PlayStation Move: everything you ever wanted to know

While everyone agrees that motion controllers like the Wiimote make for a different level of gaming, no one has dared to compete. until now!

Engadget has everything you ever wanted to know about the PlayStation Move controller.

Super Mario Bros in its purest form

Super Mario Bros on an 8x8 LED matrix is video of a girl (?) who did some basic house-hold electronics and ported the Nintendo Mario game to a hand-made print board, displays video info on an 8x8 mono-color LED display and transcribed some music to a music generator... to create a Super Mario version in its purest form!

OMG :respect:

Streaming movies

There is a growing trend in what we used to call Video on Demand (VoD). Now that broadband internet is ubiquitous (in the modern West) and people have a growing sense of "I want that and I want it now!". Movies are spread over torrents and usenet newsgroups. Music videos are often first on YouTube and recently even in HD quality. While torrents are (mostly) free, newsgroups require monthly payments. For that money ($5-10/mo), you get lighting-fast access to download servers that get you (an illegal copy of) a movie in about 5-10 minutes. And that's at DVD quality.

The increasing popularity and capabilities of gaming consoles (and the money gamers spend) have drawn in a new kind of distribution: streaming. Just like Internet radio sends a stream of low-resolution sound packets to a listener while you listen to them, movie streaming does the same to viewers.

YouTube pioneered video on the web. Many popular TV series were offered to fans in countries that had never heard of them before. Similarly, the BBC pioneered its iPlayer to British people living abroad. iPlayer gave them access to past episodes, series and news programmes ;) from home. Then gaming console like the Wii, XBox360 and the ps3 were included. The Dutch NOS also followed late last year.

The gradual increasing use of these web or gaming platforms to view content, have given systems and software time to mature. Facts about subscribers, viewers and revenue have made key people of movie companies aware of the possibilities. Now, many web companies are appearing offering legal movie downloads or streaming movies - sometimes even in HD quality - to anyone with a fast enough Internet connection. Netflix is a prime example. But there are many. All support Windows PCs, and Apple's OS X is often a quick second. The early market is still pestered by a lack of standards. Each company uses its own player, own format and many use encoding or encryption to protect against illegal copying. But often, Adobe Flash or MS Silverlight is the only plug-in you need. And that is free and ubiquitous too!

Digitally pimping a home network

While visiting Michiel in Singapore, I pimped their home network a bit. It was fine, but cumbersome and loosely tied together: 5 laptops, PS3, Wii. They have a cable modem, but didn't know their connection speed. WiFi was setup but not used because downloading over a fixed connection into the WiFi router was "going faster". Hehe, I told them their ISP limits the speed and after a bit of testing concluded that their 8 Mb down-link would scarcely fill the 54 Mb/s bandwidth of their 802.11g WiFi network. So no need for the fixed network hook-up not sitting near the router, freedom to sit around the house wherever they wanted to. I moved the Linksys WRT54G into a nook, out of the way, receiving thousands of thank-yous from the housekeeper who hated the nasty blue box on the floor in the livingroom. ;)

I then tied the PS3 and Wii to the WiFi network. This meant all devices were now on the same subnet. I installed PS3 media server on Molina's Vista Acer laptop. (It's free, open source and supports Windows, Mac and Linux!) Up until then, they'd had borrowed the HDMI cable from the PS3 if they wanted to watch downloaded TV series. Fine, but why swap cables?! :) Now, they hook up USB disks with movies, music and series to the Vista laptop, fire up ps3 media server, turn on the PS3 and watch or listen to anything from the Windows laptop. :)

Next, after seeing this digital revolution in his house, Michiel asked if he could somehow get WiFi on his 17 m² roof terras, overlooking the Singapore skyline? I said sure, but he'd likely have to drill a cable up to the roof. The reinforced concrete would be unlikely to pass his WiFi signals. So did a little digging and after MrVanes suggested WiFi Range Extenders (I had been looking for that term), it all came quickly together:
* get a WRE54G Linksys Range Expander to get unobstructed full speed WiFi access outside on the roof
* pulling a cable up from the livingroom
* Connect a QNAP TS-410 NAS server to a free network port on the WRT54G and add some disks to taste.

The NAS supports Windows, Apple and Linux, has built-in everything and is expandable with hot-swap drive bays. The UPnP/DLNA media server supports their PS3 so the Windows laptop can be used as a workstation instead of doubling as a media server, the built-in bittorrent (BT) client let's them download directly to the NAS and the iTunes server let's them stream their music collection to their laptops, iPhones or iTouch devices. If only I could be there to install it and see it work!!! :)

Nintendo Wii 2 specs leaked

Cool, the rumor machine is predicting that the Wii 2 will get Blu-ray and 1080p playback support. ETA is Q3 2010 and everywhere at the same time, none of this Japan-first shit, then US en then EU. Hurray to Nintendo!

Active Computer Gaming

The problem with most computer games is that you sit down for hours learning it, improving and enjoying it. However, during that time you basically don't do much. The Wii changed this somewhat because now you stand up, swing arms, legs and generally move your body a lot more while playing games. But the true invention of the Wii was motion-sensing!

So two guys have brought motion-sensing to the PC with integrated wiimotes and a treadmill into their favorite RPG Aion. By "flapping your wings" (flapping arms with wiimotes in your hand), you can fly in the game. By running on the treadmill, you run in the game. So now, you're actually tired from a fight, from flying 5 minutes or from running away from an enemy! Coool!

Nintendo Wii price cut?

