Gary's Blog

Just a place to find out what's on my mind, or what's occupying my time whilst I avoid actual "work."

 

VGN for May 27th, 2005

Video game news:

Video game addiction?

Addicted to video games...
26/05/2005 12:28  - (SA)  

Washington - A neglected baby cries alone. Crazed by lack of sleep, a young boy threatens suicide. A marriage crumbles over a lone obsession.

Yet another grim tale of 21st Century social breakdown? No, these are the victims of America's newest social scourge ... video game addiction.

As Sony and Microsoft ready new generation weapons, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox consoles for a pitched battle next year, hundreds of thousands of children and young adults are struggling to contain their obsession with older machines.

Psychologists and psychiatrists estimate that even before the new wave of gaming consoles hits the stores, one in eight players already suffers from some kind of video game dependency.

There are few long-term scientific studies on video game addiction.

But the reach of the video obsession is borne out by the popularity of one online game Halo 2. By early 2005, one million players, had staggeringly clocked up nearly 100 million hours on the game, according to industry figures.

Video gamers who take their obsession too far show symptoms similar to alcohol or drug addicts, says psychologist David Walsh, founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Or maybe it's not their fault...

It's up to parents to monitor the video games children play
By James Derk

In recent years, there have been many controversies about the violence, sex and other content issues in video games.

It usually rears its head following a violent episode in real life and the investigation shows the teen perpetrator was a video game player.

 
 
However, parents like me are faced with a real conundrum on the hard drives of our children because, unlike the movie industry, the gaming industry has done a lousy job of policing itself.

Consider the current crop of video games; recent titles have included slaughter of police officers, incredible amounts of sexual content, gang violence and more.
 

Et tu, Japan?

Kanagawa to ban U-18s from playing violent video games

 
YOKOHAMA -- Kanagawa Prefecture is poised to designate violent video games as harmful publications and ban their sale to those under 18, Kanagawa Gov Shigefumi Matsuzawa said.

Kanagawa expects to implement the ban by early June and will require video games that are designated as violent to be sold separately from regular games.

Anybody found selling designated violent video games to children under 18 will be liable to a fine of up to 300,000 yen.

Matsuzawa is urging other governors of prefectures around the capital to follow in Kanagawa's footsteps.

"Unlike movies or videos, children playing video games get the sense of actually being on the scene when they see them. We need to regulate these games," Matsuzawa said.

Kanagawa inspected six popular video games believed to contain extreme violence. One in particular was deemed to be excessively cruel.

On May 30, the game will be presented to the prefecture's child welfare council to determine if it should receive a rating. If it does, it will be required to be sold separately.
 
It's building hand eye coordination, Dad!

Video Games Can Teach Good, Bad Behaviour

May 23, 2005 12:33 pm US/Mountain
FT. COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) Today's video games are so realistic that they often mimic training tools used for law enforcement, soldiers, airline pilots and train engineers, CBS4 News reports.

Experts say video games are an excellent way to teach children various things and, at the same time, improve their hand-eye coordination, but some groups question the message some video games are teaching.

Even if a child doesn't have an X-box, Playstation or Gamecube at home, chances are that child has plenty of chances to play at a friend's house.

The parents of Mike Vogler, 10, told CBS4 they let him play some "teen-rated" video games. In one, he can hunt and shoot zombies.

"Some of the games I just say, 'Absolutely not,'" Mike's mother Karen said.

"We have to balance what the teenager likes to do with what our 10-year-old likes to play," said Mike's father, Bob. "And he wants to do everything his older brother does, so it really makes it hard."

E3 games blog only

Right click, save as

What I've been playing:

Morrowind Game of the Year Edition:  Thanks Cybertron!!

VooDoo Vince

Various Demos

God of War

Anime news:

Anime at Universal!!

MetroCon!!

posted by: Gary1059 at 07:14 | link | comments |

VGN for 5/20/05

Video Game news:

E3 Damnit!

