players

Microsoft has confirmed it will release a PC version of its Kinect hands-free motion control system on February 1, 2012. The new hardware offering will be expensive. Kinect was first offered for the Xbox 360 video game console in late 2010. It was ... Microsoft's effort to counter the Nintendo Wii system, which allows players to control on-screen action by moving a handheld device rather than a traditional controller. Microsoft One-Ups Wii Controllers with Kinect The motion-oriented controls of the Wii made games more accessible to casual players, while adding more realism to the game. Players ... (view more)

Multinational video game producer Electronic Arts (EA) has defended its decision to allow game players to use Taliban characters in its new video game, stating that such role-playing is an inevitable part of modern multiplayer gaming. The game is ... Medal of Honor, a name most will recognize given that EA has made several of these first-person-shooters in the last decade. All previous editions have been based around Second World War campaigns, with the player controlling a United States soldier aiming to defeat Axis characters. The new edition is set in modern-day Afghanistan. There had been ... (view more)

The popularity of Blu-ray players appears to be rising, just a year after doubters predicted that the devices -- which launched three years ago for $800-$1,000 each -- would fade into oblivion because of their marginal improvement over standard DVD ... players. Much of that negative thinking has changed, and as you might expect, it has a lot to do with the plummeting cost of buying a Blu-ray player. Blu-ray Price Drop One of Many in Tech Market When the devices first launched three years ago, many cost nearly $1,000 -- a lot of money for most U.S. families, even in a pre-recession North America. ... (view more)

Casino operators have warned that a new card-counting program for the iPhone could earn sneaky players a felony violation. That's because using electronic devices in such a way is barred nationwide. The application, which costs $3.99, helps players ... take advantage of the fact that used cards aren't always replaced in the deck before each hand of blackjack. Keeping track of the cards which have already played can give players a better chance of predicting which cards will come up in future hands, letting them place higher or lower bets accordingly. Card counting such as this isn't illegal in ... (view more)

Millions of people log on to Blizzard's Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft every day. The game is a sensation around the world, and has arguably made Blizzard the king of PC gaming. However, WoW's popularity ... has demonstrated that there is room in the marketplace for rival franchises, and LucasArts recently revealed plans to bring people together online via the Star Wars universe. With the media buzzing about at a recent San Francisco unveiling, LucasArts and BioWare (makers of the popular Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series) announced Star Wars ... (view more)

A study of teenage leisure habits says video games, rather than inciting violence actually promotes social interaction. The study also found that almost as many girls play games as boys. Perhaps the most surprising finding in the survey, carried out ... by the Pew Internet ... (view more)

Blu-ray may have won the high-definition format war, but sales of its high-definition DVDs and players have tanked. A report from ABI Research notes that it's been one quarter since HD DVD lost the high-definition format war to Blu-ray, and the ... market has absorbed the consequent impacts. HD DVD and universal players are selling at deep discounts and will no longer ship after 2008, but Blu-ray player and optical drive markets will need to undergo further evolution before reaching their full potential. Consumer electronics manufacturers need to introduce full-featured players that sell around ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced Xbox 360 users will now be able to legally download games created by other players. While some independent developers already have such games available on their own sites, the new scheme would make titles available through ... the console's built-in online service, Xbox Live. Players will be able to rate and discuss the games. The firm expects around 500 such titles to be available in the service's first year, which starts testing this spring before an official launch nearer Christmas. People wanting to develop a game will have to use dedicated Microsoft software which has ... (view more)

Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been gaining some negative attention, especially with Apple's Steve Jobs pushing towards a DRM-free music industry. Sony seems to have magnified people's annoyance with DRM, and taken frustrations to a whole new ... level. The company recently released DVDs with DRM protection that makes the DVDs unplayable in various DVD players -- including at least one Sony DVD player. (Source: dvorak.com ) The aggravation can be attributed to Sony's ARccOS DRM technique. ARccOS works by scrambling sectors on the disc to prevent users from copying the disc. Most older ... (view more)