The $250-ish price of the Nintendo Wii gaming console sounds good, but that number reminds us of the $2 pizza syndrome. Oh, you want cheese on that? Pepperoni, sausage, tomato sauce? That'll be $29.95. Get the skinny on the Wii's real cost with the Nintendo Wii Calculator, a Web site configurator that helps you figure in essentials like the Wiimote, Nunchuks, Retro Controllers, and of course, a few $50 games. Hey, wait. What do you mean the Nintendo Wii costs $835? – Charlie White

Wii Calculator [N-Sider, via Kotaku]

In my day, collectible card games didn't have consoles, RFID cards, and swipe sensors. Imagine this old man's surprise when he saw that these Intellicards can work with a console that plugs into your TV. You swipe in cards over the RFID reader—characters, power-ups, weapons, abilities—that modify your character on screen in good and harmful ways. Like say, changing Wolverine's bones to chocolate instead of Adamantium—probably not a real card.

Marvel's marketing this at kids 8 and up, hoping to bridge the regular card games with gaming consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3. HyperScan will be available in October for $69, which includes six cards, a controller, and the console. Extra controllers cost $19, and booster packs cost $9. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Hyperscan via Slashgear]

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

If you thought you were going to have to wait until the PS3 came out to rock Playstation 1 titles on your PSP, you've just been granted a reprieve. Well, kinda. MaxConsole is reporting that a clever hacker named Yoshihiro has just released the first PS1 emulator for your trusty portable console, and that the so-called PSX-P app will run on firmware versions below 2.71, with users of 1.5 and above obviously requiring the eLoader exploit. As a reminder, the only way you can legally use this program is if you already own a Playstation and a number of games, as it requires the SCPH1001.BIN PS1 BIOS file and ripped ISOs of your game discs -- which can be found elsewhere, but we like to keep it legit 'round here. So all is well and good, right? Eh, not really; since PSX-P currently lacks a dynamic decompiler, games apparently run super-slowly, in the neighborhood of 10fps: i.e. a good proof of concept for the homebrew community, but until Yoshihiro or one of his colleagues manages to achieve a playable frame rate, for now this breakthrough is little more than a frustrating tease.

[Via DCEmu, thanks wraggster]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Gaming

With next-gen console news being released at such a fast and furious pace these days, it's starting to feel a little bit like Joystiq around here, so instead of reporting and analyzing every little snippet of new information in separate posts, we've rounded up the latest and greatest PS3 revelations into one tight bit of prose. Since pricing is such an important issue to most consumers, we'll start there -- but unfortunately, the news ain't good. You probably already heard that those lucky gamers in Japan will be able to pick up their 20GB boxes for the equivalent of $428, but despite all the hoping and praying you've been doing, Kaz Hirai has reaffirmed that the recent price cuts apply to Japan only -- though he threw the rest of the world something of a bone when he also announced that everyone will be getting an HDMI port on his/her low-end system. Speaking of high prices, Impress is citing "multiple sources" in predicting that most Japanese PS3 games will cost in the neighborhood of ¥8,800 to ¥9,800, which is between $75 and $85 here in America -- ouch, that's like a whole month's allowance for us, and well above the going rate for 360 games. As long as we're dwelling on the negatives, we should also mention that not only will HDMI cables be absent from the box, both Hirai and Ken Kutaragi are leaning away from even including component action with either package. Now on to the good stuff (sorry, there's not much). First of all, it's been confirmed that all PS3 games will indeed ship region-free (though it's up to the developers to code in multilingual support, and Blu-ray movies will remain region-locked) and secondly, the inclusion of Dolby Digital and Dolby TrueHD (7.1 channels) is a done deal. Finally, and perhaps least importantly after all these downers, is the fact that the Wii-inspired, rumble-free controller has officially been dubbed "SIXAXIS" -- though without the shakin' action, we imagine that many of you could care less what they chose to call it. Anyway, that's all for now from the exciting PS3 frontier, but keep your broswer tuned to this channel, as we'll have just a little more Sony-related amusement for you later today.

