Next Generation Games Consoles - Separating Fact from Fiction

Over Game Boy Advance Cases next 18 months the 3 giants of the Games Console world will be battling it out in stores and homes across Europe, America and Asia for the title of the world greatest Games Console. The stakes are high in this multi billion dollar business, not just for the Most Popular Video Games sales but for the games sales that go along side it. Since the launch announcements of all 3 consoles in May at the E3 conference in LA. The 3 combatants have been vying for the millions of column inches that have been written about the Next Generation Consoles. Each Press release has been hotly followed by X-Box360 Video Games press release from a rival company so much so that extracting the facts from all the hype has been nearly impossible. At the launch press conferences Microsoft boasted that the Xbox 360 could do 9-billion-dot-product-operations per second. Sony then came out and said that the PS3 could do 51-billion-dot-product-operations per second however Sony had combined the CPU and GPU performance numbers whilst Microsoft only reported its CPU performance number. When the consumer is up against this sort of publicity blizzard it is best not to believe a thing until you can check the facts for yourself.

So what do we know?

Well for the Xbox 360 and the Sony Playstation 3 we have lots of lists of hardware and specifications which actually dont Nintendo Top Games very much in isolation. The main thing that need concern us are the processor speeds and they are both stated as being 3.2 GHz The only time that the hardware will mean anything is when we get to run them side by side and then if experience is anything to go by the difference in real life performance wont be noticeable and will just be used by the press departments to battle it out.

Despite all the press releases and information that has been spewing out of the headquarters of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo we actually know very few facts.
We know that in all likelihood the Xbox 360 will be on the shelves in time for Christmas, Amazon are currently taking pre-delivery orders and are quoting a release date of November 28th. The prices have been set at $299 for the Core System and $399 for the Xbox 360, the difference being that the Core system doesnt have the external hard drive required to save games and download new content or the headset required to play online on Xbox Live! Why 2 prices? and why a version that hasnt got everything included? This looks very much like a product of the marketing department trying to get a product at the historically important sub $300 level more than anything and this may backfire on them in the long run.

Next to hit the Shelves will be Sonys Playstation 3 supposedly in spring next year once again we have very few facts to go on, Sony are continually releasing press releases and mentioning in public that the price will be high and the figure of $500 has been mentioned but many industry experts suspect that this is a ploy so that when they release it at $300 or $350 it will look like a bargain. The final console to hit the shelves will be the Nintendo Revolution some time late in 2006 and 2007. Since the launch at E3 this year very little has been said about it by Nintendo. It seems at this time the Launch was just a way to deflect some of the publicity away from Microsoft and Sony.
One fact is certain, If Microsoft do get the Xbox 360 onto the shelves before Christmas it will be this years biggest selling Christmas gift. So until you get your hands on one of the consoles.Question everything!

Mark Thompson ran an IT consultancy in London for many years. He now live in Spain and runs an number of websites including NextGen Consoles and World of the Weird

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Where Are the Wild West Games?

Gun, Red Dead Revolver, and the Wild Arms games. These are the only half-decent Wild West themed games Latest Video Games have come out Sony Playstation Memory Cards the past decade. I give Wild Arms credit for having such a long running RPG series, I even enjoy my copy of Wild Arms 3, but when I think of the Wild West, I don't picture cell-shaded anime characters shooting goblins in the face with snipers and shotguns. I like the Wild Arms series, don't get me wrong, it just isn't the type genre of the Wild West that I'd like to see more of.

The 1800's in America were a time of exploration and adventure, where everyday people weathered the elements, the treacherous landscape, and the wild animals to catch a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean or make their fortune in gold. Nowadays, sand box games are all the rage and so an open ended Wild West game seems doable; just picture Nikko from GTA4 on a horse instead of a car and using a six shooter instead of a rocket launcher.

It surprises me a little that Rockband aren't flooded with every Western-style game imaginable like we were with Western movies. Ask anyone if they've ever heard of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood and after they ask what you're doing in their house, they'll probably say yes. The simple answer is that we don't see more wild west games is because Japan has the most say in what types of games are to be developed and since their history is much different than ours, we see more samurais and ninjas than we do cowboys.

Don't get me wrong, I like exploring fictional video game lands like Filgaia and whatever the name of the world is from the Final Fantasy games, but it would be a breath of fresh air and much more interesting to have landscapes in games modeled to look like realistic locations. Nothing would be more exciting than to explore the pre-settled territories of the American West and ride off into the sunset like we see so many heroes do in movies; or recognize a landmark in a game that you've actually seen in real life.

