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PureDepths Multi-Layer Display (MLD) IGT slot machines

It has been reported for some time now that multi-layer displays from PureDepth, would be on the market soon. MLD uses multiple layers of LCD panels to help create real depth. A number of products are already in development, but the first slot machines using this technology have now started to ship. Read more

Gaming not affected by Credit Crunch: Pre-tax profits soar

According to Game Group, they say that there are many families hooked on playing our beloved console games, and playing these games during the dreaded credit crunch as not affected the gaming industry, in fact it as made its pre-tax profits to soar 25-fold to £33.3m for the six months to 31 July.

Now we have heard that mobile phone industry seems to be getting stronger and is not affected by the credit crunch, so it is good news to hear that the gaming industry is following suit.

We all know tat there is a major slowdown in sales in the retail world, but despite of this there is a massive boom in sales of games, especially for the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 3. Game chairman Peter Lewis said:

“We continue to be encouraged by the ongoing demand for third-generation hardware and software, which is in part being driven by the broadening demographic appeal.”

UK and Ireland saw sales growing 24.2 per cent in the six-month period but fell back to 4.6 per cent growth in the eight weeks to 20 September. In the six months, international like-for-like sales grew 17.4 per cent.

Source

World War One PC game by Ascaron: November Release

If you have been waiting for the ultiamte PC game, then World War One by Ascaron might just be the one that will stop your searching. If you like games that involve battle strategy for winning a war, then you are going to lover World War One.

LEAD YOUR NATION TO VICTORY IN NEW HISTORICALLY ACCURATE PC GAMEWORLD WAR ONE

DECISION MAKING AND BATTLE STRATEGY CRITICAL TO WINNING THE GREAT WAR

World War One is a historically accurate turn based strategy game from experienced and respected developer AGEOD, due for release by Ascaron in November 2008. The new game allows players to command the armies and battleship fleets from one of eight major nations including Great Britain, Germany and Russia, as they try to ensure victory and restore peace in Europe during the Great War. Read more

Google to Acquire Valve: Are you really getting into gaming?

Google oh Google we know that you have the most successful search engine in the world, we also know that you have Google Android which means you have entered the world of phones, and now is it really true that you are getting into gaming?

Apparently and we say apparently Google are getting into gaming and it looks like they may acquire Valve. Valve is game makers and their most valuable properties are Steam which is an online service communication, anti-piracy platform and distribution.

Of course both firms have not officially said anything to back this up so we will treat it as a rumor, well for now anyway. Valve just so you know are the developers behind the “Half-Life” series. Read the full article here.

Optoma GameTime GT-7000 and 3000 Projectors

Experience the ultimate in big screen gaming with the new Optoma GameTime projectors – for a massive 300 inch* display that will raise the blood pressure, increase tension and alert the senses, for a fraction of the cost of a large-screen TV. Lightweight and with a small footprint, the GameTime projectors have been designed with portability in mind Read more

Freedom motion controller for Sony PS3 and Xbox 360

In2Games the developers of motion sensing gaming technology for the Xbox 360 and PS3 bring us a brand new product called the Freedom motion controller.

Gaming accessories are just as big as the games and will this new product cut it, In2Games’ Gametrak Freedom is apparently a brilliant ultrasonic 3D motion sensing technology, the control is flexible and delivers high performance.

The Gametrak Freedom motion controller can be used either with the Xbox 360 or the PS3 gaming consoles; this controller will track true 3D positions accurately and of course precise movements of up to four players. Will this controller be good or bad? Only time will tell.

Read more information about the Freedom motion controller over at Techradar.com

iBUYPOWER launches new Paladin 998 performance gaming desktop

iBUYPOWER, known for it’s innovative and powerful gaming PCs, is excited to launch its newest gaming rig – the Paladin 998. Housed in a Cooler Master Haf Gaming case, the new Paladin 998 packs a powerful punch with an Intel Core 2 Quad Processor (Q9550), 4GB DDR-3 1333 memory and a 500GB SATA-2 7200 rpm hard drive Read more

Affordable Gateway P-7811FX Notebook for Gaming: Great for students

Now looking at this Gateway P-7811FX notebooks price you would have to say it is not what you call really cheap, but when you think about a decent gaming notebook costing in the region of $5000-ish you would have to say the Gateway P-7811FX notebook being only $1399.99 is very cheap indeed.

