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A few weeks ago, I picked up a new phone and one of my first orders of business was to check out the selection of games available. After picking up Doom RPG (I couldn’t resist, it’s just very entertaining), I kept coming across Guitar Hero III Mobile, which Verizon was promoting fairly heavily. I considered buying it for about 10 seconds until I reached the baseless, yet seemingly solid conclusion that the game couldn’t be any good. Guitar Hero on a phone? That’s just not practical.

Well, practical or not, it seems that Hands-On Mobile and Verizon are making a pretty penny off the game — it’s already surpassed the one million downloads mark, which makes it the best selling game on Verizon phones for the first quarter of 2008. With an average of 250,000 songs played a day, it seems like people are really enjoying the game. Either that, or they don’t want to feel ripped off so they’re playing it until they feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth.

“We believe that a successful mobile game doesn’t originate from only gameplay, brand, or PR and marketing, but also from a long-term, community oriented, interactive experience, giving people as much as they can on their device,” said David McCaman, director of marketing for Hands-On.

Looks like I might have to re-evaluate my assumption that the game is a shameless cash-in.

via ExtremeTech

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While I’m perfectly happy with running Vista Ultimate on my desktop (that could be due to the fact that I didn’t have to pay for it), it seems like I’m in an extremely small minority of Windows users who actually like Vista.

Windows 7 (that would be the next iteration of Windows) is reportedly in the works and is not as far away as you might think. Given the reception to Vista, Microsoft clearly needs to go about things differently with Windows 7. ExtremeTech put together an article outlining some of the keys to having things turn out a bit better than they have with Vista thus far — namely, limit the number of SKUs and don’t make it so freaken bloated.

Trim the fat. Get rid of everything unnecessary to the average user to increase performance. If power users want to install extras or enable obscure services, let them, but stop assuming that every computer needs every possible service running by default. The same goes with anything running in the background. Be ruthless: If it doesn’t need to be there all the time, make it go away.

I couldn’t agree more with that. By default, every possible thing sans the bare necessities should be disabled. From there, those who actually want the more advanced features could choose to enable them, but for everyone else — i.e. the average user who is unlikely to need many of those features — they shouldn’t be turned on, so as to improve performance.

Check out the full article at ExtremeTech.

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to investigate Intel over alleged predatory pricing practices. AMD has also received a similar subpoena.

Intel is currently under seige in Europe and Korea for offering rebates and discounts to OEMs to use Intel’s chips exclusively while bidding to provide components below cost. Apparently this is all to prevent AMD from gaining design wins. South Korea’s FTC has already levied a $21 million fine on Intel.

Intel insists that its actions are all within legal bounds.

“The company believes its business practices are well within U.S. law.”

via ExtremeTech

Ever since the Windows Vista OS came out; gamers have been complaining about it and going to great lengths to get it to behave in the way they expected it too. The latest guide up on ExtremeTech shows PC gamers how to bypass Vista 64-bit limitations.

The author gives gamers who haven’t already used this solution instructions on how to run 32-bit Vista on 64-bit Vista in a virtual machine. This solves a few known problems with 64-bit Vista including the author’s difficulties with Nikon RAW codec or getting VPN to work with older Cisco concentrators. The article is fairly technical, but also very usful for those gamers running into problems with Vista 64-bit. Get the complete run down on ExtremeTech.

The CHiL Semiconductor is set to streamline your overclocking capabilities on your favorite gaming PC. The product line digitally maximizes the process of converting the power supply for use.

“Digital power has been this buzzword for a bunch of years, where it equals state of the art, which equals high cost, which equals we can’t really use it,” said Larry Spaziani, vice president of marketing for Chil. “We’re bringing digital power for the mainstream computer market, and with it bringing features and cost benefits.”

“We intend to shake up the motherboard market,” Spaziani said.

Typically between your electrical socket and your PC; 20 percent of the power is lost in the power supply, and another 25 percent in conversion on the motherboard in the form of excess heat which then requires more power to cool. Chil aims to simplify the design of motherboards; eliminating a substantial chunk of passive components. It will reduce the number of capacitors needed and digitally regulate power as well. Theoretically, it can improve improve the power conversion efficiency by 3 to 10 percent.

via ExtremeTech

One of the sister publications to those in the 1UP Network, ExtremeTech, has been relaunched with a new design. Even if you’ve never visited the site before, you’ve likely seen some or their excellent content that we’ve written about here on Gaming Today, including how to take advantage of those DX10 Crysis graphics with a DX9 card, how to take apart your Xbox 360 and replace that noisy fan, and how to build a pretty high-end gaming rig for just $800.

