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Back in July Nintendo announced the WiiSpeak microphone for use with its games console, allowing people to chat with other online players while gaming or simply just for funsies. Well, the UK now has an official release date of December 5th, the same day Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City hits the shelves, which will be the first game to take advantage.Nintendo reckons the microphone is good enough to pick up conversations from an entire room of people and users are represented by their Mii avatars, which will move their mouths as the microphone picks up speech to make it look like they’re chatting. More games are expected to be released that use the WiiSpeak and we’ll be keeping an ear out to see whether it comes up with anything particularly interesting in terms of enhancing gameplay. - Paul Lester [TechRadar] Nintendo Wii console

Original post by nafiz

Time to sharpen your axes because controversial gorefest Manhunt 2 is coming to the UK this Halloween. Rockstar has finally given a release date of October 31 for the grisly game, a full 7 months after the British Board Of Film Classification (BBFC) was forced to give it an ‘18′ rating. It was originally banned in June last year. So why did it take 7 months after the clearance for a launch here? No one’s saying but there’s no chance Rockstar is going to miss the Christmas run-up. Those wanting a cure for all that Christmas kindness will probably find something suitably brutal and nasty in Manhunt 2, where death by axes, power drills, syringes and anything else you can grab is the order of the day. At the time of trying to ban it second time around in March, the BBFC said: “We twice rejected Manhunt 2, and then pursued a judicial review challenge, because we considered, after exceptionally thorough examination, that it posed a real potential harm risk.” The game has been out in the US for a year, proving to be one of the biggest sellers, and in 3 weeks UK splatter fans will be able to get it on the PS2, PSP and Wii.-Martin Lynch games PS2 rockstar manhunt

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The cheaper Xbox 360 might be doing the impossible right now in Japan by overtaking the PS3 in sales but, the PS3 is well ahead of its targets, according to Sony. Even the recession doesn’t seem to be slowing things down according to Jack Tretton, Chief Executive of Sony Computer Entertainment of America. He commented: “We are in good shape for that number worldwide. We are tracking at 100 percent up over last year … about 30 percent ahead of where we should be. So sales could slow down and we will still hit our number.”That number is Sony’s target of 10 million units sold by the end of March next year. Sales are expected to accelerate the closer we get to Christmas and there will be some shortages but Tretton claimed they will not be ‘drastic’. “I’d say we are able to meet somewhere between 80-90 percent demand, based on how things are trending,” he said. The PSP, which is dominated worldwide by the Nintendo DS, is also well ahead of Sony forecasts, up 20-30% and on target to top 15 million sales.-Martin Lynch [Source] ps3 console news

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Sega’s getting back into the hardware game by all accounts with the Vision [can you say ‘Ugly’?] PMP. However, despite the ancient looks, this mobile device is hoping to cram in more features than you can shake a stick at including the ability to playback movies and music, shoot photos and video, watch TV thanks to an in-built TV tuner, play games on and use as an eBook reader. Phew! OK, the games are Java-based things but will probably be more interesting than the crap on your mobile phone. Check out the video after the jump.Sadly, Reg Hardware has no real specs for this device [except for a measly 2GB of storage], a price nor a release date other than ‘2009′ but, they say some ‘central London arcade’ is offering them as prizes. How’s that for a low-key launch strategy? I can’t see the DS or the PSP being all that concerned just yet. -Martin Lynch [Source] sega console

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With recent talk of 2011 as the date when Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony throw down for the next round off ‘Who’s The Console Daddy’, Nintendo has just announced a new DS, the DSi. It’s not a radical leap from the current DS, which is still selling faster than tickets to a Led Zeppelin reunion gig, but the DSi adds some interesting new features. These include a 0.3MP camera [two cameras in fact], a slightly bigger display at 3.25in, Web browser, and the ability to play audio files. You can also tweak the pitch and playback speed of the sound files.It’s also slightly thinner than the DS Lite. The SD Card slot will allow you to add new content but the GameBoy Advance slot has been sacrificed. The big pitch is the ability to buy games and content online from the DSi Shop. DSiWare will be priced at between $2 and $8 [or 200 and 800 points] and each device comes with 1000 points bundled. Some DSiWare will be free. The DSi will cost a bit more than the DS when it launches in Japan on November 1 and it is expected to come out in Europe ’sometime in 2009′.-Martin Lynch DS console nintendo

