PS3 Firmware V1.93, to be out soon.

This latest firmware update is mainly to arrest the bugs some PS3s encounter during the V1.92 update. It was reported that some PS3 have locked up the internet related functions after V1.92 update, and that has affected them from playing Warhawk online.

Those Warhawk fans affected by the V1.92 will be checking the PSN feverishly to fix the bugs.

PSP Firmware updated to V3.70

Sony have released a firmware update to Version 3.70 for the PSP and PSP-2000 Slim. Some functionality have been added, such as:-

• You can now set custom themes in [Theme Settings] under [Settings].
• Support has been added for assigning buttons in [Remote Play].
• A scene search feature has been added under [Video].
• Sequential playback is now supported under [Video].
• Simultaneous playback of content under [Music] and [Photo] is now supported.

Further functionality were added to the PSP-2000, mainly dealing with viewing movies from the PSP via the TV.

New Blu-ray movies available.

There are new blu-ray movies titles to be found in some video stores around KL (Wega Enterprise in Sungei Wang is one of them).

New titles available are:-

300
Ghost Rider
Casino Royale
Shooter
Black Hawk Down
Underground Evolution
Pearl Harbor
The Fifth Element
Kung Fu Hustle (US version with Cantonese)

Elsewhere in 1U, more titles showed up:-

Superman Returns
Pirates of the Caribbeans (1 and 2)
The Departed
(and many more)...

Check out the stores if you have a blu-ray movie playback unit (stand-alone players or PS3), prices ranges from RM149.90 to RM199.90.

Wii Zapper bundled with Link's Crossbow Training game.

Nintendo have made it official, Wii Zapper will be available in the US on November 19th 2007, for US$19.99. As an incentive for buyers, the Wii Zapper will be bundled with Link's Crossbow Training, a game that tests the player's ability to hit targets using Zelda's Link's crossbow. Essentially meaning an updated Duck Hunt game. Here's to wishing it don't suck as badly as "Chicken Shoot".

Other games compatible with the Wii Zapper will be Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, which presumably will not ship with the Wii Zapper.

So this could be the reason Wii Zapper is sold separately with its own game?

Blizzard's booth at CGA Asia 2007

Blizzard's booth was rather peculiar, it was not a booth in a traditional sense. They had some rock formation set up like a mountain in an open space. Within the rocks was a LCD screen playing videos of their only game in the show. In a close by area, they had set up a room with several PCs playing the same game:-

World of Warcraft (and its add on, Burning Crusades) - PC

Nokia N-Gage booth at CGA Asia 2007

Nokia's N-Gage game is being displayed on LCD screens hooked to several N-series handphones. Although the games rather simple in gameplay and are pixelated on the LCD screens, they do show promise for games available on handphones.

Some of the games on show are:-

Hooked on: Creatures of the Deep (fishing game)

Asphalt 3: Street Rules (racing game)

Mile High Pinball (pinball game)

Space Impact: Kappa Base (side-scrolling shooter)

EA's FIFA 08 (football game)

Codemasters' Booth at CGA Asia 2007

Codemasters' had featured only one game in CGA Asia 2007, and its was running on Xbox360. I was hoping to see the PS3 version but it was not there. That singular game is:-

Colin McRae DIRT

Nintendo's Booth at CGA Asia 2007

Nintendo had a dual purpose booth, the DS and DS Lite on the left, and Wii on the right. I must apologise as I did not venture into the DS side, but there was a new card based game for the DS that's very interesting. Will feature that in a post by its own later.

Wii games on show in four "rooms" of their own are:-

Wii Sports

Super Paper Mario

Rayman raving Rabbids

Transformers: The Game

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Playstation 3's Booth at CGA Asia 2007

Playstation 3's presence in CGA Asia 207 is in 6 playable titles:

Warhawk

Lair

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare 2 (GRAW2)

Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection Online

Super Rub-A-Dub, and

Everybody's Golf 5.

EA's booth at CGA 2007

EA had the biggest list of games on show, but it was a different list of titles shown on limited format. Some titles, like FIFA Online, Warhammer Online, Sims 2: Castaway, NBA Live 08, was not in the earlier list, while some titles like Half Life 2: The Orange Box and Rock Band was missing.

Here are the games (and the consoles they appeared on):-

Boogie (Wii)

EA Playground (Wii)

FIFA 08 (Xbox 360, Wii, PSP, DS)

NBA Live 08 (Wii, Xbox360)

Medal of Honor Airborne (Xbox 360)

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (Xbox 360)

MySims (Wii, DS)

Sims 2: Castaway (Wii, PS2)

Need For Speed: ProStreet (Xbox 360)

The Simpsons (Xbox 360)

Skate (Xbox 360)

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (Xbox 360)

Crysis (PC)

SimCity Societies (PC)

FIFA Online (PC)

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)

CGA Games Convention Asia 2007: I was there!

CGA Games Convention Asia 2007 (CGA 2007) was held in Level 6 Suntec City Convention Center, Singapore from 6th till 9th September 2007. I was there and will give you pictures, impressions and hands-on on games that was on display there. There were several big named companies there as well as some local companies plying their local games contents too. My coverage of this show will mainly be on console games.

CGA 2007 is held in two exhibition halls. There are plenty of walking space around each booth, with equally spacious internally within the booths too. EA, Nintendo, Playstation 3 and Asiasoft's booths are the biggest of them, while the Nokia booths had the most babes. While Microsoft is not there in the form of a booth, EA and Codemasters have that covered by showcasing their games on the Xbox360 rather than the PS3.

CGA 2007 showcases upcoming games that are recently released and soon to be released for the Singapore market. While I am a little disappointed that there were no previews of future games, but the chance to play Warhawk, Lair, NFS ProStreet, DIRT and others soon to be out games are a blast and this is the main idea of CGA 2007, to promote recent games.