The site’s currently in beta, so things are still being fixed up as we speak, but it’s still worth checking out. Make sure and read their review of the Astro A40, which they’re calling the “finest gaming headset,” or look at their overview of several other gaming headsets.

The back-and-forth among industry professionals over the future of PCs and consoles as gaming platforms continued recently when ExtremeTech spoke with WildTangent co-founder and CEO Alex St. John. He was originally an instrumental part in the creation of DirectX and was Microsoft’s “games evangelist.”

Tim Sweeney and Cliff Bleszinski, among others, have recently voiced their thoughts that consoles are the future of gaming, and that the PC is dying as a gaming platform. While St. John believes that Intel and Microsoft have done more than their fair share to hurt the capabilities of the PC as a gaming platform, he believes consoles are ready to die.

And the thing that’s interesting in this era, that I think is significant, is that Sony and Microsoft severely overextended themselves. Burned themselves. Burned more money than they could ever hope to get back on these consoles. Even if the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 are wild successes, they will never get their money back.

Billions of dollars. Billions of dollars. And, to say that they will have—for one, to say that they will be eager to do that to themselves anytime soon, is highly improbable, which means that this generation of consoles could be in the market as the only generation of consoles available for a very long time.

Second, who are the guys making money in the console space? Nintendo! They shipped off the shelf, cheapo, ATI video chips! And they’re killing it! And the reason is that Nintendo correctly observes that graphics is no longer a differentiating feature; it’s a commodity. The feature of the Nintendo [Wii] is a new type of game mechanic, enabled by a new controller. And so what that says is that graphics has become a commodity. As we talked about on the PC, all PCs are gonna have great graphics compared to a console, in many cases; the Japanese and Microsoft aren’t going to engineer a superior graphics chip in the future than one you can buy from ATI or Nvidia; it’s never gonna happen again. For Sony or Microsoft to go and design their own graphics chip would be lunacy in the next generation.

So that means that if there is another generation, it’s gotta be about either input devices, or online community. Graphics will just be good everywhere. And if it’s about community, that puts the console out of business. Because why the hell does Wal-Mart want to sell a money-losing loss leader device, when all the valuable content will be tied to online services and subscriptions and downloadable stuff? So for all the talk about downloadable content on the console, the console depends on the retail channel for that market to be valuable, and the retailer, if they don’t get a cut of that, is going to say why the hell am I trying to sell these consoles at a loss for?

He points to the insane success of World of Warcraft as an indicator that PC gaming is where it’s at, claiming that the only job of consoles is to act as “a giant DRM device” that prevents you from playing games you didn’t pay for.

While I do believe the PC is going to keep going strong, I think St. John is wrong in his assessment that everyone is ready to jump off the console bandwagon. There’s still a huge market for consoles, and as such, I don’t see Microsoft and Sony abandoning ship and leaving it behind.

You can read the full interview here, or read part two which talks more about DirectX and the future of PC gaming.

SlySoft, the company that previously cracked the encryption on HD-DVD now claims it’as completely cracked the BD+ DRM protocol encryption for Blu-ray discs. The developer of DVD cloning software has previously hacked the BD+ virtual machine environment which enabled users to view ripped movies from their hard drives with SlySoft’s CloneDVD software.

Now the company claims that version 6.4.0.0 of its AnyDVD HD program will allow transcoding of Blu-ray video into an unprotected form.

“Admittedly, we are not really so fast with this because actually we had intended to publish this release already in December as promised,” Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft , said in a statement. “However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the outcome of the “format war” between HD DVD and Blu-ray.

“On top of that, we first wanted to see our assumptions confirmed about the in the meantime released BD+ titles regarding the BD+ Virtual Machine,” van Heuen added. “We are rather proud to have brought back to earth the highly-praised and previously ‘unbreakable’ BD+. However, we must also admit that the Blu-ray titles released up to now have not fully exploited the possibilities of BD+. Future releases will undoubtedly have a modified and more polished BD+ protection, but we are well prepared for this and await the coming developments rather relaxed.”

This just goes to show that no matter how elaborate the mousetrap, there will always be a smarter mouse.

via ExtremeTech

Major Japanese ISPs have agreed to ban users who flagrantly steal video games off the internet.

The word is out in the Daily Yomiuri, and other news sources, reporting that as of Friday Telecom Service Association and the Telecommunications Carriers Association, as well as others, have jointly agreed to outline procedures on how to deal with copyright violaters using their services in April.

The agreement is the first of its kind among ISPs and is poised to set a precedent around the globe. According to the report; “about 1,000 major and smaller domestic providers belong to the four associations, which means the measure would become the first countermeasure against Winny-using rights-violators used by the whole provider industry,”

Piracy is wide spread in Japan with Winny being the file-sharing service of choice.

