que quieren usar su XBOX360 con usos no demasiado legales...

Gamasutra - Modded Xbox 360s Blocked From Xbox Live: "“As part of our commitment to our members, we do not allow people that we have detected to have modified their console to connect to Live,” reads the post. “This is an important part of our efforts to try and maintain a fair gaming environment for the large majority of gamers that play by the rules.”"