I will be posting some pics of the booths, as well as hands-on impressions on the games available on the floor, in the next few posts.

New PS3 starter pack (Heavenly Sword and F1 CE) exclusively for France.

Kotaku have finally cleared the air on the rumored new PS3 starter pack featuring Heavenly Sword and F1 CE. This pack truly exists, but will be headed exclusively for France only. SCEE went on to state that they may be releasing exclusive starter pack with various mixed games for territories within its management.

Apple to give US$100 back to early iPhone adopters?

After Apple announced the price drop of the 8GB iPhone, there was some unhappy responses from the iPhone early adopters, those who paid the full US$599 for it. In a response to the outcry, Steve Jobs have issued an open letter to his staff, stating that he will give all iPhone owners an US$100 Apple gift certificate. The actual details of the gift certificate, as well as the eligibility to claim the credit, will be revealed next week.

While this is very obviously designed to calm those early Apple supporter, the consumer electronics industry have never offers any form of rebate or credit to any early adopters of a product, especially when the product eventually drops in price.

Well done Apple, you may have maneuvered yourself out of a sticky situation.

US$200 price cut for 8GB iPhone.

In a move that will irk more early adopters of iPhone, Apple have announced a US$200 price cut off the 8GB iPhone. US buyers will now be able to get the 8GB iPhone at only US$399, despite iPhone have only been available in the market for only two months.

Also, Apple is also killing the 4GD iPhone models, and is clearing their stocks by selling them at US$299. Guess this is the best time to get the iPhone, for US users at least.

So for now, should we wait three months before getting the iPod touch, in anticipation of price cuts by Apple?? Guess this may backfire on Apple, as they may shy away potential early adopters of the flashy iPod Touch.

We are lucky as the iPhone have not made it to the Asian shores yet, so we won't have to endure such heart pains from such drastic price cuts from Apple.

Apple's new iPods revealed.

Apple have showed off its newest members to the iPod family.

Everyone, meet (from left to right): iPod Nano, iPod Classic and iPod Touch.

Will get you more info on these hot items in the next few posts.

PS3 Stranglehold demo available on Sept 6th.

PS3 Stranglehold demo will be made available in US Playstation Network on Sept 6th 2007. This was made know by the moderator of Midway's forum. The demo is expected to be the same as the one released on Xbox Live and will feature the game's first level, set in Hong Kong.

Its not yet available in US PSN as of posting time, but hey... I am 11 hours earlier than US. Check the site for the demo.

RUMOR: New PS3 starter pack with Heavenly Sword and F1 06??

While I don't usually indulge in spreading rumors, the following rumor is too good to pass up.

It seems that a contributor (Robinspain) to NEOGaf forum has leaked to the internet an image that supposedly be a new starter pack headed for Europe and/or Australia. At the price of the current starter pack (which is supposed to expire on 31st Aug 2007) of Euro599, the new starter pack is rumored to contain two controllers and two new(er) games. The games are supposedly to be Heavenly Sword and F1 06 (huh??).

Personally, I am inclined to call this a hoax, but who knows if Sony will make an announcement regarding it soon?? Perhaps this starter is actually headed for Asia, and will be announced during CGA Games Convention 2007 tomorrow??

CGA Games Convention Asia - 6th - 9th Sept 2007

CGA Games Convention Asia 2007 will open its doors to visitors in Suntec City, Singapore tomorrow till 9th September 2007. While news from Asia's equivalent of E3 and TGS (hopefully...) has been very scarce, its been confirmed that Electronics Arts, Blizzard, 10tacle, Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3 will be supporting the event.

EA will be there to show off its list of games (unconfirmed) as follows:-

EA Console Titles:

Army of Two (PS3, Xbox 360)
Boogie (Wii)
Burnout Paradise (PS3, Xbox 360)
EA Playground (Wii, DS)
FIFA 08 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC, PSP, DS)
Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Medal of Honor Airborne (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PS3, Xbox 360)
MySims (Wii, DS) NASCAR 08 (PS3, Xbox 360, PS2)
Need For Speed: ProStreet (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC, PSP, DS)
Rock Band (PS3, Xbox 360)
The Simpsons (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS)
Skate (PS3, Xbox 360)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PC)

EA PC Titles:
Crysis
Hellgate: London
Medal of Honor Airborne
SimCity Societies
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08

Sony will be there to show off some games for PS3 and PSP, while Nintendo will be launching Wii for the Asian region during the event as well.

I may drop by to Suntec City if time permits, while hunting for announcements and games from Singapore if I cant make it there.

Apple's "The beat goes on" event today!

Apple's event to reveal their fall / winter gadgets line up will be held in US today, 5th September 2007. With the tagline "The beat goes on", this highly anticipated event has the internet buzzing with rumors of the "next generation iPod", "touchscreen iPod" and even "nano fatty".

Cant wait to see what gadgets Apple have lined up to show the world, will post them here as I hear them.

PS3 Firmware 1.92 latest information.

My PS3 firmware was updated to V1.92 last night:

It seems that Sony's Asia Playstation website contains a SNAFU (err... an error). In their website, they had stated:

"The PLAYSTATION®3 system software version 1.92 update includes the following:
Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PLAYSTATION®3 format titles."

But a check in the Sony US Playstation site, reveals a slightly different message:

"New for 1.92: Playability status with the PS3™ system has changed for some PlayStation®2 format titles. To check on the latest status, visit the search site for compatible titles (coming soon)."


So now you know, V1.92 has resolved some of PS3's problems with playing certain PS2 games, however the PS2 titles are not revealed as of today.

Tsk tsk tsk, a knock on the knuckles for Sony Asia Playstation site is in order.