Either 100% truthful leakage or 100% false rumor, information spreading like wildfire on the internet days before E3 Nintendo news conference of the longly anticipated announcement wait of ‘Project Cafe’. The information leaked revealed all specs for the system, controller, exclusive games at launch and the newly revamped online.

Here’s a breakdown of the leaked information on ‘Project Cafe’;

Project Cafe System
-IBM Triple Core 3.6GHz processor, 1.5gb RAM dev kit speed, 1080p HD, Console similar to 360 dev kit.

Project Cafe Controller
-5.7inch HD (960x640pixel) screen on front. Buttons: 2 analog, 4 buttons, 2 triggers, 2 shoulders, select, home, start. 5.7inch HD screen will be a multi touch screen w/own battery & detachable from controller unit. Controller will be a portable game system & console in one as a portable for streaming gaming.

Project Cafe Games
-Mario launch title platform confirmed for Nintendo’s new console. Nintendo has not done this since N64. Nintendo is working on new Zelda title but unknown to new information & such, secret until E3. Developers teamed w/Nintendo to make Pokemon RPG for new console (not MMO but somewhat connectivity online RPG). New Nintendo IP character confirmed for E3 and will be part of the game line up for new console by Nintendo.

Project Cafe Online
-Unknown to be paid or free. New console to have 24/7 integration & stream. Friend Code system is gone. Newly revamped online system that’s matched to Xbox 360 online universe.

Head on over to Google and you’ll see the above logo. Clicking once on the “Insert Coin” button allows you to play a game of Google Pac-Man using the arrow keys (or, I’m told, swipes for you iPhone users). Clicking the button a second time allows you or a friend to jump in as Ms. Pac-Man using the WASD control method.

Google’s press release had this to say about the programming of the logo/game:

To pay the homage that Pac-Man deserves as a ground-breaking innovation in the gaming world, Google equipped the doodle with many unique characteristics from the original Pac-Man game. From preserving the distinct personalities of the ghosts Inky (blue: fickle), Blinky (red: chaser), Pinky (pink: ambusher) and Clyde (orange: slow) to re-creating programming bugs from the original game like a “kill screen” on level 256, Sr. User Experience designer at Google, Marcin Wichary, along with Google doodler, Ryan Germick, remained as faithful to the spirit of Pac-Man as possible.

So enjoy Google Pac-Man while you can folks, it’ll be nothing more than a memory tomorrow.

Rather than pre-scripted tackling animations, like in all football games to date, every tackle in the game is completely real-time, resulting in a more realistic looking hit. However, in order to do that, NaturalMotion had to make every player in the game a completely realistic human analog, using natural movement of real humans to simulate that same movement in the game. But in an era where even scripted scenes and motion capture looks awkward, how does NaturalMotion intend to make, well…natural motion? (Un)natural selection.

Making a full human skeleton, and giving it full musculature, the NaturalMotion team set about tweaking those muscles in such a way as to create a walking motion. 100 different variations were created, and then tested. The 5 that walked the longest were deemed the most successful, and were then each copied 20 times. The team then altered subset nerves connections in variations that would occur naturally in a subsequent generation in a biological species. They tested the walking motion again, and again took the 5 best. Over the course of a few generations, NaturalMotion was able to force digital evolution on the skeletons, creating walking motions more natural than any motion capture or script could do, and leaving it completely dynamic.

Oh, and the really cool part of this whole experiment? This was in 2001. Since then, the (r)evolutionary process has been expanded to balancing, walking, environmental interaction, and yes, playing sports. This also isn’t limited to humans, but any animal that can be conceived of. So long as they can create it in a 3D environment, the evolution process can be replicated until even a create with four legs and 2 knees apiece can move in a believable way.

So what does this mean for us right now? It means that come May 18, we’ll be playing the most dynamic sports game, and maybe any game, ever created. Oh, and by this time next year, EA probably will have bought NaturalMotion. Just sayin’.

What if terrorism isn’t the enemy that we should fear the most?  According to ABC Australia’s The Hungry Beast, our greatest fears may actually be living and growing right under our noses in the form of Google. It is true that Google plays some sort of role in almost everyone’s life nowadays, and some people would even go so far as to say that it is trying to take over the world!  Of course, some people may think that this is a load of horse crap, but it’s really hard to argue with these facts.  Check this video out and see for yourselves.

Though some tweets will be singled out for their importance, such as the first tweet ever made, or Obama’s tweet shortly after winning the 2008 election, but every single public tweet will be recorded for posterity’s sake. So, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you a random tweet from my personal archives:

Feel free to link to other historic tweets in the comments.

That’s right. Effects studio Corridor Digital spent a mere $209.42 to make this amazing video. Imagine if some of these big name studios would use real effects rather than CGI. I’m look at you George Lucas. Anyway, check the video below.

As of right now, the minimum size you can use is a 1 Gig, with the maximum being 16 Gigs, with proprietary drives from Microsoft due out next month

Someone has invented a guitar hanger. As you can tell by the video, it’s like a guitar stand and a bat had a baby. It’s a neat concept. I would never trust hanging my real guitars on my closet clothes-bar as it could break off and kill my babies. I also wouldn’t want to risk warping them. But I imagine it would work fine for those pastic guitars we all love and hate.

They aren’t cheap, running at $25 each. More info can be found here.

In this article, I’ll dive deep into what the Sony Move experience is all about.

