According to The Taiwan Economic News, the first 65 nm GPUs for Xbox 360 are leaving production lines. Xbox 360’s using the 65 nm technology are expected to ship this August. Also there are rumors that a “mid-cycle refresh of the Xbox 360″ should come in the fall of 2009. The Xbox 540, as it is being called, will use the Valhalla chip. The Vahalla chip is believed to be of a “system-on-a-chip design” allowing the console to fit into a slim case.

The Xbox 360 is scheduled to ship in an “all 65 nm” package (Jasper platform) this August. Consumers won’t notice the refresh, unless Microsoft decides to put a Blu-ray drive into the Xbox 360. We were not able to receive a confirmation either way, and we keep digging to find out if the Asustek subsidiary Pegatron will manufacture regular Xbox 360’s or units with an integrated Blu-ray drive. In any case, Celestica, Pegatron and Wistron will have a busy summer cranking out millions of refreshed Xbox 360 consoles.A more dramatic and perhaps visible change will happen next year: TSMC plans to begin producing the Valhalla chip, which will be the foundation of the mid-cycle refresh of the Xbox 360, thus called ‘Xbox 2.5’ or simply ‘Xbox 540’ (360+180), in fall of 2009. We learned that this new chip is apparently much more than a die-shrink and end up as a system-on-a-chip design. This change is likely to enable to redesign the Xbox 360 casing and go towards a slim-design, much like what Sony did with the Gen1 and Gen2 PS2. We believe that TSMC will use a 45 nm process for this Multi-Chip-Module package (CPU+GPU+eDRAM).

There are also some interesting pieces of information that Microsoft is shopping for a more efficient cooling solution – efficient in more ways than just one: Several people close to the cooling industry told us that Microsoft approached them and asked for better and cheaper cooling than what is used in the Xbox 360 right now. Some may claim that the current Xbox 360 cooler design is already as cheap as it gets, but we have no doubts that Microsoft will find a way to drop the cost once again.

by counterstrikesource

Turn on the TV and you have every chance of seeing some pundit attacking Grand Theft Auto IV. With the game being released a week ago, the usual moral crusaders are up in arms about the bad values it teaches and the terrible things players are “encouraged” to do in the game.

I will never hold GTA up as a franchise steeped in morality, because it’s not. The game portrays, just like its tagline, how “good things happen to bad people.” You spend your time working for scumbags and criminals, doing terrible things for money. It’s NOT a game that celebrates the good side of life — nor does it have to.

That said, however, playing Grand Theft Auto IV has been an interesting experience for me. Since I made a career out of writing about games, I’ve been far more aware of GTA’s so-called depravity, and have spent a lot of time in Liberty City thinking about what developer Rockstar is trying to say, breaking down some of the seedier aspects of the game and deciphering what the player is expected to feel as he plays.

I think of the game’s less savory features — murder, female degradation, drunk driving — and I have to wonder, does indulging in these elements of GTA IV really say a lot about the game, or the player? Just how much sin does Rockstar actively encourage, and how often does it actually dissuade you from being a bad boy?

Hit the jump to find out how Grand Theft Auto IV can be just as much Angel as Devil. (Warning: Very minor “spoilers”)

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Courtesy of Rockstar Games

As we’re sure you’re aware, this week sees the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, the highly anticipated latest iteration of the popular violence-based, sandbox-style video game series. This time, the action is set in Liberty City, a living, breathing replica of New York. Dan Houser, Vice President of Rockstar Games and co-writer of GTA IV, spoke to Vulture about building a nuttier, dirtier Gotham.So the gaming industry has changed a lot since the last GTA …
Yeah, fuck all this stuff about casual gaming. I think people still want games that are groundbreaking. The Wii is doing something totally different, which is fantastic. We’re hopefully going to prove that there’s also a very big audience for people who want entertainment in another form, who think of games as being a narrative device that can challenge movies. We always said: We’re not going release a large number of games. They’re going to have the production values of movies. They’re gonna be about themes that interest us whatever the medium, instead of the weird, special video game–only themes that too many people make — orcs and elves, or monsters, or space. We felt you could make a good game and have it be about something we could actually relate to. Or aspire to.

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It may still be over a year away, with a current release of June 19, 2009 planned, but it seems as if Hollywood is getting into full swing, and is already getting ready to heavily promote the upcoming movie based on the Prince of Persia series.

Recent details hint that the film will loosely follow The Sands of Time storyline of recent games, but will see some changes to better accommodate medium of film. The film will be directed by Mike Newell of Into the West, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Goblet of Fire and Mona Lisa Smile fame, and will be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Disney will be in charge of distribution of the film.

