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Playstation 18 Wheel Experience
Posted by Josh Smith Categories: Driving, PlayStation 2, Portable/Mobile, PSP,
Are you ready for the Playstation 18 wheel experience? Don’t confuse this with that Sega CD game Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors which featured hours long 18 wheeler action. The Playstation truck experience will be rolling to a stop in 5 cities across the US in through July 1 st. The 18 wheeler will be stopping in “only the hippest of hot spots” ranging from the Bombardier Learjet 500 and Ozzfest. The tons of fun truck features a PSP bar, Gran Turismo 4 pit stop with full on driving setup, and a competition stage. The competition stage will allow you to woo the crowd with your sweet power braking skills as you leave your opponents and their sense of pride in the dust. Don’t forget to hit the Eye Toy display on your way out of the air conditioned gaming utopia.
If you can’t make it to the hippest spots in town check out the Playstation LockerRoom Challenge hitting the Wal-Marts from DC to Arizona
Read More 
| us.playstation.com
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PopCap’s Hammer Heads Now Available for Download
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Action, Internet, PC, Portable/Mobile, Retro,
Hammer Heads, one of the first games ever shown on Microsoft’s UMPC spec (a.k.a. Origami) is now available for download over at PopCap Games. Based on the old carnival favorite, whack-a-mole, Hammer Heads has you breaking statues of garden gnomes that keep popping up on your lawn. The game could be great on a UMPC, as touch-screen controls could allow for much quicker gnome-bashing than a mouse. Still, it’s not necessarily a reason to go rushing out and buy that TabletKiosk just yet…with UMPC prices being what they are, you could probably just go out and buy an old carnival machine for the same price.
The game is available as a download only (no web version yet) for PC only. The free version of the game allows you to play through 7 levels before you’re asked to upgrade to “Deluxe” for $19.95.
Read More | Hammer Heads Product Page
Free Cell Phone Minutes for Watching Xbox 360 Ads
Posted by Michael Cardiff Categories: Corporate News, Portable/Mobile, Xbox 360,
In one of the stranger signs that the upcoming next-gen console war is already upon us, the Virgin Mobile cell phone carrier (through a service called “SugarMama”) will be offering free cell phone minutes to customers who elect to watch 30-second spots for, among other things, the Xbox 360. For those of you dreaming up ways to scam this system, it might be hard - in order to receive your minutes you have to answer questions about the ads and prove you were paying attention. Which brings up the real question: how many minutes of real-life time are worth a minute of cellphone time to you?
Note: The NY Times article linked below says that the service is currently available through the Virgin website, but as of now there appears to be no mention of SugarMama on either Virgin.com or VirginmobileUSA.com
Read More | NY Times
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Xbox Handheld in Development?
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Portable/Mobile, Rumors, Xbox 360,
In the latest book from Dean Takahashi, The Xbox 360 Uncloaked, he states that the Xbox 360 team was split after the release of the Xbox 360, with half moving into a portable gaming project, and the other half handling the post-launch production cost reduction. Supposedly, the new unnamed portable would be a competitor to the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, but very little detail is available at this point. Still, given the launch of the UMPC, this might be a glimpse into what Microsoft is expecting. However, significant cost reductions would have to be made in order to make something cost competitive. With the DS at $129 and the PSP at around $200, Microsoft would have to anticipate taking a serious loss on each unit, or vastly simplifying their hardware. Also, the DS and the PSP (and the GameBoy Advance) all use non-standard media as their game format; would Microsoft be willing to push into getting their own media type created? Neither the Windows Mobile nor the UMPC format seem close to a valid form-factor and price point for a mobile game unit, so the success of such a handheld is going to depend on how well Microsoft understands the trade-offs.
Read More | GamesIndustry.biz
Nintendo DS Lite Launching June 11
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Nintendo DS, Portable/Mobile,
The release of the DS Lite in the United States is now official. Nintendo today announced that the DS Lite would be available in the US starting on June 11, for a price of $129.99. The launch color will be Polar White, and the press release did not mention when the other colors would become available. Gamestop is advertising the current Nintendo DS bundled with Animal Crossing for $129.99, so the core systems may see a price drop when the new DS Lite ships, though this is not confirmed. The DS Lite added a brighter screen, with multiple brightness levels, so gamers should be able to see games in bright sunlight, and also offers a more compact size, as Nintendo continues to streamline and improve the design of its portable hardware.
Full Press Release after the jump.
