Universe’s Tech Blog

Video game magazine publisher Enterbrain has released the first figures regarding the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 3 console. According to those numbers, the PS3 sold 88,400 units in the first 2 days following its launch. This figure means that almost all retailers sold out and that Sony had a strong start in its PlayStation 3 campaign, ahead of the critical for the company U.S. launch of the PS3, on November 17.

The Cell-powered console was greeted with much enthusiasm by Japanese consumers as many queued for hours in order to guarantee they could get their hands on the limited supply. Amidst accusations that homeless people were paid to queue overnight by wealthy businessmen and claims that most consoles sold are now being offered on auction site eBay, the fact remains that PS3 was the headline event this weekend in Japan.

The figures released also claim that 54,600, or 62 per cent, of the units sold were of the advanced (60 GB) model. Additionally we are informed that the best selling titles for the console over the launch weekend were Namco Bandai’s Ridge Racer 7 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Target in Sight, selling 27,000 and 20,000 copies respectively. The interesting fact is that the figures suggest that about 7,000 PS3 units were bought without any games.

The U.S. launch will feature about 400,000 units and is bound to offer more convincing figures and better data for us to begin drawing conclusions regarding the future of Sony’s next-generation offering.

Bungie has vowed to make this week special for Halo fans as it will mark the 5th anniversary of the launch of Halo for the original XBox. The developer promises more Halo 3 news and even announcements to celebrate the occasion.

Following the bad news of the postponement of the Halo movie, due to financial problems, Halo fans were happy to find out some new multiplayer details last week as revealed by the French Official XBox Magazine. That story revealed three new multiplayer modes, Ninjaball (in which players have to hold on to a ball), TankFlag (in which a tank carries the flag) and Elimination (a mode which will be played by 16 players and in which you will have to eliminate 5 opposing team members in order to triumph). The same story also revealed new weapons including such technological wonders as the Spartan Laser and the quirky, if slightly phallic, Man-Canon.

Having had all that information, including the treat of watching an editorial team playing Halo 3 MP but having no in-game images, we are now promised by Bungie more Halo 3 goodness this week. Before all that we are also told that Bungie is gauging female gamer reaction to its plans to add a female voice as a custom option for the Spartan character. We are happy to hear Bungie will create the female voice avoiding all female stereotypes and will make sure that it cannot be viewed as patronizing. If you have any comments to make regarding the presence of a female voice option in Halo 3 please visit the Official Halo 3 Forums.

An October survey of U.S. consumers by analyst Compete, suggests that the console with the highest demand in the U.S. is the PS3 although almost half of the people that wish to buy Sony’s console are not aware of its price.

The survey examined the attitudes of current generation console gamers to the XBox 360, PS3 and Wii. It appears that 48 per cent of those who expressed the desire to purchase a PS3 expected Sony’s next-gen offering to cost under USD 300. While 60 per cent of those who wish to purchase a PS3 claimed that the prices of USD 499 (20 GB) and USD 599 (60 GB) were excessive.

The same study examined consumer loyalty in the U.S. and found that 63 per cent of PS2 owners will consider buying the PS3 while only 39 per cent of Gamecube owners would consider buying the Wii. Additionally, 40 per cent of those gamers who bought a Gamecube last time around are now willing to consider buying a PS3.

These results place the PlayStation 3 on the top of the most wanted console list and suggest that Sony may not face quite the uphill struggle it was assumed in order to convince consumers that the PS3 is worth the investment.

Intel has unleashed upon the world the first of a new processing terror of potential whoop-arse — quad-core CPUs.

These arrive in the form of both the server-targeted Xeon Processor 5300 series and the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 for the desktop.

All four cores on the QX6700 are clocked at 2.66GHz and the processor sits on a 1,066MHz front side bus. It’s equipped with a total of 8MB L2 cache and will cost, as rumoured, US$999.

Although another rumour, AMD apparently has plans to sell its quad-core for less than this. Thanks to an onboard memory controller (as opposed to a FSB), it is also expected to trump Intel’s offering in performance.

The QX6700 will churn out an expected, yet hefty Thermal Design Power (TDP) rating of 130 watts. This measurement is the amount of cooling dissipation efficiency that is required in order to keep it from going all Charcoal Chicken on its owner.

This shoots past the obscenely hot Prescott to exactly match the TDP of the high-end, dual-cored Pentium D processors. This is scream-worthy, particularly when it involves your body’s largest organ, but when you consider this is a single processor that consists of four cores on two separate dies, this is actually a reasonable start.

This amount of heat was exactly as expected, however, as this quad-core processor simply consists of two individual Core 2 Duo dies (connected via the FSB), which produce a TDP of 65 watts each.

In comparison, the year-old, dual-core Xeon Paxville MP processors all pump out a 165-watt TDP. The new Xeon Tulsa range peaks at 150 watts.

To further save face, this is an Extreme Edition processor. Intel will launch a more mainstream 2.4GHz quad-core processor in early 2007 with a supposed TDP of 105 watts.

All the new Xeon 5300s also contain 8MB of cache, ranging from 1.6GHz on a 1,066MHz FSB to 2.66GHz on a 1,333MHz FSB. These processors have a TDP from 80 watts to 120 watts, however a low-voltage, 50-watt edition in this Xeon series is due in the first quarter of 2007.

According to EETimes, an Intel director wryly declared “We will ship one million quad-core processors before our competitor ships its first one.”

When AMD does produce its own quad-core beast, we can only assume it’ll pull another cheesy boxing match a la “Whoa! I didn’t even know a processor could do that, Bob!”

A new beta of CrossOver for Mac was released today with enough new features and improved stability to make regular users smile and make those who have tried it before and given up, try it again.

Unlike Boot Camp and Parallels Workstation, CrossOver can run individual Windows applications without the user needing to install a full Windows operating system.

Under the new beta Outlook 2003 works better with Exchange Server. In fact, it works at all for the first time for me.

In addition Office 2003 service packs and slipstreamed versions of Office 2003 can now be installed.

Quicken (pre-2007) runs much more smoothly with the “whoops, it’s gone dead” problem of unresponsive windows fixed and better window sizing.

Gamers will smile to see that several problems with Half-Life are fixed including network play with HL1 and random game-destroying crashes.

More importantly, several features as a “system-level” are greatly improved. CrossOver now detects removable media much more reliably. The eject button works when you need it to, so multi-CD installs are no longer a world of frustration and pain.

Keymapping fixes mean that Shift-arrow now selects properly and the addition of file associations sees PDFs and other file types passed to the system for opening.

Codeweavers has posted a full changelog.

Development Team member Jeremy White says that with this release “we’re finally beginning to converge on a final 6.0.”