Here is an article from xbox.com that was posted about the design behind the new wireless mic and what the team had to go through to make sure that it was comfortable and had long battery life. They go on to explain why the mic looks the way it does and how they ended up spending more time then they thought on the rubber ear loop, enjoy.
"The team started with more than fifty design ideas. When they narrowed it down to about six designs, the team began usability testing. They went through eight rounds of human testing with mockups, then more after they had working parts. They tested various earloop configurations, and ended up learning more than anyone wants to know about heads and ears.
Once the team found a direction they liked, industrial design began. They studied battery size and weight, boom length, and optimal placement for vocal reception. During the studies, for example, they found that people didn't want to see the boom or have it touch their face. But if the boom extended too far, it picked up excessive ambient noise. The boom also had to be adjustable to accommodate different head and jaw shapes.
The design team worked closely with electrical and mechanical engineering to make sure all the guts fit and worked within the design parameters. They knew people would be using their headsets for hours at a time, so the design had to accommodate a larger battery, yet not be so heavy as to be uncomfortable or unstable.
The team also examined controls. They found that it's more natural to push buttons into the side of your head than to fiddle with controls on the sides that might push the headset off your ear. The plus symbol on the control that increases volume is raised so you can feel it, and placed so that it's almost instinctual to use.
One of the great challenges in designing the headset was the earloop. It might not look like it, but that little rubber beauty was the cause of much consternation for the design team. It's like trying to design a one-size-fits-all shoe, for both left and right feet."
Saturday, January 27, 2007
No wonder the mic is $60!
THE COD 3 MAPS HAVE BEEN RE RELEASED!
Slow news day!
Not much going on in the video game world today or mine for that matter. Today I played some PGR3 on my new Force feedback wheel that everyone should own by the way and I also setup my own little espresso stand in my kitchen, I figured I might as well buy the stuff because I already spend waaaaaayy to much money on coffee but hey, Im allowed to do that because I am in coffee capital U.S.A.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Gamersreports.com is reporting on a PS3 price increase in Canada.
It seems that Sony has made a minor price correction for the PS3 in Canada. Now the unit costs $50 dollars more, for a total of $699.99. Both Best Buy and Futureshop have the console listed at the new price, the old list used to be $659.99. What is Sony doing?
This story is from Gamersreports.com
This is why I hate punk ass kids on XBOX LIVE!
Two Ohio schools received quite a scare this week, as two potential plots to bring firearms to the schools were uncovered. The tool that was used to uncover one plot: Xbox Live. The first incident involved a middle school student who told a California teen, during and Xbox Live match, that he intended to bring a 9mm pistol to his school. The California boy's father overheard the conversation and contacted the FBI. The middle schooler was subsequently arrested. His Xbox 360 and a pistol were confiscated. It is currently unknown when or if he will be allowed to return to school.
A second similar threat was made towards an Ohio high school, apparently overheard by a student. The high school was briefly on lockdown and patrols in the area have been increased. Teays Valley Superintendent, Jeff Sheets, believes that the second threat was inspired by the middle school plot earlier in the week. So far there are no arrests and no suspects have been named for the high school threat.
PSM magazine advertises GOW?
Apparantly GOW is so good that PSM magazine will even let Microsoft advertise it's games in it, but then again there are no games worth advertising for the PS3 so they have to put something good in the magazine.
Double Dragon is headed to XBLA
It was reported at Xbox world that Double Dragon is headed to XBLA for 400 points. The exact date is unknown but I would expect it sooner than later, you might want to take a look at the screen shots because they have given the game a makeover in the graphics department.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Man this makes me tired.
Creating a blog and scowering the internet looking for the latest news is pretty damn time consuming. Not to mention the e mail I get from Sony fanboys who dont like my "fanboy comments" of their beloved PS3. So I think im going to need more caffeine than my usual daily amount if I am going to have enough energy to play my games at night.
You know as well as I do that you have to be on top of your game and alert if you are going to be a factor in Gears of War, I mean there is nothing worse than being the guy with 0 kills halfway through the game.
If they think Halo 2 wasn't good then I can only imagine how good Halo 3 will be.
This story is from Gamepro.com
In an article from U.K.'s Edge Online, Bungie's Halo staffers chime in with their thoughts on working with Microsoft and the complexity of the Halo series.
"We had about four to five weeks to polish Halo at the end. No more than that. And that last five per cent is responsible for 30 per cent of the success of the game, or more. That's the period in which we really had a perfect storm," said technical lead Chris Butcher. "The team was all there, everything was working great, the Xbox hardware was finally there and good, and we just were able to relentlessly execute on that. The entire game came together within that four- to six-week period."
Butcher said that Bungie had none of that "polish" time for Halo 2. "We miscalculated, we screwed up," he said, "we came down to the wire and we just lost all of that. So Halo 2 is far less than it could and should be in many ways because of that. It kills me to think of it. Even the multiplayer experience for Halo 2 is a pale shadow of what it could and should have been if we had gotten the timing of our schedule right. It's astounding to me. I f***ing cannot play Halo 2 multiplayer. I cannot do it. And that's why I know Halo 3 is going to be so much better."
As for working with Microsoft, "The concept that Bungie wouldn't have a launch title for the Xbox 360 was almost impossible to conceive of," said Bungie composer Marty O'Donnell. "That was really hard for the suits to swallow, it was like, no no no, we have to have a Bungie launch title. But I remember saying that there's nothing better than for Bungie not to be able to have a launch title, and for Bungie not to be defining the Xbox 360. I know it's scary for everybody, but it's not scary for us. We make games. We don't ship platforms. We don't push platforms. As soon as we think that that's what we're about, as soon as we think that Bungie's a platform company, we are, in my opinion, doomed."
First trailer of UT3
There is a trailer of the XBOX 360 version of what was once UT 2007 but has been renamed UT3. You can check out the trailer here.
COD3 map pack re release coming soon.
Hey Call of Duty 3 fans:
We have some news that many have been anxiously anticipating. We will be re-releasing the Valor map pack for download over Xbox Live Marketplace in the very near future. Alongside that release, we will also be issuing a Title Update which addresses two key issues that many users have voiced in the forums:
1) When the Ranked lobby countdown reaches zero, the lobby will sometimes boot all users back to the previous menu screen.
2) When the game successfully loads into a Ranked Match, occasionally some users will fall outside of the map.
Because we will be releasing both the map pack and the Title Update that addresses Ranked Match issues simultaneously, adequate time is needed for final testing with a release in the near future.
Thank you all again for your patience during this past few days. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience. We hope to see you all on the battlefield!
-- Call of Duty team
Square Enix to license Unreal Engine 3
It was announced today that Square Enix has licensed the Unreal Engine 3 to power the next Final Fantasy games.
You know what that means, a real shitty boring ass game will look great.
It's official, UT2007 for the 360
It was only a matter of time before this was announced. UT2007 was first announced in 2005 for the PS3 but with an install base of over 10.5 million 360’s and the love epic has received from Gears of war and it’s 3 million copies sold that it only makes sense to bring it over to the 360 as well. I wonder why it took so long to announce this? I think Sony made an agreement with epic to not mention any other platforms so people would hold off on the 360 thinking that it will be PS3 exclusive.
Sony cannot do anything right as of late (UPDATE)
Here is the image that was taken from the PSP connect website and yep that is PGR3 LOL.
Sony cannot do anything right as of late
It was posted earlier today at Joystiq.com that the boys at Sony posted on their PSP connect site an image from PGR 3 with the Gran Turismo HD logo over it. I wonder if that is cause for any legal action. Anyways head over there and read the full story and how the Sony fanboys replied to this story.