What measures will be taken against pirates is yet to be defined. Most likely it will be a warning followed with a ban for a period of time. What’s unclear is if violaters will be “blacklisted” across all the participating ISPs, or whether the user would be free to enter a contract with a different provider. The other somewhat alarming detail is the lack of parameters on how the companies will determine who is pirating software.

I’m sure that their will be many people from gamers and the games industry following developments on this new alliance to see what April brings. If measures are successful, I believe many countries will try similar strategies.

via ExtremeTech

Tech analysts from ExtremeTech have put together a guide listing the tools they have to build, tweak and upgrade their machines and how to use them. The guide is broken up into three phases for easier consumption; Pre-build Preparation, Software tools, and Post Assembly.

The Pre-Build tools are of course the most fun. Who doesn’t love power tools. The Software tools are needed once all the mechanics are in place.These include programs for boot testing, and burning in a system. Post Assembly tools are more programs for diagnostics and maintainance. One of the most important tools for your PC is the surge protector.

Building your own gaming rig saves you money although you have to weigh in how much your time is worth in the cost of your new system. It’s the best way to get exactly what you want and can be a lot of fun. Get the specifics on Tips and Tools for PC on Extreme Tech.

Ken Kirby, creator of a winning case mod design of R2-D2 for ExtremeTech shared his design for what he affectionately dubbed “The Great Satan” or Dell’s evil twin. This old Inspiron M155 is now an awesomely creepy beast of a machine. Check out the slideshow and video documenting the whole creation process.

As cool as this looks, I wouldn’t want it wasting space in my home without a few internal hardware upgrades. I just hope for his sake it’s as scary on this inside as the case is.

via ExtremeTech

As the release of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 approaches, gamers are left wondering whether it’s worth all the trouble of a huge download and an anti-hack update when hotfixes can be manually downloaded from the Windows site. ExtremeTech has done some testing and found answers that might surprise you.

There is a marked difference in the efficiency of the SP1 media fixes as compared to the hotfixes. File operations tests show hardly any difference between the two. Company of Heroes and World in Conflict performance tests show a a performance gap between the hotfix and SP1. Supreme Commander and Crysis performance tests are more unclear and even surprising.
Get the full details and make an informed decision on whether to upgrade on ExtremeTech.

The latest Notes From the Lab on ExtremeTech explores software piracy, copy right protection and the evolution of PC gaming. The piece takes a critical look a the battle raging between software pirates and the PC game developers.

This struggle is forcing some Indie developers to abandon plans to develop PC games. However it’s spurring an evolution of a few different types of games for the PC. Driven by models such as Guild Wars pay and play free online, digital downloads and free games with purchasable DLC; we are likely to see the head of the PC gaming industry severed, only to grow back in multiple new formats.

via ExtremeTech

Earlier today, I told you about ExtremeTech’s budget gaming PC. Lest you you think that we don’t support the high-end PC gamer, let’s take a look at a bit more expensive solution.

If you are a high-end PC gamer, chances are you’ve worked with SLI before. If you’re not familiar with it, SLI is Nvidia’s multiple graphics card option. (Crossfire is the ATI equivalent). While SLI has been more dominant on the gaming side of things, Crossfire has held the edge in one area: it’s the only dual card solution that would run on Intel-based platforms. Well, at least until now.

Intel has released the Skulltrail, a dual-socket, workstation-class motherboard built on Intel’s 5400 core logic. Skulltrail is designed for small servers and/or high-performance workstations, and is equipped with two 771 Xeon-style sockets. More importantly to gamers, the 5400XS motherboard also uses the Nvidia Nforce 100 chips, which allows dual-card SLI.

The ExtremeTech folks have run a series of tests on this new platform, to see just how useful it is to the high-end gamer. While the platform stacks up well against conventional SLI builds, there are some drawbacks to it, including pricing.

For all the lowdown, check out the ExtremeTech article here.

via ExtremeTech

So you’re looking to get into PC gaming? Are you worried about the high cost of today’s gaming PC’s? What if I told you that the idea that gaming PC’s are overly expensive is nothing more than a myth?

