News Round Up: 25/1/10 – 31/1/10

Apple is one of those companies which has the ability to tear families and relationships asunder. Each of their product releases divide the world straight down the middle. On one side you have the individuals who believe that Apple’s latest invention is a must-buy, a near essential item, a revolution in the making. On the opposing side are those people who just can’t see what all the fuss is about, otherwise known as fools. (Note, this is purely my opinion. But come on, eventually everyone will want an iPad. No?) A product launch from Apple would not be complete without people arguing these two sides of the coin. I just consider myself lucky that I am in a relationship with someone who agrees with me that the iPad is necessary item for the home. Things could be awkward otherwise.

However, it isn’t just the consumers of Apple’s products that are presenting their opinions on the company’s latest release. The iPad, which admittedly does look like a larger iPod Touch (but is that such a bad thing?), has been billed as a ‘truly magical product’ by Steve Jobs, capable of browsing the Internet, playing videos and music, and perhaps most importantly for Frugal Gamers, gaming. Whilst the iPhone and iPod Touch already have a plethora of games at their disposal via the App Store, the iPad could take this to the next level, as highlighted by an improved version of Gameloft’s N.O.V.A which was shown during the iPad’s launch.

Mark Rein from Epic Games certainly seems to agree. When met by Kotaku at the iPad’s press event, Rein told the site that “I think iPad will be great for gaming and I suspect we’ll see many games that make use of the differentiated form factor of the iPad“. In comparison, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata held a different view of the iPad; “It was a bigger iPod Touch” he told the NY Times. Unfortunately the NY Times article failed to mention it’s thanks to Iwata for pointing out the obvious.

Sony, as ever, put forward a slightly different opinion. They view the launch of the iPad as a good thing for their company. Their reasoning? “When people want a deeper, richer console, they start playing on a PSP”. Oh do they Sony? I guess this explains the stellar sale figures of the PSP Go compared to those of the iPhone and the DS. Although you have to give credit Sony for using the launch of an Apple product as a way of pushing their own device.

In other news, Rockstar finally announced last week that PC and PlayStation 3 owners would be able to play and enjoy Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and the Damned, and Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony, from March 30th. The news apparently ends the exclusivity of the episodes, collectively known as Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City, for the XBox 360. The content will be available either separately for download, which will require a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, or combined on one disc which can be purchased in the store of your choosing. This news brings to mind the question of whether paying for exclusivity on titles which are multi-platform is really worth it. I always had a feeling that these episodes would be released on Sony’s black box, and so withheld purchasing an XBox 360 just so I could get my hands on them early. It’ll be interesting to see just how many copies will be sold when the episodes are finally released.

Last but not least, it was reported last week that the PlayStation 3 had reportedly been hacked into. An individual by the name of George Hotz, the same man who hacked the iPhone, said it took him a total of 5 weeks to break the console. However, this news hasn’t been confirmed yet, as Hotz has not released precisely how he was able to hack the console, just that he was able to do it. If the procedure was released, it could start a wave of pirated software being made available for the PlayStation 3. Conversely, the technique may also allow Sony to work on a patch to prevent people hacking the machine, or provide them with information on how to make future machines even more difficult to break.

Alex Wozniak