Gaming

When it rains, it pours. Nintendo has finally let the cat out of the bag about several highly coveted bits of information regarding its new system, the unique and innovative Wii. The Price The Price Tag for the Nintendo Wii is set for $250 (in the ... U.S.). Does anything else really need to be said? Let's compare the Wii with its other next-generation counterparts: Sony PlayStation 3: $500 or $600 (U.S.) depending on which model you get. Microsoft Xbox 360: $300 or $400 (U.S.) for the Core or Premium versions respectively. Obviously, Nintendo is pricing itself much cheaper than its competition ... (view more)

Just days after the disappointing announcement from Sony that its Playstation 3 (PS3) console will ship just 400,000 units in North America and a paltry 100,000 in Japan, IBM has publicly stated that its chip for Nintendo's upcoming "Wii" system is ... moving out. The announcement by IBM confirms beliefs that the Wii is indeed on schedule, and unlike the PS3, should come relatively close to meeting a strong consumer demand when it is released in mid-November of this year. IBM's chip for Nintendo's console is code-named "Broadway", and reportedly ushers in the next generation of gaming by reducing ... (view more)

Electronic Arts, the company best known for its Madden series of football games, has now jumped aboard the trendy retro gaming market. EA Replay for the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) will feature fourteen of the company's past hits. (Source: ... 1up.com ) Unfortunately for pigskin fans, old-school Madden isn't included in this collection. Classic versions of past EA Sports hockey, basketball, baseball, soccer, and golf titles are also nowhere to be found. (Perhaps licensing issues with old players and teams prevented them from showing up?) But sports junkies can still get their fix on this ... (view more)

It seems I'm not the only tech writer interested in the phenomenal (and annual) success of Electronic Arts' (EA) Madden series. The National Football League-based franchise of games, released every August to armchair quarterbacks around the world ... (but predominantly North America) routinely dominates the yearly video game sales charts, and is now being compared by some to Hollywood's biggest blockbusters. When I wrote about Madden 07 a few weeks ago , I was particularly interested in the game because it so quietly seems to go about shaping the video game industry. Make no mistake, Madden is ... (view more)

Advertising in video games is hardly a recent development, but Electronic Arts (EA) plans to add a new wrinkle to the formula: ads that are automatically updated and downloaded into games over time. To make this happen, the gaming giant inked a deal ... with two major marketing companies: Massive Inc. and IGA Worldwide Inc. Both IGA and Massive will begin streaming ads into the Xbox 360 and PC versions of upcoming EA titles. Battlefield 2142 and the next incarnation of the Need For Speed franchise will be the first recipients of this agreement. Never noticed ads in games before? Think about your ... (view more)

Always wanted to give game developing a try? Afraid you're too green to go out and join the highly competitive silicon valley workforce? Do I sound like Saturday morning paid programming? Well, regardless, Microsoft is currently offering its XNA ... Game Studio Express for download, giving amateur designers the chance to fulfill their very nerdy dreams. Although the release is pretty cool, for now aspiring game creators should stay calm. At the moment Microsoft is only offering its Game Studio Express as a downloadable beta, meaning you'll only be able to build Windows binaries with the system ... (view more)

The computer network Folding@Home, responsible for researching protein development and supply, has announced its intent to introduce a service on the highly-anticipated Playstation 3 (PS3). The console, developed by Sony and reportedly ready to ... launch this November, will apparently be used for such research because of its powerful Cell processor. Folding@Home -- whose name sounds more like an Ikea knock-off than a cancer research company -- believes the PS3 Cell processor can help achieve incredible database performance. Folding@Home intends to compound the production of Sony's wares by ... (view more)

A number of events are pouring out of Microsoft headquarters as the Sony Playstation 3 (PS3) launch approaches. Giddy representatives from the Redmond-based company made a few big announcements at the Leipzig Game Convention in Germany, including a ... host of new peripherals. In addition, one significant rumor on the Xbox 360 isn't coming from Microsoft itself, but does concern the console's future in Europe. First off, Microsoft's Xbox 360 console will be the primary home of soccer -- sorry "football" -- in the future. Just recently, The Big M made an announcement that it had achieved exclusive ... (view more)

News out of the console world today is a bit depressing, unless you're keen on buying an Xbox 360 for cheap in the United Kingdom. The sad news? The Sony Playstation 3, anticipated for its hulking power (and certainly not its equally giant price ... tag) has lost about 10% of its core GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). The not-so-sad news? Another retailer has brought down the price of the Xbox 360 across the pond. When it was first announced a few years ago, the buzz about the Playstation 3 was louder than any Sony system before it, because this time the Japanese hardware king was going to be the ... (view more)

Maybe everyone is just bored, tired, and a little restless. There haven't been any monumental releases lately, and Sony's highly anticipated Playstation 3 is still -- at best -- another eleven weeks away. Personally, I'll be okay. It's September, ... and north of the border, which means that the next version of the NHL series is about to make its slightly-updated re-appearance into the gaming world. With that said, it seems many writers covering the video game industry are just a bit frazzled with the current dry spell, with many coming out to question Sony's entire future and the importance of ... (view more)