One of the neatest features of the Playstation 3, in my book, is that you can swap out the hard drive it comes with yourself using an off-the-shelf hard drive. Sure it may be pretty self-explanatory to some, but not everyone knows how to upgrade the hard drive on their Playstation 3. Fortunately, Seagate was kind enough to send me a little howto guide and kit. The guide walks you through the relatively painless process for upgrading your 40GB or 80GB hard drive to something roomier, like say a 160GB drive.

The upgrade allows you to swap out the built-in drive with a new one, without losing any of your content. Why is Seagate explaining how to upgrade a Playstation 3? Because they sell hard drives silly. Hit the jump for the even-Brian-can-do-it instructions.

What you need:
An external hard drive for the backup (Seagate suggests their Maxtor OneTouch Mini)
A new hard drive (Seagate suggests their Momentus 5400.3 160GB (~$120) or a Momentus 7200.2 160GB (~$160).)
Mini screwdriver

How to do it:
Plug in your external drive and reformat it so the PS3 will recognize it.
Copy current PS3 hard drive content to your external drive.
Remove the standard issue console drive, following the installation instructions in the PS3 manual.
Replace the console drive with a the new drive.
Format new drive.
Plug in external drive and transfer content to the new drive.
Play Uncharted.

No word on how potential Xbox 360 owners or those looking to upgrade can determine before purchase whether they'll come home with a quieter machine. However, the Xbox Scene members indicate that consoles manufactured on or after November 06 were the first to feature the quiter BenQ model.

As soon as that HDMI version with the 65nm process CPU hit shelves, I'm totally jumping in. Michael McWhertor

BenQ VAD6038 - New DVD Drive in Xbox360 [Xbox Scene via 1UP]

Many PC gamers around the world are struggling right now with the question, "Should I upgrade to Vista?" Some of us went ahead and took the plunge, experiencing only minor issues (my World of Warcraft framerate certainly took a noticeable hit), but many PC gamers only play one or two games at any given time, making judging overall performance a hit or miss affair.

Enter Jason Cross at Extreme Tech.

Jason has followed up an excellent article on how games worked during Vista Beta 2 with an exhaustive look at Vista performance at launch, in which he tests around 25 games across all genres, from FPS to MMO. He praises Vista's handling of onboard sound, points out Steam problems and missing Games Explorer icons, discusses issues with new or completely missing drivers...basically he covers all the concern PC gamers might have about upgrading to Vista at this early stage. A must read for anyone considering taking the plunge. Michael Fahey

Will Vista Run Your Games: The Final Word [ExtremeTech]

Market intelligence experts IDC have released a report detailing their projections for Windows Vista uptake among business and personal computers for the coming year. Not surprisingly, home users are expected to make up the bulk of Windows Vista users, with 90% of new computers shipping with the shiny new OS. The corporate world, being understandably wary of adopting new software too early, are predicted to have a much lower uptake rate of 35%. My day job still loads Windows 2000 on new PCs, so I don't expect to see Vista here anytime soon.

Note that these are projections for new computer users and not upgrades, which are expected to be much, much lower. I'd be interested to see the projected adoption rate among gamers, a market Microsoft is furiously pursuing with the lure of Vista-only games like Halo 2.

I'm sitting on the fence. I can certainly see the potential of Vista, but ever since I worked computer phone support during the Windows 95 launch, new operating systems make me twitch uncontrollably.

Full press release after the jump.

Windows Vista: First-Year Consumer Uptake Projected to Surpass Enterprise Uptake, According to IDC
Wednesday November 29, 8:00 am ET

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—The forthcoming launch of Microsoft's Windows Vista family of client operating environments will quickly have an impact on the makeup of the worldwide client operating environment market. With calendar year 2007 deployments of Windows Vista projected at 90 million units, IDC believes Windows Vista will quickly displace the majority of shipments of older Windows client operating systems, led by strong acceptance on the consumer front.

During calendar year 2007, Windows Vista Home products are projected to account for 90% of new Windows client operating environments deployed by home users. By comparison, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise will account for 35% of the new Windows client operating environments deployed by business users. During the second full year of availability, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise will grow to account for 80% of new deployments.

"After a long wait, the adoption of Windows Vista will take place almost immediately among consumers, while businesses will follow a decidedly more conservative adoption curve," says Al Gillen, research vice president, System Software at IDC. "Across the product mix, IDC expects to see a healthy movement toward Windows Vista Home Premium, while Windows Vista Ultimate will remain a niche product for some time to come."

During 2007, IDC expects that Windows Vista Home Basic will account for 67% of consumer purchases, with Windows Home Premium capturing 30% of the consumer acquisitions. Windows Vista Ultimate will account for 2% of the worldwide shipments. The balance of Windows Vista consumer shipments are home deployments of Windows Vista Business.

On the business front, 82% of Windows Vista deployments are expected to be the Business edition, while the remaining 18% will be Windows Vista Enterprise.

