MicroTechXP

This coming Thursday, the Copyright Royalty Board is expected to rule on a request by the National Music Publisher’s Association to increase royalty rates paid to its members for online purchases as much as 66% (from 9 to 15 cents a track). Apple, however, stands adamantly opposed to the decision, as it neither wants to absorb the rate hike nor raise prices from 99 cents on its popular iTunes Music Store. Although it has made no official statement on the matter as of yet, past statements indicate that, should the hike go through, the company may shut down the store, rather than risk going into the red.

Fortune reports that in a statement submitted to the board last year, iTunes vice president Eddy Cue suggested simply closing down the music store, should no alternatives present themself. “If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the … royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss - which is no alternative at all,” Cue wrote. “Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.”

Although the exact figures are not certain, estimates on the digital music store’s profitability range from 10% to 30%. Of every dollar it makes, Apple pays roughly 70 cents to the record companies, and, currently, the record companies pay 9 cents to the music publishers. [Neowin]

pimg height=”278″ src=”http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2008/09/gow2_piracy.jpg” width=”494″ /Epic Games a href=”http://kotaku.com/5056532/why-no-gears-of-war-2-for-pc-well-piracy-for-one”won’t be bringing Gears of War 2 to the PC/a. That’s their story and they’re stickin’ to it. It’s quot;definitelyquot; not happening, swears designer Cliff Bleszinski, pointing to a worsening PC gaming environment./p pquot;The person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know [BitTorrent] to know all the elements so they can pirate software,quot; says Bleszinski. quot;Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.quot;/p pa href=”http://www.totalvideogames.com/articles/Gears_Of_War_2_-_Cliff_Bleszinski_QA_13820.htm”Gears Of War 2 - Cliff Bleszinski Qamp;A/a [TVG]/p

pSorry PS3 gamers, but according to Treyarch and the people at Activision, the upcoming online multiplayer beta for Call of Duty: World at War will be for Xbox 360 and PC owners only.img title=”gaming-ms-nintendo-sony” style=”display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px” height=”122″ alt=”gaming-ms-nintendo-sony” src=”http://www.mtechxp.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/gamingmsnintendosony.png” width=”125″ align=”right” border=”0″ / br /For those of you who remember, Infinity Ward pulled a similar move last year by hosting the Call of Duty 4 beta only on the Xbox 360. After speaking with a Activision representative, I was told that the reasoning behind doing an Xbox 360 and PC beta was primarily due to increased server and connectivity data. br /quot;We are running the beta only on the Xbox 360 and PC,quot; said the representative. He continued then to point out that most betas on the PS3 are run by first party anyways, and if Treyarch runs their testing on the Xbox 360 and PC they acquire more data on servers and connectivity. br /Personally, I think that it’s imperative to sufficiently test emall/em networks a game will be running on, and that includes the PlayStation Network. Yes, if you were to run the beta solely on the PlayStation 3, you’d acquire less data than a 360 beta, but why not have a beta span multiple platforms? Is it that much more work? [a href="http://www.psu.com/COD--World-at-War-beta-to-be-Xbox-360-and-PC-only--a0004931-p1.php"PSU/a]/p

pMicrosoft isn’t sharing specifics, but according to new information on its Professional Developers Conference (PDC) blog, the company is definitely planning to distribute in late October a pre-beta build of Windows 7 to attendees. img title=”vista_logo_orb1″ style=”display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px” height=”130″ alt=”vista_logo_orb1″ src=”http://www.mtechxp.net/images/MicrosoftConfirmsPreBetaWindows7Build_E640/vista_logo_orb1.png” width=”130″ align=”right” border=”0″ / br /I’m assuming this build will not be the same one (the “M3″ build 6780) that leaked over the past week. The reason? Microsoft just added a bunch of new Windows 7 sessions to the PDC agenda that are focused on new user interface elements that are not part of the 6870 build I saw last week. One of the new PDC sessions mentions a “Windows 7 Desktop Taskbar.” br /Another mentions “new shell user experiences APIs (application programming interfaces). And another is slated to discuss “new APIs to find, visualize and organize.” I haven’t seen the new taskbar that is part of some of the Windows 7 builds that I’ve heard a select few testers have seen and had an opportunity to play with. br /It’s not surprising that Microsoft has been especially vigilant in guarding what the UI of Windows 7 looks like, as that’s the final “fit and finish” that distinguish operating system releases. I’m curious how similar the Windows Live Wave 3 services and Windows 7 will be in terms of user interface elements — and whether the UI can and will be influenced by tester feedback at this point in the development cycle. [a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1607"ZDNet] /a/p

