E.T. unearthed: The dig for legendary Atari cartridges in pictures
Yesterday marked the climax of a decades-long story that surrounded one of the most poorly received video games in history. A Microsoft-backed documentary crew took to a landfill in the desert town of Alamogordo, New Mexico in an attempt to prove that Atari had in fact buried thousands of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridges there. It appears they succeeded.
The game was an expensive failure and beckoned the demise of the once-great video game maker. It’s still unclear just how many cartridges the team discovered or what other failures treasures are buried in the trash heap, but Microsoft’s Xbox Wire says, “We can safely report that those long-buried cartridges are actually, 100 percent there.” The excavation will appear in an Xbox-exclusive documentary produced by Fuel Entertainment, tentatively titled Atari: Game Over. The film will appear later this year, but for now, here’s a closer look at the historic dig.
Reporters and spectators gather around a pile of trash in hopes of treasure. (John Thien)
A fan shows off a signed version of the game widely considered to be one of the worst in history. (John Thien for Engadget)
Breaking garbage. (John Thien for Engadget)
Film producer Jonathan Chinn and Alamogordo Mayor Susie Galea pose with the joystick that served as a sign of things to come. The crew found an Atari 2600 controller before hitting the jackpot. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)
A new generation gets acquainted with the Delorean, because no archeological dig is complete without one. (John Thien for Engadget)
The day’s menu, woefully lacking in E.T. fingers and Reese’s pieces. (John Thien for Engadget)
The documentary’s director, Zak Penn shows off one of the first signs of a mass burial ground. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)
Buckets of booty. (Microsoft)
And this is what we’ve been waiting for. This pile of trash is littered with E.T. packaging and cartridges along with a collection of other Atari artifacts. (Microsoft)
Success! Zak Penn, director of “Atari: Game Over,” and Andrew Reinhard, archaeologist, hold up Atari 2600 “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” game cartridges. (Microsoft)
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: Xbox Wire
Joystiq Weekly: Mario’s links, socially conscious awards and a mobile hitman
Welcome to the Joystiq Weekly wrap-up where we present some of the best stories and biggest gaming news from our sister-publication.
- Nintendo’s been chronically late to the party with modern accoutrements, but it’s just joined the season-pass club with Mario Golf: World Tour.
- Indie hits Papers, Please; Gone Home and The Mission US: A Cheyenne Odyssey take home top honors at The Games for Change Festival, an awards ceremony for socially conscious games.
As unassuming and stylish as the rest of the series is melodramatic and bombastic, Hitman Go is an impressive debut for Square Enix Montreal. The play style recalls the strategic thinking of the console/PC games, but does so with an entirely new style that fits touch-based devices like a fine leather glove.
- Instead of shoe-horning a typical entry of the long-running stealth series Hitman onto iOS, Square-Enix transformed it into a tense board game, earning a lot of love from Joystiq‘s Anthony John Agnello in the process.
Until next Sunday, that’s it! Check back in seven days for another recap, or, you know, head over to Joystiq and catch all of the news as it happens.
[Image credit: dcmaster/Flickr]
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Nintendo
Source: Joystiq
Gadget Rewind 2005: Xbox 360
The current-gen console wars may be tilting in Sony’s favor with its PlayStation 4, but once upon a very recent time (i.e., the previous console generation), Microsoft had a big early lead. When the company released its Xbox 360 back in 2005, the console had a considerable head start on the competition, beating Sony’s PlayStation 3 launch by a full year. There were, however, intrinsic pitfalls in rushing the 360 out to market so fast; hardware problems Microsoft paid for dearly.
The Xbox 360′s November 2005 launch was highly anticipated, with thousands of gamers (several Engadget editors among them) braving late hours and cold weather to snag one. Unfortunately for those eager gamers, Microsoft’s haste to meet holiday deadlines resulted in limited stock levels, leaving many shoppers empty-handed and disappointed. On top of that, a significant portion of this initial run — about 3 percent, according to Microsoft — was afflicted with the “red ring of death,” a dreaded, scarlet indicator that signaled a defunct, or “bricked” console. That production hiccup meant a good deal of early adopters had to spend those first days on the phone with customer support instead of playing their new 360s. Microsoft eventually responded to the crisis and made an effort to smooth out those issues with extended warranties, software updates and revised production runs.