Through 2010, IDC forecasts Windows client operating environments to experience a 2005-2010 CAGR of 8.2%, leading to a total in excess of 200,000 annual shipments of Windows COEs in 2010.

The IDC study, Worldwide Windows Client Operating Environments 2006-2010 Forecast: Vista Expands Windows COE Market Opportunities But Won't Accelerate Growth (Doc #203733), reviews the performance of the Windows client operating environment (COE) market during 2005 and provides a forecast through 2010 for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Home, and Windows XP Professional, as well as full-detail forecasts for Windows Vista client products.

To purchase this document, call IDC's Sales hotline at 508-988-7988 or email sales@idc.com.

About IDC

IDC is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. Over 850 IDC analysts in 50 countries provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends. For more than 42 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

—--

Michael Fahey

It seems that one of the MMO's that popularized the genre will continue to receive some life support, this time in the form of a totally new client. Yep, massively multiplayer online role playing game Ultima Online will see a considerable graphics overhaul and a reworked UI.

Some of the changes players can expect courtesy of producer Aaron Cohen (aka Darkscribe):

1. We are completely re-building the Ultima Online client with new graphics and a new easier-to-use interface.
2. It is an in-place upgrade. That means you will be able to keep your characters, items, houses and everything else you've earned over the past nine years.
3. We are committed to maintaining extremely low system specs. They will be higher than what UO launched with in 1997, but will still be far lower than almost any other MMORPG on the market.
4. The launch will happen in 2007.
5. There are many, many more surprises in store.

Hopefully they'll continue to address the problematic cheating and gold farming issues in UO, despite the massive hilarity both can cause. Michael McWhertor

Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn

Xbox Live Marketplace
The Xbox Live Marketplace blade is getting a make-over making it easier to sort through the increasingly bloated offerings that can be found through Live.

The rework will include the addition of a New Media and Entertainment menu with the following categories:
New Releases
All Media and Entertainment
Movie Trailers and Short Films
Television, Music, Sports and More
Gaming Community Videos
Game Tips and Support Videos
Optional iPod Support.

You might have noticed that "Television, Music, Sports and More" category. Yeah, it caught my eye too. Here's what it means: Unfortunately, it doesn't mean full length prime time shows. Instead they are focusing on short form shows. Like maybe previews of next week's show or the Gears of War special. Music videos will also be here.

"We are continuing to develop exclusive content," Greenberg said, when I pressed him on the issue of the chance that prime time tv or other episodic content might be sold through Live. "Anything is possible, we have the platform for it and the partners in place."

Gaming community also has some amazing possibility, but so far it looks it will be free of your buddy playing DDR. Instead expect to see things like episodes of Red Vs. Blue and tons of machinima stuff. Greenberg added that they hope to one day allow users to upload their own original content in some way.

Another Marketplace addition is the Games option. In that category you'll find newly released downloads, Xbox Live Arcade, demos, trailers and videos for games, played games and the ability to sort through your game downloads by genre.

In general, the Marketplace is getting a lot deeper with a lot more ways to sort and find content, something that certainly comes as a reaction to the explosion of interest to the service.

Background Download Manager
Active Download will allow you to download games in the background as you do other stuff. Yes that means you can play retail games, or any other "full Xbox experience" during a download. The download manager will pause downloads automatically during multiplayer experiences. You will be able to rack up, up to six downloads at a time. Once one is completed it will go to the next. And you can see where everything stands with the Background Download Manager.

"This has been our number one feature since we launched," Greenberg said.

Control Marketplace Videos
The Marketplace video you download can now be rewound or fast forwarded at 2 to 16 times normal speed. You can do this with a controller or the Xbox remote control.

"We realized that people wanted to be able to control that," Greenberg said.

Enhanced Photo Viewing
This will allow you to preserve folders on memory cards when you transfer to your 360 and also tweaks the slidesow.

Music Player and DVD Playback Improvements
On the DVD front, the upgrade will add a feature called DVD Bookmarking, which will allow your 360 to remember where you stopped watching a movie and automatically jump back to it when you slap it back in after a few hours of GRAW. You can even turn off the console or unplug it. They've also tweaked overall DVD performance.
On the music side of things, the 360 will now remember where you were while browsing through your music. Also, now when you launch your music in the background, it will continue to play no matter what you are doing, even launching a new game or hopping around through the blades.

Dashboard Boot-Up
Finally, the update will add an option that you can set-up to allow you to boot up straight into the Xbox Dashboard instead of jumping to whatever CD, DVD or game happens to be in the console's tray when you start it up.

"We think this is going to be the default most people are going to want," Greenberg said.

Friends Status Update
Now, like instant messenger, if you're away and your screensaver turns on (usually after 15 minutes), your Friends status will show you are away. It also will show how long you've been away.

