Hasta La Gadget!

You’ve read our Nintendo 3DS review, where we found it to be a generally fun but still somewhat flawed handheld gaming experience. Now it’s been released to the world, and to the willing hands of Triforce Johnson, and we’re left wondering what all of you think. We’re also hearing scattered word of a supposed “Black Screen of Death,” where the system indicates “An error has occurred” while playing a variety of games and has to be rebooted. We saw no such glitches in our testing, but what about you?

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3DS owners reporting sporadic ‘Black Screen of Death,’ how is yours treating you? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 11:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The 3DS is not Nintendo’s first foray into the world of 3D gaming. In fact, it’s not even the company’s second. First up was a 3D headset for the good ‘ol Famicom (NES in the US), but that never saw American shores and it wasn’t anything more fancy than a set of active shutter glasses anyway — the same sort HDTV manufacturers are trying to sell you today. However, the company’s second 3D offering did make it to the US, where it landed with a spectacular thud.

It was the Virtual Boy, a 32-bit portable console powered by six whole AA batteries and remembered by many for its ability to inspire more headaches than excitement in the gamers who tried it. It was released in the US in August of 1995 for $180 and was discontinued less than a year later. With the 3DS sitting now in back rooms of videogame and electronics stores nation-wide, waiting to spring into availability on March 27th, we thought this would be a good time to look back and give the Virtual Boy the full review it has always deserved but has never received.

Continue reading Nintendo Virtual Boy review

Nintendo Virtual Boy review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Before you go leaping to any conclusions, do remember that Microsoft plans on keeping the Xbox 360 going until at least 2015 so we’re not really talking imminent changes here. Nonetheless, the software giant has listed a plethora of new job openings, with the most interesting ones being at its Mountain View research campus, where a team responsible for “defining and delivering next generation console architectures” is looking for fresh blood. A graphics hardware architect is sought to ensure that the next Xbox strikes the optimal balance between the awesome and affordable, while a design verification engineer and a few others will be hired to test and help develop prototypes. This bolstering of numbers seems to indicate Microsoft is starting to ramp up research and development on its next-gen home entertainment linchpin, and while nothing’s likely to emerge from those Mountain View labs in the short term, the mere sound of clanking tools and buzzing electrons is getting us excited already.

Microsoft goes on a hiring spree for new Xbox hardware devs, staffing up for next console push? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The tabletop arcade market isn’t exactly a crowded one these days, and for the most part we’d say that’s for good reason — remember those Pac-Man-induced neck spasms? Then again, most arcade tables don’t look like this. The Stealth console system from the aptly-named Arcade Tables offers 60 classic games, including Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Galaga, in a high gloss cocktail table, sporting an HD LCD screen with an 89-degree viewing angle, built-in speaker system, and two-player controls. Okay, so the thing costs $3,300, which is more than a touch too rich for our blood, but wouldn’t it be nice if more throwback consoles looked a little more, well, Stealth-y.

Arcade Table’s Stealth brings high design, crazy price tag to tabletop arcade originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s no Bill Paxton Pinball, but Ben Heck’s portable Sega Genesis CDX is certainly up there in terms of superfluous gaming mods. As Heck points out, a lot of the console’s games were “FMV nonsense,” but, like most gaming systems, the 1994-released CDX had its ardent supporters. For those of you who fit the description, Heck’s combined the CD drive and motherboard from an old CDX with a chopped six-button Genesis controller, an old camcorder battery, and a four-inch LCD screen to bring you a bulky but portable console. Now you can enjoy a game of Snatcher at the laundromat while your Sonic the Hedgehog Underoos hit the spin cycle. Check out the video after the jump.

Continue reading Sega Genesis CDX now portable thanks to Ben Heck (video)

Sega Genesis CDX now portable thanks to Ben Heck (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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