Gamestop recently put up an interview with Chris Satchell, the GM of Microsof's game developer group discussing the recent announcements that have graced the Xbox 360. He covers IPTV, the larger, HD, and of course the HDMI. Enjoy!

"GameStop: Is the IPTV feature going to be a dashboard update?

Chris Satchell: How we're doing it at first is we're working with telecommunication partners who are intending to deliver an IPTV service and saying, "Here's a different kind of box you can use. Instead of just having a standard set-top box, use an Xbox 360. It gives you new services to provide your customers, and for gamers it gives them a really cool combination of next-generation television and next-generation gaming."

I think where you'll first see it will be in partnership with these telco partners who are doing IPTV. Now, later on, we're looking at, "Well, should we do an update to allow people who've got just an Xbox 360 to get to some of the same services rather than having to get it from a telco?" We're looking at both, but first you're going to see it from our partners.

GS: If Microsoft chooses to make IPTV available to all Xbox 360 owners, will upgrading be as simple as a dashboard update?

CS: If we do open it up so that our current users can get to the service, we're not quite sure how we'll deliver it. Of course, we have a great system with [Xbox] Live, so it's entirely possible that we could do it as an upgrade. It's entirely possible we could give it to you on a disc and you could just install it. There are all sorts of ways we can give it to you. Obviously our preference normally is to do everything online because that's where people are at.

GS: This might be too early to ask, but are you guys discussing how much this will cost?

CS: An IPTV and Xbox service, how much would it cost? Really, that's for our partners to define because they're likely going to bundle it in some way, kind of like when you go to Comcast and go, "Hey, I want my Internet phone, I want my Internet, I want my movies," and they do packages. [IPTV and Xbox 360] will probably be the same type of thing–that's really up to our partners and not us to set price. What we're providing is the next generation of technology and giving them something that nobody else is: full gaming with this incredible television service and the Live network as well.

GS: All this cool HD stuff that you're talking about starts to take up space. The 20GB for a lot of people is already starting to fill up. Seeing how Microsoft has been great about responding to customer needs on the Xbox 360, can you speak to larger-capacity hard drives?

CS: That's not really something we're looking at today. We're very open to feedback on it. As we produce these services, if we see an increase in pressure that's something that will be interesting to look at, but there isn't any announcement today about any new configuration that may or may not be happening.

GS: What can you tell us about the HDMI-enabled Xbox 360 rumors that have been going around?

CS: We're always working on prototypes and new technologies and just playing with stuff in Redmond to see what's interesting. I think at the moment we have the widest available connections on the system. If you want to get great HD, I think we've got a good solution for that. In the future it's interesting to see where standards evolve to. I think one of the problems that the whole industry, us and entertainment, are facing at the moment is we're in this world where standards are evolving very quickly.

We have different high-definition standards for discs that we know are competing at the moment. We think HD-DVD is going to be the right way to go, but really it's all about choice in that system so that's why we're offering these sort of services with downloads–skip that whole "format wars" problem. With other standards, audiovideo standards, they're evolving very quickly as well. We're obviously keeping an eye on that and saying, "What are the future standards and how do we give consumers the right choice for that?"

At the moment, everything you might have seen is just looking at our experimentation back in Redmond, not really a product that we're thinking about announcing."

Via [ Gamespot ]

…And now it is official: PlayStation 3 had a more successful launch than Xbox 360 did a year ago. Even though the PlayStation 3 launch had been plagued with delays and did not quite go off as planned, Sony still managed to ship a million consoles in North America alone.

To compare, Microsoft sold 600,000 Xbox 360 units from their November launch to the second week in January, according to Kotaku. Wii has sold 2,000,000 consoles to date. The gleeful release follows.

At the Consumer Electronics Show 2007 in Las Vegas, Sony Computer Entertainment America announced that more than 1,000,000 units of its recently launched PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system have been sold in to the retail channel in North America. The company successfully achieved this milestone by the end of the 2006 calendar year, just six weeks after the product was introduced on November 17, 2006.

PS3 has been selling-out at retail outlets across North America since it was launched. This high consumer demand drove the PS3 to reach the one-million mark before its predecessors, the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system and the PS one game console – both systems have shipped more than 213 million units of hardware and more than 2.1 billion pieces of software worldwide.