Personally like many others would have to say this is a perfect gaming laptop that would suit students.

The Gateway P-7811FX was announced by Gateway and that it is a new addition to its FX series, you can but this notebook at Best Buy.

The Technical Bit: Features include Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS graphics with 512 MB of video memory, Intel Centrino 2 technology, 17-inch widescreen LCD with 1920 x 1200 resolution, 802.11n Wi-Fi, 200GB hard drive, built-in webcam, Windows Vista Home Premium and 4GB of RAM.

Source – Gateway via PC Magazine

October 19 release of Rock Band 2 Xbox 360 Bundle

Bad news for all you Xbox 360 gamers waiting on the Rock Band 2 Xbox 360 Bundle because news has it that it will not be released until October 19.

Harmonix has pushed the Rock Band 2 Xbox 360 Bundle edition back which is a major disappointment; this is funny because this was apparently the date for the standalone game shipping for all platforms.

It is true what the source says below that you could pick up the program normally a month before on September 14, but you have to spend more on the bundle rather than the game. Personally this is not my sort of game so I have no problems when the bundle comes out, but of course there are many of you gamers that will be a little annoyed.

There has been no reason given for the delay, but we guess they have a good reason, check out the official Rock Band store.

Are you disappointed of the late release?

Source – Shack News via CrunchGear

Fable 2 Pub Games, release date and making money

Fable II or Fable 2 call it what you may is due out on October 24th exclusively to the Xbox 360, but for now how about Fable 2 Pub Games which is making its way to Xbox Live this week.

Fable 2 Pub Games is basically a number of games that will let you make some money in the process of playing; the money is for your Fable II character before the October release.

This is a stunning idea that many gamers will just love, now we are guessing you want to know how the hell it works, well Eurogamer seem to know it all so well done boys and girls, Eurogamer got all the info from developer Lionhead.

The way it all works is pretty simple really where you will get to choose a person to gamble with, once you have made your choice you will be ready to gamble using the Pub Games, you will create one or create several it is up to you. You then play the games, make your gold which is important.

Read the full low-down over at Eurogamer, they explain it in detail.

Here are the simple steps:
• Buy Fable 2 Pub Games
• Play the three games contained therein to earn gold
• Merge your Pub Games gambler with your Fable 2 hero in a permanent, one-way process
• Then “gain access to all the Live Arcade gambling funds you previously accrued”
• The process works the other way around also: you can take your Fable 2 money back into Pub Games

Source – Xbox.com

Pensioners say no to bowls but yes to Nintendo Wii

Looks like the pensioners are here to battle it out with the younger generation and fair play to them, pensioners and teenagers love the Nintendo Wii because is mimics real life motion plus it keeps you active.

Well whilst visiting Times Online they have some interesting news that we thought you show read, pensioners are basically saying no to bowls and yes to Nintendo Wii, they talk about Doris who is 91 who loves playing Nintendo Wii games.

In a small town in Tenbury Wells, near Leominster in Herefordshire pensioners attend the Age Concern afternoon in a Scout hut where normally it used to be tea and biscuits, but now they have this gaming console. The pensioners play the games under the watchful eyes of a couple of teenagers (Brave they must be).

So it looks like gaming consoles are not just for the young but indeed for the older generation too, maybe we should all have a teenager versus pensioners gaming contest.

Asus Eee Stick: How Nintendo Wii Remote should look

When I first laid eyes on the Asus Eee Stick I thought it was a couple of new controllers for the Nintendo Wii. Ok so I am a little dumb, but I bet I was not the only one who thought it.

The name that Asus has chosen “Eee Stick” is a strange one as they are a couple of sticks that are mated to a wireless receiver. So what is the Eee Stick I hear you ask, well they are basically a gamepad that has been split in half. This is something that Sony had hoped to launch at some stage.

The Eee Stick has motion sensing technology like the Wii Remote; I bet Nintendo wish that they had designed theirs to look as sleek as these. Asus has said that tailored games that require the Eee Stick will come bundled in the controllers.

As yet there is no idea when the Eee Stick will be released, but Asus reps have hinted that the UK could see them sometime in September.