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Those wacky Japanese. First they get their laptops blessed at real Buddhist temples and now they have made getting fit on the Wii Fit fun, if pervy. How? Maids, that’s how. You wonder why Nintendo didn’t think of this but someone has decided that the Wii Fit hordes might need a bit more incentive to get up on that board. We all knew the Wii was missing something [HD, hard disk drive] but now we know that all it really needed was Japanese Maids willing to help you exercise. Just not in that way. Akihabara’s Refresh Club in Tokyo’s Gadget nirvana, will allow you to play Wii Fit with girls dressed as maids. We’re guessing all that bending required with Wii Fit routines makes the 30 minutes for £15 worth it. The owner says: Playing Wii Fit by yourself is lonely. But here, playing along with a maid makes exercising enjoyable. After all that vigorous bending and pervy leering the club will even throw in foot massages and ear cleaning. For a price.-Martin Lynch [Kotaku] Wii console

Original post by nafiz

Anyone remember PlayStation 2 Eye? You know, Sony’s PS2 camera for playing some average ‘wave-at-the-TV’ games’? It was largely blasted out of existence when the Wii arrived but still, it was different and now someone has figured out how to give them a new lease of life. I bought my Eye cheap a couple of years ago in Computer Exchange, thinking the kids would get a kick out of swinging their arms in front of the TV but then, along came the Wii and the Eye never left its bag. It cost me £5 though, and I’ll be damned if I see that go to waste! Over at the NUI Group, there’s now a hack to allow you to setup the Eye as your Webcam, with some easy to install drivers. According AlexP:”I started thinking to myself: “This camera is awesome and it will be such a great and inexpensive replacement for Firefly MV and the like. If we could just get it to work under Windows…” Initially, I started poking around with the USB trying to send some commands to the PS3Eye and see what happens… After many long nights I’m bringing you the result: - Full VGA (640×480) 60fps video capture test app that features uncompressed high quality raw video - Low CPU overhead (since there is no decompression involved on the PC) - Very low latency (1 frame time period).” Way to go Alex. Now where the hell did I stash that Eye? It’s in a red and white bag, covered in dust….-Martin Lynch [NUI Group via PS3 Fanboy] ps2 webcam software console

Original post by nafiz

Anyone remember the PlayStation Eye? You know, Sony’s PS camera for playing some average ‘wave-at-the-TV’ games’? It was largely blasted out of existence when the Wii arrived but still, it was different and now someone has figured out how to give them a new lease of life. I avoided the PS Eye since I recall buying the PS2 Eyetoy cheap a couple of years ago in Computer Exchange, thinking the kids would get a kick out of swinging their arms in front of the TV but then, along came the Wii and the Eye never left its bag. Over at the NUI Group, there’s now a hack to allow you to setup the PS Eye - if you bought one - as your Webcam, with some easy to install drivers. According to AlexP:”I started thinking to myself: “This camera is awesome and it will be such a great and inexpensive replacement for Firefly MV and the like. If we could just get it to work under Windows…” Initially, I started poking around with the USB trying to send some commands to the PS3Eye and see what happens… After many long nights I’m bringing you the result: - Full VGA (640×480) 60fps video capture test app that features uncompressed high quality raw video - Low CPU overhead (since there is no decompression involved on the PC) - Very low latency (1 frame time period).” Way to go Alex. I still won’t be buying it though.-Martin Lynch [NUI Group via PS3 Fanboy] ps2 webcam software console

Original post by nafiz

This whole ‘rumour followed by swift denial/retraction’ malarkey is starting to sound like an established marketing campaign for some companies. Yesterday we looked at the slim Xbox and today we’ve got a new Wii slated for 2011. It seems only fair then, that we round things off with something from Sony and people have already been talking about what the PS4 will bring to the table when it comes out in 2016. Well the latest news seems to be that this release date is being brought forward, with 2011 a more likely juncture and one of the main reasons being the fact that Sony wants to get it up and running before Microsoft’s new console. It seems as though the PS4 will be based on the Cell Broadband Engine processor, making it twice as fast as the PS3, and some are already suggesting that it may drop Blu-ray and focus on faster wireless speeds and large internal capacities so people can download what they want to play/watch. This will of course make it a lot cheaper, allowing it to compete in the price stakes with Microsoft and Nintendo without being forced to appeal to people who want HD. So all of the rumours, hearsay and conjecture seem to amount to the fact that 2011 will be the date for the next round of the console wars. Should be interesting. - Paul Lester [TechRadar] PS3 Sony consoles

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The current Wii is still selling faster than any other console but information has just started to emerge about what we can expect to see in the next generation of the device, due in 2011. According to What They Play, multiple industry sources have been in touch saying - anonymously - that Nintendo has been showing developers something they called ‘Wii HD’, a much different next-gen successor. 2011 does seem a long way off though. As to be expected, the new device will be HD-capable as well as fully-backwards compatible with existing content - take note Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo will also ship this device with internal storage - HDD or SSD - as there will be an emphasis on digital distribution. Of course, while much of this information could have been guessed, the site points to Nintendo’s big bump in R&D and other sources to back up the ’something big is going on’ argument. The one thing lacking though is just what innovative twist we can expect in ‘Wii HD’ because this is Nintendo we are talking about, after all. Of course, Nintendo is staying Mum. All suggestions and fervent wishes for the next Wii welcome.-Martin Lynch [What They Play] Wii console