It is rumoured that the film will make use of Parkour for many of the quick paced action sequences. Hollywood already used the style to great effect in the opening scenes of the last James Bond movie, Casino Royale.

via darkzero.co.uk

Ghostbusters is one of those nerdy properties that when reissued, will never please all of its fans. Even in a brief demo with a few other writers, questions — and follow-ups — circled around “crossing the streams” and even geekier topics. I’m not at that level of spirit-stopping enthusiast, but I’m cautious about the new version, probably because it shows so much promise. I hate to get behind something, especially a beloved property, only to see it crumble.

The Ghostbusters animation, graphics, settings, and physics look great. The original cast has reassembled to record for this game. It’s even being written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. But the biggest thing I didn’t see was that story, and that narrative is an important part of Ghostbusters. We’ll find out how well the script and setting hold up with its October, 2008 release.

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Konami and Kojima Productions’ Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is easily one of Sony’s most prized upcoming titles. Though fan anticipation can already be considered at a fever pitch, the console maker said when it announced the game’s June 12 launch date in February that the online portion would benefit from an online beta test, beginning in the latter part of April.

That April launch date turned out to be earlier this week, but the beta didn’t stay up long, thanks in large part to the massive interest surrounding the game. However, after a week of tinkering, Sony said today on its official blog that the Metal Gear Online development team has patched the beta client and servers are now back up for play. To compensate for the delay, Sony has said the beta period will now extend to May 11.

“Initial problems were caused by the extraordinary numbers of customers trying to log in to the site in order to create a Konami ID in order to take part in the beta test,” Konami’s MGO team said in a statement. “In response, we have increased server capacity, as well as created a separate Konami ID registration site specifically for customers wanting to take part in the Metal Gear Online Premiere Beta test.”

To help alleviate server strain, Konami also said that it has instituted a play queue and that players may be forced to wait for an open slot in the servers during peak play times.

via gamespot.com

Grand Theft Auto needs no introduction to anyone remotely familiar with video games. But for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 entry in the series, Rockstar has upped the ante, creating a startlingly realistic reinterpretation of New York City as backdrop to a violent crime epic. In it, damaged goods Serbian war vet Niko Bellic ventures to Liberty City in search of closure, all the while coming to terms with the harsh realities of The American Dream. People die, others find happiness, the dream fails to deliver on its promise, and players join Niko on a journey through a world where everyone is flawed, where it seems everyone is consumed by their own obsessions.

It’s a brutal ride for almost everyone in Niko’s journey from off the boat yokel to mass murderer, but what is the Grand Theft Auto IV experience like for the player?

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Ah, fanboys. What industry can truly call itself an industry without them? Those who prove themselves obsessively loyal to any product or corporation can be found among many communities, and nowhere do they flourish more freely than within gamer culture.

Although it may sound ridiculous to normal people, swearing undying allegiance to a heartless box of electrical components is a perfectly rational act in the mind of the fanboy, even though if he defended something like a particular brand of cheese with such rabid determination, he’d be rightly locked up in a mental hospital. Thanks to the Internet, where any anonymous coward can say what he likes, fanboyism runs rampant, and shows no signs of slowing down.

That said, the term fanboy is thrown around all too casually, and is now on par with the word emo when it comes to having lost all meaning through erroneous overuse. If you want to be a true fanboy — and I know all of you do — then you must, of course, follow ten golden rules. The ten elegant laws that will see you rise above the pretenders and take your place in fanboy Valhalla.

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There’s little we’ve said about our modder buddy Ramon that we haven’t already said back when he made the Zelda, Samus, Rockstar and Clerks Wii mods. This guy is talented AND he has good aesthetic taste—something not commonly found with modders. This time he’s auctioning off this one-of-a-kind Super Mario Galaxy Wii mod that will benefit Child’s Play, the children’s charity started by Penny Arcade. Video hands-on, details and more pics after the jump.

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Sales tracking group NPD has announced the results of a new gaming study, showing that 72 percent of the U.S. say they played games, online play still lagging behind offline, and an overwhelming minority owning more than one next-gen system.

NPD says the number of game-players has grown from its last study, up from 64 percent the year prior. More than half of that 72 percent, says NPD play games online, but relative to “total U.S. population,” online gamers have only risen slightly from 40 percent in 2007 to 42 percent.

90 percent of online gamers said the PC was their platform of choice, compared to 19 percent for console and portable systems, and 3 percent for cell phones. Younger players make up a good percentage of online players, with 40 percent of online gamers between 2 and 17, with 18-24 year olds only making up 10 percent.

As for online console players, 50 percent were Xbox 360 gamers, who spent the most time per week playing online compared to PC and PS3 owners. Finally, NPD says only three percent of respondents said they owned two of the three next-gen consoles, and only 2 percent said they owned all three.

Said NPD analyst Anita Frazier, “Despite the buzz in the industry regarding online gaming, it is still relatively small compared to offline gaming. There is still a large, untapped market for gaming in general and online gaming in particular.”

via Brandon Boyer - LINK