Posts Tagged ‘gaming’
Female Gamers Grew In Last Year
No, we’re not saying you’ve gained weight. Really. We just mean there’s more of you. No, not like that. Really you look great we promise. All we’re saying is that the sheer number of female gamers has increased over the last twelve months. It’s not really us saying it either, this information comes from an NPD survey. The percentage of female console players went up from twenty-three to twenty-eight percent, mainly due to the Wii whose use increased by nineteen percent.
The handheld market rose as well with the “heavy usage” category rising by four percent amongst females, which can likely be blamed on the Nintendo DS. The ‘extreme gamers’ (those who play 39 hours or more per week) rise by a whopping four percent. Before all the ‘hardcore’ gamers out there start chiming in about how the Wii and DS are toys, let me remind you how much easier life would be for a gamer if you had a girlfriend/wife who understood your hobby and maybe even encouraged it?
Moore Challenges Obama To Try EA Sports Active
For many gamers Obama’s comment at a speech he gave to the American Medical Assoiciation came as a shot across the bow. He urged parents to ‘raise {their} children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside’. Many gamers mistook this as an attack against our beloved hobby instead of the simple call to abandon the sedentary lifestyle that is so widespread in the USA.
While the thousands upon thousands of forum comments go relatively unnoticed except by those forumgoers, an industry bigwig has sent forth an answering salvo. Peter Moore, president of EA sports has tongue-in-cheekly suggested that if Obama gave EA Sports Active a try, he’d be revising his opinion of how health-friendly video games can be: “Try EA Sports Active and I guarantee you’ll need aides saying “Yes you can” to finish your first workout,” said Moore in his blog. While it’d make an incredibly amusing press event to see Moore and Obama square off to see who could outlast the other in a Wii competition I’m guessing the president has more important things to do with his time.
Casual Gaming CEO Says iPhone “Freaking Out” Sony and Nintendo
A few years ago the trash talking and constant speculation about whose gaming system was superior was limited to consoles. The Nintendo DS and PSP had for the most part kept to their own audiences, releasing games and brightening the commutes/lines of gamers everywhere. Recently a self proclaimed competitor has arrived and has ushered in a whole new wave of inflammatory statements.
If you hadn’t guessed I’m talking about the iPhone (and iPod Touch). Since Apple launched the device and its App store they’ve been saying that the handheld will eventually push both Sony and Nintendo out of the portable gaming market. Now another company is jumping in on Apple’s side. Digital Chocolate’s CEO Trip Hawkins has said that the iPhone is more than capable of challenging the DS and PSP and says that he thinks the unit is “freaking out” Sony and Nintendo since it has “ only penetrated one half of one percent of its total market.” However with some simple calculations given the 30 million iPhones sold he’s including the more than six billion people on the planet as possible iPhone buyers.
Unfortunately as with everyone proclaiming the iPhone as the doom of all other handhelds, he’s neglecting the fact that the lack of buttons limits the number of possible control schemes, thus limiting the possible range of games. The games offered on the Apple App store are just too simple to hold the attention of serious gamers for long. We thirst for strategy, complexity and storylines, not another block breaker game.
Molyneux Says Gaming To Produce Greatest Story Ever
People always like discussing the best of something; the best band, best album, best restaurant, etc. Unfortunately people rarely agree, mostly because the word “greatest” is so unspecific. Does greatest mean the most profitable? The most critically acclaimed? The most popular? Books and films are especially controversial media to try and pin a gold medal on, since there are so many stories told in these media.
While it’s possible to narrow the list down to probably a few hundred or so contenders for the title, it’d be impossible for anyone to get people to agree with stories like The Godfather, Hamlet, Lord of the Rings, Citizen Kane and vast numbers of tales out there. One man however is sure that in time a single story will surpass them all and he knows where it will come from.
Shock of shocks, this bold statement is coming from the eternally timid and never boastful Peter Molyneux: “The greatest story ever told? I think it’s going to be in a computer game,” he said. “And I think that if I play the greatest story ever told in the same game as you play it, your greatest story is going to be different to my greatest story, and that is power.” Of course he hopes that his studio will be the ones to do this, saying that creating this story is “definitely something Lionhead Studios wants to do.”
Study Says Gamers “Likely” Substance Users
One of the general problems with a large body of psychological research is that it’s conducted on college campuses with most of the subjects being college students. A study has been conducted in the glorious state of Utah that claims to show that gamers are more likely to use controlled substances and make negative decisions.