Read- No price drop [Via Gamesindustry.biz]
Read- Japanese game speculation [Via IGN]
Read- Region-free, no component [Via PS3 Fanboy]
Read- SIXAXIS
Read- Dolby

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Gaming

Press releases are boring. We go through literally hundreds of them a day, and for the most part, they're self-serving documents full of half-truths and inflated claims about products and services. So imagine our delight when we stumbled upon this little doozy of a release from marketing firm Ipsos Insight, which details a study done on behalf of the Immersion Corporation concerning gamers' preferences and purchasing plans with regards to the trio of next-generation consoles. You probably remember Immersion as the company that successfully sued Sony over the use of computer-controlled vibration technology in its PlayStation and PS2 Dual Shock controllers, and since Sony has apparently neither paid Immersion the $90 million it owes nor licensed the rumble tech for its SIXAXIS PS3 gamepads, the release comes across as a thinly-veiled reminder that gamers really, really like playing with input devices that shake and buzz in their sweaty hands.

Not only does the (completely unbiased) poll report that 72% of the 1,075 respondents agree vibration feedback enhances their game experience, it goes on to note that 59% of those surveyed would prefer rumble on the PS3 controller, while only 8% care about motion / tilt sensing (sorry, Nintendo). As if these numbers didn't paint a clear enough picture of the message Immersion is trying to convey, two further questions spell it out even more explicitly: when asked if the lack of rumble capabilities would affect their buying decisions (apparently 74% of those polled weren't even aware of the "no rumble" policy -- clearly no Engadget readers amongst that bunch), 5% said that it would definitely cause them not to buy a PS3 and 32% claimed that they were less likely to pick one up for this reason and this reason alone. Now obviously Immersion knew exactly the results that it wanted before it conducted this "study," and probably phrased the questions in order to get the most desirable data set, but even non-statistics majors like ourselves could have figured out that gamers accustomed to the fun of Dual Shock would be in for a letdown the first time they picked up a rumble-free SIXAXIS controller.

Okay, Sony, the cards are on the table, and even if these numbers are skewed, you know full well that you can't be the only player in the game without a little vibration action going on. So what's it gonna be: are you going to keep hoping that some appeals court finally overturns the numerous prior decisions against you, or are you going to shell out some dough just like Microsoft and Nintendo did, and finally give the majority of your target audience what it wants? To us, it doesn't really seem like much of a choice at all.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

by Adam Pash

Recently Apple announced that you can buy video games for your 5G video iPod for 5 bucks a pop. Cool, right?

But what if you don't own a video iPod? What if you're stuck in the world of pre-video obsolescence? Worse yet, what if you don't have 5 bucks? The new games for sale at the iTunes Store aren't for you, and that's not quite so cool. Luckily, you can still play video games like Texas Hold 'Em, Tetris, and Bejeweled (all of which are for sale at the iTunes Store) on pretty much any iPod with a little bit of virtual elbow grease for free. Here's how.

iPodLinux and Rockbox

Two non-Apple tools allow you to play games on your iPod: iPodLinux and Rockbox, both of which are completely free and open source. I've used and been impressed with both, but today we'll stick to iPodLinux since it's easier to install. I'll describe the process from the perspective of a Windows user, but iPodLinux installers are available for Mac OS X and Linux as well.

Getting games up and running on iPodLinux is a pretty simple 3 step process:

1. Install iPodLinux
2. Install some games
3. Play your games

It's not exactly news that you can play games on an iPod with iPodLinux, but you may not know just how easy the process can be.

Step one: Install iPodLinux on your iPod

NOTE: Though I haven't had any problems using iPodLinux, you could potentially run into a snag that would require you to restore your iPod's firmware, which could mean you lose all of the music currently on your iPod. So do back up your iPod's music and files before proceeding.

First, download the iPodLinux Installer and extract the contents to a folder on your computer. Don't use a temporary folder, since you'll use the installer more than once, and this is where it will backup your current firmware and settings for easy uninstallation if you choose to get rid of iPodLinux.

The iPodLinux wiki currently claims that the installer doesn't work properly if you've upgraded your iPod firmware with the new iTunes 7, but I am running the latest firmware on my 4G iPod and didn't have a problem. Your mileage may vary, but if you do have a problem with your iTunes 7-upgraded iPod, you can always downgrade your firmware with the iPod Updater 2006-06-28 in order to install iPodLinux (since iTunes 7 has been somewhat of a mess, scads of people are downgrading anyway).

If you're ready to give it a try, run the installer. Again, the iPodLinux people make a point of telling you that lots of iPods aren't officially supported, but you'll find that for most purposes (at least for the games we'll be installing), pretty much any iPod should work fine.

Installation is straightforward. Plug in your iPod with disk mode enabled and run the installer, keeping the defaults. You may be told at some point (at least I was) that there's some dependency errors, but just click OK and barrel ahead.

