Handful of Nothing

So Nokia has just announced 4 new phones (plus the music service) and most important for gamers : the return of the Ngage. Not in the form of a device, but as a platform, where you can try, rent and buy game as well have that whole “xbox-live” like interactions that everyone knows are quite good.

I’m dying to try it out and see how the fellows did this, but I can already say : The ngage UI looks amazingly refreshing. It’s just brand new as I could see in the published videos and makes me wonder that there’s a lot of things going on in the Finnish lands.

Another incredible thing posted by the guys over engadget and gizmodo : The loudest speaker ever on a phone. I know most of people don’t care about this, but for me this is a must. I was pretty disappointed with Iphones because I use the cell as my in car music. Why do you ask? Because here in Brazil is just to easy to place a CD player and get your car smashed just to take it off in the first week. I already faced this twice and even when I buy a cheap CD the thief is not kind, breaks the window, breaks the dashboard and steal even buttons for red lights etc.

So I’m really really looking forward to put my hands on the N81 as it seems to have not only the Ngage games revisited as a platform, a non-side talking formfactor (nifty buttons on the top, I asked that since the first first cellphone with game I saw in my life) a incredible speaker and of course a slim (for s60 ok) profile.

The N95 and the Xpress buddies
The american N95 has a really impressive looking now in black, but I really liked the camera cover set up that is now gone. But With 8 gigas plus a better battery I can say if Nokia added to that a nice firmware with more fixes than the 12.x version this is a incredible phone as well. For sure the top of chain in nowadays phones (europe / americas)

The Xpress candybars are also A LOT better looking in black, real killer change this one, and look to have a real nice slider thing on. Need to test this. Of course they are less powerful than the other 2 but they have also a smaller price tag for those interested in good music + nice battery life (14 and almost 24) for the new dudes.

It’s a shame that it takes so long to have them here in Brazil, or I would do a full review with pleasure of those guys.

Check out the galleries from Gizmodo : N81, N95, The Xpress

I will talk about Nokia Music store later, when I at least digg it a little bit more, but for now one thing is clear : you can for sure buy your music while on the bus, and not worry about needing to buy on the pc or synchronize with your device. This is the real deal for mobile. This is how it should be done. Just hope the public receives it well.

After all : this is a nice step by Nokia, and Gizmodo talks about a pane view, must be an alternative to the other multimedia screen, and it shows clearly that Nokia is experimenting to evolve the UI. There’s no doubt that no manufacture will stay quiet of comfortable now in this matter. Iphone was just a thruster, but I think Samsung, nokia and the others were already aware that UI needs to advance, and doing that for a whole company is a lot more complicated than doing just for 1 phone like apple did.

So simple, yet so powerful to the already casual-king console of all time =)

Take your time to see it. Ok, in a land of hoax this could be fake, parents could be playing behind the camera (a little to far, but could work) but see how the little boy actually understands a little bit the mechanic and at least wave his wiimote in the correct time sometimes. That’s creepy. I can’t wait to see what our kids will be able to do when they reach our age =)

Cool. pretty cool.

Marcelo

Chenca sent me this today:
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4292
Looks pretty usable and the possibility of playing some nice psp games on the big screen is very tempting.

What I’m really looking forward now is a PSP emulator, so I can really test games before deciding to buy them without needing my psp to do so. Ok that argument sounded pretty fake =)

Well, it was just a matter of time to for this to happen so :

And that really shows something : we had compiled quake2 for the 770 2 years ago, and quake 2 was like impossible, Quake one ran at 0.5 frames per second.

If this video is really true, you can imagine the power of the new device compared to the old one. Sad thing : we still have the nasty Vsync problem :p. Hey Daniel stone, pleaaaaaase solve this one for the sdl lovers = /

and I’m pretty glad that the interest in the platform is growing and people are tinkering with it more and more =)

Maybe now it’s time to adapt my crap stylus-ui from doom to quake 2?

So you can read here that these guys at apple inside think that apple’s recent game designers hiring is a signal that the Cupertino company is aspiring to enter the Console market. I really don’t think so, and I think apple’s hiring has other meaning: Focus on great application.

Great gamedesigners have a set of common skills : ability to entertain the user. Lock them into an experience that he fells part of it and can “evolve” in it. Deep understand of user aspiration. They know how to keep the user excited while using their software. So what if Apple has just again foreseen the importance of immersing users into more game-like experiences. I think this is just a warning signal for usability professionals out there =) New times are coming, even if Apple is REALLY thinking about the console market.