Xbox Live Vision
Msoft will also be loading camera setting to the 360 so the Xbox 360 camera will be fully supported when it hits in September. You might notice some stuff in the menus you can't use, but it's there because it's embedded in the update, you might notice things like a video chat option and the ability to take your picture and use it as your Gamertag image. Woo Hoo!

Here's the best news. This entire update will take less than a minute to download and apply, according to Greenberg and it will be applied directly to the console's flash memory. That means if you don't have a hard drive you will still be able to use the update.

Msoft is still pushing people to connect to get the update, but if you really don't want to, rest assured you can still get it. Greenberg said the update will be added to new game discs in the near future.

"This is the great example of the benefits of a unified service," Greenberg said. "We are soliciting consumer feedback and I think this addresses what a lot of gamers have been looking."

He added that since the 360 launched there have been a whopping 24 million downloads. Yikes.

"Marketplace has really taken off in a major way and we are scaling up for that usage," he said.

Wow, this sounds like a fantastic update, but I can't help but wonder what sort of anti-piracy or chip-mod prevention stuff they may have stuffed in there as well. I guess we'll all see next week. Brian Crecente

Microsoft Switching To Cooler & Cheaper Xbox 360 CPU [Voodoo Extreme]

Update: Commenter 'The Wreckard' and others saying this won't split the Xbox 360 product line are totally correct. Presuming this will lead to multiple versions of incompatible Xbox 360s is just silly. It won't—any more than the slim PS2s are a different product than the originals.

Unfortunately, that means that we didn't report on the PC side of things very much. Sorry about that — you PC gamers are a proud and bumptious lot with little to no patience for Nintendo's latest bobble-headed offerings. If you aren't composing your next 1600x1200 graphical sig, replete with all your system's 3DMark scores and the complete quotes of Douglas Adams translated in Tolkein Elvish, you're in the bathroom with a hardware upgrade catalogue, praying fervently that your Mom doesn't knock. We know how it is — we've been there ourselves.

So good news, PC Gamers! Looks like you've got a sexy new PC upgrade coming your way! Because the Inquirer is reporting that Windows Vista is going to require 2 gigs of RAM when it's released early next year. Although 900 meg seems to be the bare minimum required even to use Word or Powerpoint, it looks right now like Halo 2 or any other Windows Vista game is going to double the amount required. Looks like it's time to start peeling apart the soggy pages of your latest Crucial catalogue!

Vista gamers need 2GB plus of memory [Inquirer]

Xboxic has it via an "inside source at Microsoft" that a major update is heading to the Dashboard, in addition to fixing current problems with games (voice echo, please?) and (if rumors are to be believed) will add webcam functionality to the whole deal. True or false? I dunno, that's why I pegged this as a rumor. It's believable, but is it executable? Patience, Kotaku readers, patience.

Major Update for Dashboard and Games 'out soon'; Webcam on the Way [Xboxic]

Prepare for another Playstation Portable "upgrade"—someone's hacked the 2.60 firmware. PSP Updates reports that you can now play homebrew games on your PSP, no matter which firmware it has. Now hurry up and go get your Tetris before Sony drops another $100,000 to stop you with a new patch. I give it a week before 2.7 hits.

Sony Thwarted Again Firware 2.60 [PSP Updates]

Does the PSP really need 100 hours of battery life? ICel thinks so, and that's not all - there's more. The 100-hour version is the longest battery, but iCel is releasing more reasonable 18 and 36 hour battery packs for the PSP as well. The energizer bunny is jealous.

iCel PSP Batteries [PSP 411]

Msoft is updating their Media Center Edition of Windows today, boosting the extender abilities of the software in preparation for the release of Xbox 360. Update Rollup 2 is going to add DVD changers support, Away Mode (which lets you turn a Media Center PC on and off like an appliance), DVD-burning capabilities and high-definition TV tuner support.

How many of you have Media Center PCs? I don t, but I might need to look into getting one if I want to get the most out of my 360.

Xbox Plays Starring Role in Windows Update [Cnet]

It was possible to get the 2.01 PSP update in the U.S. even if there wasn't an official U.S. download, but now you can grab the download from Sony directly, rather than fidgeting with updating through the network. The update fixes the ability to downgrade the PSP firmware into an earlier version. It's only a matter of time till someone re-figures out how to downgrade.

Sony Releases 2.01 in USA [Eurogamer]
Yuck, a New PSP Firmware Update
PSP Firmware Downgrade Available

The third release date s the charm. After delaying the 2.0 firmware update for the Playstation Portable two times, Sony has once more locked in a date for the software to go live. A message on the official Sony PSP site says that the firmware will be available in North America during this week. As of Monday night, it wasn t.

What I can t understand is why the upgrade, which adds web browsing and tweaks some settings, has been delayed so many times when the Japanese version, which seems to work fine on all versions of PSP, came out without a hitch. I wonder if Sony is planning on adding some more features or perhaps tweaking the security settings for the firmware.

PSP 2.0 Firmware Due this week (again) [PSP World]