I can't tell you anything beyond that, such is the life of NDA's - you'll have to watch the web for more news.

Test Drive Unlimited PS2+PSP should be heading to store shelves real soon. I've been writing developer diaries for IGN (even if they can't spell my name)

So thats whats wrapping up, whats going forward now that we are Krome ? As always in game development, NDAs and other legal requirements prevent us saying anything until we are allowed to. Generally this means that by the time I can mention a project you can also have found out about it on the web.

Finally I can mention these magic words: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - thats all I can say, you'll have to scour the web for other tidbits of information

Krome have also got Hellboy in the works for the 360 and PS3, which is gathering a lot of attention.

I wish I could tell you more!
(Note that when I say Krome, I'm talking about all of Krome - Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide - I'm not differentiating between the three studios)

It's been a rough ride with Atari, we've done some awesome stuff while part of Atari (Lemans, Grand Prix Challenge, Transformers) but the last few years have been bumpy - now it's time to get back to doing what we do best, making great games!

Here's an interview with Robert Walsh on Gamasutra - I'm sure there will be much more news and discussion in the coming days.

Keep an eye out for Test Drive Unlimited PS2/PSP - coming to the stores soon (not sure of official release dates)

More information on using Agile methods in game development can be found at www.agilegamedevelopment.com.

Moles has posted some screenshots of our intrepid Guild (Torps)

Thats it for PC games at the moment, I have been BetaTesting Windows Vista and Battlefield 2 refused to run on it (just popped me back to the desktop, no errors, nothing...)

On the PSP I've been playing Hot Shots golf. This is the game that's saving the PSP from gathering dust (in my opinion). Playing 6-7 player wireless tournaments at lunchtime at work is fantastic! The only downside (and it's a big one) is that anyone who has Everybodys Golf (The EU/AU version) cannot connect to our game. That makes little sense to me since the game itself appears to be the same other than the title and some audio files.

Finally, on the XBox I'm playing Burnout Revenge. This is a great update to Burnout with just a few flaws that detract from an otherwise fun game. I play on Xbox live, my gamertag is Zaphus - feel free to join me for a game! I'm trying to become a bit of a Crash expert at the moment :-)

I've been driving cars for over 20 years (yes, I'm that old) and have never had an accident. For the last year I've been playing Burnout 3 in Crash Mode every week (with friends) in which the player is rewarded for creating massive car crashes - the bigger the better. Recently I had a car crash in real life, and since I've never had a crash before the only logical explanation is that playing Burnout has affected my subconcious (since gamers have no free will) and directly caused the accident.
The next logical step is for me to sue Criterion (or their parent, EA) for damages, and for any future accidents I have. Criterion should have realised that by rewarding and glamourising players who crash their cars it was inevitable that this would cross over to real life.
If EA's lawyers want to contact me, I will not settle for anything less than a copy of Burnout Revenge *plus* a copy of Burnout Legends PSP.

I know people who would buy a PSP just to run Nethack if anyone ever got it working!

But at the same time there are people who are intent on cracking the PSP to allow pirate games to be run, and this is a bad thing for everyone. There is no 'excuse' for cracking games on the PSP since there is no region encoding (just import games you can't get in your country). If this continues (and it will) then Sony will have no choice but to close all the avenues that currently allow homebrew to run - which will be a sad thing for those of us who *want* to see things like Nethack on our PSP's while also playing the latest PSP games.

I wish the homebrew could be allowed to continue, but as a developer I have to hope that Sony can close the door on the pirates and allow game developers to make an income, and that means closing the homebrew door as well :-(

iTunes 4.9 has been released, and it supports Podcasts natively (grabbing the latest episode, removing old ones, transferring to iPod, etc)

Damn, thats fine :-)
I'm subscribed to Dr Karl from triple j, but what I'm really hanging out for is StarStuff from ABC Newsradio to become a podcast.

To make this gaming related I'll mention that there are lots of gaming related podcasts in the iTunes list... but StarStuff is what you really want if you are a geek :-)

But did I buy it just for the games ? No.

Some of the things I'm doing with the PSP:
(I'm buying a "512mb memory stick duo pro" for these, theres not much you can do with the standard 32mb stick)
- Slideshow of some of my favourite photos
- Converting video to play on the PSP with PSP-Video9 (Freeware)
- Trying some Homebrew with the PSP (there is now a KX-Exploit for v1.50 firmware). With any luck someone will get a basic version of Mame running on it :-)
- hoping to find a basic webbrowser to use the PSP over my wireless network
I will not, however, be using it to play MP3's - I have a perfectly good iPod to do that :-)
I won't be buying any UMD movies either!

On an unrelated note, Battlefield2 ROCKS! - the squad play and commander play mean that there is some great teamwork going on in some of the games I've played, very promising! I play as "Zaph" on the OGN, Internode and Bigpond servers - but only the "Ranked" servers.

Some sales figures that suprised me (pleasantly):

- Transformers £1,837,388 (May 04 release)
- Ninja Gaiden £1,749,585 (May 04 release)
- Battlefield Vietnam £1,649,643 (March 04 release)

Thats not bad, I'm happy to be in the same sales ranges as those two games!
It's also worth mentioning that Transformers is still on the shelves here in Australia, and probably in other countries, a year after release which is very rare in the limited shelf space of most stores. This is probably because, unlike BF:V and Ninja Gaiden, Transformers is a "general public" game and not a "hardcore gamer" game.

What's at the blockbuster end of the list ? GTA:SA sold over £60,000,000 worth of games in just 2 months, released in Nov 04. Nice!

Remember that these are just the UK sales, I'd guestimate that the worldwide sales for most games would be 10x their UK sales figures (thats a wild guess, I'd love someone to tell me the actual ratio!)

Forza has a pretty neat feature (for nerds and game developers) - the ability to train an AI to race for you, which they call a Drivatar - Personally I think it should have been "Drivator" or "Drivanator" :-)
The research behind the Drivatar is quite good (Microsoft Research), and definately worth looking at if you are a games developer, or just interested in the AI behind driving games.
Some of what they are doing is not new, but they have definately taken things to a new level. It will be very interesting to see how differently people can train their AI to race and whether the Drivatar really is a step forwards in the AI of racing games.

I definately recommend having a look at the PSP - it's not for kids. Sony have built the thing with an eye on the iPod (although it's not as ergonimic as the iPod). Despite Nintendos best efforts, I think the PSP will win the handheld war simply with it's elegance and style.

Some of the games I've played so far:
Namco Museum - Old school gaming - always good fun, the remixes are pretty good.
Ridge Racers - Probably the best looking game on the PSP at the moment.
Archer MacLean's Mercury - This is an interesting puzzle game, definately worth a look.
Lumines - The definitive puzzle game for the PSP, the "Tetris" of the PSP
Need for Speed Underground Rivals - I'm not totally convinced by this game, I had more fun with Ridge Racers on the PSP (even though on the PS2 I prefer NFS:U2 to Ridge Racer)