A Telltale games employee who goes by the username Yare has claimed on the official Telltale forums that the Apple iPhone packs more power than Nintendo’s Wii home console. Not just more powerful, but “much more powerful.”
We’ve heard a lot of comparisons between the iPhone and other current market handhelds since the former’s release so coming across another one isn’t really that surprising anymore. Comparisons to current-gen home consoles, on the other hand, aren’t as prevalent, I think.
The statement was made in a thread for complaints about the bad quality of Telltale’s WiiWare version of Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. Yare backed up his claims with the following explanation:
The extra RAM is really what makes the difference. Of the Wii’s 88 MB of RAM, a not insignificant chunk of that’s always being used by the OS and is unavailable to developers. The Wii’s RAM is also split into two separate banks, each of which has different read/write metrics and you can’t really spill from one to another if you need to.
As I said before, everything in personal science is about striking a balance between a small memory footprint, or having blistering fast algorithms. When you are limited in file size and memory footprint, you spend a lot of processing time decompressing things, deciding what needs to be loaded in memory at the moment, streaming things on/off the disk, and so on. If you’ve more memory, you can use cheaper (or no) compression, spend less time worrying about how much stuff can be loaded, hit the disk less frequently, memorize calculations, and other awesome stuff.
A little bit of RAM goes a huge way in letting you use faster algorithms. It’s more important than a faster processor, IMO.
Microsoft has been making some noise lately regarding an extended lifespan for the Xbox 360 console. One of the things they’re counting on is Project Natal. Another is software, the very thing Microsoft was built on.
The latter is also what Microsoft exec Shane Kim thinks will be one of the deciding factors for next gen, even more so than actual hardware. According to Kim, software and services like Xbox Live will be deciding factors for the “next generation.” Talking with Fast Company, Kim said:
In the past we would always get this question, “Hey, there’s a new console launch every five years and you’re coming up on that time for Xbox, right?” That’s the old treadmill way of thinking.
Before you had things that were very obvious, from a hardware standpoint — pushing more pixels, the move from 2-D to 3-D, 3-D to HD, etc. We got a very powerful piece of hardware in Xbox 360.
I’m confident that we have more headroom available, in terms of developers and creators figuring out how to get more out of the system. So I worry less about new hardware having to enable us to move to a different level of graphics. It’s much more about the experiences that you are going to deliver.
That’s why I think we’re very well-positioned, competitively speaking, because Microsoft is a software and services company.
When Limit Break posted a Mario Family Line about two weeks ago to enumerate every released title and spin-off in Mario’s history, veteran game journalist Jim Sterling commented, “I’d be really interested to see this guy do a chart for Mega Man as well… but that’s probably a project that could take a lifetime to complete.” For Destructoid community member megaStryke, it took just a week.
“I took it upon myself to do for Mega Man what Agamemnon of Limit Break did for Mario,” he said. “It was hard. It was time-consuming. Why didn’t I just drop the whole thing? I have too much free time.” I remember trying to do so back when I posted on the PSN release of Mega Man One, but I had no such time on my hands. Lucky for us, megaStryke does.
To the best of megaStryke’s knowledge, the chart features every title and spin-off on each platform, and even LCD games, ever released by Capcom. The image is HUGE, so if you want to see in in all its Mega-glory, you can hit the source link below.
“EA launched the game in 2008 and is working on the second and third installments.” This is the line from Variety’s piece on the Dead Space film that got tongues wagging as to whether or not Electronic Arts is indeed concurrently developing parts 2 and 3.
The article was centered on the sci-fi/horror film adaptation of the video game, confirmed to be directed by D.J. Caruso of Eagle Eye fame. According to the report, the production is now in the process of selecting from among prospective screenwriters, after which they will auction the property to studios for backing. If all goes well according plan, the film may be off pitching and scouting for a publisher by September.
But let’s go back to that intriguing line above. Is EA doing installments 2 and 3? At the Comic-Con, the most that the Dead Space team would allow themselves to admit is that a Dead Space 2 reveal isn’t necessarily a long shot. But still:
The only Dead Space game announced and in development at this time is Dead Space: Extraction.