Asus will make an announcement in the next few weeks.

Source

Hands on with Fallout 3 plus interview

We have found two great articles from Spong and PS3 Daily, Spong are giving you the full hands on with Fallout 3 and over at PS3 Daily they have some information about the Fallout 3 interview that took place with Greg Howson.

Spong started of their hands-on with Fallout 3 by saying that is was a swish hotel where there were journalists who were given access to play test an early Xbox 360 version of the amazing game Fallout 3 in London. They carry on to say that this game is part RPG and part FPS in implementation, Bethesda’s (of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion fame) much heralded full 3D version of the PC classic.

We could go on and on about this game ourselves but we do not want to steal Spong’s thunder so please do give them a visit here and read the full hands-on review.

Now over at PS3 Daily they are reporting that Greg Howson from the Guardian recently had a round table interview with Fallout 3 project manager at Bethesda, Pete Hines. The interview proved to be interesting to say the least.

PS3 Daily highlighted the fact that Fallout 3 will not have online options and will only be a single player game, they also say that the Xbox 360 is the main platform for the game, in the interview the answer came back saying Microsoft Xbox 360 is their lead platform, but of course the PS3 and PC platforms will get the game. Read more over at PS3 Daily.

Read More information on gaming news here.

Xbox 360 System update now live: no new features

There are reports that the new Xbox 360 System update is now live, this has only just happened so we hope to give you more information a bit later. If you have not had the chance to update yet, I would not hurry as the system is probable under a lot of stress at the moment.

From what we have heard so far, the new Xbox 360 update has no new features or dashboard enhancements. What you do get is some code that prepares the system for growth of the service.

The new service is the new Xbox experience update; this is the live update that we are all waiting on. That system update has all the bells and whistles on; it should go live sometime in the fall.

That is as much as I can tell you for the moment. Once more people have had a chance to download the Xbox 360 System update, then we will be able to tell you a little more about it.

Source

If you have had a chance to try out the new update, please let us know what you think.

Mobile Gaming: Sony Ericsson W760i Zeemote JS1 Controller bundle

Sony Ericsson are going to be the first to bring near game-console gaming to a mobile phone, Sony Ericsson are going to be the first to market the Zeemote JS1 Controller.

Zeemote who is the makers of intelligent wireless controllers for mobile devices and Sony Ericsson have finally announced their partnership to bring us all a whole new level of mobile gaming, Sony Ericsson is to launch the Zeemote(TM) JS1 Controller featuring Bluetooth(TM) technology with an exclusive promotion throughout hundreds of retail outlets across the Netherlands.

This new gaming experience will come to the Sony Ericsson W760i first; this will be across the Netherlands from August 8th 2008 to October 31st 2008. The Bluetooth Zeemote JS1 Controller will be offered free of charge to those who purchase the Sony Ericsson 3G W760i Walkman mobile phone via a mail-in voucher promotion, the handset will come with two embedded Zeemote Ready games just for you to play straight away.

Read – Full Press Release

Will Intel Larrabee Details change gaming history?

Not sure if you have heard about Intel releasing details about a brand new chip which is going to be aimed at the gaming market, but we will let you know what we know already.

Apparently the new chip will be aimed at the gaming market which we all know is already dominated by giants NVIDIA Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Santa Clara-based Intel has said that the technology is code-named Larrabee and should be available as soon as 2009 or possibly 2010.

At the moment Intel is now offering quad-core processors but plans on offering eight-core processors based on its Nehalem architecture, Larrabee is expected to have 12 to 48 such calculating engines.

Santa Clara-based NVIDIA are selling chips with 240 processors and Sunnyvale-based AMD has one with 800 processors.

Intel is revealing their information about its brand new chip just ahead of Siggraph 2008 show which will bring an around about 30,000 computer graphics and interactive technology professionals to Los Angeles from six continents.

Will Intel Larrabee Details change gaming history?

Source - Read

Comcast and Tiscali share BitTorrent and gaming problem

Comcast Corp the Cable TV giant’s and Internet service provider are doing wrong to customers; they have been accused of wrongly slowing down some of its customers Internet traffic.