Original post by nafiz

Recently we looked at a rather surprising study that suggested 99% of teens in the US play video games and speciality retailer GameCrazy seems to have backed this up with its Holiday Gift Tracker Survey. Results show that nine out of ten kids and teens aged between 8 and 17 want games or games consoles for Christmas. The most mentioned title was Guitar Hero World Tour with 17% of the votes, slightly ahead of Rock Band 2 at 15%, Mario Kart at 12% and Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 at 11%. Youngsters seem to like jumping about then and rather surprisingly girls named both Guitar Hero and Rock Band alongside DDR as their most wanted items. Boys agreed but also threw in Mario Kart and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. It should also come as no surprised that the Wii, DS and PS2 were the most owned consoles in this age group. - Paul Lester [Edge Online] Sky freeview satellite

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It was way back in February that rumours of the PS3 Slim started popping up and to be honest we’re surprised it has taken Microsoft so long to respond. We use the term ‘respond’ loosely here, since a purported slimline Xbox 360 is still strictly at the rumour-mill stage. This is despite the fact that Microsoft India’s Retail Services Manager Rahul Datta recently let slip with the following statement: “MS execs here confirmed that the Xbox 360 Slim exists and you can expect an official announcement on the console in December.” The comments have been officially retracted by Microsoft but this hasn’t stopped talk of an addition to the 360 range and we wouldn’t be too surprised if it saw the light of day. It does seem that December is a rather strange time to be releasing a console though, particularly when you consider hotly anticipated titles like Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 will appear before then. - Paul Lester [ElectricPig] Microsoft XBox consoles

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Just hours after UK police seized a truck loaded with £600,000 worth of stolen computer games - including Grand Theft Auto IV - the truck was nicked back by some daring crooks from the police pound. Seven pallets of games for the PS3 were first lifted from another lorry in Northampton when the driver was resting, before being loaded onto a blue Renault lorry. However, while the crooks might have been delighted with their haul of thousands of games - including 16,000 copies of the new Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway - police pulled them over in Leeds after spotting fake number plates. The truck was then taken to a ’secure depot’. Hours later the shutters at said ’secure depot’ were smashed in and the game-laden truck driven off before being tested for fingerprints or DNA. It turned up a few days later, less all those games. A police spokesman said: “We are pursuing a number of lines of enquiry, including eBay transactions where a number of the games have been potentially identified as being advertised for sale. Arrests have already been made in respect of this.” Anyone snapped up really cheap copies of the aforementioned games lately?-Martin Lynch [Sun] crime games console

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The DS is already humongously popular but Nintendo could be upping their game and taking the console in new directions when they roll out a new version later this year with an in-built camera and music player. This is not confirmed, of course, but the source is the Nikkei newspaper in Japan which makes their predictions a little more credible than Joe Bloggs in his basement with too much coffee and a vivid imagination. Apparently the device will not be the one with the expected dual-touchscreen coming in mid-2009 but the addition of the camera is expected to support ‘new types of games’. The device will come in under 20,000 yen - a few thousand more than the current DS Lite but still highly affordable. The addition of music playback is also interesting and begs the question if the new model will come with some decent internal memory or an SD Card slot? The SD Card slot looks most likely though. The wireless capabilities are also expected to be beefed up and it will have a larger screen. It will, typically, come out in Japan first but let’s hope the delay in getting it here will be short.-Martin Lynch [Nikkei Net -subscription required - via Neogaf & Kotaku) Nintendo DS console

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The much-hyped revamp of the Xbox 360 Dashboard and online LIVE service, labelled the ‘New Xbox Experience’ is picking up pace with the launch of a new site showing the major changes. One of the biggest changes will be players getting to create their own avatars, which we covered here and you can see the video of the simple and cool-looking process after the jump. There are also simulation videos on the new site demonstrating other changes like Parties, an improved social networking side so you can jabber with friends using a ‘deeper level of interaction’, and extra community content. There’s also something called an ‘Inside Xbox’ channel but there’s no detail yet. Overall, the new look and features look slick and polished. Those expecting this to arrive after today’s big maintenance outage will be disappointed. Major Nelson says that it will NOT be coming today but somewhere vaguely after the Fall.-Martin Lynch [New Xbox Experience via Kotaku] Video: Avatars in the new Xbox experience xbox console wii

Original post by nafiz