Wii to overtake rivals in UK before November

According to official sales figures from Chart Track, the Wii could overtake its rivals before November in UK if it continues to sell at such a good level. Regardless, the Wii is expected to break through the one million units sold in the UK region within 3 to 4 weeks which is quite some achievement.

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The Nintendo Wii is on course to hit one million sales in the UK within three to four weeks, according to official sell-through figures from Chart-Track, Eurogamer is reporting.

Currently the console is outselling the 360 in the UK by over four to one, and the PS3 by more than six to one each week. If it keeps it up, it should pass the GameCube's lifetime UK sales figure of just over a million by the end of September.

Naturally, then, its next milestone will be to overhaul Microsoft's lead in the UK - which, if the current trend continues, could be before the end of October.

News Source: Gamesindustry.biz

Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD by 2 to 1 in U.S. for 6 months

Research firm Home Media Research has revealed that Blu-ray high definition movie discs alone outsold films on the HD-DVD format by 2-to-1 during the first half of the year 2007 in the United States. The Blu-ray format recieved a creditable boost from the movie '300' selling 190,000 units of the film in comparison to the 97,000 sold on HD-DVD since July 31.

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Blu-ray high-definition movie discs outsold films on the rival HD-DVD format by 2-to-1 in the United States in the first half of 2007, Home Media Research said on Tuesday.

The division of Home Media Magazine said total sales of Blu-ray discs, using a Sony Corp - backed technology, totaled 1.6 million units from January 1 through July 1, compared with 795,000 HD-DVD discs sold in that period.

HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba Corp and backed by Microsoft Corp and film studios such as Warner Bros.

Both formats were launched in spring of 2006. An estimated 3.7 million high-definition discs have been sold, including 2.2 million in Blu-ray and 1.5 million in HD-DVD through the end of July, according to Home Media.

News Source: Reuters.com

Knibble.com Bites Into The Nintendo Wii Internet Channel

PRESS RELEASE: Knibble.com Bites Into The Nintendo Wii Internet Channel

Knibble.com, the largest aggregator of casual games online today announced its new Nintendo Wii Internet game destination, Knibble Wii, offering over 5,000 Wii-friendly games. This debut marks one of the largest Nintendo Wii compatible content releases ever. Players can now enjoy the Internet's most popular web based games such as Bejeweled and Solitaire directly through their Wii console, optimized specifically for the Wii Internet Channel – with no downloads required! Knibble Wii draws its Wii compatible games from a rapidly growing database of more than 10,000 casual games aggregated on the Internet's most comprehensive casual gaming site, Knibble.com.

"We are very excited to provide Wii users with an entirely new and comprehensive set of games, all easily reached from their Wii console," said Knibble Wii Founder & CEO Sashi Chimala. "The success of the Wii has completely opened up the casual gaming market. We are very pleased to be a part of it and look forward to the future of online casual games."

Wii gamers can access the Knibble Wii gaming site by simply selecting the Wii Internet Channel and entering wii.knibble.com. They will be directed to the Wii-optimized Knibble Wii site and can choose from thousands of casual games. With the low availability of Wii-optimized content available on the Wii Internet Channel, Knibble Wii promises to become a leading site for Wii gamers.

And you thought the CELL was fast - the 500Ghz Chilly Chip

Scientists in the U.S.A. have created the world's fastest silicon based microchip which can operate at speed of up to 500Ghz, that is over 100 times faster than standard desktop PC chips. In a bid to break the world record, the team consisting of IBM researchers and the George Institute of Technology had to cool the chip with liquid helium.

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The team believes the device could eventually speed up wireless networks and develop cheaper mobile phones.

"Faster and faster chips open up new applications and reduce costs for existing products," said Professor David Ahlgren of IBM.

At room temperature the experimental chips still managed to outperform standard silicon chips, running at about 350 billion calculations per second.

However, the researchers say they can push them even further.

