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Extensions, plug-ins, add-ons, whatever you want to call 'em, Firefox 3 has 'em. In fact, though it may seem that many of your favorites haven't yet updated, you might be in luck. By visiting the home pages of several of the plug-ins I use, I found that most of them had either a functional, stable beta or a full update ready to use with Firefox 3. This collection of add-ons I use both at home and in the office, and can be used for the Windows, Mac, and Windows Portable versions of the browser.
Continuing this day of iPhone 3G impropriety, the Boy Genius has somehow secured himself a brand-spanking-new iPhone 3G, and has unboxed it for all the world to see. First off, our condolences to the AT&T or Apple employee who will probably lose their job over this one, and then a tip of the hat to BGR for pulling off such a daring stunt. The pictures, however, should be less exciting (since we've been seeing a lot of these today) -- still, nice to know what you're about to get into! We've included a few more shots after the break.
As you might imagine, E3 is a very special time of year here at the G4 offices... You'll never see a giddier bunch of nerds and geeks in your whole life as in the week leading up to E3. With that in mind, and ahead of the official G4 press release, we wanted to give you an idea of what to expect from our E3 coverage will be this year. With over 17 hours of live coverage on G4 ? including COMMERCIAL FREE coverage of the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo press conferences ? its going to be quite a week. And if that's not enough, you can count on the G4tv.com team to bring you even more: Every single trailer and screenshot, live streaming coverage of all press conference (not just the big three but all the rest), special editions of The MMO Report, Sessler's Soapbox and Freestyle 101, and more. Oh yeah, and we'll be launching an HD version of our video player so you can watch high res versions of all of your favorite E3 trailers. Bamph!
Hey Apple. Microsoft's seen those Get a Mac ads with J. Long and J. Hodgman. They're tired of that shit. So tired, in fact, that they're going to spend some $300 million in their own advertising campaign with Crispin porter + Bogusky telling consumers how much Vista doesn't suck. Corporate VP of Windows Consumer Product said this:
Gaming is an expensive hobby, everyone knows that. The question is, why does it have to be? The makers of movies, music, and books have all realized that if something is sold at a cheaper price, people will buy more of it. You can get brand new, quality forms of those medias at a fraction of the cost of new games. Why should gaming be any different?
Industry giant and evil overlord Electronic Arts reported this morning that it had finished its wheeling and dealing with the Federal Trade Commission concerning the takeover of Take Two Interactive.
GamesIndustry.biz reports that Electronic Arts and Vivendi are dominating sales of PC games in the US, according to the latest data from NPD.
EA's budget title Spore Creature Creator is the top seller for the week ended June 28, with two other EA titles ? The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff Expansion and The Sims 2 Double Deluxe ? at two and three in the charts.
Vivendi's World of Warcraft Battle Chest is at four, with the original World of Warcraft at six. Sandwiched between the two is Eidos' plucky upstart MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.
Piracy continues to hurt PC gaming, and no one has a clear answer to the problem.
Development studio Crytek has proposed abandoning PC-exclusive game releases. BioWare, however, is less radical. They're looking at downloadable content, access to multiplayer and - here's a new one - simply encouraging consumer loyalty.
According to SpikeTV and GameTrailers, they will provide full E3 coverage that they are calling "E3 Invasion." During E3 Invasion, gamers will supposedly get to see exclusive content from Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Prince of Persia, Resistance 2, Rock Band 2 and the next game from Bioware.
Christian Svensson, Capcom's Sr. Director of Strategic Planning & Research has been providing Nintendo fans with tons of details about the company and possible upcoming details the past few weeks. Today was no exception, as Svensson once again divulged quite a bit of new information. First, some of you may remember Dead Phoenix, a game that Capcom showed off for the GameCube years ago. The game drew many comparisons to Kid Icarus, but eventually, the game slid under the radar and was canned. A good portion of the gaming community hoped for the revival of the game, perhaps by partially remolding the game as we knew it. Unfortunately, it looks like not even this is possible. Said Svensson, "As far as CEI resurrecting it, frankly, we have enough things on our plate at the moment and enough ideas in the pipeline that we don't need to be going back to that well."