Ok, I understand that Brazil is known for the piracy and everything, but there’s also serious gamers like myself, and I would really like to be able to buy consoles and games just like a american guy or european or a japanese can do.
Why can’t I do that? I will show you.

Let’s do first some benchmarks :
imagine that a very good salary for a software developer here in brazil is 5.000 reais. That gives you some 2000 dollars, but if you compare with a guy in the US, it can be almost 1 by 1. So they guy in the US, goes in the store… and want’s to buy a ps3.
He pays 499 dollars, and 60 bucks for a game. and go home. spending a little bit more than 15% of his salary to buy it all.

In Brazil the same guy would have to pay 8000 reais, or 3711 USD. so, more then 1 full salary (not excluding taxes) to have a ps3 at home.

What’s so funny : with 8k reais, I can leave know, pick a flight to new york, buy a ps3 there, come back and I will almost have some money to spend in beers.

This should be a joke but it’s not. What makes me mad is the gov saying : we need to protect the local industry. Sorry politicians… no game industry here.. or even signal of plans for it.

So, here at INdT we ported some games and I’ve made them available a couple of times. Now Eduardo has changed them to use the newest hildon, and upload new packages to my website, ready to be used with application catalogue.

So, to install the games, just add the repository to your catalogue, hit refresh and have fun =)

deb http://marceloeduardo.com/apt mistral games

Brought to you by: INdT =)

It seems that Nintendo is getting ready to shake the 3rd console generation pretty hard. To be able to buy one Wii + xbox360 + games for the price of one psp does sound incredible, and even more incredible is that the price of 1 xbox360 you can buy 1 wii + 2 games + accessories =) Yeah. yeah yeah! I think it’s time to prepare my wallet and get ready to enter the 3rd gaming era. Brazil really sucks for buying those consoles, but I will be riding one Wii as soon as possible!

[ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/ljZOHnZNaBc]

After some problems with it’s dual shock controls (force feedback mainly) from Sony, now it’s time to see Microsoft e Nintendo face some trouble with controls and patents. Some Texan company has sued both companies from breaching a bunch of patents with it’s gamepads. Take a look at some of the patents name :

Variable Sensor with Tactile Feedback / Analog Controls Housed with Electronic Displays
Remote Controller with Analog Pressure Sensor / Analog Sensor with Snap Through Tactile Feedback
3D Controller with Vibration / Variable Conductance Sensor
Game Controller with Analog Pressure Sensor / Variable Conductance Sensor with Elastomeric Dome Cap
Remote Controller with Analog Button / Image Controller with Sheet Connected Sensor
Game Control with Analog Pressure Sensor

Again: this simply blows my mind. What a fuck is a company that does nothing related to videogame doing claiming technology ownership on something that they didn’t released any comercial product using it?

This whole patent thing is becoming more and more a *** in the a***, with zero-products company creating patents on everything just waiting to see someone using those in some products, sue them and make some money. God, please keep those stupid patents in the US only. Please!

This is to announce the link to our games already running on the new Maemo 2.0 beta final software.
You can download .deb packages for x86, ARM and also the source.

Just follow the link :
www.marceloeduardo.com/maemo2.0/

the Sdl net files are available also, for those with product firmware.

Updated: link now is correct. Text was right, url wrong! tested in the product, all working

updated 2: packages for lib sdl net now works (it was missing some silly info on the package)

Yeah, I’ve been expecting this for some time! Tekken for the PSP has gone gold and now we can enjoy those brutal, well done 3D fights on our PSPs. It’s an update to the Arcade version with 2 more fighters and some levels. hope to put my hands on this one soon!

Now waiting: for Def Jam fight for NY for the PSP. I just love the brutality in this game (played in the Xbox) and now is coming to the PSP. Hell yeah!

This is to announce the link to our games already running on the new Maemo 2.0 beta final software.
You can download .deb packages for x86, ARM and also the source.

Just follow the link :
www.marceloeduardo.com/maemo2.0/

Updated: the Sdl net files are available also, for those with product firmware. 

Nintendo is shaping up what I assume to be the killer strategy for next-gen gaming. Many specialist were saying that the decision of going below in hardware power and not above but in a different direction in gameplay, was too risky and that we are going to see Nintendo loosing the console war.

I couldn’t disaagre more. Why? Simply! In the last few months I’ve watching people playing with my nintendo ds and fighting to leave it behind. Nintendo is really catching up both with casual gamers that were bored like hell to play actual games and the hardcore gamers that are having great fun with incrediable releases like the new super mario, animal crossing etc.