Sony:

 General
Controller Bluetooth Wireless
 Form Factor Console
 Graphics Processor and Memory
Embedded Video Memory 0 MB
 Graphics Processor RSX "Reality Synthesizer"
 Graphics Core Clock Speed 550MHz
 System Memory 256MB XDR
 Vector Units 1 VMX vector unit per core
 System Memory Bandwith 22.4GB/s, RSX 20GB/s (write)/15GB/s (read), SB 2.5GB/s (write)/ 2.5GB/s (read)
 Shaders 100 Billion Shader Operations/s
 Video Memory 256 MB
 Product Identification
Manufacturer Sony
 Product Line Sony PlayStation 3
 Video Output
Resolution 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
 Expansion and Connectivity
Digital Media Formats Compatible with CR-ROM, CDR+W, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R
 Game Media Format Blu-ray BD-ROM
 Other I/O Connectors Ethernet (RJ45), 6 USB 2.0, CF Slot (Type I, II), SD Slot (Regular, Compact), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, 1 x Optical Audio
 Controller Ports Supports up to 7 Bluetooth Controllers
 Plug and Play Storage 2.5in Removable Hard Drive (Unkown Size)
 Standard AV Output Connectors 2 x HDMI, 1 x AV
 Integrated Communications 802.11 B/G Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0

 

More PS2 support in the next few years, backward compatability to PS2 and PS1 in the PS3.

PSP support, on-line support and a service close to Xbox Live.

Xbox 360:

Xbox 360 System Performance Specifications
 
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
1 MB L2 cache
 
CPU Game Math Performance 9 billion dot product operations per second
 
Custom ATI Graphics Processor 10 MB of embedded DRAM
48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
Unified shader architecture
 
Polygon Performance 500 million triangles per second
 
Pixel Fill Rate 16 gigasamples per second fill rate using 4x MSAA
 
Shader Performance 48 billion shader operations per second
 
Memory 512 MB of 700 MHz GDDR3 RAM
Unified memory architecture
 
Memory Bandwidth 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
21.6 GB/s front-side bus
 
Overall System Floating-Point Performance 1 teraflop
 
Storage Detachable and upgradeable 20GB hard drive
12x dual-layer DVD-ROM
Memory Unit support starting at 64 MB
 
I/O Support for up to four wireless game controllers
Three USB 2.0 ports
Two memory unit slots
 
Optimized for Online Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features with broadband service, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, gamer profile for digital identity, and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies, or listening to music
Built-in Ethernet port
Wi-Fi ready: 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g
Video camera ready
 
Digital Media Support Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
Ability to stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras and Windows XP-based PCs
Ability to rip music to the Xbox 360 hard drive
Custom playlists in every game
Built-in Media Center Extender for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Interactive, full-screen 3-D visualizers
 
High-Definition Game Support All games supported at 16:9, 720p, and 1080i, anti-aliasing
Standard-definition and high-definition video output supported
 
Audio  Multi-channel surround sound output
Supports 48KHz 16-bit audio
320 independent decompression channels
32-bit audio processing
Over 256 audio channels
 
System Orientation Stands vertically or horizontally
 
Customizable Face Plates Interchangeable to personalize the console

Continued support for the Xbox and Xbox Live.

Nintendo:

GBA micro.

The Revolution...no real specs except that it'll be backward compatible to EVERY Nintendo game from the past 20 years!!!

Booth Babes!!

Darkness

Ghost Recon 3

Dark Sector

Warhawk!!

Anime:

MetroCon!!  So soon!

posted by: Gary1059 at 07:31 | link | comments |

VGN for May 13th, 2005

Video Game News:

Xbox 360 Info

Check it out!

Nintendo fires back

You just have to read it...

Final Fantasy Movie

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children DVD will come to both America and Japan on September 14.
According to the latest issue of Shonen Jump magazine, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, a computer-animated movie that takes place in the world of Final Fantasy VII, will be hitting stores in both America and Japan on September 14.

Tease!!
Square Enix rumor.  There it was, there it went.