T3 seems to have a rumor of Nintendo Wii price cuts... :) The US price is said to go down by as much as $50. Cool!

It's probably due to Sony releasing a cheaper and slimmer PS3 Slim! Whatever works is fine with me!

Turing Bomb rebuilt from scratch

A code breaker machine used in WWII was silently rebuilt by a group of volunteers, veterans and skilled technicians. After 14 years, the Turing Bomb was activated recently. It would analyze 158 trillion possible combinations to decrypt Nazi messages and take about 11 minutes to come up with an answer.

T3: Wii upgrade lets games launch from SD card

Check out the latest upgrade for the Wii by T3. It seems with the system upgrade you can run games directly from SD card and Nintendo is adding SDHC (high capacity) support for up to 32 GB!

Home make-over

Well, Petra is gone. She moved out last weekend. The house is really empty even though most of the furniture is still here. It's weird. I guess the soul is gone or something. It feels chilly, lonely and cold. Most of the walls are empty and there is a lot of space suddenly.

It's not all bad though... I lost the Wii but gained a PS3. I lost the Ferguson Hill plexiglass speakers but gained a Logitech Z-5500 THX surround set-up. I lost analogue audio, gained Dolby Digital with fiber optical connections from both the PS3 and Mac Mini! Woohoo! Amazing!

I bought some cool wall art at Blik but sadly they're in back order and won't get here for a while. :( Oh well,can't win them all. I checked the local gardening center and found a ton of beautiful plants that I can use both in the scorching heat in the back window sill or the sunny, cooler front window. Now if I only found some nice pots to use. The window sills aren't very wide...

I also bought 2 great Wüsthoff chef knives. Wow! Even I am amazed. They're so sharp. I gave my old set to Petra because she didn't have decent knives and I wanted better ones. That way we both win. :)

Now if only I could find a nice new bed to sleep instead of a matress on the floor...

World of Goo (WiiWare) Review

World of Goo (WiiWare) Review is an interesting review of a game coming to Linux soon. It's a puzzle type of game. Now I'm not much of a puzzle guy, but it reminded my of Lemmings and I used to play that game for hours on hours! just to see if I could. May have to fire up the WiiWare channel and get it...

Update: I bought it! ;)

PS3 needs a price drop

I agree with T3 when they say that the PS3 needs a price drop. I just saw an add for the Xbox 360 for €149! :shock: The PS3 is still €350. I don't want to pay more than 300, tops! I know my friend Imro is waiting for me to buy one and I could, could I'm afraid it will cost me too much time or that I can't put in the time that I'd want to. In between work, life, wife, partying, Wii and cooking there simply isn't too much left. :(

Thrustmaster Lightsaber for the Wii

In light of the recently immensely popular new Star Wars game, Thrustmaster created a lightsaber for the Wii: Glow Saber Duo Pack NW.

WarioLand Wii video

MrVanes sent me a great link with a promo of in-game footage of Nintendo's new WarioLand game for the Wii.
Genius marketing!

Mega Man 9 Nintendo Wii Review

Digg says MegaMan gets a 8.6 / 10 in a review and elsewhere I read that it sold 60,000 copies in the first day. Best thing about it? It's not a normal Wii game, it's WiiWare. That means someone else wrote it and Nintendo liked it enough to put it in their WiiWare channel... :) Cool! I guess I'm off to input some credits in my WiiWare account. I've been meaning to do so for a long time, but this is it!

read more | digg story

New Mario Kart Wii tournament hacked up

I saw this for myself this weekend, but it seems to be true: the New Mario Kart Wii tournament has been hacked. :) Qualifying times of 00:00.004 seconds can't be real. I tried... :) It also seems that Time Trials have been hacked already, which I also saw myself. However, upon viewing their ghost data, the time posted was a more normal 01:54.xxx. Still incredible, but more believable. :)

More Wii Fit Fun this Summer

While I don't like the "games" in Wii Fit, the routines are really useful. However, they are so boring that no one in their right mind will want to play them. Except maybe someone who's never played computer games before. That's at least half of all Wii owners, I'm sure. ;) But this will soon change...

"Summer Athletics The Ultimate Challenge" by Conspiracy Entertainment Corporation is coming in August and should yield us all kinds of a cool sports to do indoors. "Summer Athletics" features 25 sports such as sprinting, archery, javelin, hammer throw and swimming. It's also multi player, someone else I hate about Wii Fit games. Then there is also Active Life: Outdoor Challenge... pfff, I may as well join a health club. It's less expensive and I get to meet other people or stare at gorgeous women who inspire me to bring out the best in good ol' me. :)

WiiHD's homebrew guide: WiiQuake

Engadget pointed me to a very easy to follow homebrew guide for the Wii. It's a hack using the Twilight Princess hack for Zelda to load an environment where you can create your own stuff. Someone ported Quake to this and the video shows him playing the shareware version using the Wii controller and nunchuck.

Wii Sports Resort: Wii Sports 2

Engadget reported that the sequel to Wii Sports will cost around $50 and should arrive Spring next year. There was a working demo of Wii Sports Resort at the E3, so you can check out what it'll offer. Mind you, they used total marketing DORKS to do the demo instead of getting 3 booth babes to do it for them. Major marketing boo-boo if you ask me. :) More screenshots are available too. And I don't know if it'll require the Motion Plus add-on, though it certainly looks like it. :(

Wii Motion Plus

Nintendo announced a new add-on for the Wii: Wii Motion Plus