Gaming Technology Blog

You might not have noticed for all the hype over GTA4′s monster release, but Funcom’s Age of Conan massively multiplayer online RPG (MMORPG) has been quite the blockbuster as well, passing the 400,000 unit mark in just a few days. That ranks it among the best-selling PC games of all time. And the critics seem [...]

The Nintendo Wii, Microsoft’s XBox 360, and the Sony Playstation 3 all contain too much bromine, according to environmental watchdog group Greenpeace. Bromide is classified by Greenpeace as a chemical that’s hazardous to the environment,and the PS3 had the highest levels of it. The XBox and PS3 also had beryllium-containing alloys, which Greenpeace found worrisome. [...]

A far as Microsoft is concerned, the video game retailer GameStop has put a stop to the Zune game. Gamestop says it decided to cease Zune sales because it wasn’t a gaming gadget. It has been selling Zune, however since 2006, when the gadget first launched. Gates and co., though, have thus far shrugged the [...]

Okay, good news-bad news: the good news is, NASA wants to make an massive multiplayer online (MMO) game that will help players learn more about the sci-tech side of NASA. The bad news? NASA doesn’t want to pay fot it. No, they want the prospective game developer to fund the project by itself. So who’s [...]

Carnegie Melon University researchers hope that gamers visiting their new website, www.gwap.com, can help make computers smarter. How? By playing online games. For example, in the game “Tag a tune”, humans add tags to describe whether audio clips are “sad”, and so on. This helps computers learn to do stuff better, like image and audio [...]

Is Microsoft developing a motion-sensitive controller similar to Nintendo’s Wiimote? The project, supposedly codenamed “Newton”, has been making the rounds but Microsoft Game Studios head Shane Kim sort of put down the rumors, though he stopped short of a full denial. Meanwhile, Yu Suzuki’s masterly Shenmue series is supposed to be up for a Nintendo [...]

Recently rumors have been flying about a planned “slimmed-down” version of the Microsoft XBox 360 gaming console. The sleeker model was supposed to have been in line for a 2009 release. But a Microsoft representative quashed the rumor by telling tech blog Engadget the whole thing was a hoax. Unless, of course, the rep was [...]

Japan’s $6.9 billion arcade gaming isustry has been hit hard by the increasing popularity of TV gaming consoles, particularly the Nintendo Wii, according to reports. Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. plans to close a quarter of its outlets, while rival Namco Bandai Holdings has announced that it will shut down roughly 20 percent of its arcades [...]

Nintendo is making eight arcade style games available for its Wii gaming console on May 20… and they can be had via internet download! The following games can be purchased online using Wii points, which can be purchased using a credit card at stores found at the average High Street: Final Fantasy Chrystal Chronicles: My [...]

PMOG stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game. You play it by… not playing? You join, you browse the internet doing everything you usually do (or not), and your online actions are translated into in-game events like level-ups, missions and apparently even some kind of PvP melee combat. It certainly brings new meaning to the term [...]

Professor Jonathan Zittrain of the Oxford Internet Institute has published a book entitled “The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It”. In it he says the latest must-have gadgets like the XBox 360 b and iPhone stifle creativity and turn their owners into passive users of technology. Increasingly tighter controls on production of [...]

Pictured above is a possible before-and-after shot of Kid Icarus, if the rumors pan out. It seems the game’s possible developer, Factor 5, will be pitching a Nintendo Wii remake of the classic NES platform game. That would be mind-blowing–especially considering Kid Icarus has been around longer than many gamers! NES fans will certainly feel [...]

The website Seattle P.I. lists twelve reasons why Grand Theft Auto 4 is better on the Microsoft XBox than on the Sony Playstation 3: 1. Better Native Resolution : Xbox 360′s 720p beats the pants off the PS3′s “640p”. 2. The ANA chip : built-in, hardware-based scaling of images on the XBox vs. software-based scaling [...]

Looking to get your free online gaming on but don’t know where to start? Don’t have time to wade through the spammy, keyword-infested search results on your search engine? Try this free online tool that helps you find free online games with no fuss and no pain. A handy tag cloud clues you in on [...]

Antivirus company Sophos has posted an alert on its website about a trojan/virus program designed specifically to steal information pertaining to the victim’s online gaming. Hacked accounts and stolen passwords are a big enough problem already, and now it seems identity thieves are becoming increasingly savvy about how they do it. Make sure you’re protected; [...]

Reports from Taiwan suggest that an ASUS subsidiary there is in the process of developing a version of Microsoft’s XBox 360 gaming console that supports Blu-ray discs. There’s been news before of Lite-On making a stand-alone Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, but this is the first news to go in the direction of built-in [...]

A factory fire in South Korea last month caused enough damage to affect the global supply of lithium-ion batteries, and analysts are predicting a lithium-ion battery shortage that could last at least three months. Thankfully, large companies with multiple suppliers won’t feel the pinch, but if you do your gaming on low-cost machines like the [...]

It seems Grad Theft Auto 4 is giving back to the community that made its success possible: the video game console industry. Manufacturers of the Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft xBox 360, the two platforms for which the game is available, have reported an increase in console sales. This increase has be traced directly to [...]

Not many gamers are aware just how much they owe this man, Ken Kutaragi. “Father of Playstation” as he is also known in Japan, Kutaragi was responsible for bringing cd-rom-based gaming to the world, changing the face of the gaming industry and leading Sony to the top of the gaming industry. But all that changed [...]

  Microsoft has announced price reductions for its XBox 360 gaming consoles in four Asian regions by as much as 20 percent. Consumers in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore can expect the lowered prices to take effect this week. A similar price cut was implemented in Europe last month, with price tags going [...]