A news article recently came up in which God of War developer David Jaffe seemed to make fun of Miyamoto by saying "I've been trying to figure out why the f_ing go-karts shoot banana peels." Some readers were upset by this, so David Jaffe made a response video. Watch the video in the full article.

We posted an article one month ago that invited readers to do a little thought exercise. Here's what we said: "On the 5th of November we're going to post an article or two about video games, gadgets, technology, and general geekness ... the things about video gaming and technology that ought not be forgotten."

So here's our list of some video gaming and technology moments worth remembering. Hope this gets you thinking (and feeling nostalgic too!). And we look forward to your comments (and arguments). What do you remember and wish that the world will never forget?

Today is October 5. That means that November 5, Guy Fawkes Night, is one month away.

While we don't celebrate this day in the US (it's not even a public holiday in the United Kingdom - it's only a yearly celebration), many of us know of this day thanks to the DC Comics / Vertigo graphic novel (comic book) series V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and its movie adaptation (with inimitable performances by Natalie Portman as Evey and Hugo Weaving as V).

Still, any "holiday" that gives people an excuse to light fireworks and go door-to-door begging for spare change sounds like something worth celebrating. So we at QJ.NET invite you to get into the spirit of things to remember, remember the 5th of November.

On the 5th of November we're going to post an article or two about video games, gadgets, technology, and general geekness - what moves us and affects us and touches us, and all the things about video gaming and technology that ought not be forgotten. Pretty much like the QuickJump QuickList articles in our Opinions & Analysis section at the front page and the other articles in the Opinions & Analysis sections of our many video game, science, and gadget blogs.

We invite you to plan ahead and consider what you want to remember on that day - because our articles obviously can't be the final word - that's what comments and the QJ.NET Forums are for. (Besides, now that we've turned off anonymous comments - and now that comments are smarter, funnier, and more meaningful - you have a good venue to share your reactions.)

We look forward to your thoughts. See you on the 5th of November.

Sony's press conference. Game Head talked to Jack Tretton about some of the highlights of Sony's press conference at E3 2007. This video is basically just chatting and playful banter about the PlayStation 3 and Killzone 2 (with a playful jab at Peter Moore) and the new PSP (the PSP Slim, PSP Lite, PSP Slim & Lite, or whatever "official" name the tech blogs have come up with this week).

There's a short segment showing Kazuo Hirai introducing the new PSP. And the video moves to Tretton quickly mentioning the new PSP's weight, video out (!), and bigger cache memory (making life easier for developers and giving us faster loading times!).

Then there's Killzone 2, the highly anticipated game developed by Guerrilla Games with Sony Computer Entertainment as publisher. Sorry, it won't be out for a while. Tretton managed to elude all attempts to pin down a concrete release date. But Tretton added that the PS3 has so many great exclusives and so many great games right now that fans should be able to wait until next year.

Submission wrestling and more in UFC. Then Quinton "Rampage" Jackson shows up at about 3:50 to talk about the awesome UFC game: Ultimate Fighting Championship 2009. At around 4:48 he starts screaming about how he wants to be in Halo (don't we all?). But if you're Quinton Jackson, you can make all the noise you want - nobody's going to stop you (except maybe Wanderlei Silva).

Booze and babes? About 5 minutes into the video they look at the different booths. We thought they said "we got all different booze for different companies" - which would probably have made for a wilder video, but booths are fine - although there are no booth babes in sight.

Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit at around 5:45. Call of Duty 4 at around 5:54. And that's about it. We agree with Geoff Heighley (the host). This E3 looks so empty.

Oops. This one almost fell through the cracks over the weekend (but it's not too late to report on it). Anyway, Game Structure Utility was patched by BlackVenom for 3.40 OE-A: "This utility for windows can reorder the games in PSP/GAME, PSP/GAME150, PSP/GAME340, ISO. The only thing I added to this was the support for GAME340."

 

Game Structure Utility is a PC-based application by HunterTeam - that's Blade Hunter (bhunter in the QJ.NET PSP Development Forum) and friends.

This nifty homebrew application for PlayStation Portable owners lets you change the order of the GAME menu of your PSP units ("sort of like how iTunes manages your iPod's playlist," said QJ.NET correspondent Tim Y.).

