Wii mod-chip works

PLENTY OF GAMES news for your this week, most of which we've posted on the INQ during our coverage of the Game Developers Conference - we've supplied you with mass linkage to our weeks worth of GDC articles at the bottom of this page.

If you're up-to-date on all your games news, but you're wondering how you can refine your fanboy views, read this Wired.com article.

Playstation
Games behemoth Electronic Arts came out this week stating that the company believes Sony's console dominance will slide this year.

EA's outgoing chief executive, Larry Probst, said "We expect that there will be a more level playing field this time around than last time," he continued by saying that he expects Sony to win the new console war, but with a less commanding lead.

Now that Sony has resolved the legal wrangling with Immersion, all eyes are on Sony to make announcements regarding a controller with some rumble functionality.

In a GamePro interview with Jack Tretton this week, the magazine got the president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America to open up about the company's stance on the Sixaxis controller.

Tretton had the following to say: "You will see peripherals coming from SCEA that will address the interests of the U.S. consumer. I don't have anything to tell you specifically, but we're open to changing the Sixaxis controller."

It seems the gaming world now expects nothing else less than a Sixaxis with rumble support. It's a shame the company couldn't sort out legal problems before the world-wide shipping of product.

Sony announced details of the Playstation Home project this week at the GDC, a few days after blackballing Kotaku for running the story early.

You can now sign-up and register your interest for the Home beta here.

Joystiq also has a plethora of pictures and images for you to view what you should expect from the PS3 Playstation Home by the end of the year.

If you're bored with the traditional method of control on your PSP, check out this PS2 pad + PSP combination.

Wii/DS
Crunchgear has had confirmation that the CycloWiz — a Wii mod-chip that allows for backup, import, and DVD-/+R compatibility as well as enhanced GameCube compatibility — is real and works.

A 'close friend of the Crunchgear' team installed his CycloWiz this weekend and is currently enjoying the fruits of his soldering job. He said the upgrade was quite easy and he only had an issue cracking open the case because it has Nintendo's favorite "triangular screws" holding things together.

Chris Hecker, the founder of developer Definition 6, launched an attack on the Wii at the GDC, accusing Nintendo of failing to recognise games as an art form.

He went further with the comment: "It's about interactivity - that is the key differentiator of our art form, and interactivity is about doing something interesting with that input and threading it back to the user. You can't do that with a piece of sh*t underpowered computer."

Nintendo used GDC 2007 as a platform to announce its upcoming game release dates. Among the most noteworthy are: Super Paper Mario and Mario Party 8 in April, and then Pokemon Battle Revolution and Big Brain Academy in June. The Wii Pokemon game will be the first game in the U.S. that will incorporate Wi-Fi connectivity with the Nintendo DS.

The DS will see Pearl, Pokemon Diamond, and Harvest Moon become available before the end of the year.

Full details for all release announcements are available from here.

A few GDC videos have popped up which should keep Wii owners happy with excitement. Super Paper Mario looks excellent in this clip, and Super Mario Galaxy looks similarly decent here.

An interesting tip-bit comes from Engadget. The site pictures a DS running a homebrew application that triangulates a users position by Wifi (instead of GPS).

Could this allow gaming using a GPS style system wihtout the need for more costly hardware? It remains to be seen.

Good news from 1up.com who report that id Software has not ruled out Wii-based games, after previous reports in the media suggested otherwise.

Xbox 360
Microsoft quickly patched the hacking possibilities of the 360 this week, in a new patch delivered to owners of the console.

This won't stop the further development of a Linux loader for the exploited visor, that has been reported at Xbox-scene. This update will probably be received by the majority of the six million Xbox Live users that have joined the Xbox Live service, Microsoft announced at the GDC. This milestone was reached 4 months ahead of the company's June 2007 goal.

According to the company, more than 10 million Xbox 360s have hit store shelves since launch in November 2005, with the console now available in 37 countries. The overall software attach rate for Xbox 360 is a significantly high 5.1 titles per console in the United States, with an accessory attach rate of 2.9 units per console.

Microsoft also announced plans to launch a 512MB Memory Unit for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system and an increase in the official size limit of Xbox Live Arcade games from 50 MB to 150 MB.

The 512MB Memory Unit, available worldwide beginning April 3, 2007, will retail for an estimated retail price of $49.99 in North America.

The 512MB Memory Unit will be pre-loaded with the hit Xbox Live Arcade game "Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved" from developer Bizarre Creations Ltd. for a limited time. The original 64MB Memory Unit will simultaneously drop in price from $39.99 to $29.99.

Crunchgear has new speculation on an Xbox portable and its possible incarnations here, which makes interesting reading.

If you have problems keeping your finger on the pulse of your Xbox pad, check out these 'Kontrolfreak' joypad digit stabilizers for the 360 and original Xbox pads.

PC
A remake of Bitmap's 16-bit classic Speedball 2 is coming to the PC this Autumn, Frogster Interactive has announced.

During a press event attended by Game Informer, Microsoft finally revealed the charging details for the Games for Windows Live service.

The price rings in at the same price as a yearly subscription to an Xbox 360 membership: $49.99 a year ($7.99 a month, $19.99 for three months) for Gold, while Silver is free.

It's also claimed the service will allow you to play cross-platform games, over any of the support platforms, finally allowing us PC gamers to kick console fanboys asses. µ

GDC Coverage
Chris Taylor talks Supreme Commander
Forcewear gaming vest, er, worn
Sun talks about Darkstar cunning plan
Shigeru Miyamoto describes Nintendo's wife-a-meter
Unreal Engine 3 games are a doddle to do
Developer Xbox360s spotted
In-game voice communication comes of age
Mobile phone gaming gears up to go 3D
Alien speakers land at game show
Father of Xbox warns of phantoms
The INQ interviews Gabe Newell
Finally something new in GPUs arrives
Matrox TripleHead2Go goes digital
The brightest cake in the world arrives
New drivers for 3dfx range still appear
One Laptop Per Child initiative includes games
Four teams, in four days, play four Xbox games
Gaming great interviewed again
New Duke Nukem makes an appearance
Codeplay makes autoparallelising compiler
Make a computer game in four days
The Jeff Minter library has emerged
Trip Hawkins laments the state of mobile gaming
Nokia announces N-Gage again
Fresh Guild Wars announced
Dreamfall gets episodic