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There's been lots of vague talk about the Cell chip that will be used in the Sony Playstation 3 video game system. Now, finally, someone's done enough digging to explore the future of the Playstation video game consoles in some detail:
http://www.blachford.info/computer/Cells/Cell0.html
Looks like the N-Gage handheld may not be long for this world. The Inquirer reports that Nokia is dumping their slow-selling video game system/phone:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20754
As with anything in The Inquirer, take it with a grain of salt.
Remember the Amiga computer, introduced just after the classic video game era ended? Well, after numerous false starts and missteps, AmigaOS4 on a new PowerPC-based hardware platform is nearly ready, and Ars Technica has a review:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/amiga.ars
C|Net has an article about EA's recent series of strategic moves: the exclusive NFL video game licensing contract, another exclusive deal with ESPN (which will no doubt be a blow to Sega), and their purchase of 20% of video game publisher Ubisoft:
http://news.com.com/Electronic+Arts+plays+hardball/2100-1047_3-5537175.html
This just in: that evil Internet thing is sucking the fun out of chess:
http://news.com.com/Chess+players+give+check+a+new+meaning/2100-1026_3-5535291.html
This is, of course, courtesy of the New York Times, which recently got burned by bloggers after running with a bogus news story about President Bush days before the election.
Infogrames (owner of the Atari brand name) has indicated they may try to do something about EA's acquisition of 20% of Ubisoft:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050105-4505.html
And, yes, they're playing up the pan-European, anti-US bigotry angle.
The Inquirer isn't the most reliable source in the world, bu they're reporting on the Phantom console display at CES. Take a look:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20585
77-year-old Hiroshi Yamaushi talked to Wired magazine about buyout negotiations between Microsoft and Nintendo:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20547
You'll be... surprised... by what Yamaushi did to Steve Ballmer during the negotiations.
Team XBox has an analysis of a recently-granted patent that appears relevant to the XBox Next or whatever it ends up being called:
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/7421/Xbox-2-Patent/
This is consistent with previous reports that the XBox Next CPU will be multicore.
You can get a first-rate arcade-style six button joystick for the PC, XBox, PS2, GameCube, and other systems here:
http://www.myaffiliateprogram.com/u/xgaming/t.asp?id=60749&p=mame.shtml
The single-stick version costs $99 and the dual stick version is $149. This stick is very popular with MAME users and adapters are available for a wide variety of video game consoles.
Somehow I missed this when it happened, but Bethesda has announced the next Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_overview.htm
This should be cause for excitement for all the RPG players out there.
Yeahronimo Media Ventures has purchased the Commodore brand name from Tulip Computers:
http://news.com.com/Commodore+brand+sold+to+music+distributor/2110-1003_3-5507789.html
Adrenaline Vault has a comparison of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 up:
http://www.avault.com/articles/getarticle.asp?name=titans
It seems IGN's story about EA bidding for exclusivity with the NBA may not have been legit after all:
http://sports.ign.com/articles/575/575019p1.html
A girl who exposed herself for footage in "The Guy Game" apparently lied about her age and is now suing everyone even remotely involved in the development of the game:
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/574/574811p1.html
Why get paid once when you can file a sleazy lawsuit and get paid twice?