Late Night Consoling

Microsoft and Intel announced HD-DVD support today, choosing the format over Sony & Co.'s rival Blu-ray media format. Despite an expected eventual allegience to HD-DVD in the upcoming "format war", until now the two companies have remained neutral, claiming to have been weighing the pros and cons of each side. Last month, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates mentioned that the company was looking into the possibility of eventually adding HD-DVD movie player support to the upcoming Xbox 360, though such functionality is definitely not in consideration for the machine's launch.

Tom's Hardware Guide got in contact with a Microsoft representative and obtained a list of six reasons why the software developer and console manufacturer decided to go with HD-DVD. The six criteria, according to Microsoft, are italicized below:

Surprisingly, Microsoft cited disc storage capacity as a factor. While Blu-ray has generally been considered the more spacious format, Microsoft claims that currently the biggest HD-DVDs measure 30GB whereas the biggest functional Blu-ray discs measure 25GB; Blu-ray's rumored 50GB discs have not yet been prototyped.

HD-DVDs allow for content from legally obtained discs to be copied or streamed off the disc. With Microsoft and Intel pushing media center functionality in upcoming products, the companies consider this important. The Microsoft rep stated that Blu-ray's commitment to such abilities is unclear.

HD-DVD will have support for hybrid discs playable both in current DVD players and HD-DVD players, whereas Blu-ray has not demonstrated such support. Microsoft also expressed frustration with the route taken by Blu-ray's interactivity standards, which they believe to be inferior to those used in HD-DVD.

With two major Chinese DVD player manufacturers announcing HD-DVD support over Blu-ray, Microsoft claimed both low production costs and low disc replication costs as factors in the decision.

Blu-ray spokesman Josh Peterson was unfazed by the announcement, stating, "We don't see this announcement as anything that will shift the momentum that Blu-Ray disc has experienced."

IGNCube's always informative Matt Casamassina has published another edition of IGN's GameCube Mailbag, which lately may as well be called the Revolution Mailbag. There were some noteworthy responses:

For one thing, Han Solo's leaked Revolution specs are most assuredly not accurate. Not too surprisingly, he cites them being more extravagant than what Nintendo actually has in the works. Looks like we'll have to wait and see what's under the Revolution's hood.

Notably, a reader's question regarding high-definition compatibility in Revolution prompted the following response from Casamassina: "...That said, internal rumblings indicate that the Big N is still very much considering the option and some studios claim that 720p functionality is present in some Revolution documentation." Considering HD support was considered essentially out of the question previously, the thought of 720p specs in official documentation is quite intruiging.

Casamassina also notes that "all Revolution logos and branding have been removed from more finalized hardware" and predicts that Nintendo will reveal the final name of the currently-only-codenamed Revolution system by the end of this year.

The countdown at OrigenXbox360.com has finished counting down, and it's...a contest to win some tickets to an Xbox 360 launch event. Color me glad I didn't follow it until yesterday. The site now contains an animation of two rabbits having a conversation and eating psychadelia-inducing fruit, after which a short quiz is presented and the user is entered into a drawing to win one of two said tickets. The lottery is open to European gamers only. So if you're a European gamer and you want to come to the United States for a 360 event, check it out! Otherwise, don't.

The November issue of the UK's Edge Magazine apparently reveals that Rare's upcoming Perfect Dark Zero (X360) has had to shelve a few features in the interest of staving off delays to the game's ship date. The game will now support up to 32 players online, down from the previously-claimed 50. It will also ship without its DataDyne TV features, which would have allowed players to record particularly impressive games and upload them online.

Though the features will not be present in the shipping version of the game, Rare has left open the possibility that they may be available over Xbox Live at some later date after they have been sufficiently tested. Let's hope that if they arrive, they're free.

Coming right on the heels of the PSP 2.00 exploit comes a tool do downgrade the firmware on your PSP from version 2.00 to version 1.50 (if you have version 1.51 or 1.52 and wish to downgrade, you must upgrade first). With the 2.00 crack currently only supporting files up to 64kb in size, the downgrade option is probably looking pretty good to a lot of homebrew enthusiasts who were locked out by the recent firmware upgrade. However, many newer PSP games require 2.00 to run, so owners have to make a choice between homebrew and official games. Of course, some would say that with the PSP's current lineup, that's not too difficult a choice...

The latest issue of EGM has a short blurb indicating that, as any reasonable person would expect, Sony is planning sequels to its hit God of War (PS2). The first of the two sequels will be released on PS2 some time in 2006, while the followup will be developed for PS3 at some later date. Given the projected length of next-gen development times, I suspect it may already be in production.

God of War designer David Jaffe has not confirmed his involvement with the projects, but there's no reason to suspect he won't eventually.

This week, 1UP has a recurring feature focusing on Tecmo's Team Ninja and its outspoken head Tomonobu Itagaki. The first two days are up.

Idle Thumbs' Marek Bronstring goes hands on with the torturous PainStation, providing written impressions and video.