Wonderbook: Book of Spells Release Date

Ready to slip on your wizard hat? Wonderbook: Book of Spells -- PlayStation's augmented reality Harry Potter tie-in -- arrives in U.S. stores November 13th. International dates have not been announced. If you already have a PlayStation Move and PlayStation Eye, you can nab Wonderbook: Book of Spells (that's the game and the Wonderbook peripheral) for $40. If you need the Move, Eye, book and game, that bundle will set you back $80.

Are you going to grab Wonderbook in two months? Let us know in the comments below.

Greg is the executive editor of IGN PlayStation, cohost of Podcast Beyond and host of Up at Noon. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Greg's shenanigans on IGN and Twitter. Beyond!

Source : ign[dot]com

Jersey Shore Cancelled by MTV

Soon, we’ll be living in a post-Jersey Shore world. Yes, MTV is cancelling the reality series, Variety reveals, and the upcoming Season 6, debuting October 4th, will be the last one.

While Jersey Shore was a huge hit for MTV, and became a pop culture sensation, making the cast into unlikely stars, ratings have been declining in recent seasons, leading to MTV’s decision – made a few weeks before the premiere, so they can properly market this season as the final one.

A second season has been ordered for the spinoff Snooki & JWoww, though Variety notes things look less rosy for The Pauly D Project, which is not getting strong ratings.

How do you feel about the end of Jersey Shore? Share your thoughts, memories and Jersey Shore-inspired poetry in the comments below.

Source : ign[dot]com

Is Reality Racers Coming to PlayStation Vita?

Gaming site Siliconera has extracted some interesting information from Japanese trademark filings indicating that Sony may be working on a game called Reality Racer. Depending on if you liked the Vita launch game Reality Fighters -- we certainly didn’t -- this may or may not be good news… at least if the two games are connected.

All Siliconera dug up was that Sony indeed filed the trademark, and for the time being, the trademark only appears in Japan. Whether or not it’s related to Reality Fighters still remains to be seen. We’ve reached out to Sony for comment and will update if and when we hear more.

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com

The VR Headset of the Future Just Launched on Kickstarter

When you think of "wildly successful peripherals" virtual reality headsets are probably not the first things that come to mind. But a recent slew of head-mounted displays (HMDs) seems to indicate the timing's right to retry.

Oculus launched its ultra-high-tech VR headset's Kickstarter a little earlier today, and already it's found plenty of support and full funding. So what makes them so special?

While the technical specifications are subject to change, currently the Oculus Rifts are set to features ultra-low latency head tracking with 6 degrees of freedom (DOF), 110 degrees diagonal field of view, a resolution of 640x800 per eye, stereoscopic 3D rendering, and weigh around .22 kilograms.

But what's all that tech talk mean for an everyday user? It means the Oculus Rift's will feature a far larger display than those others out there and track your head without the lag you might consider synonymous with head-mounted virtual reality.

John Carmack has been a vocal supporter of the Oculus Rift - praising the device, and saying that the angles offered by the Rift were so impressive he ditched plans for his own HMD as soon as he tried these out.

Other big players praising the Oculus Rift includes Cliff Bleszinski of Epic, Gaikai, David Helgason at Unity, and Michael Abrash and Gabe Newell of Valve.

• Check out the Oculus Rift Kickstarter

The Oculus Rift isn't your average consumer-facing Kickstarter - they're only hoping to get enough funding to produce development kits. This allows the Kickstarter goal to start with a much lower goal - in this case a $250,000 goal that has already been doubled. It also means there's not as much incentive to buy big if you're not making games.

If you're not a developer, you can show your support by pledging one of the low tiers and in turn pick up a pretty sweet poster or shirt, or you can pledge $275 or more and receive a prototype device with Doom 3 BFG edition, the first Oculus-ready game, or as we like to call it, "The most expensive version of Doom 3 ever."

What do you think? Could the Oculus Rift's finally be the VR headset we've been waiting for? We're cautiously optimistic, and we'll update you as we know more.

Nic is the Editor of IGN Tech. He loves technology almost as much as Skittles, Boyz II Men, and Pitfall! You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com

University of Southern California is Making a Real-Life Holodeck

Project Holodeck is exactly what it sounds like: the University of Southern California’s schools of engineering and cinematic arts have joined forces to develop a virtual reality gaming platform, built almost entirely from widely available technology. 

Players’ body - and head-movements are tracked respectively by a Razer Hydra and Playstation Move. Variable fans (the prototype’s are Arduino-controlled) simulate wind for touch feedback. The team is building its software from the Unity3D engine.

Project Holodeck’s main development snag for the moment is its head-mounted display. The Oculus RIFT, designed by Project Holodeck’s Lead Hardware Engineer Palmer Luckey, will have a definition of 640x800 per eye, with a field of vision sufficient for simulated peripheral vision. “This isn’t like watching a floating television,” the project’s hardware page explains. But pending a Kickstarter campaign, which will price the HMD at $500, the RIFT only exists in prototype.

The $500 price-point will certainly make the RIFT a competitor to Sony’s HMZ-T1, but it’s hard to imagine something with such a limited range of use appealing to anyone except serious gaming hobbyists. “We want to make the dream of a VR play space a reality, and at a affordable cost,” the team has stated. But even if you already owned all the required components (at least one version of the platform featured four networked Kinects), setting up a living room VR system looks like it would be prohibitively expensive for average consumers.

The USC team is reportedly developing its own game to showcase the platform. Wild Skies has yet to post game footage or even a screenshot, so it’s likely the game doesn’t yet exist in any playable form, though a recent Project Holodeck video, which combines gameplay clips from “Skies of Arcadia” with (we’re assuming) staged footage of player actions, makes the concept of a sense-immersive flight-sim/adventure game look surprisingly feasible.

Project Holodeck’s hints at a partnership with Disney Imagineering make full commercial availability of the system seem even less likely - at least for the next few years. But maybe that’s a good thing. VR gaming is hardly a sure thing for developers. (Remember Nintendo’s Virtual Boy? Most people don't.) But current technology would certainly make developing VR games easier and more affordable than it’s been in the past.

If there was a consumer VR platform would you buy it? More importantly, how little would it have to cost? Let us know in the comments.

Source : ign[dot]com