Early hardware issues aside, the Xbox 360 was regarded by many as a beautiful thing, with a slimmer and more streamlined build than that of its hulking predecessor. Its gamepad even went on to become a high-water mark for controller design, setting a standard that’s been emulated by many third-party companies since. And it’s still the go-to for many PC gamers to this day. The 360′s also credited with popularizing online multiplayer for console gaming with Xbox Live. That service, which debuted on the original Xbox, benefitted tremendously from Microsoft’s earlier dalliance with online gaming and, of course, the 360′s robust install base.
Limited onboard storage capacity, however, certainly discouraged wanton spending on digital games. The Premium Edition of the Xbox 360 came with a 20GB hard drive, making it the preferred option for most consumers. The cheaper Core version didn’t have a hard drive at all, although for $100, gamers could purchase a 20GB add-on HDD. Without it, however, they couldn’t download much content or play last-gen Xbox games. As the years went by, Microsoft released new 360 models with larger-capacity drives to accommodate the growing file size of games and gamers’ appetite for downloads.
It didn’t take long for Microsoft to garner gamers’ loyalty with the Xbox 360. In its first three years on the market, the 360 effectively surpassed the original Xbox’s lifetime sales with over 30 million units sold. That number then rose to 80 million units by 2008 and got another boost with the Kinect’s release in 2010. Thanks to that monstrous install base, new games continue to arrive for the console to this day; games that are also seeing simultaneous release on next-gen consoles.
Microsoft may be passing the torch to its shiny and new Xbox One, but regardless, sales numbers for the 360 remain strong. In March of this year, over 100,000 units were sold. In fact, the Xbox 360′s been handily beating Nintendo’s struggling Wii U for 25 months straight. Not bad for a nearly 9-year-old console, eh?
Did you own an Xbox 360? Add it to your Engadget profile as a device you had (or still have) and join the discussion to reminisce or share photos of your device with other like-minded gadget fans.
Watch this: Sony demos two new augmented reality tricks
No, Sony’s not coming out with a new augmented-reality toy just yet, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working behind the scenes to make its graphics look a little more… believable. The company just posted two videos out of its PlayStation lab in Japan, both of which hint at what it could be like to play future PlayStation Move games. In the first, we see a man holding two three-dimensional boxes, one of them with water inside (Sony’s signature rubber duckie is there too). As he pours the water back and forth from one box to the other, we see the water splash up onto the floor and sloshing back and forth, sometimes even covering the duck. Not “believable,” you say? Check out the second video, which shows someone casting a flashlight on a dinosaur in a darkened room (just go with it, OK), with the shadows changing as the light moves on and off the subject. We’ve embedded both vids below, though you might still want to check out Sony’s PlayStation blog post — there’s reference to some new trading-card recognition feature, though there’s sadly no video demo to go with it.
Via: Push Square
Source: jp.playstation.com, YouTube (1), (2)
Microsoft’s E.T. game excavation hits paydirt
It looks like the legend might be true after all. Microsoft has uncovered intact copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600 at a New Mexico landfill, supporting claims that Atari buried legions of unsold cartridges in the desert after the movie-themed game proved to be a massive failure. With that said, it’s not yet clear that this is the treasure trove that Microsoft was hoping to find for its first Xbox-only documentary. The excavation team has only found a few E.T. units as of this writing, and they have company — there’s a shrink-wrapped copy of Centipede in the mix, for one thing. If the team does find many more examples of the extra-terrestrial flop, though, it could finally put a 32-year-old mystery to rest.
[Image credit: Lauren Hansard, Twitter]
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
Source: Major Nelson (Twitter 1), (2)
Open data gives rise to a virtual Denmark in Minecraft
Since the US government opened its troves of public data we’ve seen some pretty neat projects like climate-change prediction tools and deforestation-monitoring systems. Denmark, on the other hand, has taken a different approach: the Danish Geodata Agency used internally developed topographic maps and elevation models to build a 1:1 recreation of the happiest country within Minecraft’s blocky confines. Unlike the virtual Great Britain we’ve seen before, this pixelated Denmark is more than just natural features like hills and forests. As Ars Technica has spotted, it includes accurate replicas of highways, homes, landmarks and businesses too. The project was intended to showcase the country’s open-data initiative to its students and educators, but anyone can take a gander until the Danish government’s game servers shut down in late October. Server rules, however, have disabled enemies and TNT — no Creeps allowed, naturally.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Danish Geodata Agency (Danish)
Daily Roundup: Nokia joins Microsoft, a traveler’s guide to in-flight WiFi, and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Nokia is now officially part of Microsoft
Well, it’s finally official: Nokia is now one with Microsoft. What does that mean for the of the Nokia X and Lumia handsets? Nadella and Co. promised to continue supporting both lineups, but only time will tell, right?
