Now, you can’t really get on Bungie’s case about this as ODST is essentially just an add-on for Halo 3 which means it’s running on the exact same engine. But for those of you who think the improved graphics of the ODST mean enhanced technology, think again.

Bungie elaborates on the subject:

“Everything that existed in Halo 3’s engine was there from the beginning. So the graphical differences that you’re seeing in ODST is really testament to the artists, because they were able to just take the tools that we had from the beginning, and just make awesome looking stuff.”

Halo 3: ODST will hit store shelves exclusivly for the Xbox 360 on September 22nd, 2009.

Read (GamesWire)

Have you ever been looking at advertisements and gawked at their poor quality, wishing they would be portrayed in HD? No? Me neither. But for those of you who have your days of gawking are numbered.

Microsoft advertising exec Sean Alexander was recently caught speaking about Microsoft’s Flash alternative, Silverlight, and it’s amazing features. Of course, he took the time to tell everyone that Silverlight will give advertisers to ability to display full HD ads pretty much anywhere they want, including Xbox Live.

Now, the feature won’t be added to the Xbox 360 for some time now with Joystiq predicting it will be included with the next major Dashboard update reportedly hitting this fall.

For the people who have heard of the coming of Overlord 2, you can mark your calendars now. Codemasters is bringing back hoardes of minions with the release of Overlord II on June 23 in North American for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, a date much sooner than anyone had anticipated.

Overlord II wraps itself around a brand new story, more combat options and a whole new breed of minions out to capture blood and laughs. No word on an improved camera which plagued the original, but an on-screen map has been added as detailed in one of the new screens below.

(Source) The HD Room

There is a new game console set to hit the market and it goes by the name of EVO Smart Console. The EVO Smart Console will be powered by an AMD Athlon 2.4GHz processor, and will be accompanied by a Fedora-based Linux distro. The open-source console will give you game play, Internet access, VoIP communications and HD video playback all in one box.

It should work with Envizions “cloud” computing service, where users can pick up Amiga-based games and a video on demand service where you can choose from over 10,000 titles. The beta shipment for developers will begins next week with approximately 100 units. More systems will be released later.

Specs:

• AMD Athlon 64×2 5600 2.4GHz processor
• ATI HD 3200 graphics processor
• 2GB DDR2 RAM
• Supports H.264 VC1
• MPEG2 video codecs
• DVI and HDMI connectivity
• 120GB hard drive
• CD/DVD ROM
• Integrated biometric scanner

You can pre-order the EVO Smart console for $380.

(Source) Linuxdevices via Slippery Brick

Bach explained that first and foremost there is very little demand for a Blu-ray player: “when you ask people the list of things they want to see us spending time creating in Xbox, Blu-ray is way, way down on the list.” He also points out that a Blu-ray drive would be of no use for developers. Even though a Blu-ray disc would greatly expand the storage capacity that Xbox games have, allowing for higher quality visuals, more intricate textures and more content in general, it would severely limit the number of people purchasing these games.

There are twenty-eight million Xboxes that have already been purchased or shipped, none of which currently have the capacity to utilized Blu-ray technology. Even if Microsoft did release an external drive, there would be no guarantee that people would purchase it, and developers would be hesitant to create Blu-ray Xbox games.

While Microsoft might be sticking to their new ‘digital download’ guns as far as video content goes, by the time the next Xbox comes out it will likely have Blu-ray capabilities, or at least some other comparable technology, if only because DVD storage will be insufficient for the games of the future.

NVIDIA has announced plans to release a mobile GPU, the 9400M to work together with that Intel Atom processors to deliver 3D gaming and HD video to netbooks. The 9400M will get you 1080p video decoding, dual-link DVI out, DirectX 10 graphics, CUDA and OpenGL.

The competition is also going to work out some sort of a solution for netbooks. AMD will roll its Yukon ultramobile platform and it will pair it with a mobile Radeon GPU from ATI.

And let’s not forget about VIA. VIA announced its Trinity platform which will get you a Via Nano processor, the VX800 northbridge and an S3 GPU. It will support too HD videos and DirectX 10 gaming.