Other info from the news post
- Monster Hunter 3 moved to Wii not only because of the high PS3 development costs that we heard about a few months ago
- Dead Rising remake won't be coming to the Wii, nor is there any new details on a new DR game
Full story at the link
PC gaming isn't dead yet, but it most certainly isn't alive as it once was. Plagued by piracy, and perhaps more so, by developer's obsession with preventing piracy, PC gaming has been on a gradual downsloap in recent years. A number of developers have jumped ship, turning to consoles for better business. While one could spend an entire article recounting all the things they are leaving behind, in many ways there is one thing that stands out. The mouse.
DEVELOP writes: Eidos' Ian Livingston says Government must invest to aid industry growth 'or suffer the consequences'
Eidos' Ian Livingstone has issued a tough warning to the Government, saying that the UK games industry will vanish if authorities don't act to properly address rising costs and the industry skills shortage.
Epic Games' vice president, Mark Rein, has dismissed Ubisoft's move to develop games with stereoscopic 3D technology - or S-3D - as "dumb".
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Rein revealed that the Unreal Engine 3 already supported S-3D technology but that he didn't expect it to gain widespread acceptance - saying the need to buy a new screen was too high a barrier to entry.
When told about Ubisoft's recent announcement to use S-3D, Rein commented: "That's dumb."
"I have a 3D monitor sitting in my office and stereoscopic has worked on Unreal for a long time. In fact one of the guys pushing stereoscopic sent me the monitor, he said 'Your games are great on these monitors,' so he sent me one."
With Xbox 360 HD DVD players now available for $5 at Kmart, it almost seems like a good investment to go down and buy a few of them, not just one. But then what do you do with it/them? Here are 100 ways you can put your new redundant Xbox 360 HD DVD player to use!
From the discovery of the mysterious countdown timer that may be "Halo 4" related, is there more to it?
Leaving only 1019.net in the url of the countdown timer, this website appears to be giving out hints or messages that could be Halo related hints or not.
Nintendo, which recently lost a $21 million patent case to Anascape, is currently litigating another federal patent lawsuit filed by an Illinois man.
In his complaint, John R. Martin alleges that he patented touch screen and pointing device gaming technology in August, 2005. The original Nintendo DS launched in November, 2004 in the United States. Martin's patent application describes his creation as:
"An electronic game device system [which] is switchable between an amusement mode and a gaming or gambling mode and is useful for vehicles such as airplanes or boats which move geographically from jurisdictions where gambling is legal to jurisdictions where it is not...
An improved method of operating a touch screen on a CRT or ICD computer screen uses finger release as input registering... Mounting arrangements for mounting computer screens or monitors are also disclosed..."
All times are PST.
Monday, July 14
* 10.30am - Microsoft press conference
* 12.30pm - Square Enix press conference
* 1.00pm - Shane Kim roundtable
* 3.00pm - EA press conference
* 7.00pm - Gears of War 2 reception
Tuesday, July 15
* 9.00am - Show floor opens
* 9.00am - Nintendo press conference
* 11.30am - Sony press conference
* 2.30pm - Ubisoft press conference
* 4.30pm - Capcom press conference
Wednesday, July 16
* 9.15am E3 Keynote by Gov. Perry
* 10.00 am Sony roundtable
* 10.45am Take-Two press conference
* 1.00pm State of the Industry keynote
* 2.30pm Konami press conference
Mozilla Firefox users are the safest Web surfers on the Internet, according to a study by The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google and IBM's Internet Security Services. According to the study Firefox users were the most likely to use an updated version of their browser.
Details at the link.
TalkPlayStation.com writes:"the question is, can it be played in the Playstation 3 for its games or movie playback, whatever? Pioneer has stated:
"Since the optical specifications of the objective lens?are the same as those for the existing BD discs, it is possible to maintain compatibility between the new 16-layer optical disc and the BD discs."
