You know what they say — if you can’t buy it, mod it. Michael “Bibin” Moffitt’s backlighting job on this Game Boy Pocket is a case in point. Unwilling to shell out the dough for a Game Boy Light on eBay (but more than willing to destroy two old LCDs in pursuit of his mad dream), this guy removed the reflective layer and adhesive behind the handheld’s display (”almost as hard as reasoning with a rabid PlayStation 3 fan,” he writes) and built a backlight out of an LED, some perspex, and a diffusive layer. That’s it — now our man is playing Donkey Kong, in the dark, in all its monochromatic glory, and with no noticeable change in battery life. Hit the read link for plenty of naked GBP pics.
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds
Game Boy Pocket fitted with backlit screen, one man’s life now complete originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Jan 2009 10:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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So far, I’ve spent roughly 75% of 2009 in bed. Good times.
One of my favorite parts of the new year is celebrating each and every first. For example, I’m going to pay my rent for the first time in 2009. Later today, I hope to talk with Steve, Maarten and Nick for the first time in ‘09. And this is 2009’s first Faylor-created chatty.
It gets old after, I don’t know, three or four minutes at most. It’s better if you can combine it with some other recent event, like a wedding. “Congratulations, it’s your first second day of the new year as a married couple! You’ll never be able to repeat this! Ever!”
An article on CNet questions the viability of using games as part of a strategy to increase Linux adoption. It points out a blog post by Andrew Min which suggests: “… Linux companies also need to start paying attention to the open source gaming community. Why? It’s lacking. However, gamers can get excited about free games. They just have to be up to par with commercial games. The problem is, commercial companies pay hundreds of employees to build a game for several years, while many competing gaming projects only last several years before the developer moves on. It’s time for open source developers to start getting paid for their jobs. Who better to pay them than the companies that benefit most?”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Song packs and individual tracks are being released on a weekly basis throughout January for the game Rock Band 2.
Highly doubtful we’ll see any news today, but I wanted to get the first post of 2009 up. Hope everyone had a good New Year’s Eve; I stuffed myself on all kinds of traditional Ukrainian dishes. Good times.
This year we’ve seen the PS3’s Cell processor pitch in and help break the petaflop barrier, exploit a major security hole in SSL encryption and enable adolescent hijinks on PlayStation Home. Obviously, this is one serious piece of kit. According to The Race For A New Game Machine, written by two of the folks responsible for designing the thing, the Cell (a partnership between Toshiba, Sony and IBM) was the product of a deal that opened the door to IBM selling key parts of the chip to Microsoft before they had even finished building it — even though this was clearly not part of the plan. Essentially, Sony’s R&D money was spent creating a component for their rival, helping the Xbox 360 make its launch date of November 2005, while the PlayStation 3 was pushed back a full year. It seems somewhat fitting that the troubled game system should have such dysfunctional origins, no?
[Via PS3 Fanboy]
Filed under: Gaming
Book details how Sony paid for Xbox 360 dev, let Microsoft borrow its car, acted like a doormat originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Wall Street Journal is running an article about a recently released book entitled “The Race for a New Game Machine” which details Sony’s development of the Cell processor, written by two of the engineers who worked on it. They also discuss how Sony’s efforts to create a next-gen system backfired by directly helping Microsoft, one of their main competitors. Quoting: “Sony, Toshiba and IBM committed themselves to spending $400 million over five years to design the Cell, not counting the millions of dollars it would take to build two production facilities for making the chip itself. IBM provided the bulk of the manpower, with the design team headquartered at its Austin, Texas, offices. … But a funny thing happened along the way: A new ‘partner’ entered the picture. In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft’s rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360. In 2003, IBM’s Adam Bennett showed Microsoft specs for the still-in-development Cell core. Microsoft was interested and contracted with IBM for their own chip, to be built around the core that IBM was still building with Sony. All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients. But it does not seem to have occurred to Sony that IBM would sell key parts of the Cell before it was complete and to Sony’s primary videogame-console competitor. The result was that Sony’s R&D money was spent creating a component for Microsoft to use against it.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sure, it might be a little more cumbersome than your current billfold — but whatever — this is awesome. This SNES cartridge has been modded so that it holds a photo ID on the front plate, but it’s also been gutted of its internals and outfitted with a hinge so that there’s storage space on the inside. Oh, and it’s got an LED that can be powered on and off, plus it plays game music / noises! Crazy, right? Well, it’s slightly complicated to build one of your own, but Instructables has the details, should you want to give it a whirl. Ask yourself this: what better way is there to spend New Year’s Day?
[Via Hack A Day]
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Gaming
Super Nintendo cartridge wallet: you probably want this originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jan 2009 03:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Massively reports on statements from EVE Online developer CCP Games indicating that they’ll be working with MIT students to see if they can create mobile applications that will interact with EVE . They specifically mention things like skill trainers, route planners, and transaction viewers, but they leave the door open for other apps as well, saying they are “eager to hear what ideas MIT students might come up with.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Massively reports on statements from EVE Online developer CCP Games indicating that they’ll be working with MIT students to see if they can create mobile applications that will interact with EVE. They specifically mention things like skill trainers, route planners, and transaction viewers, but they leave the door open for other apps as well, saying they are “eager to hear what ideas MIT students might come up with.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
