| The Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) plays crystal clear movies as well as games - is it an iPod killer? | | Date Created: Jun 24, 2005, 10:00 AM |
 September 1 2005 is the launch date in Australia for the Au$399 Sony Playstation Portable. The crucial issue for the PSP's success is how people will use it - and the details are critical. The PSP plays movies as well as games and has wi-fi connectivity. Will that feature mix rescue it from becoming merely another quickly discarded electronic fad gadget? Will those features instead make the PSP a revolutionary instrument of change for the Australian digital lifestyle? In this interview, Sydney Sony PSP expert, Adrian Christie, digs the device detail, covering the following in depth:
* PSP movie play is super crisp - Sony expects Australians to watch the TV shows and home videos they export from their cameras and digital video recorders while they commute to work, grocery shop and exercise. But how easily does the PSP storage device (a Sony Memory stick) mount on your PC desktop? What kind of video formats does it support? How easily can video be converted (encoded) into Sony's proprietary MPEG4 format? What programs do that job? What are the characteristics of the read-only optical storage disk (the UMD) that Sony will publish feature films on and make available for purchase and at video rental shops? Will it be region-encoded like DVDs? Will its MPEG4 be retrievable to your hard disk from the PSP? Will the battery last long enough for a feature film playback?
* the PSP can play MP3 audio - is it an iPod killer? is there in-built copy protection and if so, what kind? How does playback with a PSP compare to, say, a Photo iPod?
* the PSP has wi-fi - what is required to connect the PSP to the Net, for example, at a Telstra hotspot at a Starbucks or McDonalds? Is it easy to connect other gamers via an ad hoc TCP/IP network? how many players can connect at once? When will the PSP Web browser be released? How does the PSP allow Internet-connected users to reach back from a wi-fi hotspot across the Internet to the PCs behind the firewall on their domestic LAN back at home - Timbuktu-style - and retrieve music and pictures onto their PSP to show their friends at a hotspot? What business opportunities will this create for developers?
* what are the launch details? which PSP game titles will Sony Australia offer Australian gamesters at launch? What accessories will be available in Australia? Will these include the kind of accessories that were on display at the Los Angeles E3 tradeshow - such as a plugin Global Satellite Positioning module that turns the PSP into a portable 3D fly through map of Australia's capital cities? What promotions and competitions will tie all this together?
Quicktime for Mac users here
Flash Video for Windows PC users here
Sony Playstation Portable version can be right-click downloaded here
3GP for video-capable cellphones can be right-click downloaded from here.
Microsoft Windows Media can be right click downloaded from here.
Note for OSX Safari users: Browsers such as Internet Explorer and FireFox work fine for a right click download for the PSP and 3GP files above. But if you are using Safari, do not right click, but instead, press the option key as you click on the filename and, after downloading, change the filename to end in .3gp or .mp4 respectively.
Note for PSP users: after downloading the special .mp4 PSP version above, change the video's file name to the Sony PSP naming convention that is compatible with other file names you may already have on your PSP to avoid conflicts and ensure that the video shows up in the PSP video directory.
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| Global computer game authority, Prof Katie Salen from the Parsons School of Design, NYC, talks about the world's best multi-player interactions | | Date Created: Jun 21, 2005, 08:35 PM |
 Professor Katie Salen's students in Manhattan at Parsons conduct the world's most fascinating computer game design projects. In this interview, she talks at the X|Media Lab in Singapore about the bridges between the film, mobile and game industries.
At the X|Media Lab she talked about how the Microsoft XBox Halo game engine is being used for film storytellers at places such as redvsblue.com, how Voldo (pictured right) from the Sega Dreamcaster is now pressed into service in a rap dancing duo animation, and how the "Holy Moment" of a game experience (realised quite literally by cinematographers such as Richard Linklater) can be designed to create a truly immersive game experience.
In this interview, she describes how people must feel they have a role to play in the media they are playing. She explores how, when they do, what they create can be used, in turn, to create further content for the game. How you create a strong singular experience for a player, which also takes advantage of the benefits that flow from well crafted multi-player gaming, is now the focus of attention for both flippant and "serious" games (those about politics, the environment and education).
Katie describes the world's most intriguing "haptic" interfaces (that turn the player's body into the interface for the game) and explores how these might point a way to the future, not only for better mass market games, but also for players with disabilities.
Katie talks about her favorite Asian-based games, as well as reviewing the state of the art in the United States. And she looks at how people connect with other people through mobile devices.
Finally, Katie reviews the games that may truly change the world. For example, new game called "Spore" is based on a kind of "procedural" generation of content, that gets shared "peer to peer" and where much of the game's design rests on the shoulders of the players....
Quicktime for Mac users here
Flash Video for Windows PC users here
Sony Playstation Portable version can be right-click downloaded here
3GP for video-capable cellphones can be right-click downloaded from here.
Microsoft Windows Media can be right click downloaded from here.
Note for OSX Safari users: Browsers such as Internet Explorer and FireFox work fine for a right click download for the PSP and 3GP files above. But if you are using Safari, do not right click, but instead, press the option key as you click on the filename and, after downloading, change the filename to end in .3gp or .mp4 respectively.
Note for PSP users: after downloading the special .mp4 PSP version above, change the video's file name to the Sony PSP naming convention that is compatible with other file names you may already have on your PSP to avoid conflicts and ensure that the video shows up in the PSP video directory.
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| Games: the Australian industry, new releases and the ACMI State of Play exhibition | | Date Created: 08 Jun, 2005, 02:57 PM |
 The latest games and E3: Matt Griffiths from the EB Games retail chain discusses the big new trends in games, mentioning titles such as Jade City and First To Fight. Topics include Matt's wrap up of E3 (the major annual game tradeshow in Los Angeles), game censorship, virtual reality, the Sony PSP, broadband game tournaments and home theatre.
Quicktime version of Matt Griffiths for Macs
Flash Video version of Matt Griffiths for PCs
Right click to download Playstation Portable version of Matt Griffiths for Sony PSP
Anyone interested in computer games should be sure to also look at the interview with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image's Helen Stuckey, who talks about ACMI's big game exhibition, State of Play (at ACMI until June), and with Evelyn Richardson, from the Game Developers' Association of Australia, who accompanied about 150 Australian game development companies to the world's largest annual game tradeshow, E3, in Los Angeles this year.
Quicktime of Helen Stuckey for Mac
Flash Video of Helen Stuckey for Windows PCs
Quicktime of Evelyn Richardson for Mac
Flash Video of Evelyn Richardson for Windows PCs
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| Articles in Games (Total Entries: 10) | | | | | | | | | | |
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