Click to continue reading Nintendo DS Lite Launching June 11
ATI Aquires Bitboys Oy
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, Portable/Mobile,
ATI announced via press release that they are acquiring the bad boys of the graphics accelerator world, Bitboys Oy, for approximately $44 million US. Bitboys rose to fame on its early GPU announcements full of hype and promise, that would somehow not materialize, including the Pyramid3D chips and the Glaze3D chips that would supposedly toast the competition. Currently, Bitboys licenses GPU technology to mobile phone development companies, and has worked with providers such as Erikkson and NEC, and has received investments from companies like Nokia. While ATI is ostensibly acquiring Bitboys for its mobile technology, they may also be looking for a company that can output roughly four times the hype than ATIs current marketing provides.
Full Press Release after the jump.
Click to continue reading ATI Aquires Bitboys Oy
PSP Portable TV Review
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Internet, Portable/Mobile, PSP, Reviews,
PSP users in Japan have been able to download videos via Sony’s Portable TV Service (P-TV) for the past year. The service provides downloadable, DRM-encoded videos for viewing on the PSP. An availability date for the service has not been made available to the US so far, but it would seem likely that a US-based version of P-TV would be coming. Japanchronicles.com has a review of the service. From the review, the biggest issues to date seem to be availability of videos, and the cost. There are some movie trailers and previews available for free, but a majority of the videos cost money. Costs range between 100 and about 300 yen for individual videos, and the video itself can only be played within a certain window before they expire. Expiration time varies from 5 to 7 days. For some of the episodic content, users can buy subscriptions that allow unlimited video downloads within a category, but these average 6300 yen per month. Overall, Japanchronicles.com gives the service thumbs up for easy of use, but there aren’t a lot of videos available for fans of shows other than dramas and anime.
Read More | Japanchronicles.com
DS Lite Imports in Stock
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hot Deals, Nintendo DS, Portable/Mobile,
Play-asia.com currently has both the Enamel Navy and Ice Blue DS Lites in stock for $199.90 plus shipping, so if you just can’t wait for the more compact, brighter DS to hit stateside, this may be your chance. Users might want to consider that imported units will be difficult to impossible to return for warrantee repair, so if your DS Lite has dead pixels, you may be stuck with them. NCSX.com, at least, has warned that a fair number of the DS Lites they have received have had dead pixels, saying:
“Unavoidably, they are present on the NDS Lite. The five NDS Lites that we kept for our company use all have 1 to 6 dead pixels and there’s a better than average chance that the NDS Lite that you purchase will have dead pixels as well. Dead pixels on new hardware products such as the NDS Lite are common and manufacturers will not accept returns because of them - recall the PSP situation from 2004.”
Read More | Play-Asia.com DS Lite Page
NSCX.com DS Lite Dead Pixel Warning
UMD Movies Near Death
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Portable/Mobile, PSP,
A report from Reuters/Hollywood Reporter suggests that Sony’s UMD format, at least for movies, is nearly extinct. The article says that Wal-Mart is close to pulling UMD movies from its shelves, and other retailers are significantly cutting back on UMD purchases.
Even more damning are the quotes from movie executives. A Universal Studios Home Entertainment executive reportedly said, “It’s awful. Sales are near zilch. It’s another Sony bomb—like Blu-ray.” A failure pushing the UMD format for movies could reflect badly on Sony’s ability to execute in the Blu-ray arena; it was initially thought that by attaching the UMD format to the PSP could help drive the sales of UMD movies. Failure of this objective casts serious doubt on Sony’s plan to bootstrap Blu-ray’s success on the coattails of the PS3.
Even Sony Pictures Home Entertainment executives are scaling back their plans for UMD, and admit that there are drawbacks to the format: the inability to play UMD movies on the end-user’s television sets, and the ability to playback video content from the memory stick, saying ““I think a lot of people are ripping content and sticking it onto the device rather than purchasing.” Of course, the higher price points for UMD movies versus DVD media doesn’t help at all.
Read More | Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Silent Hill on PSP
Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Portable/Mobile, PSP, Rumors, Survival Horror,
1Up is reporting on the new Silent Hill Collection for PS2, but interestingly also reveal Konami plans for a Silent Hill release on the PSP. This will be a separate game from the Silent Hill Experience interactive comic book and game bundle that features Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4: The Room, which will be released as a tie in for the upcoming movie on April 13. The PSP title could possibly be a remake of the original Silent Hill.
Read More | 1Up
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