While claims that the Xbox 360’s DVD format is too small are becoming, you rarely hear of a developer pushing the boundaries of Blu-ray. And yet Codemasters is doing exactly that. Apparently the publisher’s upcoming Fuel - an open-world racer redolent of Mad Max - would exhaust four Blu-ray discs if it were created using quot;traditionalquot; methods. That’s according to Executive Producer David Brickley, speaking to a href=”http://www.videogamer.com/news/25-09-2008-9464.html”Videogamer.com/a br /quot;In the context of that map, which is one small corner of it, when the guys showed us this technology, if you were to build it in a traditional manner it would fill about four Blu-rays,quot; he said. quot;A gargantuan amount of data, just enormous. The challenge for us was to say can we come up with a race experience generated according to an algorithmic rule set, procedural generation, which is of a standard that is indistinguishable from one that’s been done by hand?quot; br /To put the figure in context, Brickley likened the world of Fuel to that of Burnout Paradise. quot;I did a little Power Point internally to do it and it zoomed them in to each other,quot; he said. quot;It’s like a little postage stamp because I think it does like four kilometres or something.quot; Fuel is reported to be 5,000 miles in scope. br /The game is being developed by Asobo, and is due out on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in Q2 2009. [PSU]

It took a few hours longer than expected, but Sony’s VAIO TT is here. And it’s sexy. This 11.1-inch beauty features a sub-1-inch thick, 2.87-pound chassis made from carbon-fiber, and Sony claims it’s the lightest notebook on the planet to pack Blu-ray capabilities. Arriving in a variety of configurations, the VAIO TT is available with an XBRITE-DuraView LCD, Intel’s Centrino 2 technology, an HDMI output, dual channel 256GB (128GB x 2) SSD setup with RAID, Sprint WWAN (EV-DO Rev. A) and Windows Vista running the show. The Fall-bound TT — which will arrive in premium carbon black, silk black, champagne gold and crimson red outfits — will start at around two large, with the Blu-ray model going for $2,700 and the SSD edition demanding $2,750. There’s no direct mention of a battery life figure, which scares us just a tad, but you can dig into the full release just after the break. [Engadget]

A 45 nanometer cell processor was first realized earlier this year, and Sony plans to include it in the PlayStation 3 sometime during 2009.

So how does this affect you? By creating a smaller chip, Sony circumvents some costs associated with creating the Cell, and a cheaper production price equates to more leeway for a potential PS3 price cut. Additionally, by reducing the size of the chip from 65nm to 45nm, power consumption decreases by approximately 40%. When less power is consumed, less heat is generated, and a slimmer console — like the slimline PS2 — suddenly becomes a possibility.
We’ll continue to provide the big picture of the Cell processor in the future — no matter how small it gets. [Gizmodo]

While Sony has taken steps to ensure that the PlayStation 3 will be the longest-lived of current- gen machines, some developers can’t wait to get their hands on the next slab of hardware.
Speaking at the Game Convention Asia event, Crytek President and CEO Cevat Yerli has declared that the PlayStation 4’s specifications will shape all subsequent Crytek projects. Those specifications have to be announced first, obviously - anybody care to predict a shipping date?
"Frankly, we are linking ourself to what the PS4 will take up as [its hardware] position," Yerli told IGN. "That is the console makeup that will drive all our research, so we cannot wait to know what the [machine] will be about. That’s probably the most important missing information we have right now in our company."
Crytek tends to ask rather a lot of its hardware, with the formidable Crysis virtually unplayable on maximum settings whatever your PC setup. Small wonder then that they’re eager to get their hands on the latest tech. [PSU]

I missed out on the cushy, well-received home activation process enjoyed by pretty much every first gen iPhone user. Instead, I waited in line for my iPhone 3G, waited some more, and then waited some more as the AT&T store employees told us about a hundred times that iTunes was kaput. Eventually, I was sent home to wait until the system was ready. On that note, here’s some good news for future iPhone 3G buyers: The critically acclaimed home activation process could be returning soon.

AppleInsider cites Apple Store employees as the source of the rumor. Apparently, a new "Home" option (currently inactive) appears in their EasyPay system when they make an iPhone 3G sale. As the 8GB model runs dry on store shelves, there’s also indications a 32GB model could appear fairly soon to replace it, and match the iPod Touch. [AppleInsider via Gizmodo]