Earlier today Xbox360.com launched with a bunch of developers.  Square/Enix was one of them.
Before people could even post about it on message boards, their name was edited out.
Hrm...

PSP movies from FOX

Another key studio signs up to the PSP's media format - but no sign of Star Wars
20th Century Fox has announced that it's to launch five of its movies on the new UMD disc format used by the PlayStation Portable this summer, with further titles due to be announced later in the year.
The first five films to arrive on UMD from Fox will be Super Troopers, Napoleon Dynamite, I, Robot, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and Predator - representing a fairly broad cross section of the studio's recent output.

Another state bites my ass

Ever play video games as a kid? Do your kids play? What they see on the screen might surprise you. Games have come a long way and many of them are definitely "adults only" these days.
Americans spend billions of dollars each year on games of all kinds, but some of the best selling are definitely not meant for your kids.
A generation of video games has grown up to nearly cinematic realism, like Ubisoft's Brothers in Arms, a brutally realistic depiction of World War II combat, including blood and soldiers cursing.
"Folks of my generation aren't that computer literate, aren't that savvy for the most part," said Georgia Rep. Tom Bordeaux (D-Savannah). "And when a child says, 'I want that game,' we tend to buy that game I suspect, without even knowing how to look at it to see what's on it."

Another one!

BENSALEM, Pa. -- Do you know what video games your child is playing?

Some parents who thought they did were surprised when the NBC 10 Investigators videotaped their children with hidden cameras.

Those same parents were a bit shocked by the types of things that came out of their kids' mouths as they were playing the video games.

"I whacked him with a pole, dude. Shovel, yeah, you hit people with it," one kid said.

"Get that stripper, she's probably got money," said another child.

The 9- to 12-year-old children were part of an unscientific experiment set up by the NBC 10 Investigators, with the help of the staff and principal at Struble Elementary School in Bensalem, Pa.
With their parents' permission, NBC 10 put the children in a room with hidden cameras and six video games -- everything from the kid-friendly "Finding Nemo" and "SpongeBob SquarePants," to what some would call some of the most violent games on the market, like "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" and "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."
What the children did not know was that their parents were watching them from another room by the hidden cameras.
Guess what the children chose to play? Even when some of the groups discovered the cameras, four out of five groups still picked the games rated "M" for mature audiences.
Some people might have thought that only the young boys in this experiment would be interested in the violent video games. However, one of the groups The Investigators observed consisted of all girls. They also chose a video game with some pretty advanced content.
One the girls in the group said, "It's much more fun because you're punching people."

What I've been playing:

Morrowind:  Elder Scrolls III for Xbox--Thanks Cybertron!! 

Anime:

Next Convention--MetroCon! 

posted by: Gary1059 at 07:30 | link | comments |

VGN for May 6th, 2005

Videogame news:

Calif. violent video game bill passes committee

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California lawmakers reconsidered and approved a bill in committee on Thursday that would ban the sale of violent video games to minors.

The California Assembly's arts committee passed the bill by Democratic Assembly Member Leland Yee on a 6-4 vote after taking it up for reconsideration.

The bill had failed to pass the committee on Tuesday when it fell a vote short of a necessary six votes.

Michigan cracks down on video game violence

Michigan - Michigan's Governor Jennifer Granholm is pushing for a law to stop violent and sexually explicit video games from being rented or sold to children.

An undercover operation sent children as young as 9-years-old into stores in six Michigan counties, including Cass County. Nearly half the time, the kids were able to buy or rent inappropriate video games such as Doom 3 and Resident Evil, both video games rated “M” for mature for players over the age of 17 and Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas.

Randy Smith of LA Video in Dowagiac says, "San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto are number one.  That is the number one. It's very bad. [There is] a lot of violence, drugs, sex, especially for a young kid, it's pretty bad."

Smith says younger children have tried to rent those games but at his store, they might try but they don’t succeed. “We just won't give it to them.”

