Hasta La Gadget!

We’ll tell you what: if you even blink these days, you’re gonna miss a special guest on the Engadget Podcast. This week we’ve got Joystiq‘s Chris Grant in the house to shoot the shizzle on Sony’s network hurt and the Wii 3D IMAX rumors bubbling up all around us. And we lure Richard Lawler to step out on his old lady, the Engadget HD Podcast, for a romp on the possibly slightly wilder side of the tracks. Let’s do it: let’s talk tech.

Host: Tim Stevens
Guests: Chris Grant, Brian Heater, Richard Lawler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: You Shook Me All Night Long

02:15 – Apple iMac hands-on, with dual 30-inch displays! (video)
03:00 – Apple iMac refresh official: Thunderbolt and next gen quad-core processors
03:45 – AT&T officially announces HP Veer 4G, available May 15th for $100 (update)
04:55 – Star Wars Blu-ray set ships Sept. 12th/16th (world/NA), has 40 hours of special features
06:35 – Dish Network, EchoStar will pay TiVo $500 million to settle DVR lawsuit
07:55 – Latest Windows 8 leaks reveal cloud-based settings, more app store evidence
09:35 – Droid Charge review
11:16 – Verizon document suggests LG Revolution will have Netflix pre-installed
13:47 – Sony promises ‘phased restoration’ of PlayStation Network and Qriocity starting this week
20:22 – Sony woes continue as SOE confirms data breach (update: 24.6 million accounts affected)
31:03 – Sony responds to Congress: all 77 million PSN accounts compromised, finger pointed at Anonymous
33:52 – BlackBerry Bold 9900 hands-on (update: video)
34:30 – BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (Bold Touch) official
34:45 – BlackBerry Bold Touch makes brief appearance on RIM’s website
35:05 – Android apps on PlayBook eyes-on (video)
35:48 – RIM announces BlackBerry 7 OS with better browser and BlackBerry Balance, but no legacy support
38:10 – Nintendo drops Wii price to $150 from May 15th, throws in a free Wii Wheel and copy of Mario Kart
48:05 – Nielsen estimates show first drop in TV ownership in 20 years, Mayans nod approvingly
50:40 – We won some Webby Awards, and now you can win a BlackBerry PlayBook!
51:44 – Listener questions

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Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 238 – 05.06.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 May 2011 12:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For a product with the word “vitality” in its name, Nintendo’s forthcoming Wii peripheral doesn’t seem to have much of a pulse these days. The oddball controller certainly piqued our interest when the gaming giant showed it off way back in 2009, but aside from some false alarms and an uncovered patent application, we haven’t heard a peep. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata addressed the Vitality Sensor’s conspicuous absence during a financial presentation, chalking the delay up to “differences in biological information in humans.” The peripheral is still coming, according to Iwata, but it won’t be released until the company can make it work well with 99 percent of consumers — a tall order indeed. And what about the other one percent? Well, perhaps they can try these on for size.

Nintendo Wii Vitality Sensor still coming to a hand near you, says Iwata originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 20:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo confirms that a new Wii successor is in the works. The code name for it is “Project Café,” which has been released along with a couple of rumors of what the new console will be like. However, nothing has been set in stone yet for the console. Prototypes have been shown and will be shown at the upcoming E3.

Beyond that little info, nothing else has been released by Nintendo regarding the upcoming console. It was reported that it could be out as early as next year, but no confirmation by Nintendo on that target date yet. Nintendo did confirm that new hardware for consoles is always in development.

Nintendo has just released the 3DS, but thus far the console has been selling less than Nintendo would hope. It has also been five years since the original Wii came out, which Nintendo has seen falling in sales.

Via Xbit Labs

It’s a “good news, bad news” kind of a day in Super Mario land, as Nintendo’s announcement of a Wii successor has been followed up with the delivery of the company’s financial results for fiscal year 2010, which don’t make for happy reading. Nintendo’s net sales of $12.4 billion for the period ending on March 31st 2011 was 29 percent less than it tallied during the previous year, while its $825 million of net profit was also a staggering 66 percent lower than it earned last year. The 3DS has sold well so far, reaching 3.61 million transactions worldwide, but the Wii is down to 15 million global sales, which marks a 25 percent contraction from its FY2009 total of 20 million. So the impetus for a hardware refresh of the Wii is clearly there, now it’s just a matter of waiting for E3 to find out exactly how Nintendo plans to go about it.

Nintendo sells 3.61 million 3DS handhelds, but sees 2010 net profit decline by 66 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E3 is getting close, just two months away now. As such the next-gen Wii console rumors have heated to a boil. One of the most interesting bits of tattle originates from Kotaku. The gaming site’s sources claim (with impressive specificity) that the new 8-button controller features a screen pushing a whopping 6.2 inches, two analog sticks, and a camera. The new Wii console (sometimes called the Wii 2, Wii HD, or simply “Project Cafe”) is said to support the new controller in addition to Wii Remote-style controllers for backward compatibility with existing Wii games — at the moment, however, it’s not clear if that implies support for existing Wiimotes. But why the giant display? Here’s Kotaku‘s take:

The 6.2-inch screen will receive data wirelessly from the Nintendo console and presents an array of options, from putting the player’s inventory or map on the controller screen, to allowing players to combine it with the controller’s camera to snap photos that could be imported into a game or even turning it into some sort of glorified viewfinder (we’re unclear about whether the camera on the controller points at the player or can be outward-facing; we’ve heard both – maybe it swivels?).

In other words, you can think of the new contoller-plus-console combination as a modern Dreamcast system or “glorified mega-DS,” as Kotaku puts it, where the TV is the top screen and the handheld controller is the lower touchscreen. If true then we’ll likely hear the official first word at E3 which kicks off on June 7th.

Update: IGN has its own set of “sources” confirming many of these details. Could this be a Nintendo rumor that pans out, for once? We should know in just over a month.

Next generation Wii controller to feature 6.2-inch display, turn living room into giant DS? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 05:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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