Want to win an Xbox 360, a flat panel HDTV, and some Adidas sneakers?

Join the NBA Live Arena True Baller Championship Ladder, and you could do just that. Lace up those shoes, and show ‘em who’s the champ.

Yeah, yeah, I know this is for the Xbox. But I figure there must be some Xbox readers reading this!

IGN: Great at Live?

For all you longsuffering IE users out there who have had to put up with a slightly broken website, I have good news! This weekend I’ll be trying to fix it up for you. But why aren’t you using Firefox anyway? This site always looks great in Firefox.

Nintendo has again stated that their next-generation console will be priced competitively with the competition.

“Value has been a key card for us this generation and we’ll continue to play it,” Fils-Aime told CNN’s Chris Morris. “Do I expect us to be at a lower price point than our competition? Yes I do. Have we determined a price yet? No we haven’t.”

With Microsoft’s Xbox 360 set at $400 for the usable version, and Nintendo vowing to keep their price cheaper, Sony would be in deep fly-droppings if they released the PlayStation 3 (PS3) with a large price premium over the competition.

(That’s not saying they won’t do it. They seem to be messing up a lot recently. Well, actually, the rumour mill is churning with bad news that Sony doesn’t bother to refute. Either way, it makes Sony look bad.)

TVG - Revolution Price Position Re-Affirmed

The recent SDK for the Cell chip also included extensions to Linux.

Now, IBM and Sony are providing the Linux operating system, compilers and utilities for the Cell Broadband Engine microprocessor.

The CBE Linux Reference Implementation Application Binary Interface Specification, V1.0 has been published simultaneously. IBM is distributing source patches for the Linux operating system.

Sony is distributing compilers and other technology. This code contains the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) compiler for the SPE implemented by Sony.

This supports the standards defined in the SPU C/C++ Language Extensions V2.0, SPU Application Binary Interface Specification V1.3, and Synergistic Processor Unit (SPU) Instruction Set Architecture V1.0 documents previously released.

The companies also released the Cell Broadband Engine Software Development Kit, including a simulator. The IBM Full System Simulator executable provides a rich set of capabilities for architecture simulation of the processor, according to IBM.

the INQUIRER - IBM, Sony distribute Linux patches for Cell

In other news, there actually is a company making blade servers based on the Cell.

The Dual Cell-Based Blade is a flexible solution based on the Cell BE processor and the open BladeCenter® standard for managed server chassis. This blade solution significantly improves performance for graphic-intensive workloads and computationally intensive high-performance computing (HPC) applications in medical imaging, industrial inspection, aerospace and defense, seismic processing, telecommunications, and other industries. Performance scales dramatically when the application is distributed across multiple Dual Cell-Based Blades in a cluster or across the network.

Encouraging news for people looking forward to the PlayStation 3 (PS3) but getting deluged with news about the upcoming XBox 360 release.

Mercury Computer Systems - Dual Cell-Based Blade

IBM, Sony, and Toshiba have released a software developer kit (SDK) for the Cell chip. The Cell chip will be the heart of Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 3 (PS3) gaming console.

The kit, which contains more than 1,000 pages of documentation, includes extensions for optimizing the chip for Linux applications and other features.
…
Still, despite some of the touted advantages of Cell, the triad will likely have to perform quite a bit of grunt work, including putting out things like the developer kit, to push the chip toward market acceptance. Skeptics note that cell phone makers and others can already chose from a wide variety of high-performance microprocessors that are far more familiar than Cell.

News.com - Software developer kit for Cell chip

Atari has announced that they will use Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 for next-gen development.

“We’re excited to continue building our relationship with Epic Games and we look forward to tapping the potential of Unreal Engine 3 technology,” said Jean-Marcel Nicolai, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Content, Atari, Inc. “By utilizing the Unreal Engine 3, Atari will gain rapid prototyping capabilities.”

“We’ve had a long-standing licensing and publishing relationship with Atari and it is especially gratifying to me to see our technology partnership continue,” said Mark Rein, Vice President and Co-founder of Epic Games. “We’re confident that Atari will make several great games with our technology and look forward to working with the company and its developers in achieving that goal.”

Of course this means that Atari will be able to release games for multiple next-gen platforms easier. Unreal Engine 3 is available for both the PlayStation 3 (PS3) and the Xbox 360.