"SCEA went to great lengths to help meet demand for PS3, including airlifting systems into North America on a weekly basis to ensure a steady stream of units were available to consumers throughout the holiday season," said Jack Tretton, president and CEO, SCEA. "The fact that we were able to reach the one-million mark faster than our top-selling platform, the PS2, further validates the strength of the PlayStation brand and our belief that consumers are ready to experience true high-definition gaming."

PS3 wasn't the only hot gift this holiday season, the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system continues to enjoy record-breaking sales in North America. In the first quarter of 2007, PS2 will continue to fuel industry growth with the highly anticipated release of the MLB 07 The Show and God of War 2 titles.

PlayStation-branded entertainment and gaming content that will be shown in the Sony booth at CES 2007, includes:
FORMULA ONE CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION – PS3
MLB 07 The Show – PS3, PSP
MotorStorm – PS3
LAIR – PS3
Heavenly Sword – PS3
Gran Turismo HD – PS3 downloadable
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters – PSP
Killzone – PSP
SOCOM: Fire Team Bravo – PSP

Other features on display will include "Remote Play" for the PS3, which allows the consumer to utilize their PSP to access content on their PS3 hard drive, including movies, television shows, videos and music. A full demonstration of the PLAYSTATION®Network, and PLAYSTATION®Store for the PS3, as well as Location Free TV™ for the PSP, will also be shown.

Sony Computer Entertainment America announced today that it has been given top honors by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences as the recipient of a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for the PlayStation 3's SIXAXIS controller. SCEA will accept this award at a presentation held tonight during the International Consumer Electronics Show 2007 in Las Vegas.

"The overwhelming consumer demand and critical acclaim for PS3 is a testament of the platform's strength and the industry's desire for a true next-generation entertainment system," said Jack Tretton president of SCEA. "The full potential of this powerful machine has yet to be realized — what you've seen so far is just a taste of what will be on the table for 2007 and years to come."

The SIXAXIS wireless controller features motion-sensing to detect body movements and interpret them into in-game actions. The PS3 will be on display during the International CES tradeshow, January 8-11, in the Sony Electronics Booth.

3.03 Open Edition Release A' (or A2)
A few fixes, and cpu speed for umd/isos:

This is the update from 3.03 OE-A to 3.03 OE-A'.

Execute this only from 3.03 OE-A.

Changes:
- Added cpu clock selection for umd/iso games. (not for vsh yet)
- Fixed various bugs regarding the recovery menu, one of them made "rare text" appear when
entering in plugins if pops plugins existed, the other one caused a crash when pressing triangle.
- Fixed a small part of code in umd emulation that was not multithread safe.

Download

Currently these drivers allow you to connect your controller to the computer. However as these are NOT sony drivers the motion sensing will not work.

Here are the installation instructions:

When the PS3 was introduced many people were displeased with the controller design. Some were unhappy due to the fact that the rumble had been taken out, others felt that Sony had simply "copied" some of the ideas of another company, some people probably didn't care as long as the controller worked for their system. The fact of the matter is this, the SIXAXIS controller has received mixed responses.

A not-so-recent patent by Sony has been unearthed for all the world to see. The patent is for a remote input device for a gaming console. A note from the abstract:

An input device providing users with a pointing capability includes a sender portion and a receiver portion. The sender portion is adapted to be manipulated by a user to specify a target point within a target area. The sender portion projects a light beam including a pattern on to the target area. A receiver portion includes one or more sensor units located in or near the target area.

Sound familiar? Sounds like the a description of the Wiimote technology, but it's a Sony patent.

What are you're thoughts on this? You can discuss them here

For some people, strmnrmn created the essence of N64 Emulation, mostly just for PSP, but Windmillhas transformed that essence for Dark Alex's 2.71 Homebrew enabler (HEN-D). Using PatchSFO, he

was able to mod the eboot for xloader under the PSP/GAME directory (in this case, Daedalus on the xloader) and so he did.

Same as always, put the folders in the designated directories, and roms too, and

you're good to go! If you are unclear read the readme or come and ask about it at out forums .

None the less, enjoy!

[ Daedalus R-8 for 2.71 HEN-D ]