When you get to the boot loader options, you have a choice: You can have your iPod automatically boot to Apple's default firmware (holding the Rewind/Back button during the boot process will load iPodLinux), boot iPodLinux by default (holding Rewind boots Apple firmware), or select the iPodLoader2, which gives you a boot manager interface where you can choose what to load each time you start up your iPod. In most cases, I'd suggest loading the iPod firmware by default, though I'm currently using iPodLoader2 (pictured above) without problems.

When your installation is complete, go to iTunes and eject your iPod. You may have to plug your iPod into the wall outlet to complete the installation, but the next time your iPod starts up you should be able to boot into iPodLinux.

Step two: Load some games

Now that your iPod is dual-booting Linux and the default Apple firmware, it's time to get those games running. Plug your iPod into your computer, boot your iPod into the Apple firmware, and run the iPodLinux installer again. This time the installer will recognize that you've already got iPodLinux installed. Select "Update my existing installation" and hit Next. The installer should take you to a page of packages you can choose to install on your iPod. This is where you can choose your games.

The installer gets a little buggy for me at this point, but you can get around it easily. When the package list finishes downloading, I don't always get the option to go to the next page and view the packages. However, if I hit Back and then Next, I'm taken to the package list. (I'm but one man, so this may or may not happen to you.)

Once you make it to the package installation tree, you can select from a long list of cool games and other modules for your iPod. [1] Select the games and modules you'd like to install, hit next, and wait for the installation to finish.

Step three: Play your games

Once the installer finishes, you can eject your iPod and boot back into iPodLinux. Once the interface is loaded, go to Extras -> Games (just like you would on Apple's firmware) and you should see all of the games you installed. Here's a quick taste of all the games I've been playing on my 4G iPod:

BlueCube (Tetris)

DuckHunt (It's surprisingly playable on an iPod, but chances are the dog will laugh at you more than normal)

iDeal (Deal or No Deal game)

iGem (Bejeweled)

PodPoker (Texas Hold 'Em)

TuxChess (Chess)

Keep in mind that some of these games work and look a little better than others, but all of the games I've mentioned work very well on my 4G iPod. And they're all free.

As I said earlier, iPodLinux isn't the only way to play games on your iPod; in fact, I've had plenty of fun in the past playing Doom with Rockbox (in my experience, it's much easier to set up Doom in Rockbox than iPodLinux). If you're feeling particularly ambitious, you can set up a triple-boot of Rockbox, iPodLinux, and the default Apple firmware using iPodLoader2.

Whatever you choose, it's pretty easy to get a bunch of fun games on your iPod for absolutely free. If anyone out there has tried iPodLinux or Rockbox and you want to weigh in, or you've got any questions about this process, direct your iPod-game-lovin' energy to the convenient comment box below.

Finally, if you're looking for more ways to have fun with your iPod, check out my other iPod-focused features.

Adam Pash is an associate editor for Lifehacker who doesn't have a 5G video iPod and wouldn't buy games for it even if he did. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The package list is also the place to go to remove troublesome modules. For example, the MPD module has caused iPodLinux to freeze during boot-up for me, but removing it through the installer takes care of this problem. Also, if you try a game you don't like and what to remove it, just come back to the package installation tree and uncheck it. [back up]

Digitimes, the premier news source in usual bullshit rumors, has a new one today that actually seems a legitimate, kind of. They are reporting that there will be a $100 price cut on the Xbox 360 Premium bundle, bringing the price down to $300 so that they can later bundle the HD DVD player with the Xbox 360 for $400 and still have a solid competitive price on the PS3.

Microsoft, to prepare for the price cut, has negotiated reduced production costs for the Xbox 360 with Taiwan-based manufacturing partners, stated the sources. The manufacturers estimate that the total production cost can be reduced by 15-20% due to diminishing costs for most components along with increasing production scales and decreasing defect rates, the sources pointed out.

For once, that rumor actually makes sense. But I'm a little pissed that I dropped four hundos on my premium without an HD DVD player. I need to listen to my mother more: "Good always comes to those who wait."

