Games and Gear
Firefox coming to PlayStation 3?
"Firefox? In my PS Triple? Sacre bleu!"
That's what you should be saying right about now. Tipsters have been fingering keyboards towards the PlayStation Insider blog, which we'd never heard of until Engadget linked to it, and apparently "sources very close to Sony" say Mozilla might be porting the Firefox Web browser to the PS3. Continue reading...
PlayStation Network movie downloads hit PS3 today
Sony's PlayStation Network video service goes live today. PS3 owners in the UK, France, Germany and Spain can now download more than 800 movies to their PlayStation 3 console and PSP.
Films start at £2.49 to rent or £6.99 to buy. Rented movies, including some high-definition films, can be kept for 14 days, but must be watched within 48 hours of hitting play. Movies are stored on the PS3 hard drive, and can be transferred to the PSP. Continue reading...
Modern Warfare 2 headshots entertainment industry records
Holy recessions, Batman. Yesterday, Activision Blizzard, which publishes Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, said it estimates the game has made entertainment industry history by raking in over half a billion dollars in just five days.
Activision thinks the 18-rated game beat all previous movie, music, video game and book records across the board. It predicts Modern Warfare 2 pulled in more moolah in its first five days than the latest Harry Potter movie did, which holds the record as the highest-grossing worldwide cinema release in a five-day opening period. Continue reading...
Best iPhone games: Sony PSP rivals
Apple's desire to pitch the iPhone and the iPod touch as handheld games consoles that make the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP look old hat might be written off as hot air by fanboys of the traditional gaming giants. But there is substance to the claim.
We've looked at five iPhone games that are posing a headache for Nintendo and its DS, but what about Sony's PlayStation Portable? The emphasis in this battle is on PSP's strengths of rich graphics and long-lasting gameplay, as opposed to the pitting the iPhone against the DS' innovation and creativity. Continue reading...
CNET UK's games console reliability survey: 60 per cent of Xbox 360s have broken
Sixty per cent of Xbox 360s have kicked the red-ringed bucket, compared to 16 per cent of PS3s and just 6 per cent of Wiis, according to our survey on the reliability of games consoles in the UK.
CNET UK commissioned the survey last month -- and the results don't reflect well on the Microsoft console. Some 1,128 UK-based console owners responded, of whom 562 owned Xbox 360s, 473 owned PS3s and 591 had Wiis (some owned more than one). Continue reading...
Best iPhone games: Nintendo DS rivals
One of the most fascinating tech battles that's been brewing this year is between Apple and the established giants of handheld gaming: Sony and Nintendo.
Apple execs have been increasingly loud in their boasts that iPhone (and even more so the iPod touch) make the PSP and DS look distinctly old hat. For the most part, the Japanese giants have avoided a public war of words with Cupertino, although their introduction of digital stores and courting of iPhone developers show they're taking the threat seriously.
But it all comes down to the games. The App Store is clearly excellent value -- compare the prices below with the £20+ price tags on most DS games. But can Apple's devices really hold their own with the handheld establishment in terms of quality? Here are five games that are having a crack at the DS. Continue reading...
Top ten video game podcasts
Podcasts might seem a bit old-hat nowadays -- people seem to prefer 140-character micro-blogging rather than settling down to listen to an hour-long radio-style show. But there's still a thriving podcast scene, particularly for gaming.
Why? It might be because podcasts don't compete for gaming time -- you can have them on in the background while playing, or while you're walking to work or school. Or it might just be because there are some talented journalists and gamers creating podcasts about the hobby they love. Continue reading...
BBC to launch iPlayer Wii Channel
If you still haven't found a good reason to buy a Wii (and most of us here haven't), here's something to help: on 18 November, it's getting a proper BBC iPlayer application. Forget messing about with a Web browser, this is a fully fledged native app built with Adobe Flash.
And, better still, it won't cost a bean. From 12:01am on 18 November you can download the application for free from the Wii store, and install it as a dedicated Wii Channel. The new look and feel is designed specifically for big screens, and for navigation with the Wii's controllers. Continue reading...
Final Fantasy XIII's UK launch date official
In an unusual spot of good fortune, November's Friday the 13th brought some epic news for British gamers: Final Fantasy XIII will be released in the UK on 9 March 2010.
To address the karmic imbalance of receiving good news on such a day, it was also announced that Leona Lewis would be wailing on the European version's soundtrack -- on the main Final Fantasy XIII theme song, no less. That, friends, is a total fail. Continue reading...
Earthworm Jim burrows into iPhone: Playtest 
In 1995, games developer Shiny released a game in which you took on the role of an invertebrate. His name was Jim, he was an earthworm, and his debut into the gaming world won him a red carpet of critical acclaim.
His original Sega Mega Drive adventure -- aptly titled Earthworm Jim -- is now available as a download for iPhone and iPod touch for £2.99. Graphically it's identical to the original game. And it should be: these re-released classic titles on the iPhone are typically just the original game ROM files inside a software emulator. Continue reading...