A traveler’s guide to in-flight WiFi
Just as airlines are becoming more friendly towards gadgets, in-flight WiFi is making great strides at 30,000 feet. Read on as Zach Honig, our own resident travel expert, explains the newest connectivity options from several major airlines.
Netflix data didn’t feed House of Cards’ success, ‘the bliss of ignorance’ did
If you were turned off to Netflix’s House of Cards after the serie’s brutal opening scene, you wouldn’t be alone. But regardless of the negative feedback, Beau Willimon, the man responsible for the show’s development, says that his only responsibility is to “tell a great story.”
Watch this six-way trailer for Evolve, the latest shooter from the makers of Left 4 Dead
Turtle Rock Studios, the team behind Left 4 Dead, have a brand new co-op shooter incoming called Evolve. What’s more, the game’s trailer is interactive, allowing viewers to switch between the perspective of each player with just a click of the mouse.
You also might like:
Watch this six-way trailer for Evolve, the latest shooter from the makers of Left 4 Dead
With each successive round of gaming consoles, developers get a little more inventive with the available technology — the same goes for how they tease their audience ahead of a game’s launch, too. Turtle Rock Studios (the team behind Left 4 Dead) recently released an interactive trailer for its upcoming co-op shooter, Evolve. The clip follows a session of four players as they stalk and then battle the gigantic, player-controlled creature that’s out to end them. The rub of it is that with a single mouse-click you can swap between the perspectives of each combatant on-the-fly, and watch how the game unfolds from their respective points of view. Want jump from bipedal-monstrosity to soldier and back again just before the former attacks the latter? Go for it.
This flies in the face of how hype trailers are typically assembled, and almost makes a game out of watching the video itself. The trade-off, though, is that the footage is horribly compressed and falls victim to YouTube’s frame-rate limit. If you want a better idea of how the game will look when it releases this fall, Gamersyde is hosting a 1080p at 60fps version of the video for download. The downside of that is you lose the interactivity: it’s a meticulously edited super-cut with play-by-play and color commentary from the dev team and E-sports announcer Aaron Chambers. For now, however, it’s the best way to experience the game — short of actually playing it yourself, of course.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Gamersyde, Evolve (YouTube)
Minecraft on Xbox One will transfer saves from Xbox 360
Due to a lack of backwards compatibility, upgrading to new-gen systems like the Xbox One and PS4 has meant mostly leaving your old games and the progress made in them behind, but not in this case. Phil Spencer, the new leader over at Xbox, announced tonight that Minecraft on Xbox One will be able to transfer saves from its Xbox 360 version, so whatever you’ve already built will come with you. He didn’t drop any other details on exactly how the move will work, but mentioned it is the product of cooperation between Microsoft and the game’s developer, Mojang, while promising more news soon.
After months of teaming up with Mojang, we can confirm that Minecraft X360 Edition will save transfer to Xbox One Edition…more news soon!
– Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) April 25, 2014
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Source: Phil Spencer (Twitter)
These guys created the PlayStation 4 and here’s how they did it (video)
Earlier this month we were in the audience to see two gaming legends talk at length about the history of PlayStation, but if you want to watch PlayStation’s head of Worldwide Studios and the PS4′s lead designer have a lengthy chat for yourself, a video of the conversation is now available. Over the course of roughly 90 minutes, Shuhei Yoshida and Mark Cerney cover everything from the former getting banned from Nintendo’s Miiverse (twice), how the PS Move controller signaled a new era of design teamwork at Sony and what it was like working under SCEA’s legendarily hard-nosed chief, Ken Kutaragi. This type of insight typically isn’t seen much outside of the annual Game Developer’s Conference, so fire up the Chromecast, pour a frosty beverage and enjoy.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
Via: Shuhei Yoshida
AIVAnet 