All Gaming Feeds

The Creative way to give your PC better audio

Marc Chacksfield — 1210693260

Creative’s new addition to its X-Fi range, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1, is the first of its type that allows you to upgrade your PCs basic, built-in audio system to 5.1 surround sound.

The device comes in black and simply plugs into a USB2.0 port to give your computer advanced audio capabilities - ideal for those who are afraid to open up your PCs to see what lurks inside.

Located on the Sound Blaster are gold-plated RCA ports and mini-jack outputs, while there’s also an optical-out for connecting to surround sound systems. A rather stylish remote control is also supplied.

Let the games begin

The X-Fi Surround 5.1 is not only geared towards those who want to immerse themselves in their DVD collection, it’s ideal for gamers too.

Put a game on and Creative’s EAX Advanced HD effects kick in, giving – in theory – a fantastic 5.1 gaming experience.

The Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 is out now, priced at around £30.

Wiiware confirmed for May 20

Patrick Goss — 1210670580

Nintendo has confirmed that Wiiware is being launched in Europe on May 20, which should prompt a surge in creative software.

Wiiware ‘channels’ are games or applications developed for Nintendo’s Wii, and the Japanese company has long touted it as a route for developers with low budgets to get their wares onto the console.

"We are excited by the positive response we have received from third party developers to the announcement of WiiWare," says Laurent Fischer, Managing Director of Marketing & PR of Nintendo of Europe.

"We hope that this opportunity and the inspiration to produce original and exciting games will allow developers of all sizes to bring new concepts, genres and game play experiences to Wii.

"Opening this creative door will also provide Wii users access to a huge choice of games that they can easily download and enjoy."

The first WiiWare software will come from a mixture of major developers and smaller companies, with the following titles confirmed

· Dr. Mario & Germ Buster from Nintendo

· Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King from SQUARE ENIX

· Lost Winds from UK developer Frontier

· Pirates: The Key of Dreams from Dutch developer Oxygen Interactive Ltd

· Pop from Australian developer Nnooo

· Star Soldier R from Japanese developer HUDSON SOFT

· Toki Tori from Dutch developer Two Tribes B.V.

· TV Show King from French developer Gameloft

The games and applications will cost 500 Wii points, or between £3.50 and £4.00 depending on where you buy your points from and works on a very similar principle to Microsoft's popular Xbox Live Arcade.

Do violent games breed violent kids?

Tech Staff — 1210424040

A major study in the US has managed to find some sensible middle ground between the alarmists who claim that violent games automatically breed violent children and the see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil defenders of violent video games as nothing more than a bit of harmless fun.

Funded by the US government to the tune of $1.5 million, the study was conducted by Dr Lawrence Kutner and Dr Cheryl Olson – a prominent husband and wife team from Harvard University who are also the co-founders and directors of the Harvard Medical School Centre for Mental Health and Media.

Far from being yet another two-bob exercise in finding the right facts to suit the argument of a particular side and fill out some newspaper column inches, Kutner and Olsen’s study was undertaken over two years from a purely academic point of view.

Different approach

In contrast to nearly all previous studies, the two authors rejected the idea of concentrated empirical tests and instead decided to speak directly and at length to their research subjects – approximately 1200 of them – to question them about their attitudes towards games – both violent and non-violent.

The conclusions the pair reached were first published in July 2007 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, and have since appeared in a number of other academic publications.

Their findings are also about to be published in a parent-friendly book entitled Grand Theft Childhood: the Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games.

The aim of the book, according to its authors, is to steer the focus away from hysterical headlines and instead offer parents practical advice on how to identify and limit the risks violent games may – or indeed may not – pose to their children.

One size doesn't necessarily fit all

Significantly, the book avoids a one-size-fits-all approach to the subject and instead focuses on the ways that different children will react differently to the same violent material.

It’s this non-universal approach to the subject that’s perhaps most significant. The failure to recognise that not all children react in the same way has been all-too-familiar fault with the vast majority of studies into the effects of violent video games in the past.

Sitting on the fence?

However, the study’s findings don’t always sit quite so neatly on the fence. In fact, the study did reveal how there is a correlation (but not necessarily a connection) between violent video games and aggressive behaviour in boys and girls.

Specifically, Drs Kutner and Olsen found that 51 per cent of boys who played mature-rated games (for age 17+) had been in a fight in the past year, compared to 28 per cent of non-mature-rated game players.

In girls the contrast was even higher, with 40 per cent of girls who played 17+ games having been in a fight in the past year, compared to just 14 per cent for non-mature players.

In a recent interview with GameCouch, Drs Kutner and Olsen hinted that there was no simple, universal explanation to why this was:

“The causes of aggressive behaviour are extremely complicated; teasing out the specific contribution of video games is near impossible, especially since kids who are already aggressive seem to prefer violent games and movies,” they said.

“Instead, we focused on identifying markers of risk: patterns of game play that were associated with problem behaviours that parents … could spot,” they added.

Xbox 360s will move to smaller GPUs

Patrick Goss — 1210329000

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console will be getting smaller chips, with news breaking the popular games console will soon be using 65nm GPUs.

Revisions to the cooling and a smaller CPU have already helped later model consoles avoid the dreaded red ring of death, but the news the next revision of Xbox – code-named Jasper – will have a smaller graphics chip, replacing the current 90nm IBM designed chips, will be welcomed.

Smaller, cooler, more productive

According to Taiwan’s CENS, Microsoft have contracted Taiwanese companies Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) and Nanya PCB Corp.to make the GPUs.

The smaller chips will generate less heat, believed to be a major factor in early XBox’s dismal reliability record.

