Sony today dropped some gems on us. A new PS3 firmware update is coming, making it to version 1.80.
SCEE announced today in London that the new firmware update, available May 24th, will include DVD and PS1/PS2 upscaling up to 1080p, as well as media streaming from PCs on your LAN.
All I can say is HOLY SHIT. Sony just threw everything they had in the ring and brought it hard. I can’t wait to try out these new features tomorrow.
Stay tuned as a full changelog is released.
There’s a new update available for the HD-DVD addon drive for the Xbox 360 today. Most notably, it improves compatibility with newer titles that are using advanced copy protection schemes, such as Digital Video Essentials, which didn’t play in the 360 drive until today.
You can now also select 2 channel linear PCM as an audio output option if you’re using the Elite. Great, but why give up surround sound for a movie so you can hear crystal clear sound from only 2 speakers?
Even though I said I wasn’t going to, I picked up a Xbox 360 Elite today. The black beast is better than I anticipated.
The first thing I noticed was the Elite is very quiet. Much more so than my older Premium console. This is when idle, playing movies (both standard DVD and HD-DVD), as well as playing games. It’s a treat to not have to hear the fans spinning like crazy. The new Hitachi drive helps too.
The HDMI video connection looks fantastic. There is a noticeable difference in colors and black level on my 50″ Samsung 1080p over component video. Don’t take this to mean the HDMI connection produces a much better picture… it’s a known thing with my model of HDTV that HDMI looks way better than component.
I’m waiting on my transfer cable, so I can’t comment on using the 120GB hard drive yet.
Overall, it’s the best 360 console I’ve had. Is it worth the upgrade for most users? I don’t think so. But if you’re looking to replace a broken console and you don’t have warranty, or you just want to pick up a 360 for the first time, definitely take a look at the Elite.
Frankie posted his usual weekly update on Bungie.net on Friday, addressing some of the issues brought up this week in the community.
Here at Loot Ninja, we reported on the major issues a lot of Xbox 360 owners were dealing with when trying to purchase the Halo 2 Blastacular Map Pack. Frankie sheds some light on the issue:
Some people have reported on various forums that there was initially a glitch in the billing system that allowed people to download the Blastacular maps for free. This bug was quickly fixed but anyone who still attempts to circumvent the billing system will actually end up locking themselves out of the maps entirely with no way to download them. The Xbox Live team is pursuing a fix to enable downloads again for these vagabonds, ne’er-do-wells and hooligans.
In a few other cases, the problem is caused by a kind of disconnect between this generation of Xbox Live and last, as far as age ratings are concerned. Basically the system thinks you’re too young, even if you’re not. Those problems are being fixed as we speak. Again, the reason this has been a less than perfect transition has an awful lot to do with insisting that the maps are made available to both 360 and olde Xbox owners. It has never really been done before, so we apologize for our teething troubles.
Word on the street is Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet and demanded that Bungie make Halo 3 run at a true 1080p at a constant 60fps. They don’t want none of this upscaled 1080p junk, they want the real deal.
If I remember correctly, Microsoft has stated that it has no intentions of making 1080p games, and only enabled it so third party developers could use it if they wanted. A little too much pressure from the PS3 perhaps?
An inside source told PlayThree:
Microsoft realise that with the history making manpower and resources they have invested into this single product, if it can’t be done on Halo 3, then the Xbox 360 can’t do it at all. [Shane Kim]wants Halo 3 in 1080p to be proof of the Xbox’s power.
If Shane Kim says so, I guess Bungie has to work with it. I can’t really see this working out though, especially with the Xbox 360 Core not having a hard drive to cache data.
Capcom held it’s annual Gamer’s Day in San Fransisco this week. Their biggest announcement: Lost Planet coming to PC. This has been a huge hit for the Xbox 360, so why not port it over. I’m sure the sequel will end up on PC and PS3 as well, but there’s been no announcements yet on that front.
For the Nintendo DS, there’s two new games coming, both in the sequel realm. The first is a new Phoenix Wright game for all you wanna-be attorneys out there. The second is a new Mega Man game. Check out our current Ultimate Showdown to see who’s the best Mega Man villian of all time. It might make the gameplay on this new game just a little bit better. 
There’s going to be a lot of great downloadable titles coming for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC this year. The best of the list are Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD and Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. These classics are getting a new twist with 1080p graphics and online play on all platforms. As if we haven’t had enough Street Fighter games anyway…
I like to see that all of these games are coming simultaneously for all platforms. It gives everyone some choice and a chance to play these great games.
Not only do we get the crazy keyboard controller, but we also get some crazy new features in the Xbox 360 Spring Dashboard Update.
Of particular note, H.264 and MPEG-4 Part 2 (read DiVX, XViD) support has been added. I am ecstatic over this! This is something people have been begging for with the Xbox 360 for a long time. No longer do we need to use Transcode 360 over Media Center to watch these videos.
No official word on having a VGA output level select in the dash with the new update, as was rumored by an HD-DVD insider. I hope that makes it into the update, since I’d love to get full 1080p without having to drop $480 clams on the Elite.
Full details after the jump.
So I picked up Guitar Hero II this morning for 360. I’d only played drunk at friends houses before on PS2. All I can say is, this game is FUN. With a capital UN. Yeah, that didn’t make much sense.
Anyway, the graphics are pretty in 1080p, but nothing to write home about. The guitar controller is nice and feels comfortable in your hands. I suck horribly right now at the game, so I need to go put more practice in. I wish there was online co-op for this game. I though the lag would have to be non-existent though.
I’ll have a bigger review coming once I spend some more time with the game and start getting better.
Yesterday I posted about all the questions I still had about the Xbox 360 Elite. Someone with inside sources at Microsoft from AVS Forum actually got a chance to ask all of those questions.
The 360 Elite will support HDMI 1.2, which means no Dolby Digital+ or TrueHD sound. It will support uncompressed Linear PCM, but only 2 channel. That’s some BS right there. That shoots down my idea of buying one.
Of equal or possibly better news, the Xbox 360 Spring Dashboard Update will see some VGA improvements as well. You’ll now be able to select your video level, 7.5 IRE vs. 0, to get true 1080p from the VGA port. This excites me. No longer will we have washed out colors and such from the 360 with the VGA connection.
Overall, now that these issues have been answered, I am severely unimpressed with the Xbox 360 Elite. I don’t see any point in buying one. I don’t need the 120GB hard drive either, since I’m not storing tons and tons of content.
Read the full post of information…
So I’m debating getting an Xbox 360 Elite for the HMDI connection for true 1080p, but I still have some unanswered questions…
What HDMI version is the 360 Elite going to use? I would assume it’s v1.3, but you know never know with Microsoft.
Will the 360 Elite be able to send uncompressed Linear PCM audio over HDMI from HD-DVD sources? This is the big question for me. If it can’t do this, I’m not buying one. After hearing LPCM audio from my PS3 on Blu-Ray movies and comparing to Dolby Digital, it’s like night and day. I want my HD-DVD’s to sound like this too.
We’ve contacted Microsoft but have not received any official word either way. Hopefully they’ll come out and answer these questions. I’ve seen hundreds of forum posts, comments on official Microsoft blogs, etc. asking these exact same things. My question is, why no answer? To me, the lack of comment from Microsoft on the issue means the only thing the HDMI adapter is going to give you is a single cable connection for digital audio and video, but no next-gen audio signals.
We’ll see what happens…
