Hasta La Gadget!

Motion-controlled gaming does function pretty well in many applications, but one area where it leads to nothing but confusion and frustration is in racing games. People hated Microsoft’s Kinect-powered hands-free racing mini-games, Nintendo’s Mario Kart on Wii only works well if you have a Wii Remote wheel attachment, and now Sony is going down that same path.

The company is launching the PlayStation Move Racing Wheel, which is an admittedly awkward-looking giant PS3 controller with a large hole in the middle for users to plug in their Move controller. It’s designed to incorporate the motion-sensing functionality of the Move while also giving players a more rigid steering mechanic along with more functionally viable buttons.

“he PlayStation Move Racing Wheel will be available this fall for $39.99 and will support upcoming racing games like LittleBigPlanet Karting, in addition to PS3 racing favorites like Gran Turismo 5, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Burnout Paradise, MotorStorm Apocalypse, and more,” Sony confirmed in a PlayStation Blog post. This is one of the few ideas Sony has employed to make PlayStation Move interesting again. The other major one is the augmented reality children’s book platform called Wonderbook.

[via PlayStation Blog]

Sony PlayStation Move Racing Wheel is one crazy contraption is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Remember the fan made LEGO Portal 2 figures? Remember how your insides hurt for days from wanting those toys so bad? Round up that desire and channel it into one mouse click. A group of fans have submitted a proposal to LEGO for three sets based on the hit puzzle game.

The concept was submitted by Team Jigsaw, four LEGO enthusiasts who banded together in 2011 to compete in LEGO competitions. Now they need our help to make their concept come true. Although after you see what they have in mind I bet you’ll need no convincing. The three sets are GLaDOS’ Chamber, a Modular Testing Chamber and a Puzzle Board Game. All the major characters are represented here: Chell, Wheatley, the Companion Cube, the turrets and of course the adorable and murderous GLaDOS. And the potato.

As with all LEGO pieces, you can mix and match these sets with each other, not to mention other LEGO sets, like the Minecraft set. But before that can happen, you and about 8,800 other people need to vote for the concept on LEGO Cuusoo. Go on, make your dreams come true.

[via Brothers Brick]

Epic Games has an interesting little factoid that it wants you to be aware of. Its iPhone/iPad game Infinity Blade is more profitable than Gears of War. That is, of course, if you look at it on a relative scale. Obviously, the company’s total revenue brought in by its blockbuster console titles far outweighs that of any of its mobile endeavors.

But the cost of creating, marketing, and distributing Gears of War, for example, and monstrous. And when you look at a strict scale of dollars spent versus dollars earned, Infinity Blade is at the top. So yes, Epic co-founders Tim Sweeney and Mark Rein have gone on record as calling the iOS title the “most profitable game we’ve ever made.”

Now of course, Epic could not exist if it only made games like Infinity Blade. If you spend $10 to make a game and earn $50 in sales, but another game costs you $1 million to make $3 million, no company in the world is going to choose the former. But it is still a very salient statistic, since many companies still consider the mobile space nothing more than a cash suck. For many, it’s still a platform for testing and research, but Epic is proof that it can be very profitable.

[via Engadget]

Epic Games iOS Infinity Blade is company’s most profitable is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nintendo’s latest oversized handheld not big enough for you? Maybe another Circle Pad Pro will help. According to Japanese gaming publication Famitsu, the Big N is poised to give the freshly announced 3DS XL a second analog slider. Pricing wasn’t covered in the magazine’s Nintendo Q&A session, but gamers in the Land of the Rising Sun should have their thumbs on it later this year. Oh, and in case you didn’t hear, the colossal clamshell is getting its very own charging cradle too, sold separately for 1,200 yen ($15). Mum’s the word on stateside details for the secondary slide pad, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it show up on foreign shores.

3DS XL to get Circle Pad Pro treatment, become that much larger originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 08:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo is saying that no one should pay attention to any sort of pre-order prices that online or brick-and-mortar retailers attach to anything related to the Wii U. The company has not given any indication about the price of games or hardware – something that has made a lot of analysts worried since the device is launching later this year – but it is doing its best to quash any floating rumors.

Among the more startling pricing suggestions is an online retailer listing Wii U games at a price of £64 (around $100) each. In response, T3 quoted a “Nintendo spokesperson” as saying, “Retailers are beginning their presale activity, but given there is no official software price, they are using fictitious prices. When software pricing is officially announced later this year, I am sure retailers will adjust their websites to reflect the true price.”

The only thing Nintendo has gone on record as saying with regard to price is that it will not make the same mistake that it did with the $250 3DS – which suffered extremely sluggish launch sales. The most questionable piece of the puzzle is the Wii U GamePad. The touch-screen controller has been hinted at being priced anywhere from $79 to nearly $200.

[via T3]

Nintendo $100 Wii U game pre-orders denounced is written by Mark Raby & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.