Children were able to get such video games at nearly half the 58 Michigan stores visited in last month's undercover investigation.

“Children as young as 9 and 10 years old were able to purchase video games that contained graphic scenes of violence, of nudity, or drug use and much more,” says Governor Granholm

Video Games Grow Tiresome for Many

Alan Farley says the dire outlook from Electronic Arts points to consumers' disenchantment with video games. The poor performance is a bit surprising: Leisure stocks usually outperform in a downturn. Also, gaming hardware is becoming outdated. Online gaming offers an alternative, and that doesn't help Microsoft's or Sony's consoles. The sector appears to be out of ideas.

 

Hackers figure out file extraction from Sony UMD

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Software developers have figured out how to extract files from the Universal Media Discs used in     Sony Corp (SNE.N).'s (6758.T) new PlayStation Portable handheld video game device, though there is no way to play the games extracted from those discs.
 
Some details of the exploit were posted Wednesday night on the Web site PS2nfo.com, along with lists showing all the files pulled off the game discs for "Ridge Racers," "Wipeout Pure" and "Vampire Chronicles."

The games are not yet playable because there is no way to burn UMDs from scratch, and the PSP does not accommodate larger discs. However, the site said the ability to look through the games' file structures could still be instructive for developers.

 

Showtime Teams with Microsoft on Xbox Promotion

Viacom (NYSE: VIAb - news) subsidiary Showtime Networks is teaming with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) on a marketing tie-in featuring the new     Xbox video game console.

The promotion, which kicks off in May and runs through the summer, will provide new Showtime subscribers with free Xbox games and Xbox Live Starter Kits.

Video game systems have become a fixture in nearly half of all U.S. households, according to Showtime. This promotion is designed to promote a complete entertainment proposition, the network said, extending from Showtime and Xbox to digital cable, satellite TV, video on demand and high speed Internet.

New game-music concert to tour US

Classic games meet classical music with the Video Games Live tour; music from Halo, Zelda, and others to be played by full orchestras.
The tinny sounds of games may have driven parents crazy in the past, but scores since have certainly resonated with the current generation of gamers. Hot on the heels of the success of the Dear Friends: Music From Final Fantasy concerts comes a new orchestral tour featuring modern-day game music.

Featured music will include songs from several generations. More-modern selections include pieces from Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy, while retro fans will recognize songs from Donkey Kong and Pong.

Yamauchi To Leave Nintendo Board This Summer???

Reports suggest that the former Nintendo President may be preparing to leave in June 2005...

News filtered into TVG Towers today that suggests former Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi is preparing to stand at the end of June 2005. Reports on certain web sites comment that the 77-year old, great-grandson of Nintendo founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, will be walking away from the Nintendo Board of Directors on June 29th.

Yamauchi-san stood down from his role as Company President three years ago after first taking the reins over 50 years previously, turning the playing card manufacturers into the video-gaming giants that we all know and love. An icon of the industry Yamauchi is known for speaking his mind which led to the creation of the famed ‘Wired parody.’

As well as retaining an advisory role with the company, Yamauchi-san will also retain his 10% stock interest in Nintendo, and reports comment that he has even turned down the standard golden handshake of 1.5 billion Yen instead asking that the money goes back into the Nintendo coffers.

Blog only:

Heavy.com weighs in on PSPs

Alt-comedy Web site to offer PSP-compatible content; four Heavy to Go packs can be downloaded today.
Web surfers who have gone on quests to find footage of the dreamy Fabio being hit in the face with a bird on a roller coaster or video of a portly kid doing his best Darth Maul impersonation, have probably come across Heavy.com. The comedy Web site specializes in the most absurd, sophomoric, and just plain wrong that the Internet has to offer.

What I've been Playing:

Wrestlemania 21--thanks Cybertron! 

RAW 2

God of War

Anime News:

Anime Downloads

MetroCon!!

 

Stay tuned next week for the announcement of the return for one of last year's favorite anime convention events!!!

posted by: Gary1059 at 07:45 | link | comments |