Oh, and Microsoft Taiwan denied the report, but that was a given. – Travis Hudson

Microsoft Rumored to Cut Xbox 360 Price by US$100 [Via Kotaku]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

With its high-profile XPS line and recent purchase of boutique gaming house Alienware, for awhile it looked like Dell would be the only major PC manufacturer willing to cater to serious gamers. Not anymore. In a move that caught everyone, including us, completely by surprise (you'll notice the lack of backlinks to any rumor posts about this), HP announced today that it will acquire Alienware rival VoodooPC for an undisclosed sum. After the deal closes -- following the usual regulatory rigmarole -- HP will form a new business unit dedicated to gaming in its Personal Systems Group, with Voodoo co-owners (and brothers) Rahul and Ravi Sood assuming the roles of Chief Technologist and Director of Strategy, respectively. As you're probably aware, the acquisition comes at somewhat of a turbulent time for HP: not only is the company still reeling from the bruising merger with Compaq under former CEO Carly Fiorina, it's currently undergoing unwanted public and governmental scrutiny over the so-called "pretexting" scandal that led to the recent resignation of chairwoman Patricia Dunn. Although we doubt that the Voodoo deal is going to make everyone forget about the alleged spying that has occurred, it's nice to know that once HP finally puts this ugly mess behind it, consumers (especially gamers) can expect to benefit from some hot products and lower pricing that can only be realized now that Dell has some real competition on its hands. [Warning: PDF link]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

With its high-profile XPS line and recent purchase of boutique gaming house Alienware, for awhile it looked like Dell would be the only major PC manufacturer willing to cater to serious gamers. Not anymore. In a move that caught everyone, including us, completely by surprise (you'll notice the lack of backlinks to any rumor posts about this), HP announced today that it will acquire Alienware rival VoodooPC for an undisclosed sum. After the deal closes -- following the usual regulatory rigmarole -- HP will form a new business unit dedicated to gaming in its Personal Systems Group, with Voodoo co-owners (and brothers) Rahul and Ravi Sood assuming the roles of Chief Technologist and Director of Strategy, respectively. As you're probably aware, the acquisition comes at somewhat of a turbulent time for HP: not only is the company still reeling from the bruising merger with Compaq under former CEO Carly Fiorina, it's currently undergoing unwanted public and governmental scrutiny over the so-called "pretexting" scandal that led to the recent resignation of chairwoman Patricia Dunn. Although we doubt that the Voodoo deal is going to make everyone forget about the alleged spying that has occurred, it's nice to know that once HP finally puts this ugly mess behind it, consumers (especially gamers) can expect to benefit from some hot products and lower pricing that can only be realized now that Dell has some real competition on its hands. [Warning: PDF link]

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

We told you last week about how Sony is pairing up its PSP (PlayStation Portable) with GPS navigation hardware and software, and now we have more information about the release that will reportedly ship in Japan this December. The picture we showed you of the GPS hardware didn't give you an idea of the scale of the tiny device, but look at the picture above and you'll see that it's a small antenna that screws onto the top of the PSP.

Besides providing GPS mapping and navigation functions along with points of interest (POI) info, that GPS attachment can also be used for games including a golf game, Everybody's Golf Course, which can give you information about your actual shots on a real-world golf course. There will also be upcoming games that will guide you around different spots so you can physically interact with other players, especially your enemies. Could be fun, or even dangerous. – Charlie White

411 On PSP GPS [Kotaku]

Some of the more accomplished gamers here at the Giz have elevated smack talk to an art form, but those big talkers aren't always the ones who win. Yes, sometimes it takes too much effort to taunt your opponent, so now you can solve that problem by recording those choice words into the SmackTalk for the Xbox 360, a digital audio recorder that'll play back those intimidating admonitions with a lightning-fast button push.

SmackTalk hooks up between the Xbox 360's controller and headset, and lets you record your own choice words or use its five prerecorded taunts. Plunk down your $30 and give your opponents even more reasons to want to frag you to hell. – Charlie White

Product Page [Digital Innovations, via I4U]

The Golden Tee home game is similar to that of the Jeopardy home game, except you generally want to be drunk to play Golden Tee. This $60 Golden Tee game features a replica trackball so you can work on your game before going to the bar to get schooled by me competitors. The game even includes the Golden Tee Ambassador Card so you can keep track of your game progress at home or at the bars. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [Hammacher Schlemmer]

Okay, there isn't much blue on the actual remote, but it has the ability to control Blu-Ray movies over a Bluetooth wireless connection—so good enough for me. It will be available in Japan for 3,600 Yen, or approximately $31. Expect the U.S. model to look very similar, if not the same.

Yeah, I'll stick with the Wiimote any day of the week. – Travis Hudson

Playstation 3 BD remote controller [Impress] (Translated)