This means that we can probably put one of these 400GB disc in our PS3's, but why 400GB, we will see any gaming benefits from this?"
Read more.
PS3 Fanboy Write
"Rumors about a Wii-like PS3 controller surfaced in early June when details about a supposed secret focus group testing were leaked. Heading back into the rumor mill, we found a startling discovery over on JustPlay -- a videogame peripheral manufacturer and supplier. On the website, a listing for a "PS3 2.4 GHz Wireless Handgun" quite possibly shows us what this rumored PSThrii-mote will look like and its intended use.
While the picture does suggest that peripheral is being made for such a device, there isn't a guarantee that such a device does indeed exist. It could very well be a mock-up for ideas being played around with. We'll continue to chalk this one up as rumor for now. In the meantime, we'll keep our eyes out for more. Most likely, if there is anything out there regarding a PSThrii-mote, we will be seeing it at this month's E3."
PC World writes: "Pioneer has developed an optical disc that can hold up to 400G bytes of data easily surpassing previously announced prototypes.
The new disc manages to pack 16 layers, each with a 25G-byte capacity, into a conventional 12-centimeter diameter optical disc. The new discs are similar to Blu-ray Disc technology and slight changes to the hardware on a Blu-ray drive would allow the new Pioneer discs to be used on one."
Gaming users are becoming increasingly interesting for both hardware manufacturers and computer system builders. As most of you already know, a number of top system makers have released their own desktop or portable computer rigs, designed to help users get better as far as their gaming skills go. Apparently, Packard Bell, the company that was acquired by Acer this year, will also be joining these gaming system manufacturers, with its own design of the kind.
gadget zone has gotten their hands on HP's new mega monitor. Designed for creative types, it can display more than a million colours. As a gaming monitor, this could really be the bees knees. Shame about the price tag though. The monitor is a result of a collaboration between HP and animation studio Dream Works.
This week the crew sits down for some round table discussion on MGS 4, complete with spoilers and of course discuss the latest games including NCAA Football 2009, Guitar Hero Aerosmith and more Alone in the Dark.
It's the first time a games console has made it into a club and that is, the Nintendo Wii. At the GATE complex in Newcastle, the bar "Mood" was advertising a Wii Sports lounge
Ubergizmo writes: "The PSP phone idea has been thrown around for quite a while now, but according to this piece of scanned white paper you see on the right, it shows just what a device would carry. Click on it for the larger image, unless you've got vision as good as Superman to read everything in fine print. Among the specifications listed include :"
"If you live in Europe, you should be really concerned right about now. A small group of MEPs are trying to sneak in a law that could punish you even if you're innocent. When it goes through, if anyone in your household has been determined to be file-sharing by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) three times, they'll blacklist your IP for life!
There's less than one day to stop this from being passed. It was slipped in right before the legislators broke for the summer, hidden within a huge package of telecom legislation, so most of them won't even get a chance to read it before they vote! Hugh Hancock, Johnnie Ingram, and Matt Kelland decided to do something about it by creating a machinima to warn everyone. If you would like to know more about what's going on, check out the Strange Company website, where they outline what you can do to help."
The man behind Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Masahiro Sakurai has said he may have to consider a sequel to the popular game. Sakurai says like the two titles in the series before it Brawl was developed as being the last game in the series. In an interview with the UK Official Nintendo Magazine Sakurai has stated that he may have to consider the next title in the series.
Pcworld writes:
Windows 7 is coming. Will your PC be ready?
It seems like a straightforward question. However, in the aftermath of the Vista debacle, where many systems that were certified as "Vista Capable" proved to be anything but, the process of vetting new Windows-compatible hardware has taken on new complexity.
CVG reports: "Ex-Nintendo Europe boss David Gosen, now marketing exec at Microsoft, has teased the "fantastic surprises" set to be revealed at this month's E3 show in Los Angeles. Is that 360 Wii Remote finally coming out of the closet?"
Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division President Robbie Bach told the San Francisco Chronicle that the highly-speculated Blu-ray enhanced Xbox 360 is still nothing more than a high-def dream.
