Latest Gear Live Videos
Max Media Dock for Nintendo DS Available This Week
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Accessories, Nintendo DS, Portable/Mobile,
It may not be as sleek and sexy as playing UMD movies on your oh-so-gorgeous PSP screen, but at least the Nintendo DS now has a way to play many common media types. The Max Media Dock will be available this week - the dock works as follows: First, you plug a media reader into your DS game slot, and then an adapter in the GBA slot allows you to plug in Compact Flash cards and load music, movies, or even homebrew executables. The dock will ship in 3 versions - a $30 version that just contains the media dock, and a $55 and $85 versions that ship with 1 and 2 GB Compact Flash cards, respectively.
This probably won’t sell a lot more DS units - after all, most folks who wanted a portable game machine that also does movies and music probably already own a PSP. Still, the Dock might be worth it just for the homebrew DS game possibilities it opens up.
Read More 
| Afterdawn
Advertisement
How To Talk Trash on Xbox Live
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Culture, First Person Shooters, Internet, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live,
Do you often find your trash talk lacking? Do you feel like you can’t get a word in edgewise on Xbox Live? Are you sick of being berated by masters of smack? Your hook-up has finally arrived. Check out Fireborn’s “How to talk Smack on Xbox Live”. Enjoy the educational video and remember, on Xbox Live its not how you play, but what you say!
Read More | YouTube
New Super Mario Bros. Tearing Up US, Japanese Charts
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360,
New Super Mario Bros. is tearing up the US and Japanese sales charts. The sequel for the DS added another 334,000 sales this week in Japan to push it over the million sales mark, and Nintendo DS titles occupied seven of the top ten sales spots in Japan. The additional sales is also driving adoption of the DS in Japan, leading all console sales with 135,614 units sold. The next highest on the chart is the PSP, at 24,595 units, marking an over 5:1 sales ratio. On the US side, New Super Mario Bros. debuted at number one, pushing Kingdom Heart 2 for the PS2, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360 down in the standings. While in the US, Xbox 360 titles lead the pack, the PS2 is selling strong, with 232,000 units sold versus 221,000 Xbox 360 consoles in the same month.
Read More | Gamasutra
Read More | The Magic Box
Oblivion Patch Issues Reported
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PC, Role Playing Games, Xbox 360,
Gamers with the new Oblivion patch have been reporting a number of new issues since release. Primary among the issue are slow loading times in certain areas. It has been said that clearing the Xbox 360 hard drive cache will clear up these issues, but with this issue in Oblivion, and the issue that was seen earlier in MLB 2K6 with caching, perhaps it is too easy to fragment the Xbox 360’s cache. Will gamers be looking for a Norton Utilities 2006 Xbox 360 in the future to manage their hard drives?
Other issues include spurious game lock-ups, but there are few enough data points that this might not correlate with the patch release. On the other hand, while numerous quests have been fixed in the game, if gamers have already hit the bugged quests and gotten the corrupted data in their save file, some quests will still be bugged even after the patch. Bethesda’s offered solution: “start new characters if they want to experience these quests.” For those who have been playing since the game’s release, this is probably not the most ideal solution. Other issues have been reported against the downloadable content modules with the patch, as well.
There was a fairly large public beta for the PC patch, perhaps there should have been the option for this on the Xbox 360 side as well, as it sounds like despite all the work that has been accomplished with the patch, there could have been more polish before the release. With issues like this, though, it is largely a lose-lose situation for the game developers. Gamers rant daily about when they will get the patch, and when the patch is release, invariably new issues spring up that weren’t caught in QA.
Read More | 1Up
Read More | Patch Thread on Offical Forums
Tingle RPG Slated for DS
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo DS, Role Playing Games, Screenshots,
4 Color Rebellion got some scans from the latest Weekly Famitsu, and there’s a preview of the new Tingle RPG for the Nintendo DS. Ever since first appearing in Majora’s Mask, Tingle has been a really weird presence in the Link mythology, with possibly his largest role in Wind Waker. People with a fondness for the odd, middle-aged fairy may miss him due to his absence from Twilight Princess, but for those fans, he’s getting an RPG, called “Mogitate Tingle no Barairo Rupee Land” or, from 4 Color Rebellion’s translation, “Freshly-picked Tingle’s Pink-coloured Rupee Land.” Apparently, the story follows Tingle since his boyhood. The game features a quite cartoon-like rendering style, but gamers may have something to fear if the game gets the “Touch Generations” label.
