Hasta La Gadget!

So, we got shuffled past a 3DS at a rapid pace this morning on our way out of the Nintendo keynote, but we’ve just had an opportunity to play some titles and really get a feel for the thing… and we’re pretty impressed. Before we were only shown a technical demo, but at Nintendo’s booth there are games, games, games. The booth was about evenly split between playable tech demos, non-playable live-rendered trailers, and regular 3D movies. Nintendo clearly is hard at work on titles for its system, and there’s plenty of third party clout getting into the mix. Still, what impressed us more than the quantity was the quality. Most of the games are pretty easily on the level of iPhone 3GS graphics, and the 3D effect “just worked” on most all of them. Follow after the break for our full thoughts.

Update: We’ve also got partial tech specs on the handheld — find them after the break, too.

Update 2: We added a video of nintendogs + cats gameplay. It’s very adorable, we assure you.

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS in-depth preview: it works!

Nintendo 3DS in-depth preview: it works! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That Nintendo announced the 3DS was not a surprise — that they had a couple-dozen of these things to try out, that was. We elbowed our way to the front of the line to try one out, and the effect is actually not bad. It’s not great, but the 3.5-inch screen on top certainly gives a firm illusion of depth without resorting to glasses — or eye crossing. The feel is definitely reminiscent of those 3D cereal box prints, and as soon as you turn the device from left to right to try to look around anything the effect is immediately lost. You need to stare at the screen for a moment for your eyes to adjust and then not move around too much. If you do you’ll need to adjust again. But, stay reasonably still and it’s a compelling effect.

The new analog slider on the left feels a lot like the PSP’s analog nub, but larger and without the texture. It’s a bit easier on the fingers, and comfortable. Overall the device feels just like a current DS or DSi, though we couldn’t get a good feel for the weight thanks to a bulky tether attached on one end to the device, and on the other end to the row of ladies who were surely told to not let the gadgets out of their hands or face certain doom. The only thing we could do here is rotate along a still frame — Pikmin in a field, for example — and play with the 3D slider. It is a pretty convincing effect, but it’s hard to tell at this point if it’s at all compelling — it wasn’t anything more than novelty in this demo, and we still don’t know how it stands up to fast-moving footage. Actual games were promised to us for the show floor, so we’ll hit that up later today. We snagged a few pics before getting elbowed out of the way, so check ’em out!

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS in the flesh and hands-on! (updated with video!)

Nintendo 3DS in the flesh and hands-on! (updated with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We just got a look at the new Kinect Dashboard-lite for the Xbox 360. In some ways, it’s pretty charming, with fun, jazzed up icons (when you hover over them they tilt and show off depth), a simplistic layout, and some great voice controls. The downside is this all comes at the cost of a brand new, fairly redundant interface for accessing functions that are already available with your Xbox 360 controller in the regular Dashboard. Still, there’s no denying the joy of waving a hand to log in, hovering over icons to select channels (though the wait-to-click mechanism strikes us as eventually frustrating), and scrubbing through media with very intuitive gestures.

The best part is the voice control, however, allowing you to speak “Xbox” and then a command like play, pause, back, forward, stop, Zune, etc. It’s ripe for abuse (pausing your S.O.’s seventh Netflix screening of The Constant Gardner ad nauseam), but Microsoft says it’s working on eliminating random commands that might seep into conversation. Our biggest worry is that we’re going to see confusion and fragmentation of functionality with the divergent UI requirements that Kinect apps and regular Dashboard apps require — we can’t imagine the Facebook or Last.fm folks being super thrilled at creating an all-new app just to support Microsoft’s whims, but we’re told just such apps are in the works. Is the existing Dashboard really so complicated that Kinect couldn’t control it? Check out a video of this puzzling Kinectasticness after the break.

Continue reading Kinect-optimized Xbox 360 Dashboard preview

Kinect-optimized Xbox 360 Dashboard preview originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know, that’s a pretty loaded headline, but that’s exactly what Toshiba’s new laptops are… loaded. Let’s start with that beauty pictured above — the now fairly familiar and often leaked 15.6-inch Satellite A665. Starting at $1,599, the 3D bad boy boasts pretty much everything you’d want in a mobile gaming rig under two grand, including an Intel Core i7-740QM CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 350M graphics with 1GB of VRAM, a 640GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, and a Blu-ray drive that supports 3D playback. It comes with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision kit, which includes the usual active shutter glasses and emitter. But it’s not all about the specs on the A665 — both it and the M645 have been redesigned with chiclet keyboards and a new Fusion X2 finish that combines a glossy and matte coating. Those taken with the A665 but aren’t into the 3D stuff can configure a 16-inch version, which starts at $799, with a choice of Intel Core 2010 processors.

The 14-inch M645 is the smaller version of the A665 and features Core i3, i5 and i7 CPU options as well as AMD’s Phenom II Quad Core processors. On the graphics front, we’re extremely happy to see the line use NVIDIA’s Optimus technology to automatically switch between the GeForce 310M or GeForce GT330M GPU and the IGP. To boot, the systems can be configured with Blu-ray and 7,200rpm hard drives. We should also mention that both the A665 and M645 have Toshiba’s new Sleep + Music capability, which allows you plug a music player into the mic jack and blast out your tunes through the laptop’s Harmon Kardon speakers even when it’s powered down. We told you these machines were loaded. We’ll be bringing you full reviews soon, but in the meantime enjoy the pics and full PR below.

Continue reading Toshiba Satellite M645 boasts NVIDIA Optimus and improved aesthetics, Satellite A665 makes its 3D arrival

Toshiba Satellite M645 boasts NVIDIA Optimus and improved aesthetics, Satellite A665 makes its 3D arrival originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already gone a bit more in-depth with the likes of Kinect Adventures, Dance Galaxy, and Your Shape, but we also had a couple brief thoughts on Microsoft’s motion-centric sports pack and cartoon racer. With Joy Ride, you’d think holding your arms out pantomiming steering would be burdensome, but in our time with Joy Ride, it really never became an issue. In fact, the one control aspect we were hesitant about going into the race — power sliding — turned out to be quite effortless. It made perfect sense tilting our bodies around sharp corners. It’s during the windows where stunts were allowed that we discovered the full-bodied parallel to button mashing. Seriously, people were instinctively ducking jumping, twisting, and flailing hoping for some bonus points.

As for Kinect Sports, Microsoft wasn’t showing much of its track-and-field centered Kinect Sports title, but what we saw didn’t fill us with confidence. The bowling game was particularly troubling, with numerous very random throws (that ended up in the gutter a lane over) and a very finicky depth-perception that wouldn’t let us really wind up or step forward very effectively. Meanwhile, the 200 meter hurdles worked just fine, but it was also a pretty simplistic running-in-place experience that was possible a couple decades ago with the NES’s Power Pad — although Kinect makes it a lot harder to cheat. Miller vs. Miller video after the break.

Continue reading Kinect Sports and Joy Ride previewed, in brief (video)

Kinect Sports and Joy Ride previewed, in brief (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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