In other words, if you have a lot of homebrew and junk, and if you're having trouble finding your favorite apps or games, then you can use Game Structure Utility to move your favorites to the top of the list (or bottom, or wherever) so you can find them right away.

Download: Game Structure Utility patched for 3.40 OE-A
Visit: QJ.NET PSP Development Forum thread

The Leipzig Games Convention (GC) scheduled for August 23 to 26, 2007, will be the venue for big announcements from Sony regarding its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable.

Well, you already knew that there would be some big announcements - after all, that's what David Reeves said (David Reeves is the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, SCEE). If you recall, Reeves said that SCEE will be revealing three new features and services for the PlayStation Portable that are exclusive to Europe - as well as some good news about the PS3.

 

MCVUK believes that that a PS3 price cut is very much possible. We agree. Yes, it was established at E3 that there would be no price cut now for the PS3 in Europe, but that doesn't mean that there won't be a price cut months from now.

After all, with 60GB PS3 units selling at US$ 499 in North America with the successful introduction of the 80GB PS3, it only makes sense that a similar marketing move will be implemented in Europe soon after the Leipzig Games Convention and GC Developers Conference (GCDC) - meaning that buyers can enjoy a PS3 price cut come late August or early September.

MCVUK also expects SCEE to reveal video-on-demand and Freeview TV services. We can't find any solid evidence to support such claims, but MCV has a point: if Reeves said that Sony would release some "fireworks" at Leipzig, then video-on-demand and Freeview TV both fit that promise.

Correct us if we're wrong, but Freeview is a UK service. Is it available elsewhere in Europe? While a price cut is easy to implement everywhere in Europe, we're not so sure that Freeview has Continental counterparts willing to extend a similar service to those on the mainland.

Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game (the Hugo Award winner and Nebula Award winner), is a recovering game addict - or at least that's one interpretation you can give his interview over at Gaming Today. Ender's Game is being turned into a movie by Warner Brothers, and at the same time Orson Scott Card is open to the possibility of his book becoming a video game.

For those not familiar with Ender's Game, just understand that it's one of the best sci-fi books ever written (in our honest opinions). A fast-paced story about violence, evil, war, and leadership. It's required reading, or so Wikipedia claims, at the Marine Corps University at Quantico.

And if it's good enough for the US Marines, it should be good enough for you gamers out there, right? Anyway, back to the interview. Orson Scott Card talked about being addicted to gaming:

The weird thing was that even when I wasn't playing, I felt a tremendous anxiety. I had responsibilities - there were cities waiting for me to tell them what to build! Now, I'm not insane. My conscious mind knew that it was just a game, and when I wasn't running the program, nothing was happening at all. But I invested so much tension in the playing of the game that it didn't go away when I left the computer. The call of duty was still there.

The interview also tackled what goes into writing a story for video games. Card said:

Games CAN'T have the kind of storylines that movies and books have, or they wouldn't be playable. ... What makes a game work is the opposite of what makes a story work. In a story, you are seeking to find out what really happened - why people do what they do, what the results of their choices are. ... In a game, the opposite illusion must be created. Even though most games absolutely force you to follow preset paths, the gamewrights try to give you the illusion that you are making free choices (even though you are actually, in almost all games, still being channeled through certain puzzles with fixed solutions).

As for Ender's Game, it won't just be one game in Card's vision:

• The Battle Room. This pivotal set in the book can be several game modules in real life.
• Space war games. The three wars (back in Mazer's time all the way to Ender's time).
• Story-based games. Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow.
• MMORPG. This one is based on the Battle School in Ender's Game.
• The Fantasy Game. The "mind game" from the novel.
• The Hive Queen. It's like Civilization (a game franchise that Card was addicted to).
• Post-war war. Card describes this as being like Risk.

Well, Mr. Card, there are quite a few fans here at QJ.NET who would be first in line to get a game that follows the Hegemon.

Sony Computer Entertainment New Zealand (SCENZ) confirmed that the sales from the New Zealand launch of the PS3 caused "a spike in retail spending not previously witnessed at the launch of any other console in New Zealand," according to analyst group Gfk. In other words, in the 10 days from March 23 - the day of the official PS3 launch in New Zealand - until April 1, there were 4,835 PlayStation 3 consoles sold.

Gameplanet calls it an "unprecedented sales spike." This isn't too surprising considering the PS3's successful pre-order campaign in New Zealand.