Atari - Atari Licenses Unreal(R) Engine 3

Nintendo’s European marketing chief Jim Merrick said that they will attempt to launch the Nintendo Revolution simultaneously in several markets. And by simulateneous, he means better than the DS’s 14 week spread.

I could live with that. His exact wording is “With DS, we were 14 weeks, which was the tightest Nintendo has ever been with a console launch and that was an achievement. But with Revolution, we expect to do better than that. That certainly is our goal.” So I don’t think he means better by a day. That’s not really better. Let’s say he means better by at least two weeks. That would leave a 12 week spread as the Revolution is launched, probably in Japan, Europe, and North America. Twelve weeks is just three months. A three month wait is really not such a bad wait. Totally within the realm “I’m not gonna get jealous”. Longer than that though…

Now, which is the bigger company, Sony or Nintendo? A better question might be, which is bigger, SCE or Nintendo? Well, Sony is definitely bigger. Sony Computer Entertainment might be about the same size, is my guess. Anybody know for sure?

So the question then becomes: If Microsoft can do it, and Nintendo can do, can Sony/SCE do it? Can Sony release the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in multiple markets nearly simultaneously? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say yes, yes they can. They do have the resources. So what’s stopping them? Seriously.

Next Generation - Revolution’s ‘Almost Simultaneous’ Global Launch

How would you like ads interupting your enjoyment of your favourite console? It’s something that Microsoft is currently exploring with the Xbox 360:

“We’ve actually got a couple of games out in the market now on the Xbox platform where we’re trialling some ads and we’ve been working with Massive on those couple of games… We feel very excited about advertising as a potential growth opportunity for the business,” said Lee.

“[In] markets outside of North America, the fundamentals of our business may not hold,” said Lee. “Consumers may not be accustomed to paying $50 for software and buying a $200, $300 or $400 device, an ad model may be a way to augment to kind of make the economics work for everyone.”

Now I don’t know what form these ads will take. Maybe they won’t be intrusive. A product placement kind of thing. But they also might pop up in your face.

Not a good thing.

Prodigious Gaming - Ad enabled Xbox 360 a possibility

If you’re a Club Nintendo Platinum member in Japan, you’ll be getting a free bonus. Yup, check your mail every day from now on, because there could be a package waiting for you!

What is it?

The new Nintendo Revolution controller?

Psyche!

Nope. It’s a TV remote that looks a lot like the Nintendo Revolution controller! (Pictured here.) Even though it’s not the controller, I still think that’s pretty cool! It must be costing Nintendo a bundle to send this out to all those Club Nintendo Platinum members. Uhh… how many of those are there? I have no clue. I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

I wonder if Sony thinks this is a good idea and will start sending bananas or boomerangs to Sony club members? That prototype PlayStation 3 (PS3) controller could also pass for a croissant. Mmmm…. croissants.

SPOnG.com - Nintendo Ships Revolution Controller Early

If your eyes tend to wander, you may have noticed the 9rules Network logos on PS3Blog.net and HDBlog.net. That’s because these sites are part of that network, and have benefited greatly from that association. They were accepted into the 9rules Network as part of 9rules’ second round of submissions.

Now 9rules has announced that there will be a third round of submissions on November 14th. If you have a high quality site with great content, please think about applying. (Unless you have a site on webdesign - they have enough of those! Just kidding.)

9rules Network - Time for Round 3

1UP.com has a fascinating look a the Dreamcast and Xbox 360, and how they compare. First they give 23 similarities between the two systems and their launches. Then they give 10 reasons why the Xbox 360 launch will succeed versus the Dreamcast’s failure.

Some of the 23 reasons include:

• Plays previous generation games under emulation.
• Unable to play the latest in cutting edge movie media (HD-DVD/Blu-Ray).
• Launching a year before the competition (likely).
• Software medium (DVD-9) criticized as having not enough capacity by some developers.

Some of the 10 reasons why the Xbox 360 will succeed where the Dreamcast failed:

• Following on the heels of the very popular Xbox.
• Has the full support of EA, with a whole lineup of titles at launch.
• Backwards compatible (mostly). (Though I have my doubts. We’ll have to see.)
• [Microsoft] Can, and will, spend whatever it takes to make the Xbox 360 a success.

It’s a fun read. Do you think they got anything wrong?

1UP.com - Dreamcast 2.0