The folks over at ExtremeTech are taking a look at just how you can bring the cost of a gaming PC down under $800. Sure, that doesn’t include a monitor, keyboard, or mouse; but if you’re serious enough to buy a gaming PC you probably already have those peripherals anyway. If not, you can grab a decent widescreen and a keyboard and mouse for $250 or so. (Note: The case pictured here is not the case the article mentions)

This isn’t some stripped down machine, either. With a Core 2 Duo, GeForce 9600, and 2GB of RAM, this dog can definitely hunt. Sure, it won’t play Crysis at max settings, but most computers that haven’t traveled back in time from the year 2014 won’t either. You can check out the entire article, along with ExtremeTech’s explanation for the hardware they chose for each slot, right here.

via ExtremeTech

For a moment, let’s ignore all of the RROD problems, the premium to access Xbox Live Gold, and the awful Microsoft Points and focus on the ridiculously loud Xbox 360 system itself. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “Wow, that runs as quiet as a mouse” about the 360 and frankly, I find it to be quite the detriment. No, it doesn’t ruin my gaming experience, but it’s annoying as hell.

There are two causes for the problem: the ridiculously loud fan and the ridiculously loud DVD drive. (From hereon out, assume my usage of the word “loud” is prefaced by some adverb that makes it more significant.) While revisions of the 360 hardware have supposedly fixed the noise situation to an extent, even the newest systems are motorboats to the PlayStation 3’s dead cat.

Thankfully, there are guides all over the internet on how to dull the headache-inducing noise that comes out of your Xbox 360. One such guide was recently published on ExtremeTech that’s a fairly simple and cheap way to replace the 360’s internal fan – but pay heed: you will void your system’s warranty by doing so, and given the potential of your system red ringing on you, it may or may not be worth the risk.

You can read the simple guide here, accompanied by pictures of the 360’s guts. Follow the instructions and voila.

For some inexplicable reason, Crytek opted to make the ‘Very High’ graphic settings a DX10-only feature. It would be understandable if DX10 were required, but they aren’t – ExtremeTech has found a simple method for allowing people without Vista or a DX10 card to use those high-end settings.

There’s some simple editing you’ll need to do in a certain configuration file; novices shouldn’t be driven away, although, chances are, your computer won’t be able to run the game with these settings.

In addition to publishing this short how-to, ExtremeTech went into the differences between the two versions of the game and posted some disappointing benchmarks to show just how badly Crysis is beating even the highest of high-end computers into the ground.

Read the full story here.

Joel Durham Jr., consumate mouse tester for Extreme Tech, claims that he can frag you using a two button ball mouse as easily as any of the super expensive gaming mice out on the market today. When it comes to performance in FPSs, despite what companies like Logitech, Microsoft, Saitek and Razer would like you to believe, you can perform just as well, or just as badly, with one of their gaming mice as a free Dell early gen optical mouse.

Here’s my point: Your super-expensive gaming mouse might make you more confident, but it doesn’t necessarily improve your actual game. Yeah, more buttons means you can map more stuff to mouse buttons, and comfort is certainly a factor… Nevertheless, after much testing, I’m simply not convinced that a supermouse makes a difference in how successfully I play.

I’m not trying to bash Logitech or Microsoft—or Razer or Saitek or anyone else for that matter—as they make terrific, responsive, comfortable mice. I’ve simply come to the conclusion that spending an ungodly sum of money on a mouse doesn’t help my level of competitiveness. I can plop a grenade down your pants from thirty yards with a 2-button ball mouse if I have to.

Do these super expensive high tech gaming mice really make a difference to your game, or are you just wasting money you could have spent on Call of Duty 4 on an extraneous piece of hardware?

via Extreme Tech 

With winter coming and utilities expected to soar, unless you’re living in your parent’s basement, you might be looking for ways to cut down on your monthly bill. Extreme Tech has an article on “Five Ways to Cut Your Utility Bill” including something for those of us who don’t power down our CPUs for anything less than a natural disaster.

If one of your computers is on all day—for needs such as automated backups that take place when you’re not around—make sure the CPU isn’t chugging away at full frequency when such power isn’t needed. CPUs from both Intel and AMD offer technology that throttles down the core frequency of, and therefore the power used by, the central processor.

Check out these simple steps to save you money to spend on all the good games coming out in the next few months on Extreme Tech.

After seeing the recommended PC specifications for Crysis, I’m convinced more than ever that I need to upgrade to be able to enjoy the best new PC games coming out this Christmas. From the site that brought PC gamers the CPU Upgrade Guide comes the next article in the series ExtremeTech’s Fall Graphics Card Upgrade Guide. The guide helps you find a comfortable balance between what you want, what you need and what you can actually afford.

There’s an old adage: “You can never have a fast enough graphics card.” Okay, so it’s not old. Graphics cards haven’t even been around that long. The point is, there’s a good argument to be made that you don’t buy graphics cards so much as rent them. No matter how fast the card you buy today is, at some point down the line, it’s not going to be fast enough, or have all the new whiz-bang features you want. The real question then is: How much disposable income do you have, and what are your needs?

Read the full article on ExtremeTech before you invest in that graphics card upgrade.