"We observe effects in these devices at cryogenic temperatures which potentially make them faster than simple theory would suggest," said Professor John Cressler of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The team believes it is possible to make chips run at 1,000 Ghz, or one Terahertz, at room temperature.

News Source: BBC

Microsoft to allow PC-to-360 Map Editors

MS announced XBox Live Silver Platform which will allow for developer controlled servers for those who prefer to offer and control their own content. It is part of its new services announced at Gamefest today. They also rolled out XNA Game Studio 2.0 which adds support for the multiplayer networking API and supports all versions of Visual Studio 5.0.

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"We have just as much interest in that space as anybody else, but I will tell you that there is a lot of value to managing the service and system the way we do on Xbox Live, versus the wild, open, supposedly open PlayStation Network. You're going to have to be very careful about what happens and we'll see how much responsibility the platform holder actually takes there in terms of managing that stuff.

It's not unlike Sony PlayStation HOME. It's great to talk about all this, but assuming you could even build it, one of the biggest challenges is actually managing the behavior. We have a lot of experience doing this on Xbox Live and that's part of the value proposition we bring to our customers, is that you're going to have a great experience on Xbox Live and we take care of a lot of problems for you and don't just say it's the responsibility of the publisher of the responsibility of the community to manage this. We take accountability, we do that as the owner."

News Source: 1UP

EA Tech responds to PS3 Frame limitations - it's difficult to get it right first time

Rob M, EA Sports senior technical support director has responded to an e-mail from a gamer which asked why the PS3 version of Madden 08 was technically lagging behind the Xbox 360 version. Rob kindly explained that on the Xbox 360m developers have been creating titles for 'over' 3.5 years, while everyone except Sony has been creating titles for the PS3 for perhaps just over a year. He concludes by saying that it is very difficult to get things right the first time and fully understands if gamers select not to buy the game.

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Thank you for your feedback regarding the issues you've found with Madden NFL 08 for the PlayStation 3 game console. While we fully understand your frustration with the limitations the technology has placed against the video frames per second of the game play on the PlayStation 3 game console, it was out intent to put out the best possible with Madden across 10 platforms. While it is very simple to draw a conclusion based on the end-user experience with the game technology, what most people do not realize is hours of research which goes into fully understanding the hardware demands for each console. In the case of the next-generation consoles, many publishers have been developing titles for the Xbox 360 for over 3 1/2 years while everyone who publishes now for the PlayStation 3 with the exception of Sony has been developing for the PlayStation 3 for only a little over one full year. The differences in the overall knowledge of the hardware is vastly different for both consoles and, as is the case with newer technology, it is very difficult to get it right the first time. As for frame-rate differences, 30 frames per second is the same for all PS 3 football games this year, not just Madden but also NCAA Football, and 2K Sports' offering as well. If you choose not to purchase the game, it is a choice fully understand and respect. Please know that I have passed your feedback and observations on to the game team and hopefully someone within their team will be able to address this matter further.

Sincerely,

Rob M.
EASPORTS Sr. Technical Support

Gamercard spotted in Unreal Tournament 3 - the PS3's answer to Gamertags?

While at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, some gaming journalists spotted that a playable demo of Unreal Tournament III for the PS3 featured something known as a 'Gamercard' in its menu system. This has sparked speculation that this will evolve into a unique player identity system much like the Xbox 360's Gamertag system which oversees player stats and achievements.

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We quizzed Epic’s Mark Rein about and he did little to dispel our assumptions saying quickly “Oops, you shouldn’t have seen that”. We would have liked to grabbed a pic, and were little deterred by the venue’s strict no camera phone policy and dodgy lighting, however Mark Rein’s rapid covering of the projector with his hand put pay to that cunning idea.

Needless to say, we have little to go on. It is accessed with the Triangle button if that makes any difference to you. It is also anyone’s guess whether this is a future Sony project that will cover the whole of the PlayStation Network or whether it is simply a feature of UT3. But I’m betting that the secrecy surrounding it indicates a new PS3 feature. More news as we get it.

News Source: Games-Digest.com