Looking at the latest news, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will rule that Comcast has violated federal policy by deliberately preventing some customers from file-sharing. For example, sharing videos online via file-sharing services like BitTorrent, the company has acknowledged it slowed some traffic. But they said it was necessary so they could prevent a few heavy users from overburdening its network.

The ruling is expected Friday, the FCC decision will no doubt be challenged in court. Comcast being accused of blocking is a pretty bad thing or at least throttling traffic from subscribers trying to share files through the highly popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer network.

I know many customers in the UK are having the same problems with Internet providers “Tiscali” including myself. I have just cancelled my contract with Tiscali because when I want to play the Playstation 3 online it is nearly impossible to plays multiplayer online games with friends or family on the contacts list.

Basically what these companies are doing is traffic shaping, switching off certain ports. All companies not just Comcast should be looked into and Tiscali should be on top of the list, they may be in breach of contract for exercising port and service blocking. We are all getting blocked from a number of websites and of course my major problem is P2P (peer-to-peer) gaming.

Prisoner Ban: No violent PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games

There will be a prisoner ban for those who wish to play on their PlayStation 3’s and Xbox 360’s. Prisoners who wish to play on a games console will have to earn top privileges, but then they will still not be able to play violent games with an 18 rating.

This new directive means that taxpayer’s money is no longer being used to purchase games or consoles for inmates.

PS3 Daily reports that the government has admitted to spending over £10,000 on 80 PS3 consoles and 15 Xbox 360’s, for a young offender institutions. The Government said that they had purchased these consoles, as they would stop prisoners getting depressed as they spend so long in their cells.

Correct me if I am wrong, I thought that that was the whole idea of going to prison. The people in prison are there for doing a crime, so why should they get privileges. There are thousands of people who work hard, and they can’t even afford to purchase a PlayStation 3 or an Xbox 360.

This decision has come after a public outage, after pictures were shown of Soham killer Ian Huntley, playing on a PlayStation.

Quiet gaming with ASUS EN9600GT SILENT graphics card

This is the ASUS EN9600GT SILENT graphics card and if your after quiet gaming, then you should know that this card is one of the best silent cards money can buy.

The massive fan-less heatsink is the feature that separates this card from many others and Tweak Town has given it a hands-on over 17 pages to find out how good it really is, in their final thoughts they said, “The ASUS EN9600GT SILENT as far as performance goes isn’t something we haven’t seen before; it performs like it should.

What was surprising though was just how efficient the silent cooler is when compared to the stock active cooling solution. The design ASUS has opted for is nothing short of excellent.

While the card doesn’t come with a huge bundle, we get a HDMI convertor along with the loop back cable and all other standard cables and paperwork provided. The card is a good option for people who are looking for an extremely efficient silently cooled card.

If you’re looking for a stock clocked card that doesn’t heat up massively with a passive heatsink, the ASUS EN9600GT SILENT could well be the card for you”.

Read the 17 page review.

AMD FireStream 9250 Processor at Teraflop level: Offers gaming rig additional 5 Teraflops of Power

AMD is gaining a lot of respect it seems when it comes to the it’s second generation FireStream 9250, the second-gen FireStream 9250 has just topped the single-precision teraflop barrier at the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany, which is fantastic news to most.

The processor will now take full advantage of AMD’s GPU knowledge to augment the processing power of your loving rig’s CPU with an additional 8-gigaflops per watt of processing from this 150 watt processor, this is a 55x performance rise, when obviously compared to crunching financial analysis code, for example, on a CPU alone. The AMD FireStream 9250 processor will fit into a single PCI slot and will include double-precision floating point hardware performing at more than 200 gigaflops. The all new processor and supporting SDK are due for release in Q3 for $999.

Just so you know it has been said that the 9250 features ATI’s upcoming RV770 GPU at its core and that the foundation of future 4800-series graphics cards. In basic terms this all means 4x cards setup in Crossfire X should indeed be capable of offering your next gaming rig an additional 5 Teraflops or power. Read the full press release below for more information.