"If you look at the Blu-ray player market, you haven't seen the acceleration everybody expected (since the demise of HD DVD). It's not as much about whether all the content is in a Blu-ray format or a HD DVD format. You have to look at how fundamentally compelling the difference is between a progressive scan DVD player and the picture that it can produce and what you get on a high-definition player. The reality is there is some difference, but most people look at it and say, 'I am not going to pay extra for that.'
There is nothing to even talk about [Blu-ray Xbox 360 plans] right now with regard to the next generation. That is so far out that there isn't anything to talk about."
"It is funny that you read the stories about EA being this evil empire or whatever; our experience has been completely the opposite. We see the folks as being very similar in terms of their mind set as we are and they are very adult, or progressive if you would like, about how they interfaced with us and how they can help and where their value is and their relationship."
The game hardware sales data for the June period in Japan (aka the five weeks to June 29) has been released, and Sony's PSP managed to outsell both the Wii and Nintendo DS, with sales of 274,131 units according to Famitsu publisher Enterbrain.
The market research firm said that Nintendo's lead with Wii is fading, as its lead on the PlayStation 3 narrowed to 1.7-to-1 in June, down significantly from its 6-to-1 lead in May. However, the PS3 did see the launch of Konami blockbuster Metal Gear Solid 4 in June, which had a lot to do with the buzz.
Wii managed sales of 235,990 units, PS3 managed 139,494, DS managed 195,714, and as usual, Microsoft's Xbox 360 trailed by a long margin with just 10,964 units.
Game development cost millions, a comparison across genre, games, and platform.
THE victims of a sadistic double murder might have died for the sake of two hand-held games consoles, police said yesterday. French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were bound, gagged and stabbed to death in a bedsit in south London on Sunday night.
Detectives, who believe the pair may have been the victims of a savage robbery, said two Sony PSP consoles, costing £130 each, were stolen from Mr Bonomo's rented flat.
One of the reasons health clubs stay in business is by signing up people to yearly contracts.
What they know and the general public doesn't know is that a great majority of people who do sign up only attend about 57 days out of the full year while some drop out completely, thus affording more space in the gym for more people to sign up and fail to show.
It seems that Wii Fit, at least in Japan, is taking on similar characteristics in consumer behavior. According to ITMeida of Japan, a poll was taken by a group of 1000 gamers that showed a staggering amount of people not using the Wii Fit game shortly after purchase.
A writer explores through words on how the fans of the Diablo series have been waiting for its sequel for almost a decade and he talks about how it could live up, or possibly even fail to live up to the expectations of millions of gamers, both old fans and new.
One of the Internet's most well known websites, SomethingAwful, has commented on the recent upsurge of hatred against Diablo III's art direction with a humorous article about that very subject.
Its author rails against those complaining with comparisons between his opinion and the opinion of "the internet".
Tgdaily writes:
When I was briefed on Microsoft Equipt a few days ago, I couldn't help but take this in context with Bill Gates' departure and reflect on the post-Gates Microsoft. For much of Microsoft's history, the company has been known primarily for two very successful products - Windows and Office. Sometimes this connection has been less than positive. Back in 2000, I had a conversation with back then new Microsoft president Steve Ballmer and was fascinated that he believed that the market would eventually move to a subscription model. With Equipt, Microsoft takes its biggest step in this direction and it makes me wonder whether Windows will, or should, someday follow.
From the article: "Critics of the Nintendo Wii suggest that the remote control is just a gimmick, the novelty of which may soon wear off in the face of high performance consoles such as the Playstation 3. The controller also presents problems for 3rd party software vendors, because of its unique design, and Nintendo has tended to highlight its own games and been weak in its support of 3rd party titles.
The Playstation 3, on the other hand, relies on superior technology ? a powerful, multicore, Cell processor, an RSX ("Reality Synthesiser") graphics chip from NVIDIA, and a maximum resolution of 1080p (in the 60GB version) ? as its unique selling point."