When they surveyed 800 students they found that students who played video games regularly were 10% more likely to drink or take drugs then their non-gaming friends. Those who play daily were three times more likely to smoke pot, stop talking to friends and family or have low self-esteem.
Unfortunately for these researchers, college kids have been drinking since before video games were anything but a bar room novelty. Films like Animal House and television shows are much more to blame for the prevalence of teenage drinking and drug use than all the video games rolled into one. Conducting a study on how a generally irresponsible group with vast amounts of free time amuse themselves sounds like a bad idea, especially when you throw in the fact that BYU is a religious school.
Logitech Peripherals Will Support Any Game You Decide to Play
Logitech has always supported serious PC gaming. During the years hardcore gamers have chosen its mice and keyboards, its headsets and so much more. And after the G13 gameboard filled with buttons, Logitech has created various new peripherals which will support any game you decide to play.
First of all we have the new G19 keyboard which features a 320 x 240 color LCD and 12 G-keys which can have up to three macros assigned to each. The G19 will cost $199.
You might want to bundle that with the $129 G35 which is a 7.1 surround-sound headset with integrated voice morphing options. And last but not least we have the G9 mouse or the G9x which will get you a maximum DPI of 5000. The G9x will cost $99 and it will arrive in April following the G35 and G19 which will be launched this March.
Concept Laptop Comes With Extra OLED Screens
If you use your laptop as your primary gaming platform, then you will probably want a laptop like the concept in the picture here. It comes with extra OLED screens which are collapsible. You’re surely going to have a better picture of everything that moves around in the newest first person shooter you’re playing.
Called the Prime Gaming Laptop, the notebook has a 10 inch OLED main screen with 16:10 aspect ratio. Add to that a pair of Aux OLED wing panels with 8:10 aspect ratio for an extra wide, 32:10 aspect ratio 26 inch screen. Besides the extra screens the laptop features an aluminum body and large vents which will improve thermal conductivity.
The Prime is still a concept so we don’t have any arrival dates or pricing yet.
via oled-display
iControlPad Ready for Production
Have you discovered the gaming potential of the iPhone or the iPod touch? Both devices can be used for playing quite a few games on the go, but what they both lack is the actual physical inputs very much needed to turn any device into a gaming platform. The iControlPad is a case with buttons on it. You know, exactly the inputs we require to play games on the iPhone. The pictures shows the final prototype which was sent to production. There are no news about the actual price and the availability date, but by the time the control pad is finalized, Apple will offer full support for it. We’ll keep you posted!
via ubergizmo
NVIDIA 1.5GB Quadro FX 4800 to Power Up Future Gaming Machines?
What graphics card do you currently posses? Do you use it much for playing games or you’re just a console gamer?
Well this NVIDIA 1.5GB Quadro FX 4800 card might make you think twice about switching to playing games on your computer. Sure you might want to choose the 5800 high-end version which costs only $3,499. For those of us on a budget there’s always the 4800 which is the cheaper solution at half the 5800’s cost. The 4800 has a GT200 graphics processor with 1.5GB of memory will handle perfectly the work load on that workstation of yours. But unfortunately it might not be the designated card for your PC gaming.
And if you are looking for a graphics card of any sort make sure you check ATI’s offers. They could get you the same performance for the cheaper price.
SteelSeries World of Warcraft MMO Mouse Doesn’t Have Support for Mac
If you happen to play World of Warcraft on a Mac and you’d also like to get one of those SteelSeries MMO gaming mice then you will need to wait to actually use it. You can either switch to Windows or wait for Mac drivers to arrive.
Yes, that’s right, the SteelSeries new mouse doesn’t have Mac drivers which means you won’t be able to customize all the 15 buttons it has to offer. Mac drivers are said to be on the way but who knows how long that way actually is. In the mean time Mac users will have to level up without being able to map their favorite spells on that new gaming mouse.
SteelSeries Announces 7G Professional Gaming Keyboard
The 7G keyboard allows users to create advanced key combinations and utilizes a powerful PS/2 buffer to support as many simultaneous key press commands as there are keys on the keyboard, with a switch lifetime of up to 50 million operations. Combining this with the 18k gold-plated mechanical switches, you get an ultra-durable gaming keyboard with more actions-per-minute than any other keyboard available, perfect for long gaming sessions.
Other interesting features are two USB ports and audio ports for your headset and microphone.
The 7G keyboard is available now at $149.99