According to numerous frantic posts over at the Capcom BBS, there are quite a few very disappointed XBOX 360 owners stuck with Capcom games that were only tested on HDTVs. For whatever reason Capcom failed to test the game on standard definition television sets (like the ones some of us poor people are still stuck with) before releasing it for sale.

The result, for unfortunate SDTV owners, is a game that looks sub-par and presents completely unreadable in-game text. In a game that has no dialogue, like this one, players are stuck squinting, guessing or lip reading in order to follow the story of the game.

As you can see in the above screenshot, the text is completely illegible, making for some interesting gameplay to say the least. Some posts claim that non-HD TVs with widescreens are somewhat better at displaying the text, but most everyone seems to agree that without a true HD set you will not get the true next-gen experience that you paid for.

Jack Thompson is the one name that immediately brings to mind the public relations problems facing the gaming industry as a whole. Although most, if not all, of the negativity aimed at the industry comes from the uninitiated and ignorant, the too-cool-to-care attitude that many average Americans associate with the industry and gamers themselves does much to exacerbate the issue.

By failing to adamantly reject these stereotypes, gamers have been cast by society at large as slackers, stoners, anti-social geeks and all-around burdens to society prone to Columbine style killing sprees. At best, the world sees gamers as aloof, aimless, nerds that talk funny. 

A recent report in The New York Times touched briefly on the image of gaming. The article focused on how powerful forces behind the scenes are currently attempting to move, "beyond the boys in their bedrooms," to reach the mainstream masses. Unfortunately, the executives in charge of transforming the image of gaming are hardly the type of people that are capable of understanding and relating to "ordinary Americans."

At this year's Electronic Gaming Summit, an ultra-exclusive meeting of the most powerful 150 people in the industry, the topics discussed ranged from the death of E3 to methods for improving the image of the industry as it moves further into the mainstream. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of the EGS. This one is for the elite only.

It's a private (invitation only) event hosted by a marketing magnate at his vineyard in California to determine the fate of the industry, and it definitely is not meant for public consumption. In attendance were the heads of all of the major gaming companies, including: Peter Moore (Microsoft), Jack Trenton (Sony), and George Harrison (Nintendo).

Ziff Davis, head of the special interest media and publishing company that started the event, apparently believes that input from 150 rich, pampered executives is all that's necessary to lead the industry's charge to reach average Americans. We hope he's right, but the very fact that some of the top gaming executives on Earth believe that, "to run this business effectively there are really only 150 people that I need to deal with worldwide," points to a disconnection between industry insiders and the real world that will certainly hamper any image improvement efforts.

There are two new Call of Duty 3 high resolution PS3 shots and four new Xbox 360 shots total. While the new screens really only provide a glimpse at what must be a truly massive 3D world full of carnage, at this point that's about all we're going to get and we'll be happy with it! We have been watching this game progress with great expectations and we're hungry for news about the game.

Both sets of screens look impressive (basically indistinguishable from the best PC offerings), but we're not quite sure if the word next-gen would be the applicable label here. From our perspective, neither side is grossly deficient anywhere and these pictures are truly a testament to the power of both consoles. However, we're left wanting a bit more from both consoles somehow. Little details like the flat and dead looking grass in one of the PS3 shots detracted from the impressive details like the dirt that can be clearly seen on the soldier's uniform.

Size considerations make it impossible to put the shots up at full resolution so here are the resized screenshots:

PS3 (above)



PS3 (above)

Xbox 360 (above)

The Federal Trade Commission decided against imposing fines or taking other punitive actions against Take Two Interactive and Rockstar games after an exhaustive investigation into the "hot coffee" mod led to a settlement agreement between the FTC and Take Two instead of further charges.

The new agreement requires the two companies to "establish, implement and maintain a comprehensive system reasonably designed to ensure that all content in an electronic game is considered and reviewed in preparing submissions to a rating authority."

The agreement also states that Rockstar and Take Two must clearly disclose all pertinent ratings information about a game on the outside of the game's packaging. In the event that Rockstar or Take Two fails to meet the conditions they agreed to in the settlement with the FTC, they will be fined $11,000 per incident.

Maybe this situation has something to do with Rockstar Games' decision to release a ping- pong (or table tennis) game instead of yet another mega-popular violent shoot 'em up! All jokes aside, both sides seem to want to claim victory in the case and both sides seem ready to move on with their lives.

The ruling was followed by a 30 day period where politicians and the public alike voiced their disapproval about the agreement. Now that the debate is over and the settlement has been ratified, it is unlikely that Rockstar or Take Two will ever face any further prosecution over the hot coffee issue.

Computer pioneer and inventor Allan Kotok, has died of a heart attack at age 64 in his home in Cambridge Massachusetts. A native of Philadelphia, Kotok is an MIT alum and a W3C associate chairman.

Known for being "technically adept well beyond the norm," Kotok worked for a variety of high tech firms. While working at Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) Kotok designed a family of computers, did some consulting and went on to fulfill various leadership roles.

His background in creating the AI for chess computers was subsequently found to be indispensable in his capacity as a tech researcher and game inventor. Mr. Kotok's life was a catalyst for growth in the fledgling gaming and computing industries of his time, and he is someone all gamers should know about.

Credited with creating the first videogame, along with the joysticks used to play them, his role in the history of gaming and computing in general cannot be overstated. Who knows, without his contributions to the history of gaming, the gaming industry we see today could be drastically different.

Mr. Kotok is survived by two daughters, a son and two grandsons. Everyone who uses computers or enjoys gaming today should recognize Alan Kotok as an integral figure in the evolution of the videogame industry.