It all sounds good, but I don’t see myself playing games on my netbook. How about you?

via Arstechnica

Ask any game developer what sort of feature that the title in question includes, chances are the first thing they mention is the “next gen” graphics, or physics, etc; Of course, it has not taken long for people to start to ask whether features can be next gen or not. After all, all three platforms have been out for over a year. Speaking of which, what about the Wii? Is it truly a “new gen” console? What is “next gen”? What is “new gen”? These questions and more will be answered after the jump.

First order of business: why are we still using the term “next gen”? I believe that there are a few reasons for this. First, thanks to Sony’s PlayStation 2, there has been an unusual amount of overlap between the two generations. Even though the original PlayStation’s production did continue until 2006, the PlayStation 2 was relatively quick to replace it, largely due to the appeal of backwards compatibility. In this generation however, the PlayStation 2 was not replaced by the PlayStation 3 and has managed to hold its position as a current console.

This is not the only way the line separating these two generations is blurred. Looking at many past generations will show that there has often been a much larger divide between two generations. The Nintendo 64 had 3D gameplay compared to the Super Nintendo’s 2D system. Even though the SNES technically did have 3D,it was extremely rudimentary and is not comparable to the N64’s technology. Then lets look at the Fifth and Sixth generations. The graphical leap between the original PlayStation and the PlayStation 2 was immense. Now, I am not saying that there is not a big difference between last generation consoles and the graphical fidelity of today’s HD consoles, but I do not believe that graphics are the next generation feature that the seventh generation consoles (PS3, 360, and technically Wii though, it can’t do HD) have to offer. It is a feature just not the feature that differentiates them from their predecessors. I will expand on this later.

For the average consumer, this simply means that the PlayStation 2 is an old console, where as the Xbox 360, PS3, and depending on whom you talk to, the Wii are new consoles. Naturally, it makes more sense to associate an old console as being “last gen” and new consoles as “next gen”.

So where does this leave Nintendo? They have said that they are focusing on a “new generation” of game console, instead of the conventional approach of upgrading the hardware. Nintendo took an unprecedented step back in hardware power for a new platform, and as a result, blurred the line even more between what is considered old and what is new. This creates more of a need to distinguish between next generation hardware and past generation quality hardware.

This is why the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 likely be considered next gen consoles until replaced by their own successors.

What is it that makes them next gen? Many people are confused with this. In the end, a console’s power is not what separates it from its predecessor, or at least not entirely. As I pointed out before, each generation has had something that made it something entirely new, whether it is graphical prowess, or an entire new game mechanic. As if the seventh generation wasn’t confusing enough, it has several new elements that makes it unique. I already touched upon how High Definition is not what this generation will be about when all is said and done. Another feature that is being taking advantage of in this generation is online feature. Once again, while what online is being used is very innovative; it is not the distinguishing feature.

The power behind the next gen consoles opens up for far more innovative content than just good graphics. One thing that has been generally overlooked is interaction. For the first time, dynamic interaction with environments and characters can be fully realized. Assassin’s Creed was based on this idea. Grand Theft Auto 4 will also make use of Natural-Motion physics technology. In the end, this is what next gen is about. Graphics are almost at the saturation point. The next step is the slow death of animations and replacing them with technologies such as Natural-Motion, procedurally generated animations, etc. In the end, that is what makes a game truly next gen, and not simply a high-res version of a last generation game. High-definition and online are definitely a part of it. But going from Star Wars: Jedi Academy to Star Wars: Force Unleashed is a proper generation leap in the same way that going from Super Mario Bros. 3 to Super Mario 64 was. Not that this is exclusive to physics. Dynamic interaction is not exclusive to physics or even physical interaction. Fable 2 is the perfect example of the side of dynamic interaction, where a player’s actions have significant, analogue, influence on the game’s world. Another example is Spore, which uses both dynamic worlds and procedural generation at the very core of its gameplay.

The seventh generation of consoles is not just about HD or online features. The real innovation is that developers are using the power of the consoles to make the game obey real world laws and properties, rather than just simulate them on a situational level.

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