As expected, Sony’s Move is perfectly competent, hardware-wise, because Sony is a hardware company. But making games that mimic Nintendo’s casual-friendly Wii party games is the wrong move. Instead, they need to focus on their true fanbase: The hardcore fans. More »
Wii Ping Pong paddle reviewed, loved, unavailable for purchase originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Capcom dishes the dirt on its Nintendo 3DS graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Earlier this summer at E3, Ubisoft teased its latest license, with a stage full of dancers battling it out, “Beat It” style. The company announced that it had the right to Michael Jackson’s likeness, nearly a year after the unexpected death of the king of pop.
The result of the partnership is the forthcoming “Michael Jackson: The Experience” title, a dance game aimed at teaching players the singer’s signature moves with 25 to 30 of his biggest hits.
The title is set to arrive on the Nintendo Wii and DS and the Sony PSP, this November. Players with other consoles will have to wait until 2011, however. The larger console versions of the games will take advantage of their respective systems motion controllers.
Remember when Nintendo said it’d release its release date for the 3DS autostereoscopic portable game system on the 29th of this month? We may already have the magic number — depending on how you interpret a few Japanese words. You see, a supposed video game accessory designer by the handle “nocchisan” recently tweeted that eleven Nintendo 3DS accessories will be released on November 11th, and asked his or her followers to kindly buy them up… while purportedly remarking that the 3DS itself will arrive at the same time. While the tweets in question can certainly be read that way, and it makes a certain amount of sense for accessories to appear at launch, our admittedly limited grasp of Japanese suggests an alternative translation: that it’s the accessories themselves (and not the 3DS) that will all arrive at the same time. There’s also the little matter of nocchisan himself, whose Twitter account has already disappeared — we have nothing actually connecting him to the accessory company except a link in his tweet.
Rumor pegs Nintendo 3DS for November 11th in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Sep 2010 14:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
For demanding gamers, initial excitement upon procuring a Nintendo Wii was quickly dampened by disappointment: the durned Wiimote wasn’t nearly as precise as we’d all hoped it would be. It took a couple of years for Nintendo to step up and fix the issue, releasing the MotionPlus and finally making the Wiimote work for sword-fighting games and the like. But, that left us all stuck with a dongle hanging off the bottom, causing compatibility issues with many early peripherals. The Nyko Wand+ is the solution, putting the MotionPlus right inside a stock-size controller, as it should have been in the first place. In some ways, it’s better than first-party.
Gallery: Nyko Wand+
Continue reading Nyko Wand+ review
Nyko Wand+ review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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I’ve long held that ROMs are the biggest selling point for Android phones that no one wants to talk about (or are at least neck and neck for those of you who absolutely need your porn on the go). If, after a few drinks, I start having a good natured debate about smartphones with an iPhone owning friend (which does indeed happen more often that I’d care to admit), I’ll usually break out my Droid and start playing a round of Super Mario 3.
However, the Droid QWERTY keyboard is okay–but not great–for such gaming. In fact, I’ve actually worn down some of the keys on the thing playing Super Mario Brothers. And, all things considered, I’ve actually got it good. There are plenty of Android handsets that rely entirely on the touchscreen for control–a pretty miserable way to play a console-formatted sidescroller.
Game Gripper offers a decent and intriguing answer–a controller that slips right over the keyboard of a number of handsets. But let’s be honest–you’re still not playing the way that god (and Shigeru Miyamoto) intended.
With that in mind, I submit to you my nominee for hack of the day. Using an HTC EVO 4G, a BlueSMiRF Bluetooth module, an Arduino board, and, of course, an original NES controller, this fellow designed what is quite possible the ultimate Android/Nintendo hack.
The final product ain’t all that pretty–and, let’s be honest, you’d look pretty dumb playing it on the subway (where most of my own handset gaming occurs)–but damn it if it doesn’t work like a charm
We still have memories — some would say nightmares, but we digress — of hanging out at a neighbor’s house and taking turns playing matches of Mario’s Tennis, our biological ocular displays assimilated into a rubber mask that engulfed our brains and left us in a permanent state of viewing the world in red wireframe. Crude 3D though it may be, it’s still a part of history we must accept, and if you happen to own a Virtual Boy, we have just two things to say to you. One: we’re insanely jealous. Two: if you ever need to know how to rip it to shreds for repair / stress relief, iFixit’s got you covered. In the world of Man with Screwdriver vs. Game Console, yet again Man wins. Seems a perfect ending to a week that featured Atari 2600, Nintendo Famicon, RCA Studio II, and Magnavox Odyssey 100. Check out highlights in the gallery below, or hit up iFixit for the whole shebang.
iFixit celebrates Friday with teardown of Virtual Boy, the greatest game console man has ever known originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Perhaps the worst, and least repairable, shortcoming of touchscreens is their failure to act as viable game controllers. Keyboard-equipped smartphones alleviate that pain a little (particularly if you pair them with a Game Gripper), but ultimately we’d all prefer real controllers for our real games. Such was clearly the thinking behind the homebrewed setup here, which combines an HTC EVO 4G — with Android and an NES emulator inside — with an Arduino board, a BlueSMiRF Bluetooth module, and a classic NES control pad. The result might look like a mess of wires, but who cares when you can rock Super Mario 3 the way Nintendo surely intended?
Continue reading NES controller pressed into service to Android overlord (video)
NES controller pressed into service to Android overlord (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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All right, so they haven’t gotten their hands on one of the new Apple iPod touches, but that’s not going to stop the folks at iFixit. In fact, the site is eschewing its normal inclination to embrace the latest shiny new gear, instead reaching back in time for deconstructional fodder.
The site has declared this its vintage game console teardown week. The company is moving chronologically through some of the earliest systems, and no old school console manufacturer is safe.
“We wanted to showcase the roots of today’s game consoles by exploring the game console technology of the 1970s and 80s,” iFixit explains. “So we got our hands on some staples of the industry–dating all the way back to 1975–and took them apart in true iFixit fashion.”
On Monday the site ripped into 1975’s Magnavox Odyssey 100. On Tuesday it broke into a vintage 1977 RCA Studio II. Yesterday the target was the game-changing Atari 2600. today it’s a Nintendo Famicon from 1983, the system that would create a revolution in the U.S. two years later, when it was re-branded the NES.
All of the requisite close-ups are included, with detailed breakdowns of all of the pieces. It’s enough to make you nostalgic for a console you couldn’t buy here in the States.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
