Like they say, once you're at the top, there's nowhere to go but down. In Shigeru Miyamoto's case, he went down quite a bit. After being at the top of Time 100 last year, the Nintendo gaming mastermind drops to #42 of Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people from various fields and industries. So who else made it to the list? Find out after the jump.

Steve Jobs once said that the iPod Touch is the best portable device for playing games on. Now, we may actually have a point of reference to see if he's right, if this analyst proves to be correct. According to Mike Hickey, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the DS will most likely be ported to the iPhone. More predictions in the full article.

Last we heard from PSN director Eric Lempel, FW 2.40 will include in-game access of the XMB and trophies. While that was official, everything else after seems to be uncharted rumor territory, including this latest one: a full list of features outlining functions of the XMB you can actually access in-game. Aside from the Trophy system, we might also get to play our own music in-game (no, not via Solid Snake's iPod, but via in-game XMB!). There's also some bit about FW 2.4's release. As reports go, the current release window is three weeks from now. That's E3 week!

(Editor's Note: Epicness was never this awesome!)

It's another great week again! We have quite a lot of reasons why we're celebrating, and not least of them all is the fact that QuickJump QuickPeek's finally hit its 30th edition!

Let's pop them corks and let the champaign flow. Everyone's got a reason to party this weekend!

*Originally posted Jan 19, 2008 at 02:49PM

John Carmack, id Software co-founder and technical director, was unveiled as a surprise guest during Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote at this year's Worldwide Developers' Conference. While that may not be big news in and of itself to most readers, what Carmack brought to the keynote is.

   

According to Engadget, Carmack gave audiences at WWDC07 a first look at Tech 5, id Software's new game engine. Details about the engine are still scarce, but Carmack did give audiences a peek at some of the features that come packed with Tech 5.

What we've got here is the entire world with unique textures, 20GB of textures covering this track. They can go in and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with no impact on the game.

More details about Tech 5 are expected to surface come E3. Carmack also noted that the engine was being geared towards the Mac, PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 gaming platforms. Yes, the Mac. Carmack also revealed that another announcement involving the Mac would be made at E3.

""In a report by Next Generation, ABI Research director Mike Wolf speculated that North American Internet-to-TV video solutions will reach US$ 1.5 billion in revenue. However, instead of the available Internet-to-TV hardware solutions, Wolf believes that it will be consoles to spur the immediate growth of the market.

 

Wolf speculates that all this will happen in the next five years. So according to his estimates, customers on next-gen consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will comprise almost 60% of the market revenue by 2012. He even notes that consoles could overtake even Steve Jobs' Apple TV.

Because of the multiple entertainment capabilities of such consoles and their requirement for broadband connections, consumers would find more value and appeal in game consoles as capable Internet-to-TV products. That doesn't include the roomy hard drive storage and the fact that the console is already next to a TV.

However, the console has a long way to go to make waves in the market. ABI Research's recently conducted study entitled "Over-the-Top Internet Video to the TV" pointed out that 71% of people who purchase video over the Internet do so on a PC. 16% of the remaining simply burns the video into DVD and watches it on TV, while 8% download and view videos on their video console.

Aside from the fact that only 12% of the surveyed people do purchase videos online, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii will also have to contend with next-generation Internet-to-TV products from Comcast and Netgear, aside from the Apple TV and Sony's own future Internet-to-TV entertainment products.

But consoles already have an edge in growth: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all provide online purchase options by drawing funds from accounts. If Wolf's predictions do come true, analysts believe the console rise in the market will be phenomenal. "“This is just the beginning,” Wolf concluded.

So, how are we today? Still clutching your pitchforks, waiting for the next wave of attacks on your living room, eh? The Battle for the Living Room chronicles is still under full swing. Three set top boxes - Sony's PS3, Microsoft's 360, and Apple's Apple TV (iTV) - are vying for that oh-so comfortable spot in your living room. Digital download services have been around for quite some time now, but with these three new factions on the battle field, how can one survive through the media format wars?

Indeed there are a lot of interesting elements, features, and other factors involved when comparing these three set top boxes (again, we are stressing that we are viewing these as set top boxes with the "gaming console" aspect stripped out). Some might even say that, what with all the tech specs thrown into the equation, choosing your Living Room King can be a task left for the gods.

We here at QJ aren't gods (aaaw, sadness) but we can still enlighten you! When you're in a war, you'd definitely want to be on the winning side. And as of now, there isn't any clear-cut winner just yet. We can just assess the tipping scales as the battle changes every so often. Time to rip open the reports in the case file!

Cry: "Havoc!" And let click the "Full Article" link of war!

No, we don't find it shocking when execs trash talk products made by the competition. For instance, take Bill Gates and his statements made to a small group of reporters after his speech at the CES about the PS3. Mercury News has an report on it and it claims that Bill said that Sony has no advantage in graphics at all. Here's the paragraph in the report:

He said that Sony had no advantage in graphics at all. He said Sony started earlier but "burned a year" trying to make the Cell processor do graphics functions. When it didn't work, Sony went to a fallback plan by tapping Nvidia for the graphics chip at the last minute. It also didn't have embedded DRAM or unified memory. The Xbox 360 game developers would always be a year ahead of Sony on the learning curve in taking advantage of the system. As a result, Gates said that Sony would never have games that look better than Microsoft. He said that either system, limited to 512 megabytes of memory, would not likely exploit HD resolutions beyond 720p. If you go to 1080p, he said, you will have to give up something.

Nothing shocking there. Bill Gates is doing what he's supposed to do. He's selling the 360. It's his baby. It's his job. That, and he's comparing the 360 to the competition: The PS3. Nothing here that makes you raise eyebrows.

When execs go out of their way though to trash talk products they aren't directly competing with, we do get a bit confused (well, some of us were). Comparing something that is essentially a multi-functional phone to a multi-functional gaming device? Definite eyebrow raiser. This is why we find it funny that in the same A-E report, Gates manages to find a way to trash talk Jobs. Here's how it went:

...And of course Microsoft announced in December that movie downloading is an option on the Xbox 360.

He said the Xbox 360 would be a high-end set-top and wouldn't really compete with Cisco or Motorola set-top boxes. And he noted that Apple doesn't necessarily have the best relationships with companies such as phone service providers as Microsoft does. So its iTV service may not be as expansive as anything Microsoft does with its partners.

"Jobs always says he doesn't like to go through someone else's orifice," he said.