There's more good news. PS3 games have taken over the sales charts. Daniel Morse from Gfk said, "Since launch, PS3 games have dominated GfK sales charts taking out all of the top ten places (console and handheld)." The two top sellers were Resistance: Fall of Man and MotorStorm, two games published by Sony Computer Entertainment.

What's the reason for the PS3's success? Warwick Light (General Manager Sales and Marketing, SCENZ) mentioned their advertising campaign and their interactive display units that let people "experience" the PS3. And after the sales success, Light has a right to be proud:

Combining games, photos, music, movies and the Internet, the PS3 is the ultimate entertainment hub in the living room. With the ability to have its functionality expanded through on-line upgrades, PlayStation 3 will be relevant for at least the next 10 years.

For the curious, here are the sales results from March 23, 2007, to April 1, 2007:

• PlayStation 3: 4835
• PlayStation 2: 1567
• PlayStation Portable: 738

Apparently, the PS2 black and pink consoles and the PSP also continue to sell in New Zealand, making Sony the clear retail winner for this month. Here's what Morse had to say about that:

Our combined data for the month of March positions the PlayStation 2 (black) console second to the PS3 as the next highest selling console, with PlayStation 2 Pink and PlayStation Portable rounding out the top four giving PlayStation a clean sweep for the month.

Sony Corporation has just  announced CLEFIA (based on the French word "clef" or key). CLEFIA is "a new highly secure and efficient block cipher algorithm that delivers advanced copyright protection and authentication" for digital data like music and images. Sony said that CLEFIA "maintains high security levels while providing both world-leading hardware and software implementation capabilities, the combination of which had proved difficult until now."

Sony will reveal more about CLEFIA at the Fast Software Encryption 2007 international conference in Luxembourg (the conference starts on March 26 and will run for three days). Here are other details:

• When implemented in hardware it achieves maximum throughput of 1.42 Gbps using a 0.09 micrometer CMOS standard cell library and gate size of just 6.1K.
• Able to provide advanced capabilities, even in restrictive environments such as smart cards and mobile devices.
• When implemented in software it can realize high speed performance on a wide variety of processors.
• CLEFIA is said to be more secure and faster than most other security measures - it takes fewer operations to encode and decode (that means the gadget's hardware won't be burdened; that means it is possible for CLEFIA to be used by many AV devices).
• CLEFIA is a strong cipher: block length is 128 bits, while key length can be selected from 128 bits, 192 bits, and 256 bits.

Apparently, Sony's aim is to establish an environment in which CLEFIA can be used across various applications and products such as AV devices "while continuing to develop technologies that our customers can use with confidence."

For those of us who still remember the Sony BMG rootkit scheme from 2005 (which became a costly "scandal" in 2006), we're wondering how soon Sony will implement CLEFIA in commercial applications like its wide range of video, music, and video game products. CLEFIA may just be the fast, non-intrusive, tough-to-crack, and convenient anti-piracy tool that today's digital market has been watching out for.

moneytoo in the QJ forums, PSP homebrew developer">Madruscoe (aka moneytoo; the maker of PMP Mod AVC) has informed us about this bit of homebrew news. PMPlayer AdVanCe (PPA) by cooleyes (cooleyes_lf) has been updated. The homebrew application plays PMP files with AAC support. It also has skins, standby, TrueType (TT) fonts, and more features. More importantly, it has an English skin (although you have to do a little tweak to get it):

• To have an English skin for PPA, edit the config.xml by changing MHP to normal-en (you change the part that says "MHP" into "normal-en").

The release notes are in Chinese, but for those who are curious, you can try to read the nasty Google translation which you can find by clicking on the "Full Article" link. If anyone can read Chinese and translate it for us, though, that would be great too, and we will be forever grateful.

There are several versions available. There is an EBOOT version for FW 1.5 and an EBOOT version for 2.71 SE and 3.XX OE. There may also be other versions, but the links at cngba.com don't seem to work (you can try - just follow the "Via" link below).

Download: PMPlayer AdVanCe (PPA) build 20070324 1.5
Download: PMPlayer AdVanCe (PPA) build 20070324 1.5 EBOOT
Download: PMPlayer AdVanCe PPA 20070324 2.71SE 3.XXOE
Download: PMPlayer AdVanCe PPA 20070324 2.71SE 3.XXOE EBOOT