In a recent interview conducted by The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft founder, and soon to be ex-leader, admitted to enjoying a variety of videos that were put up on the web on sites like You Tube. These videos are commonly uploaded by people who do not own the copy rights to the video. Technically, this amounts to video piracy which is the bane of organizations like the RIAA and MPAA.

The following excerpt from the Interview shows that Gates, like many less famous accused video pirates, says he was not doing this maliciously.

Interviewer: You watch physics lectures and Harlem Globetrotters [on YouTube]?

Gates: This social-networking thing takes you to crazy places.

Interviewer: But those were stolen, correct?

Gates: Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner wasn't paid for. So yes.

I wonder if  Mr. Gates would come to the defense of some of the people that are currently being sued by the MPAA for pirating their intellectual property? We all recognize that piracy is wrong. However, the point is that it is not necessarily appropriate for large corporate-owned organizations like the MPAA to apply the amount of legal force that they do to individuals regardless of their intent and the damage or lack of damage caused by the situation.

With the MPAA and the RIAA routinely bringing lawsuits against teenagers and even twelve year-old kids, it has become obvious that some perspective, a little restraint and some common sense would go a long way toward bringing a level of fairness to the issue of copy protection.

The PGR 3 tournament that started on XBOX live in April has now come down to the finals which are being held in Bologna Italy. After weeks of rounds that eliminated the rest of the competition, the 12 best PGR 3 players in the World are going to face off in an all out battle to see who is really the best of all!

The competition will take place all this week and the results will be chronicled on the PGR 3 section of XBOX.com. Right now the final 12 players are in Italy touring the countryside and preparing themselves for the upcoming competition.

While the 12 competitors are currently being friendly to each other while cavorting around Bologna Italy before the tournament, you can be sure that once the competition starts, friendship and kindness will take a back seat to competitiveness and the ruthless, racing action will begin. The start of this competition will signal the start of an all out bid to prove who is the best PGR 3 racer of all.

During a segment filmed on Tech TV, Major Nelson detailed the latest changes to the Xbox 360 dashboard. The video allows gamers to see the new changes firsthand. Included in the changes are increased download efficiency and more options for downloading while doing other things. While the dashboard still looks the same, the changes go beyond the look of the dashboard and get into more substantive areas that should increase enjoyment by adding features that were not present before.


Download:[Xbox 360 Dashboard Update Video MP4 format]

ATI is a leader in the graphics processing unit market. Current generation games are largely designed to be used with either ATI graphics cards or NVidia cards. With the advent of dedicated physics processors and games that require more and more power from hardware, ATI has decided to step their game up.

Code named R600, ATI's upcoming GPU will support advanced new features including: unified shader architecture, unprecedented support for DirectX 9 applications and more "horsepower" than current chips, generally speaking. According to Richard Huddy, the head of ATI's software developers relations department, the new GPU will be the "fastest DirectX 9 chip that we have ever built."

The unified shader architecture used by ATI will provide world class performance even in existing applications, according to Mr. Huddy. the Xbox 360 utilizes an ATI chip (xenos graphics core) with unified shader architecture that has 48 shader processors. It loses 20 to 25% of its performance in pixel-shader limited games when the chip is configured as non-unified (16 processors work strictly on vertex shaders while 32 are assigned for pixel shaders).

It will be up to game developers to craft games that will best utilize the hardware they are being developed for. Games can be designed to work better with the 360's hardware setup, but when dealing with multiple platforms and a market that supports a variety of hardware designs, game developers are sometimes forced to chose between widespread compatibility and optimization for a specific system. Too much optimization can drive up prices and add an inordinate amount of time to the development process. This can cause problems, but the flexibility the configuration provides is a trade-off that ATI is aggressively pursuing.

NVidia, on the other hand, believes that the implementation of a unified shader architecture should be gradually and cautiously approached. ATI's R600 will certainly provide users with a GPU that will handle today's applications with ease and also give them a leg up on future releases as well. However, as game developers and GPU manufacturers move into the future, only time will tell which view of processor architecture will provide the best results for users in the long run.

How many times have you fought and struggled with the too tough to open product packaging that was audaciously keeping you from having access to your brand new gadget? Too many times for my taste would be my answer! When I recently purchased a 2GB memory stick pro duo, as many of you already know, the outer bubble was so tough to get into I nearly broke the actual memory stick while I was violently struggling to get it out of the package.

The stubborn plastic casing, that is designed to protect XBOX 360 faceplates from theft, has claimed yet another young victim (see photo left). The fact that the faceplate only costs about 20 bucks retail adds irony to the injuries that this particular gamer has suffered because of his decision to buy a new 360 faceplate. Retailers are the reason that manufacturers are continuing to make their packaging more and more impenetrable.

The retailers, fearing theft, are demanding more from manufacturers in the way of theft deterrent packaging and manufacturers are responding by creating more devious ways of keeping people out of their product packages. While the tone of this discussion has remained light and humorous, the fact is, many emergency rooms have been reporting major increases in hand injuries around gift giving season, and this is no joke! Consumers, doctors and retailers agree that this is becoming a problem, but they disagree about the solution. Many consumers would do away with the theft repelling packaging all together.

While retailers and manufacturers bristle at the thought of eliminating hardened packaging as an option. All it would take is one child bleeding to death because of this silliness and the debate would come to an immediate end. Lets hope it doesn't come to that. Unfortunately corporations commonly refuse to listen to consumer complaints and tend to only respond after some tragic event has forced their hand.