Jane_the_Great writes "The number of PS2 owners who have ventured online with their consoles has passed 1.4 million users. This article cites SCEA Executive VP Andrew House as saying, "What I think is particularly interesting is, not only are we seeing a lot of the numbers being driven off the Network Adapter bundle, but consistently there are sales of the standalone Network Adapter." Does this growth signal the arrival of online console gaming? And if there are so many people online, why can't I find someone that will play Madden 2005 like a reasonable and polite person?"

sm4kxd writes "Gamespot is reporting that the Nintendo DS will use "built-in wireless 802.11b networking capabilities to offer voice-over-IP chat--in effect, allowing gamers to use the DS to make free phone calls at wireless network hotspots." There's also mention of a headset, so you won't look ridiculous while doing so." The article doesn't have much more information, but the "in effect" seems important; this may only allow unit-to-unit conversations, not VoIP calls to the regular telephone network.

Ophelea writes "Anyone who knows Jay Moore of Tribes fame may know about his great company Garage Games. Today it was announced that Marble Blaster Gold, one of their best games was bundled on the iMac G5. Woot! Go Go Garage Games!"

cdneng2 writes "gamesindustry.biz has the scoop that Nintendo is dropping the GBA price down to $80 in North America later this week! The $20 cut is aimed to stimulate sales for the Christmas run-up. The article also indicated that DS is rumoured to sell for $179 US."

Warrior-GS writes "GameSpy has a rather unorthodox video interview with Epic Games designer Cliff Bleszinski. Entitled 'The Cliff Show,' the two-part streaming video takes place entirely in a swimming pool in Cabo, Mexico, during an Atari University event. The 15-minute interview touches on Unreal Tournament 2004 briefly, but also talks about Cliffy's 'gay' dogs, a few odd web sites and the possibility of getting a syndicated gaming show."

Crusader writes "Two LinuxGames staff members have launched Liberated Games, a site devoted to cataloguing full commercial titles that have been released for free by the developer or publisher, either with the full source code or without. The current list is available here; the site tracks releases for all major computer platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux), so feel free to submit any missing games to the list."

Ant writes "LinuxGames has an interview that mentions Linux and Mac OS X ports for Star Wars: Battlefront game client. Wow." The answer here is carefully and ambiguously phrased, but at least Linux and Mac OS X ports are not ruled out.

ILL Robinson writes "Just finished reading a great interview with Oddworld president, Lorne Lanning, over on VFX World. In the interview, Lorne speaks of the latest in real-time 3D technologies and Machinima, and how it relates to not only game graphics, but also how it will impact filmmaking in general. He also speaks about Epic Game's latest engine, Unreal3, and how powerful and impressive the latest Epic Games engine is."

Anonymous Coward writes "A movie theatre owner in Logan, Utah is hoping to start a new trend by bringing video games (Halo in this case) to the big screen. The local newspaper in Logan, The Herald Journal has a nice write-up about the success they had. Does anyone else think this could catch on to be successful, especially in college towns?"

erax0r writes "FilePlanet has been given 100,000 World of Warcraft stress test beta accounts. Sign up for a FilePlanet paid account to be given a beta CD key which will be activated a later date. Blizzard has also composed a FAQ for the stress test." If you're not a FilePlanet subscriber, and with the exception of this I don't know why anyone would be, you have a chance of getting in the stress test, but forking over the cash guarantees your spot.

An anonymous reader submits "Duck and Cover have interviewed Troika's Leonard Boyarsky about their currently unsigned post-apocalyptic game. He describes it as the 'spiritual successor to Fallout', which sounds good to me."

Warrior-GS writes "According to GameSpy, Gabe Newell has announced that Half-Life 2 is going gold on Monday. Numerous retail outlets have Sept. 1 or Sept. 2 as a shelf-date for the game, so a gold announcement now seems to mean those dates are fairly close to reality." Given that HL2 is already available on Steam, this doesn't sound too far-fetched. Update: 08/28 19:27 GMT by T : Kraiger writes "According to HL2 Fallout the announcement of the futuristic FPS, "Half-Life 2", going Gold is a complete hoax! According to HL2 Fallout, the announcement from Gabe Newell, a Valve Software employee, was created by someone who was able to guess the simple password of "gaben" for Gabe's forum account."

An anonymous reader writes "Bungie made an appearance at last weekend's Major League Gaming competition in Seattle, and they brought along a beta copy of Halo 2 for the contestants to play with. Major League Gaming recorded the games and gave some of that of footage to halo.bungie.org, who have turned it into a 122MB, 18-minute-long Quicktime video which is being distributed via BitTorrent. This is the first non-shakycam video footage of Halo 2 multiplayer to be released, and man, does it look good!"

Nos. writes "For those of us using Valve Software's Steam platform, we can now begin 'preloading' Half-Life 2. The article explains that this will download an encrypted version of the game that you can unlock when you purchase it. They only say that purchase options will be available soon."

boarder8925 writes "The Register posted an article today that detailed the PlayStation Portable's chip specs. The CPU will run at up to 333MHz, and its frontside bus at up to 166MHz. The graphics system, operating across a 512-bit bus, will be capable of rendering 664m pixels per second and 35m polygons per second. Its core, operating at 166MHz, will include 2MB integrated buffer DRAM."

simfan writes "Ars has a review of the TrackIR3 Pro up that's worth a look. Using the TrackIR cursor control system originally designed to help the disabled, the company made a device that tracks your head movements in games. It turns out that this works really well in flight sims and other games where you can replace mouse control. There's some video of the performance as well."

UID1000000 writes "MSNBC reports that companies like Nielsen are implementing tracked advertising in video games. Viacom is also considering in-game advertising. I can't wait until your first person shooter stops and drinks a nice cold refreshing soda."

LiveSecurity writes "Contests involving Wireless Access Points have been a staple of Defcon for a few years now. This year at Defcon 12, three reporters from WatchGuard Technologies followed contestants in the Running Man mini-contest. Five teams had one hour to find a roving, low-power AP serving up a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Add hundreds of hackers, 104-degree F. desert heat, and stir. The report on WatchGuard's Web site is officially sanctioned by the contest's designer, Frank Thornton, who mirrors the story. Long but good geeky fun!"

Sven-Erik writes " BBC News reports about a Hong Kong based company called Artificial Life that has developed a solution for men without a partner, in the form of a virtual girlfriend that appear as an animated figure on the video screen of a mobile phone. But there is a downside to the virtual girlfriend - she will require more flowers and gifts than many real women. All virtual girls will look the same - but each girl will behave differently - depending on how much money is spent on her. In return, she will introduce them to different aspects of her life, like letting them meet her female friends - also electronic images. Artificial Life is hoping to launch the new game later this year, on the latest 3-G mobile phones.

Dan Farina writes "The long awaited 'The Sims 2' has gone Gold, as seen on the latest posting on Maxis' The Sims 2 updates page. It appears that it will be on time after all, an unusual occurrence in this industry." I'm already having a strange obsessive twitching in my left leg. I think I might need to use up some vacation time in September.