The Jasper versions of the console are expected to become available in August of this year, with another version, codenamed Valhalla, expected in 2008.

GTA IV officially the biggest media launch ever

Patrick Goss — 1210242212

It’s official; Grand Theft Auto IV is the biggest media launch of all time – topping the final Harry Potter book, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and overhauling nearest game rival Halo 3 by nearly $200 million.

The latest in the GTA series was always likely to be a massive smash, given the controversy and critical acclaim of its predecessors, but the launch week has seen a phenomenal 6 million games sold.

"Grand Theft Auto IV's first-week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date," Strauss Zelnick, chairman of publishers Take-Two, said in a statement.

The game is also likely to have boosted console sales across the globe as part of the halo effect that major games have on the market.

Grand Theft Auto’s worldwide first week total was in excess of $500 million – that’s £255 million – and it should help Take Two boost the price of its company as it attempts to increase a $2 billion takeover offer from EA.

Hirai talks about PlayStation future

Patrick Goss — 1210233952

Sony Computer Entertainment head Kaz Hirai has confirmed that the company is looking into disc-free network gaming for future generations, but insisted that the global infrastructure is not yet in place.

With the PlayStation 3 finally beginning to look like the gaming powerhouse its legacy suggested it would be, Hirai is keen to promote the current flagship PlayStation model.

Future tech

But Hirai is mindful of the future, and the oft-talked about gaming purely thorugh online and not needing a physical disc, something he believes is not currently possible with the disparity in network speeds across the world.

"It's something we would look at. We have had a lot of discussion internally about where the road map will take us," Hirai told the BBC.

"[With network gaming] we're also dependent on the network infrastructure available in all the territories we do business in.

"Some have faster broadband access than others. When you consider that content that plays on PlayStation 3 can go as high as 50GB it's going to be very difficult to deliver 50GB to consumers in some parts of the world in a timely fashion."

PlayStation 4

Hirai also talked about the likely timeline for the next incarnation of PlayStation but confessed to not knowing what it would be capable of.

"It's very difficult to say at this point in time," added Hirai.

"We need to take a look at advances in technology in various areas, such as semiconductors, graphics chips, output devices, mainly TV and monitors, to see where we would like to benchmark our next generation product."

EA Sports to dumb down games for Wii

Patrick Goss — 1210169389

EA Sports supremo Peter Moore has suggested that the company needs to make its games more accessible, in what many would consider an overt statement that titles for the Wii should be dumbed down.

Moore, speaking to Reuters, admitted the success of Wii Sports had left his wondering if EA Sports’ fare was too complex, and he confirmed that the ‘All Play’ range of games would be catering for ‘that crowd’.

"We can't be blind to the fact that different consumers are coming into games now and shame on us if we can't evolve and develop something for that crowd," Peter Moore, head of EA Sports, told Reuters.

"While we have no intention whatsoever of dumbing down the experience that we all love and that drives this multibillion dollar business... we need to make sports games more approachable.

Swimming lessons

"We learned some hard lessons [from Wii Sports]. That was the type of sports experience they were looking for and we saw that and decided we needed to redefine what our sports games were about," Moore added.

"It's like how swimming pools have a deep end and a shallow end. EA Sports has really only built a swimming pool with a deep end.

"It's intimidating for a lot of people to jump right in the deep end. With All-Play, we're building a shallow end," Moore added.

A word to the wise, if EA Sports want to cover Olympic Diving they may want to consider reopening the deep end.

Xbox 360 HD DVD drive for 9.99 euros

Patrick Goss — 1210066021

Fancy an HD disc drive to show off your new telly? If you have an Xbox 360, live in Ireland and don’t mind a redundant format you could pick up an HD DVD drive for just €9.99.

The death knell for HD DVD was sounded earlier in the year, and although Blu-ray has yet to truly win over the customers, in terms of spinning media it’s numero uno in the HD world.

Media Centre Remote

But if you want a fairly limited library of HD DVD films, an upscaling DVD drive and even more impressively a media centre remote for your Xbox you could do a lot worse than picking up the drive for less than £10.

Apparently Xtra-vision stores on the Emerald Isle are selling the drive at this bargain basement price – and if you use your Xbox for media it might well be worth investing just for the remote.

New wireless Xbox 360 skateboard controller

Adam Hartley — 1209727380

Microsoft is partnering with third party peripherals company Qmotions to produce a new range of wireless controllers for Xbox 360.

Fans of EA’s Skate or Activision’s Tony Hawks series of games in particular will be intrigued to know that Qmotions plans to launch a wireless skateboard controller for Xbox 360.

No news yet on other planned controllers. Qmotions currently produce a baseball bat, golf club and the 'Fun Fitness' exercise bike controllers

No word on pricing or UK availability yet.

TechRadar spoke with EA reps this morning, who were as intrigued by the news as we were. Expect to be hearing more on Qmotions wireless gaming controllers and, hopefully, more on EA’s follow up to last year’s superb Skate in the coming weeks.

Rumour: Pegatron making Blu-ray Xbox 360s

Adam Hartley — 1209724620

The rumours about the launch of a Blu-ray enabled Xbox 360 console rear their head again today, with a Chinese newspaper reporting that Pegatron – a Taiwan-based OEM partner of Asus – has taken orders from Microsoft to manufacture Xbox 360s with built-in Blu-ray Disc ROM drive.

Economic Daily News (Chinese) reports that Pegatron is expected to start shipping Blu-ray enabled Xbox 360s this autumn.

Both Microsoft and Asus’ UK offices swiftly served TechRadar with a ‘no comment’ this morning.

TechRadar has contacted Pegatron directly for comment, so stay tuned for more on this as and when we get it.