| Games Consoles |
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Note:
I've included this for completeness rather than any genuine interest in the genre. Apart from a few Gameboys (which I'm not greatly impressed with) we have no consoles, nor am I likely to get any for the kids...
Incidentally, chipping is now officially a crime in the UK. This includes advertising or selling the parts, installing them, pretty much a legal lockdown. If I think on I'll add a few newsbytes of people busted for it.
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| Console News |
Consoles ... Every five years or so a new generation of consoles replaces the current cream. That time, it seems, is creeping up on us again.
Sony:
PSX
... Big in Japan, it seems.
Basically a revamped PS2 with a hard drive and TV video recorder and a built in DVD recorder. ... Interesting!
...
PSP
... Playstation Portable
Playstation 1 quality graphics or better but with a 16:9 aspect ration
Taking 1.8Gb 60mm UMD (Universal Media Disc) optical discs it's a mini-DVD player in the making too.
Takes memories sticks too
MP3 player and movie function.
May double up as a digital camera (either directly, or via a plug in device).
USB port.
802.11b (Wi-Fi) wireless LAN
Here's a brief review by The Register from Nov 2003.
Of greater interest is Sony's PSP press release
Expected to retail around £249
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PS3
... 2006 timescale
Predicted sales of 32 million in Europe by 2010
Rumour to move from DVD to (backwards compatible) 23Gb Blu-Ray discs.
Probably won't play PS1 games mind.
Likely to have a USB slot, Smart Media card and a hard drive.
4Ghz Graphics ... 13x faster than the PS2
Will be able to handle 16 layers at once, shifting 200 million polygons a second*
(* Theoretical of 1 billion / second )
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Microsoft:
Xbox 2
... 2005 timescale
Predicted sales of 10 million in Europe by 2010
Also likely to have a USB slot, Smart Media card and a hard drive.
Like the PSX, expected to double as a video recorder, burning your soaps to DVD
Boasts three 64 bit IBM designed CPU's
HDTV quality resolution, compliments of a new ATI graphics card
Backwards compatible
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Nintendo:
... GameCube 2 for maybe 2006
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Nokia:
... Nokia have a hand-held console / phone in the form of the n.gage, but the reviews I read of it weren't impressed.
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[ Details largely taken from the news pages of the trade mag: CTO ]
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