At heart, “Move” is Sony’s stab at the Wii causal market. To make things even more interesting, they choose to stab at the Wii market with Nintendo’s own product. Sure, it’s a different color and there are slight differences, but it’s still a Wiimote and Nunchuck, right? Well, yes and no. There are some game changing differences to take into account.

The technology is more advanced than anything Nintendo has pumped out within the last four years. Early reports from GDC indicate that playing a third-person shooter like SOCOM 4 is far more enjoyable than playing a similar title on the Wii.

The Wii uses a sensor bar to detect movement the same way your TV detects if your remote is facing toward it or not. If your pointer strays from the area on the screen, you are greeted with an “Unable to detect Wii remote” message. As a gamer that gets the occasional hand/arm cramp and need to set my Wiimote down while I pop my knuckles, this gets bothersome.

The Move uses an Eyetoy a Playstation Eye camera to detect controller movement. This offers a much broader range of controller connectivity. The PS3 doesn’t lose track of the controller no matter how many times you set it down or someone walks in front of it.

You have to use a Playstation Eye camera on top of your TV. How they expect us to balance a webcam on top of our thin LCD HD-TV’s is beyond me. I guess we can always use what I use for my Wii sensor bar, duct-tape. The camera detects movement via the sensor in the ball.

The button layout is much more streamlined than the Wiimote. Instead of twelve buttons, you get seven. A Home (main menu) button, five face buttons, and a trigger on the underside. It makes things smooth and sexy, like a dildo awaiting its first thrusting.

The balls on top of the Move controllers change color depending on in-game situations. It’s all up to the game developers, honestly. The possibilities are somewhat endless. An example would be a racing game where red, green, and yellow symbolize their stop-light counterparts.

Move runs on rechargeable and un-changeable batteries much like its old fashioned controller brethren. The move and the sub-controller (I’ll get into that later) are rechargeable via mini-USB. Since Sony were too cheap to bundle a cable with their console or controllers, don’t expect to get one with the Move. You’ll have to settle for using your digital cameras USB cord.

Above: Not the Move. The controllers are completely wireless.

The sub-controller is their name for Move’s “Nunchuck.” It’s a smaller ball-less version of the Move controller. It has one analog stick, two action buttons, a four-way directional pad, trigger, and Home button.

While you’re pointing at the screen with the Move controller, you can walk and do less waggle-intensive tasks with the sub-controller. Whoever named these controllers needs to be fired, I know.

Unlike the Wii’s Nunchuck, the sub-controller does not have a motion sensor. It’s strictly non-waggle.

But what about the games, you ask? There will be plenty Move-only titles coming out. From chicken hunting to bowling to sword fighting. If you’ve seen it on the Wii, it’ll be on the PS3.

Above: Sony’s Move.

The following list of companies are currently developing for the Playstation Move:

(List copy and pasted via Kotaku)

Now lets look at one of the first announced titles, “Sports Champions.”

In a nutshell, it’s Wii Sports but prettier. Sony is going balls out with their shameless ripping off of Nintendo, I know.

Sports Champions is Wii Sony Sports. Five or so casual sports games that can be played with one or two controllers in hand. That’s right. If you want to duel-wield light-up dildos, you have to buy another.

The games include Golf, Archery, Table Tennis, Frisbee, and Gladiator.

Gladiator is a prettied up version of “hit your enemy with a stick” that was introduced in Wii Sports Resort. You basically swing controller-A as your sword and block with controller-B as your shield. I’m not sure how that would work without an extra Move controller.

Playstation Move will hit stores this fall for $100. It will be bundled with one Move controller and Playstation Eye camera. No controller-only option has been announced for those of us who already purchased a Playstation Eye. As for the sub-controller, Sony are currently treating it as an optional accessory that will be sold separately. It has yet to be priced at the time of this post.

“Just like remote controls, game consoles, and thus game controllers, are becoming widespread. It is not surprising to find more than one game consoles in a household, especially when competing game console manufacturers attempt to attract unconventional consumer groups in the gaming industry. As understood herein, it would be useful to have a universal controller that would be able to work with a variety of game consoles.”

The details of the control would include liquid crystal touch-LCD screen that will bring up controller layouts for the system you are playing. For example, if you wanted to play Nintendo 64, an Nintendo 64 controller layout would pop up on the screen. Also it would include other varying button layouts specific to differing current and classic hardware, and also the ability to mimic an alphanumeric keyboard. The controller also features a rumble feature system and a built in speaker system. The Patent lightens what I’m saying here,

“This document describes an adaptable or universal game controller which can be used to emulate the controllers of popular game consoles, such as, without limitation, the PlayStation.TM. made by Sony, a controller made by Nintendo, X-box.TM. game controllers made by Microsoft, Amiga CD-32.TM. controllers, Atari Jaguar.TM. controllers, Gravis Gamepad.TM. controllers, Sega controllers, and Turbographics controllers, one or more of which terms may be subject to trademark protection. For ease of exposition trademark symbols will not be further used herein.”

In all honesty and have been saying this for a while, finally some game company (that has money and is big) came up with the idea of an universal gaming controller. I’m pretty sick of having all these gamecube controllers, playstation 2 controllers and wii-motes taking up a lot of space in my game, collection drawers. But that is my opinion of course. For sure that there are sure tons of problems with this idea though. One being is lawsuits against Sony for making a remote that is compatible on an Microsoft system or Nintendo system. In reality, I honestly don’t see Microsoft or Nintendo getting on board with this idea by Sony. If Sony does this, we all know what Microsoft and Nintendo would do to compete with Sony.
Below is just an outline ‘doodle’ draft of what an idea it would look like with it’s included features.