People have a misconception about the current state of technology. There has been a move of the last 50 years of trying to put as many things into one device as possible. An example could be the clock radio (which works well) or the Gas Powered Toolbox (they took stupid and added danger to it). I think the hype surrounding the PSP Phone is a good example of how merging devices could quite possibly work if made correctly, but chances are will fail horribly.
How many people reading this own a mobile phone with a camera? Do you also own a digital camera? Chances are you said yes to both, and with good reason. 1. Why would you take pictures with your phone when you know they will turn out crap (fixed lens, with tiny pinhole to let light in)? 2. Your phone has a rated 5 hours of talk time. Now remove the battery life required to use you camera frequently and what do you have? You have a phone with shitty pictures accompanied by shitty battery life.
What has all this got to do with the marvellous PSP Phone? The PSP gets like 3-5 hours depending what you are doing on it (videos or games). Add the phone functions to the mix and it will cut it down considerately. You sit on the train, play your PSP Phone, then make a call to work saying you are running late, then message that girl from the club who said if you come 10 feet from her she will call the cops, and what you are left with is not much battery life. That doesn’t even include the pirated Lost episodes (or Scrubs if you have taste), and your music library (which is completely legitimate).
It seems to be about the device that do everything. Your mobile can already play games, and surf the net, watch videos and play music. When you actually watch your battery disappearing you will understand what I mean.
There are a lot of points I can use to further display a distaste for the PSP Phone, but I would miss the positive possibilities of the system. The PSP Phone could say, feature some incredible battery, OLED screen and a Cell processor that together will bring you a new generation of mobile goodness. The chances of that happening are about as high as the chances of Hillary Clinton becoming the next President (won’t I look silly if she wins).
Sony are talking about doing the iPhone thing with the touch screen that can change depending on function. Has anyone tired running emulated games on an iPhone with touch screen controls? Utter crap is all that can be said for it. How do you emulate a joystick on a touch screen, without giving you big freaking blisters?!.
The PSP can’t sacrifice anything more if it wants to compete against Nintendo. If it loses screen size, it will fail. If the controls get any more acquit it will fail. If the games take longer, run slower or look worse, guess what will happen? It will fail. Keep them separate, and sit with me while we watch N-Gage fail once again.
If the almighty had played the Wii (as Nintendo would surely like him to do), then his (or hers) Wiimote would be the new Darwin remote. The Motus controller is a Wiimote gone wild, with gyroscopes and accelerometers too make this guy more accurate then the Wii’s infra-red tracker.
At first glance it doesn’t look like much, but will give you the ability to do more, and will also be compatible with the PS3 and your desktop computer. You do pay a premium for the advances, with an estimated street value of $US79 to $US99. Remember, there is no guarantee that it will run with your Wii games.
For more info, click over to DVICE.
Been waiting off on buying a Wii until hackers could exploit it enough to not use a modchip? Your time has now arrived, with some genius’s working out how to crash Zelda and then hack into the system to run exploit code. What’s next? Maybe Linux Wii Edition?
For more info, click over to Engadget.
For the poor people out there who can’t get a Wii, I would like to show you these numbers. Amazon, one of the biggest online retailers in the world, on December the 10th was selling 62.5 items per second. Now compare that to the fact that when Amazon had the Wii in stock it was being shifted at 17 items per second. Lastly, ask yourself why Nintendo haven’t really dropped the price on the Wii yet?
For more info, click over to the Gamasutra Website. Thank you Kotaku for the picture.
I wish I had a product which sold every 5 seconds. I might not but Nintendo do with there DS portable gaming console. This number is calculated on the 6 million DS’s sold last year in the US alone. That is around 16,500 a day or around 700 an hour or 11 a minute and finally 0.2 every second. Multiply that by 5 and you get a DS sold every 5 seconds. If that is for the US only image the number if you include the rest of the world!
For more info, click over to the Gizmodo Blog.
Imagine that, a company that actually wants to sell less products. Nintendo have decided to cancel some ads in the U.K, instead filling the spots with DS ads (like that needs help to sell). It has come up after the massive demand for the Wii this Christmas and the inability to meet it in production. Nintendo said they want to “take a responsible stance this Christmas and not fuel demand.” There may be a Wii left on the shelf this Christmas after all (sorry I was being sarcastic).
Check out Engadget for the full article.
Who wants to download brand new full version games, without having to use a PC or wait for Phantom Entertainment to make a comeback? That is where WiiWare comes in, which is basically full game downloads to your Nintendo Wii. Earlier I talked about the games that were coming to it and a bit of info on the system, but now Nintendo has released a few other snip bits that should quench your fanboy thirst.
Each game will have a size limit of 40MB, which will fill its 512 MB of storage pretty damn fast (unless they let you use either a USB HDD or an SD card). Apparently, the devs will release a maximum of 1 game a month, with a max budget of $US100,000. Seems to be a lot like Xbox Arcade and less like a cool new full featured game download service. Guess we will have to wait for the rain of game reviews before we can make any judgement.
For more info, dance over to the Kotaku Blog.
It seems that Nintendo may be getting in trouble with the MP3 playback feature on the Wii. In the upcoming update to the Photo Channel, Nintendo will take away MP3 playback and replaced with it with AAC playback. Apparently there is a licensing fee to off the playback of MP3 files, and that fee is more then the AAC codec. Its funny that Microsoft and Sony are about to add a great amount of useful features to their consoles as Nintendo is taking away.
For more info, click over to the Engadget Blog.
It is apparently a real thing coming to a system which, besides its awesome console sales, is very lacking in the game area. An announcement today at the Nintendo Fall press conference, has given all the children (and adults who won’t admit to it) a great piece of news with Pokemon making an appearance on the Nintendo Wii gaming console. The game will be distributed via the upcoming Wii Ware Service, which is a way to buy games online direct from Nintendo. The game could be titled either Pokemon Farm or Pokemon Ranch, but will give people the ability to grab their Pokemon off their DS system (only Pokemon Pearl and Diamond) and do things with them on their Wii console (not sure not exactly, but it will be fun and/or evil).
Also launching on the Wii Ware service will be games such as Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Little King and the Promised Land (can you say longest title ever), Dr. Mario, Mojipittan, Joysound, Bomberman, and Star Soldier R. Each title is expected to set you back around 1,500 Wii points, equating to around $US15, which considering they are around $US60 in store, will be a fantastic deal (depending on the games quality of course). The Japanese launch is set for March, with no announcement for the rest of the world.
For more info, click over to the Kotaku Blog, and the Wired Website.
Rumour has it that those insane Wii hackers have gotten around that incredible security that Nintendo had placed on the D2C series of Wii. Actel have even made a Modchip that gives you the ability to play GameCube games, Wii backups and may even be compatible with the WiiKey.
Currently the Modchip is compatible with around 80% of region protected games, without any problems, but there is an issue. The issue is, that this install isn’t for the light hearted, with micro-soldering of 30 wires to the Wii system board, meaning things are going to be messy (imagine dismantling a bomb, but with more then lives at stake).
The chip will be available very soon and will sell for a price of $US53.
For more info, swim over to the QJ.Net Wii Site.