Official Press Release:

—Next-generation AMD FireStream™ 9250 processor accelerates scientific and engineering calculations, efficiently delivering supercomputer performance at up to eight gigaflops-per-watt —

At the International Supercomputing Conference, AMD (NYSE:AMD) today introduced its next-generation stream processor, the AMD FireStream™ 9250, specifically designed to accelerate critical algorithms in high-performance computing (HPC), mainstream and consumer applications. Leveraging the GPU design expertise of AMD’s Graphics Product Group, AMD FireStream 9250 breaks the one teraflop barrier for single precision performance. It occupies a single PCI slot, for unmatched density and with power consumption of less than 150 watts; the AMD FireStream 9250 delivers an unprecedented rate of performance per watt efficiency with up to eight gigaflops per watt.

Customers can leverage AMD’s latest FireStream offering to run critical workloads such as financial analysis or seismic processing dramatically faster than with CPU alone, helping them to address more complex problems and achieve faster results. For example, developers are reporting up to a 55x performance increase on financial analysis codes as compared to processing on the CPU alone, which supports their efforts to make better and faster decisions.1 additionally, the use of flexible GPU technology rather than custom accelerators assists those creating application-specific systems to enhance and maintain their solutions easily.

The AMD FireStream 9250 stream processor includes a second-generation double-precision floating point hardware implementation delivering more than 200 gigaflops, building on the capabilities of the earlier AMD FireStream™ 9170, the industry’s first GP-GPU with double-precision floating point support. The AMD FireStream 9250’s compact size makes it ideal for small 1U servers as well as most desktop systems, workstations, and larger servers and it features 1GB of GDDR3 memory, enabling developers to handle large, complex problems.

Driving broad consumer adoption with open systems
AMD enables development of the FireStream family of processors with its AMD Stream SDK, designed to help developers create accelerated applications for AMD FireStream, ATI FireGL™ and ATI Radeon™ GPUs. AMD takes an open-systems approach to its stream computing development environment to ensure that developers can access and build on the tools at any level. AMD offers published interfaces for its high-level language API, intermediate language, and instruction set architecture; and the AMD Stream SDK’s Brook+ front-end is available as open source code.

In keeping with its open systems philosophy, AMD has also joined the Khronos Compute Working Group. This working group’s goals include developing industry standards for data parallel programming and working with proposed specifications like OpenCL. The OpenCL specification can help provide developers with an easy path to development across multiple platforms.

“An open industry standard programming specification will help drive broad-based support for stream computing technology in mainstream applications,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Product Group, AMD. “We believe that OpenCL is a step in the right direction and we fully support this effort. AMD intends to ensure that the AMD Stream SDK rapidly evolves to comply with open industry standards as they emerge.”

Accelerating industry adoption
The growth of the stream computing market has accelerated over the past few years with Fortune 1000 companies, leading software developers and academic institutions utilizing stream technology to achieve tremendous performance gains across a variety of applications.

“Stream computing is increasingly important for mainstream and consumer applications and is no longer limited to just the academic or engineering industries. Today we are truly seeing a fundamental shift in emerging system architectures,” said Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research. “As the industry’s only provider of both high-performance discrete GPUs and x86-compatible CPUs, AMD is uniquely well-suited to developing these architectures.”

AMD customers, including ACCIT, Centre de Physique de Particules de Marseille, Neurala and Telanetix are using the AMD Stream SDK and current AMD FireStream, ATI FireGL or ATI Radeon boards to achieve dramatic performance gains on critical algorithms in HPC, workstation and consumer applications. Currently, Neurala reports that it is achieving 10-200x speedups over the CPU alone on biologically inspired neural models, applicable to finance, image processing and other applications.2
AMD is also working closely with world class application and solution providers to ensure customers can achieve optimum performance results. Stream computing application and solution providers include CAPS entreprise, Mercury Computer Systems, RapidMind, RogueWave and VizExperts. Mercury Computer Systems provides high-performance computing systems and software designed for complex image, sensor, and signal processing applications. Its algorithm team reports that it has achieved 174 GFLOPS performance for large 1D complex single-precision floating point FFTs on the AMD FireStream 9250.3

Pricing and availability
AMD plans to deliver the FireStream 9250 and the supporting SDK in Q3 2008 at an MSRP of $999 USD. AMD FireStream 9170, the industry’s first double-precision floating point stream processor, is currently available for purchase and is competitively priced at $1,999 USD. For more information about AMD FireStream 9250 or AMD FireStream 9170 or AMD’s complete line of stream computing solutions, please visit http://www.amd.com/stream.

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