Read More | 4 Color Rebellion
Positive Game Reviews Equal Stock Moves?
Posted by Thea Davis Categories: Corporate News, Culture,
Investors looking to capitalize on the popularity of the video game industry might do well to closely watch sites like Metacritic.com, a reviewers’ portal. When users who review games on such websites offer overwhelming praise for a newly released title, it’s a good bet the issuing company’s stock will bump upwards, as was recently the case with Take-Two Interactive and its release of “Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.” The phenomenon has also been observed in reverse. A slate of poor reviews for a newly released game may forecast a downward tumble in the publisher’s stock price. While these market fluctuations are generally short-lived, investors who closely watch “the boards” for an early word may be able to use the information to advantage. Stock analysts seem wary of assigning too much influence to the relationship between reviewers’ game ratings and game maker share price, but one analyst, Evan Wilson, admitted to reading the major game review websites religiously at any rate.
Read More | Marketwatch.com
Want to be a video game tester for Microsoft? Microsoft is currently looking for gamers to test first party titles and devices. Other than getting your hands on a game ahead of the general public, Microsoft will throw in a “gratuity selection” as a parting gift. The offer appears to be available to gamers in all locations and the sign up process is quick and simple. The tests are 2-3 hours in length and involve the latest games and devices at Microsoft. Sign up today and maybe you will get a chance to play test the rumored Microsoft portable gaming console. Note to Microsoft, its time to get some Xbox 360 controllers in your play testing pictures.
Read More | Microsoft
FTC Rules Against Take-Two Interactive
Posted by Thea Davis Categories: Action, Corporate News, Culture,
The Federal Trade Commission has ruled that Take-Two Interactive was deceptive in its marketing of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” but its finding is a mere slap on the wrist as the company was not even ordered to pay a fine. The ruling stems from the fact that Take-Two Interactive “did not tell consumers that the game discs contained potentially viewable nude female characters and a potentially playable sex mini-game,” FTC officials said. During the normal course of the game said content was inaccessible. The problem arose when hackers exposed the presence of these hidden scenes and posted a program on online called “Hot Coffee” that would unlock the hidden content in the PC version of the game.
A complaint about the deceptive advertising of the game had been lodged by Senator Hillary Clinton. The FTC has placed the company on what amounts to probation—“if they again violate the ratings (again), they will be subject to a civil fine of up to $11,000 per a violation.” The judgment comes after nearly a year-long investigation.
Read More | Kotaku
Nintendo has announced Big Brain Academy, a mental exercises game with a multiplayer mode. Find out your “brain weight.” (Better brains are heavier.) The game includes single-player practice and test modes which allow you to get graded and earn medals. It will also compare yours to the ‘brain weight” of some famous people and give you career recommendations based upon your brain’s strengths vs. weaknesses. Switch to multiplayer mode to challenge your friends, and win in a mental smack down. Up to eight people can play over the wireless connection.
Read More | BigBrainAcademy.com
Square Enix Talks Final Fantasy XIII
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3, Role Playing Games,
1Up has a new interview with a few of Square’s creators of the games set against new Final Fantasy backdrop, Fabula Nova Crystalis. According to Yoshinori Kitase, game producer at Square Enix, the new games in the Nova Crystalis universe are “slightly different because there is no central title upon which everything is based, but there is a central theme: the tale of new crystals.” The three games currenly announced are Final Fantasy XIII, which is the most traditional style Final Fantasy game, the parallel Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and Agito, the mobile game. While each game inhabits the same universe, there will be no interaction between the games.
For the “main” game, Square’s character goals were a “female version of Cloud from FFVII.” The combat will be based around the same active-time battle system from previous games, but will be faster, so less time is spent waiting to input commands. The “Versus” game takes a different tack, where Square really hopes to try and experiment with Final Fantasy gameplay; it will definitely feature more action, and should not be “a simple combination of Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts 2,” though the game mechanics will be developed by the team responsible for Kingdom Hearts 2. The Square team also hints that they have something special in mind for the new PS3 motion-sensing controller.
Read More | 1Up
Recent Galleries
Playfeed Categories
Playfeed Shows
Advertisement
© Gear Live Media, LLC. 2007 – User-posted content, unless source is quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. Gear Live graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, videos, articles, blogs, forums, scripts and other service names are the trademarks of Gear Live Inc.