Thanks to advancements in open sourced technology, gamers are given the driver's seat when it comes to what they want in video game. Maybe in the future we'll see more games that seek to satisfy the restless American spirit that we all seem to have because, I don't know about you, but Oregon Trail just doesn't seem to cut it.

My name is Brendan and I am a senior at the University at North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I enjoy writing articles to improve my writing, pad my resume, and give my advice and feedback on different topics. Check out my website to find more of my stuff at http://brendanigan.com

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Play Fair, Get Fare: The Business of Video Game-Testing

When asked about their Cheap Video Games of heaven on earth, many video game maniacs would answer it is the limitless opportunity of spending their whole time playing new and interesting games. What ifangels existed under the disguise of video games developers? X-Box360 Video Games the wildest dreams of the gamers became true? Spending hours playing video games can even be well-paid by some advanced video games companies, if RPC Games become an official game-tester of the new products.

To become a game tester is even easier that you may consider it. The only thing that is taken into consideration is your true devotion to games. What you need is one video game system to get started. You dont need to be a professional to be hired as a game tester. ANYONE can test video games, with the single pre-condition that they are older than 15. If you are a video addict who cannot live a day without playing, that job would be the perfect opportunity for your future career. The payment for testing varies between $9- $80 an hour. What is more, you may keep the games that you tested as a present from the company.

As if that werent enough, if you work as a game tester, you get the loosest possible working schedule. No-one can PC Games Accesories you to fill up a certain number of hours testing. The weekly payment depends on the hours you spent playing games and on the completion of a given assignment. But the games are so interesting and innovative that you probably wont feel your time being consumed by the cruel economic system.

As a game-tester myself, I have been earning my salary in that way for 4 years. I must admit that the pleasure is enormous. I have about 300 XBOX game library from the games that I have tested.

Finally, I suppose that the logical question has already propped up in your minds: Why ME become a tester? Why not anyone else? BECAUSE THE COMPANY NEEDS YOU. Video games developers need an ordinary customer to play their new games and assess them. The emphasis they put on the testing is that everyones opinion matters, and yours can help them elaborate the games and make them more competitive with the other companies products.

If you are already hooked on the opportunity of becoming a tester, visit my Website and consider it a Game Tester Guide. It will help you find a job as game tester sooner than you have imagined.

Article by Robbie Darmona. For more information click here get paid to play

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The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games

One of the buzz words in computer gaming today is 'artificial intelligence'. All right, so that's two words really, but let's not be too picky. What does it mean? Artificial intelligence is a phrase that has been around for years, Popular Video Games basically describes RPC Games ability of a computer to give the impression that it is thinking, in the same way that a Nintendo Top Games thinks. It has been suggested that the best Sony Playstation 3 Accesories intelligence systems should give an impression of behaviour that, to the observer, are indistinguishable from the behaviour seen from a human. In other words, if the computer's characters and responses are variable, appropriate and as meaningful as though another player was playing against you, then the computer is doing a good job of mimicking intelligence.

Many people argue whether artificial intelligence is something which is simply mimicked - in other words, the computer is giving the impression of intelligence and thought but actually this is pre programmed by a designer, or whether the computer is genuinely thinking independent and original ideas.

Our own brains are simply very complex computers - they are made up of millions of little processors all connected using living wires which use electrical signals to exchange, process, store and retrieve data or information. By linking together a number of computer processors, linking them together in complex ways and giving the computer a basic formula for learning, it can proceed through the same sort of stages we do as humans, learning about the world around it, learning about knowledge, information, responses, communications, reactions and the many other influences which affect behaviour. It is hard to see how this type of intelligence is really any different from our own. Certainly computers are able to come up with original ideas in just the same way that we do.

This kind of intelligence is necessary in computer games when players are competing against, or alongside, other characters which are played by the computer. Most people enjoy playing against other people rather than a machine because other people can provide variable, random and sometimes unpredictable responses and behaviours, whereas simply programmed machines will always respond the same way, in predictable ways that mean a player only has to remember the few basic responses possible, and respond to them in order to complete the level.

With artificially intelligent characters playing against you, it can mean that in some cases, even the game designers can't entirely predict what the computers characters will do, and each game is likely to proceed a different way, depending on those responses.

Of course some games contain artificially intelligent characters more developed than others, and certainly those characters that are simply programmed to either run left, run right or stand and shoot, depending on a random choice, don't resent much in the way of variation or intelligence. But in many cases it can become quite spooky watching characters milling about, getting on with their tasks, knowing that they are being controlled by a thinking computer. As computers become more and more advanced, and their intelligence becomes more developed, who knows what they will eventually be capable of doing.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant about kids toys, dolls, and video games. You will find the best marketplace for kids toys, dolls, and used video games at these sites for toys, intelligence games, dolls.

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