They do like that “for now” spiel quite a bit as of late, don’t you think. That’s also what they stated when asked if Extractionwas to remain a Wii exclusive.
So the question remains, and it looks care about it will stay that way, at least until EA decides the time is ripe to announce more Dead Space titles. For now, folks can keep speculating, and the film production team can continue on with the flick’s development.
A new update for BootMii Configuration Editor is now available for download. Homebrew coder Pembo has released version 2.2 of BootMii Configuration Editor, a homebrew utility for the Nintendo Wii that grants you to change the values in the /bootmii/bootmii.ini file without the hassle of taking out your SD card and editing it on your Computer. Notable features on the latest release include more language support, additional skins and some more tweaks.
Version 2.2 changelog:
Additional Languages, Dutch, Finnish and German. Thank you to the following people for providing new translations
Dutch/Nederlands MarioWaza
Finnish/Suomi JaniN
German/Deutsch Helsionium
Addition of 2 new skins, Monochrome and Green Screen.
Correction of the update version checking.
Resolved pointer corruption issue that resulted in sporadic crashes.
Separation of XML Files into 3 different files to make it easier to add new languages/skins
If you wrote a letter to Santa that you want a Ubisoft game for Christmas, then even jolly ol’ Saint Nick won’t be able to help you. Unfortunately for us, Santa’s little helpers don’t know crap about game development. Ubisoft has announced that four of their titles won’t be making their scheduled margins, so maybe you’ll have more spending money in the holidays.
New release margins:
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Between January 1 and March 31, 2010
Red Steel 2 - Same with Splinter Cell: Conviction
I’m Alive - Between April 1, 2010 and March 31, 2011
Ghost Recon - Same with I am Alive
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot explained the delays through this statement:
We are disappointed that we’ve to postpone the release of several major games but we think about that this choice is the best one in the long-term interests of Ubisoft.
We already got the Conviction and Red Steel delays from a previous post, and it certainly looks like we won’t be getting our hands on Ubi-goodness anytime soon. But if the titles aren’t fit for release, superior a longer wait than get some crapfest tomorrow morning over breakfast, yes?
Earlier this day, Konami and Kojima productions revealed the games that they’ll be taking to GamesCom. Apart from showing off what these games have to offer, the publishers also promise special presentations of the games, and maybe they’ll be sitting down for interviews as well.
Coming to GamesCom will be:
Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Konami will also feature Bernani music games, as well as Castlevania: Lords of Shadow from Mercury Steam. GamesCom will be held in Cologne between August 19th and the 23rd of August.
The Nintendo news has really quited down as of late, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting squat from us this week. No way. This week’s edition of the Nintendo Weekend Warrior is very much alive and kicking, and it’s packed with release info for some of the best titles out there coming to Wii and DS. Homebrew master Tantric also updated two of his emulators, so that ought to be a good update as well. Catch all that and more in this week’s Wii and DS Weekend Warrior.
Games
Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth gets North American release. Link
FPS-RPG for DS Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey revealed in Famitsu. Link
Arcade racer Need for Speed: Nitro gets Us, UK launch dates. Link
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up developer diary. Link
Virtual Console to get Final Fantasy IV in August. Link
Put two more titles on your 2010 calendar. Ubisoft has confirmed that Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360, Computer) and Red Steel 2 have both been delayed to the March 2010 quarter. Why? Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot states it’s to add further polish to both games.
Speaking to Joystiq, Guillemot said:
The changes on Splinter Cell and Red Steel — it’s just a question of polish. The team was asking that they couldn’t be with the level of quality on all the maps and all the game for the end of the year, so they’d asked for more time to be able to come with a better product, for both of those games.
Guillemot also mentioned that while some parts of both games — specifically those shown during E3 2009 — are already at a high enough quality, the same can’t be said for the full final products. Good on him for being candid about it, but with all these delays, the early half of next year is starting to look a little crowded.
