Cat vs World of Warcraft

I’ve spent the day pouring my rage on Sony via the wonderful medium that is the internet. Now, tired and drained (I’ve got flu), this was exactly what I needed. It’s cute as fuck and just makes you want to go ‘Awwww!’.

The Great PS3 Back Compatibility Farce Continues

There are some events and products in the computer and gaming world which echo though the ages as being utter folly: Nintendo’s Virtual Boy, the Sega 32X, Duke Nukem Forever.

I am not prepared to say that the PlayStation 3 is at the same stage as these joke products yet, but it’s back compatibility features certainly are. Hence why I’ve officially upgraded (or possibly downgraded who can tell when your dealing with a scale based on sheer absurdity) the whole sorry situation to the status of farce.

Not content with the top selling PS1 and 2 games being rife with ‘issues’ of various varieties, a Sony Europe executive has come out with the following:

We will test all forthcoming PS2 titles, but it would be unrealistic to expect significant increases in the number of playable PS2 titles in future firmware upgrades given the above. Whilst J&D and MGS are not listed as playable, their successors MGS3 and Jak and Daxter 2 are playable.

Yes, that’s right. He thinks it’s ok that you can’t play Metal Gear Solid, because you can play MGS3 instead. While MGS3 may well be a much better game then MGS2, I’m sure it’s little comfort to those who were looking forward to catching up with the PlayStation back catalogue once the PS3 came out. Not to mention the people who already own the games and want to upgrade their PS2s.
There is also the rather strange comment about not expecting significant increases to the list, which contrasts comments made to the BBC.

I will be quite annoyed if there aren’t significant improvements and additions made to the list. Sony have had a pretty bad time with the PS3 of late and allowing people to play more of their old games on it would be a very positive step for the beleaguered company.

Anyway, we will see how this whole situations turns out on Friday when the system actually launches in Europe. Lets just hope that like theatrical farces, this one has a happy ending for all involved.

[Via Kotaku]

PS. Kudos to anyone who can tell me the reason that that particular screen capture of the Cat from Red Dwarf is relevent to backwards compatibility.

Xbox 360 – Back In Black!

The rumours about the mythical black Xbox 360 (well, not that mythical, the system dev kits feature a black paint job) have been flying around for months now and they sort of came to a head yesterday.

Now all round tech site Engadget have managed to get confirmation of the rumours from ‘trusted sources’. Since they aren’t naming names here, it’s worth taking with a pinch of salt, but Microsoft have been suspiciously silent over the whole issue.

According to Engadget, the black Xbox has been dubbed the Xbox 360 Elite and will be coming out this year. It should run at a lower temperature then current models and have a 120GB hard-disk (which will also be available separately) and HDMI output. What it won’t have is integrated wifi or HD-DVD drive.
Pricing for the US sets it at $479, as compared to the $400 Premium system.

That’s a hell of a lot to pay for a slightly better quality system that’s been painted black and had an HDMI input stuck on, but the good news is that in the near future a white version of the Elite will replace the Premium package. That’s not much consolation for early adopters, but there is always the option to trade in your old system for an upgrade.

No news about a European launch yet, but it may well be coupled with a full video marketplace rollout for the EU. You know, so we actually have enough stuff to put on a 120GB hard-disk.

PS. What a great excuse to use a legendary piece of album artwork *grin*

PlayStation 3 Back Compatibility List Released

Preceding the PAL launch of the PS3 on the 23rd, Sony are updating the PS3’s firmware to version 1.60, which will also enable the backwards compatibility software in systems which do not feature the Emotion Engine processor. Which means that the full list of completable games has finally been released by Sony. You can find it in English here, while the pages for the rest of Europe can be found here.

While it appears that Sony have managed to give us the 1000 PS2 games promised by Phil Harrison, there are some notable absences:

• Final Fantasy VII is not supported at all.
• Final Fantasy V and VIII – XII are all supported, but play with either ‘minor issues’ or ‘noticeable issues’. Final Fantasy XII was launched in Europe less then a month ago.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Vice City Stories both have ‘noticeable issues’.
• Some imprints of Metal Gear Solid and MGS3 have ‘noticeable issues’. MSG2 does not appear to be supported.

That’s from me spending five minutes with Wikipedia’s list of best selling PlayStation games and the back compatibility chart.

So, there are noticeable issues with two of the PlayStation 2’s best selling games while a third is missing altogether along with the best selling Final Fantasy game. It is a bit disappointing, but to Sony’s credit, they could have dropped back compatibility altogether.

With any luck, the back compatibility list will be updated to include some of the missing titles in future and fix the numerous ‘noticeable issues’. Until then, we’re just going to have to live with it and remember that even with the Emotion Engine hardware, our Japanese and America compatriots have also had ‘noticiable issues‘.

I will keeping an eye on Digg and the various PS dedicated websites on Friday, because I’m eager to find out what games and imprints have been missed off the back compatibility list, as well as finding out just how noticeable these noticeable issues are. Expect updates on the day.

[via ThreeSpeech]

The Death of PC Gaming?

It’s not very often that I refer people to AltNation from the MachNerd, but one of the forum’s other users has posted a very interesting article about PC gaming and why he’s no longer perpared to pay the premiums required to maintain a gaming level PC. There’s also some pretty good discussion going on in the attached thread, so if you want to make a contribution, then I’d encourage you to sign up. Click the link below to read the article.
read more | digg story