Mobile Stew

I'm getting a bit bored of Project Gotham 3, so I've just picked up a copy of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the Xbox 360.  Tried holding out for as long as possible, but it seemed silly to only have one game for my Xbox 360 that I play.  Haven't played it yet but I'll be online before and after the Spurs game if anyone wants to show me the ropes.  Don't forget I've got a new gamertag - 'Dreem Team'

I just read a feature on Kotaku that claims that Bizarre Creations are already working on PGR4 and that the next Project Gotham Racingwill be faster and harder than the current Xbox 360 title.

Bizarre’sBen Ward said, “We’ve already done some experiments, and things arelooking good.” Bizarre did not outright admit PRG 4 was already in development, but told Xbox 360 - The Official Magazine that they’d “be daft not to do another one.”

“I think we’ll be able to push the graphics a lot harder,” says Bizarre’s Gareth Williams. “When we were work

Finally it's here.  Runtime, one of the original founders of the great XBMC program for the original Xbox has put together a program called Transode 360 that allows you to stream DivX and XviD files on the fly to your Xbox 360 via Windows Media Center.

I managed to get the program working within 10 minutes, following the advice posted in the Xbox Scene Forums.  The code still needs some work, with some codecs working better than others, but at least it means I don't have to waste time converting my existing collection to MPEG2 or WMV to be able to watch.

If you haven't got a decent PC you might have problems using it - even my beast of a machine takes around 20-30 seconds to start playing, ...

I went to a Microsoft presentation yesterday which showcased the potential applications of their software.  It wasn't very interesting (although I did get some free software worth around £400 which was nice!), although it did make me realise that I wasn't getting the most out of my XP Media Center Edition PC combined with my Xbox 360.

One enhancement I added on last night lets my Xbox 360 to browse the web.  This tweak doesn't install a fully-fledged browser on the Xbox 360 but it does let you bookmark sites and follow links. 

To install the tweak do the following (Windows MCE required):

Well, after all the speculation the Xbox Live update just came through.  So far, I can't find anything new so it looks like it is just a bug fix drop.  Hopefully, they will have fixed the bug that causes Xbox 360s to crash if a chat invite is accepted within a game.

Anyone spotted any new features?

My copy of Xbox 360 Dead Or Alive 4 just arrived at work, which was a surprise as I'd forgot I'd pre-ordered it on Amazon.

I'll be playing it on Xbox Live this evening, so if you fancy trying to kick my ass then leave your gamertag below.  Be warned - I might have to do a Fatal1ty on you!

All I can say after looking at these shots is wow.  As my regular readers know, I love Project Gotham Racing 3 on the Xbox 360 and one of my favourite cities is Tokyo as the graphics make me feel like I really am racing around the city's streets. 



Well, the shots above prove just how good the graphics are.  Some enterprising gamer (some may also call him sad) took some holiday shots in Japan and then compared them with the game when they got back.   I'm stunned by how close the gameshots are to real life. 

More comparisons below: ...

Team I.C.E have posted details of Xbox 360 mod chips that will be available for sale in a few weeks.  Only NTSC versions are working at the moment.  

Although it is impressive that they've managed to hack the Xbox 360 already, I'm not sure how useful these first gen chips will be.  Even non-Windows XP Media Center Edition users can stream music to the xbox so the only useful capability these chips will add is to allow users to install XBMC or something similar so that videos can be streamed.  Users won't be able to 'backup' Xbox360 games to the HDD like you can with Xbox Mod chips, as hackers haven't worked their way around the Xbox360's copy protection.

Now that I've got My Xbox 360 Extender fully running...

One of the projects I've been working on over the Christmas break is building my first PC as my old PC which was over 4 years old started acting up.  It's gone really well and I've run a few tests to compare the performance between the old PC and the new machine and there is no comparison between the two.  I've even managed to do some decent overclocking which wasn't as scary as I thought it would be - more on this later.

I finally settled on the specification below.  My planned PC specification changed a bit at the last minute as I couldn't locate some of the components I planned to buy. 

ReplayTV, one of the forerunners in the DVR player market, is exiting the hardware market and shifting to software-only products.  A deal has been struck with Hauppage to bundle ReplayTV's software with its videocards.

In my view this is a smart move by ReplayTV.  For years it has been scrapping with TiVO to be top-dog in the market, and it has also been left punch drunk after numerous fights with the broadcasting industry over various issues such as allowing users to fast-forward through commercials.

By aligning itself now with one of the major card manufacturers it is positioning itself nicely for when Windows Vista hits the streets with in-built Media Center functionality, opening up PC-based PVRs to the masses.  I'm sure ReplayTV are looking at more bundling deals as ...