Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) has announced that it will release an “all-in-one” surround sound system for the PlayStation 3 (SP3) console. The surround sound system consists of just one central speaker, with the subwoofer built in.
The system will be released in fall 2010 in North America, Europe (and other PAL territories) and Japan for US$199, €199 and 19,800 yen, respectively.
The system uses Sony’s S-Force PRO Front Surround Sound, generates rich realistic surround sound over just one front speaker. Bringing in SCE’s expertise in both entertainment and technology acquired from developing games, four sound fields of the speaker system have been designed with the help of SCE’s expert game sound designers, to optimize the cinematic experience of all forms of entertainment.
The system features two audio inputs; an optic audio input for connecting the PlayStation 3 and an analogue input for other sources, including Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP).
The form factor of the system features a sleek and casual design that matches perfectly with the PS3 system.
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An Israeli company, High Definition Israel or HDi, has introduced couple of interesting Blu-ray players. In addition to playing Blu-ray movies, the players support MKV and DivX files as well as BitTorrent downloads.
HDi has two product families, Dune HD Center and Dune BD Prime, both with four models for different network connection and external hard drive setups. With Dune BD Prime you can choose between the base model, one with WiFi 802.11n, one with Gigabit ethernet, and one with two eSATA ports. In addition to the same upgrade options the more expensive Dune HD Centers feature a rack for internal SATA drives as well.
All of the players have BD Live support, 1GB of internal flash memory, BD/DVD/CD playback, three USB ports for external USB drives, support for NFS and Samba file sharing as well as support for IPTV and Internet radio.
HDi’s players have also extensive file support, including support for AVI, MKV (Matroska), M2TS, TS, MOV, MP4 and WMV files.
MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, XVID, WMV9, VC1 and H.264/AVC video codecs and AC3 (Dolby Digital), EAC3 (Dolby Digital+), DTS, MPEG 1/2/3, AAC, LPCM, WMA, WMAPro, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio audio codecs are supported as well. Dune BD Prime players are able to display both SSA/ASS and SRT subtitles.
The players feature HDMI and component outputs that are able to pass 1080p resolution video. Audio outputs include digital Toslink and RCA and analogue 7.1 RCA.
To make it even more impressive, all the HDi Blu-ray players also feature a BitTorrent client and a Gecko-based web browser.
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According to “sources” cited by MTV News, Microsoft has been developing a Wiimote-like controller for the Xbox 360 for 9 months and plans to release it at some point this year.
The new 360 controller will be similarly shaped to the Wiimote and will have “a speaker, microphone, four LED lights, A/B/X/Y face buttons, an analogue stick and an underside trigger.”
Gameplay would be like “Halo, Gears and Forza in waggle form”, but there seems to be some issues with the development of the controller so far. Developers are split at Microsoft with some wanting it to be as Wii-like as possible while others want the controller to be more feature rich. If the controller is exactly like the Wiimote, games can be ported from the Wii, argues the first set of developers.
The source also notes that Microsoft is working on Mii-like avatars and that the software is being created by Rare.
The rough sketch by the source looks like this:
