MicroTechXP

It has been brought to my attention that PlayStation Underground held a secret focus group earlier this year. A small group of PS3 owners were sent to a facility in ****** ****, California to test a new PlayStation product in development.

Once inside the testing facility, these PS3 owners were shown a mini-tripod that stood about 12 inches high. and what looked like 4 black PS3 “wiimotes”.  Well they were essentially “wiimotes” for the PS3, but didn’t need a “nunchuck” attachment.  I will refer to them as “PS3motes” for now on.

You can have up to 4 of these “PS3motes” connected at one time. A demonstrator at this focus group was there showing off the “PS3motes” capabilities, along with some mini-games to play.  The mini games ranged from tennis, to fencing, to a “really really cool” paintball game.  The demonstrator even used the “PS3mote” to play “Quake” on his laptop.

The “PS3mote” is said to be incredibly responsive and accurate.  When the demonstrator crouched while playing the paintball game, the character on screen did as well. [PSLifeStyle]

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Apple has filed a patent which could help users to track down easily lost objects such as a Bluetooth headset. The document with the title “Location discovery using Bluetooth” surfaced yesterday suggests that an iPhone could de used to ping a Bluetooth-paired device that would react with a high pitched sound or light.
A Bluetooth signal is much more sophisticated than your $5 sound-tracking device you can buy for your keychain, which means there are added benefits. For example, the time delay between sending and receiving a signal can be used to determine the distance between two devices. This information could be displayed in the iPhone’s display.
“The distance between the devices can be calculated by comparing the amount of time delay between the transmission of the signal sent from the master device to the slave device and the reception of the return signal from the slave device. With a precise timing system, the master device can be capable of performing such measurements.
Since the speed of the radio waves is known, the distance can be calculated using the time information,” the filing states.
Another discovery method Apple proposes the use of directional antennas to determine the directive of a lost device relative to the phone. [TG Daily]

Over the last year, PlayStation fans have heard and felt the aftershock of a former exclusive title going multiplatform and looked down upon it. With Sony taking the stance that they would no longer buy exclusive opportunities and instead coerce companies into developing for them exclusively with their consoles raw power, gamers became uneasy.

According to Kaz Hirai, we can now all rest easy as Sony has started to re-evaluate the idea of buying exclusive properties for their console. In a recent interview with the ThreeSpeech blog, Hirai had this to say when questioned about Sony’s past stance on the subject.

“That’s something that we can re-evaluate, but it’s also something that the publishers need to make a business decision on. Ultimately, it becomes a dialogue – if it makes sense for them to go exclusive, that’s a business decision that they need to make. But generally speaking, because of the investments that publishers need to make in this round of hardware, it’s going to be more difficult for publishers to make that decision. Where we come into the picture is to have that dialogue with the third-party publishers, to say: “OK, what can we do together if it’s not exclusive that makes the PS3 version of the game more compelling for the consumers than any other version?” Let’s face it – all the games are coming out on a Blu-ray disk which has 50Gb capacity, so let’s put in some making-of content, or maybe additional levels. Also, it really becomes important for the first-party studios to really come up with some envelope-pushing, genre-defining content.”

It will be nice to see Sony push a little harder to either keep exclusives in-house or to bring new exclusives under their wing. A lot of us are waiting to see more developers take advantage of the extra disk space provided within the Blu-ray format. If you’d like to check out the interview in its entirety, feel free to click the source. [ThreeSpeech via PSU]

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) has confirmed that it is phasing out the 80GB MotorStorm bundle, with retailers no longer receiving new inventory for the high-end SKU.
“Retailers aren’t getting any new inventory of the 80GB Motorstorm bundle,” a Sony representative told gaming blog, Joystiq.
The company was keen to emphasis that only the MotorStorm package is no longer being supplied to retailers, with the firm instead shifting its focus to the upcoming 80GB bundle containing a copy of Konami’s highly anticipated stealth game, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Still, this move should come as little surprise to regular readers, seeing as how multiple sources in past months claimed that the MotorStorm pack would be phased out in order to accommodate the new bundle.
The MGS4 bundle is due out alongside the game on June 12, 2008. [Joystiq]