The title pretty much says it all, except the date, which is April 15th. Ohh, it will cost $US54.99. Now what do I write to make the article more informative and fun? I got nothing, sorry people.
For more info (like you need more), click over to Kotaku.
This is a break through that pirates worldwide will love to hear about. What is the news? There has been success in running backup Playstation 3 games on a “PS3 Test” development machine. The better news is, they were able to play games from internal and external (USB) HDD’s.
There are a few little things to remember before being able to do this of course. These include stripping the games of encryption, patching them, and remastering to get them to load. Not something many people without know how can do.
The good news for non-know-how’ers (I made it up, but I think it works) is there will surely be nice pirates out there who will happily place pre-hacked games on torrent sites (that will then be taken to court) for everyone to leech. It has taken over a year, but eventually the hackers always win.
For more info, click over to Engadget.
IBM have announced the shrinking of the Cell fabrication. The new size, which seems to be the hip size for processors, is 45nm. The size will add a lot of advantages to the processor, which include power savings, cost savings, heat savings and physical size savings. All these savings should hopefully spill into savings for us poor consumers.
IBM have said that the new 45nm processors will use up to 40% less power, and its die area will be reduced by 34 percent. This is all possible because of the next-generation 45nm high-k process (whatever that means).
All this information makes the little OLED (my brain is energy conscious) in my brain flash. If the die size is so much smaller, and doesn’t require as much cooling, could the PSP become a Cell powerhouse? I just hope that it makes its way into the PS3 Slim, which everybody knows is going to happen sooner or later.
For more cell info, click over to Ars Technica.
Who doesn’t think the PlayStation 3 is gigantic? Ok, Kenny George might think it is small, but that’s because he’s 7′7. Rumour has it that Sony are doing a Slim version of the PS3. It makes sense considering their past with PlayStation hardware (PS2 Slim, PSP Slim). Lets hope that it happens soon, with the added bonus of a price drop (I still wouldn’t be able to afford it).
For more info, run over to The Register.
It has been out in Japan for a while now, but seems Sony have seen it wise to bring it to US shores. The white 40GB PS3 appears to be the same model as the Japanese version, so nothing new to see here sorry. No release date as yet, but couldn’t be to far away.
For more info, click over to Engadget.
You have heard of streaming audio, and maybe video, but what about streaming games? There are currently companies making streaming products, but I’ve never heard of anything that can do what this system can.
Imagine playing any PC game ever release on your PS3 with good frames and quality. Welcome to the reality of SteamMyGame. The basic idea of the product is you have a Windows machine that takes the game and then turns it into a video and control stream. It means that your older machines can play new games, that is of course, if you have a fast enough machine in the house to run it.
There are many options for this incredible piece of software, such as the ability to play games over the Internet, without worrying about PC requirements and without having to downloading the game at all. It will create a new market for ‘rent a game system’ and options for future consoles to be dumb terminals.
If you want to have a play, you can jump over to the StreamMyGame website and download the program for free. If it is as good as it says, this could be the best thing since slice bread (for PC game streaming).
For more info, jump over to Akihabara News.
Death to the 20 and 60 GB versions of the Playstation 3 has been announced by Sony in Japan today. The 40GB, which does not contain the backwards compatibility chip, will be continued with no news on the 80GB model, which is already hard to find. Wonder if Sony will hit up a bigger better model soon, to widen the now small line-up.
For info at I4U.
S0mething those lucky Japanese people have already got their hands on, is the new Dual Shock 3 controller for the PS3. Fortunately for US residents, they will also get it fairly soon. From the people over at Engadget, it should be arriving early 2008, which they found through a little hidden bit of info in the PS3 firmware 2.01 update. Australia is closer to Japan, why do we have to wait so long?
For more info, click over to the Engadget Blog.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were awesome games for the PlayStation 3. Sure you have a few new ones that have been just released that aren’t so bad, but most of them are on all gaming platforms. Sony may have noticed that as well, with it now being cheaper to become a developer for the PS3, seeing there has been a price reduction on the cost of the Playstation 3 Reference Tool. If you are a developer, you can get yours now for $10,250 USD, half of what it use to cost! Lets hope that more game companies will adopt the PS3 and we will finally see some new and unique games for the system.
For more info, click over to the Joystiq Website.
Playstation 3 is a very powerful device and uses a crap load of power to provide what it does. Not anymore though, with the release of the 40GB version of the PS3, there has been just enough removed to bring down the power usage substantially (including hardware backwards compatibility). How much you greenies ask? According to the massive Japanese games site Game Watch, it is 67 watts, which means it is now 107 watts compared to the old 174 watts. Yet another reason to buy a PS3 don’t you think?
For more info, click over to the GameBrink Website.