Late Night Consoling

Don't worry, though, the console will run as intended. Ken Kutaragi, who seems to be making headlines on a daily basis, detailed the manufacturing process of the Cell processor. As we know, the Cell microprocessor is equipped with seven synergistic processor elements (SPEs) to make multicore processing possible. However, overall, each Cell chip will have eight SPEs on them in order to cut production costs and be flexible with defective chips. During production, it's highly unlikely that every SPE will come out working, so by adding a redundant SPE, it makes the chip useable for the PS3's specifications even if it is slightly defective. Kutaragi then went on to say that if two SPEs were borked, leaving only six, he would use those in a dual-CPU home server rig. Other PS3-related details in the link.

The owners of the Happy Tree Friends series, Flashman Studios, is shopping their property around for a videogame adaptation. If you're unfamiliar with the show, it's a collection of animated shorts featuring cute, cuddly forest animals engaging in horrendously violent activities (mostly accidental). Said Brad Young, the Chief Executive Officer of Flashman Studios, "It's an almost perfect brand for videogames. The simple, cute and hugely appealing graphical style, combined with the very dark, clever humor and the cartoon violence provides a wonderful opportunity for the videogames market to tap into a huge global fan base."

No, you didn't stumble into a time warp; a new RPG will soon be released for the Sega Genesis. It's called Beggar Prince and it's being brought stateside by Super Fighter and OlderGames. It was developed in Asia for a Taiwan release and a group of Genesis-Megadrive community members have translated and patched up the title for US release. Check out some screens at the official website.

While an official announcement has not yet been made, GameStop.com has a new listing for an Xbox version of Alien Hominid. It has it listed for release on August 1 for $29.99. The developers have always expressed interest in an Xbox port if the demand was great enough.

Koei is porting another one of their popular series to the Nintendo DS: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The DS version will pattern itself after the third title in the series, keeping its purely strategy gameplay. The touch screen and stylus allows for new input methods and will make full use of the wireless component: five on five battles will be possible.

IGN chats with Matt Webster about Burnout Revenge.