Is this a sign of things to come, I wonder? EA has announced it currently doesn't have any games in development for the Wii U.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-22565945

Nintendo has also shifted fewer Us than they expected. With 3.4million sold instead of 4million expected. Sales of the 3DS also don't appear to have been anything special and the Vita has been struggling, although it's starting to do a little better.

I suspected a while ago that the new generation of consoles would struggle to excite players in the way that the previous two generations have. The fact is that the current generation is ample for most people. If something still works great and has been allowed to evolve into something as all-singing-all-dancing as the 360 has, why would anyone want to shell out another $300-$400 on something that doesn't seem to add anything new or groundbreaking?

It does look as though the hardware manufacturers have fallen into the trap of trying to be the first to bring out a new console, just because the other guys are. None have considered whether new hardware was necessary. Nintendo probably did need something new and Sony needed to replace the PSP but I'm not so sure that the 360 and PS3 need to be consigned to history just yet.

I certainly have no plans to buy a new console - if I do, I'd be better off just building myself a small gaming PC.

Well, it isn't an official port of Loopz but a remake of the game is nearing completion for the Blackberry Playbook. I wrote a version for Windows Phone and hit all kinds of problems - primarily the screen size and the touch controls. It plays much much better on tablets.

I was supposed to finish it by the end of January as I'd been given a loaner by Blackberry but they haven't asked for it back. One of the reasons the Windows Phone version wasn't very good was that I rushed it towards the end. I'd been working on it for 10 months ... and that was after taking just 3 days to do a prototype. Life got in the way and I was spending too much time helping others instead of concentrating on my own work. Now, I'm able to spend more time on working and it's taken 3 months to get the Blackberry version to this stage. I should have started it sooner but I was wary of getting back into C++ after not touching it for at least 13 years.Took me a couple more weeks to get any kind of speed going.

Anyway, this is just a quick screenshot of the game.

 GloopsSample.jpg   99.04K   19 downloads

I was just wondering earlier whether I should dig out one of my STs to play some of my favourite classic games again. I know my daughter would love games like Rainbow Islands.

Because space is limited, and I'm not sure I have any working ST meecies, I was wondering if there are any versions of classic cutesy-style games for modern systems. Games like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Rodland and New Zealand Story.

I think I've tried a version of Rainbow Islands that they messed about with (and messed up) for the DS but it wasn't very good.

I've got a couple of spare hard drives I'd like to use in an A8 or ST. What's the best or cheapest solution available? One is a 20gb IDE drive and ideally I'd like to be able to use the full capacity.

The other is a 160gb SATA. I've checked around and there are some very cheap SATA to IDE boards arounds. Has anyone successfully fitted a SATA drive to their Atari using one of these conversion boards?

I have my doubts about the console, although there's obviously a lot of enthusiasm for it. It reached its Kickstarter goal within a day and now Square Enix have said that they will develop Final Fantasy III for it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-19062200