Fast becoming the story that won't end, the Xbox power cord saga has been given a new lease of life after an Xbox blew up in the face of its Swedish owner, despite having one of the all-new 'safe' power cords installed.

"I got sparks in my face and the whole apartment smelled of the burn," explained the unfortunate Anahi Reinoso to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet last week.

This follows on from Microsoft's February Xbox power cord recall attempt, where the company provided new 'safe' power cables to users for free, to replace the old faulty, and potentially dangerous, ones.

However, despite claiming it was the cables that contained faults, Xbox technical enthusiasts discovered a problem with the hardware, specifically the soldering joints and Firefox power unit.

Suggestions that the problem was with the hardware itself where given extra weight when people started to receive the new power cables. Instead of resembling standard PS2-like leads, they featured a massive box that, according to experts, is simply designed to act like a fuse, nullifying a threat of a fire inside the console.

Still, it appears the leads can't even achieve this task if the Swedish report is anything to go by.

We contacted Microsoft this morning but they were unable to offer any further comment on the official statement made earlier this week, ...

Is Sony opening the door to some sort of truce between Blu-ray and HD-DVD? It’s seems way late in the game to be talking about unifying the two warring high-def disc standards, esp. considering how much HD-DVD and Blu-ray hardware is already in the pipeline, but incoming Sony prez Ryoji Chubachi said an interview earlier today that they “haven’t totally given up on the possibility of integration or compromise,” and that Sony, which is backing Blu-ray hardcore, understands that having “two rival formats is disappointing.” (You can say that again, brother.) This is actually the second time this year that a top Sony exec has indicated that they’re willing to work things out with the companies that are backing HD-DVD (like Toshiba and NEC), but the question is, what are they going to do to make it happen? If there was an easy or obvious compromise to be found it probably would have happened already. Where was all this conciliatory talk two years ago? ...

Speaking to leading trade publication MCV this week, Xbox frontman J Allard made an allusion that the next-generation Xbox will come in various forms rather than a standard unit as was expected.
"We have ways. We have ideas. Look at cell phones. You can have snap-on faceplates, you can change the skin and the batteries, and you can change the ringtones. I think we need to have a global foundation, and then personalise within region."

Going on to discuss the possibility of a hard-drive for Xbox, Allard again lent weight to escalating speculation that moving state mass storage might be an optional extra for Xbox 360, or not included at all. "My cell phone is incredibly personalized without a hard drive," he said. "One reason is because of the great connection to the service." ...

One million Xbox 2s will be available across Europe by the end of the year, according to MCV. That figure will rise to 1.5 million by the end of March 2006, a source at a major games publisher has told the industry publication.

The same source has also hinted that NextBox would not be backwards compatible with current Xbox games, which has led to suggestions that many publishers are now delaying the release of significant titles in order to, as MCV puts it, "ensure they are made next-gen ready to insure against ongoing shortages".

While there's still no official confirmation from Microsoft, it's widely expected that Xbox 2/Xenon will be launched globally in November. ...

Keith posted this at Emufanatics

SF_ has posted a small work in progress report over at NGEmu's forums. Was posted on the 22nd, but NGEmu is experiencing some stability issues lately so took awhile before I saw the update.

Here is what _SF_ posted on the forums. ( Note: Questions are from another member and the answers are from _SF_)

"Are you going through each xdk like caustik has to, or have you found another method?"

I'm making it lower-level, so the XDK version shouldn't matter anymore. I'm busy with other stuff though so it's taking a while.

"And what is this new emulator you say you are working on?"

Maybe I'll reveal it later, but it's not really ready right now. It does have some interesting stuff in it that I'd like to show though.

"Good to see you're alive and you're at least a little active with the project "

Thanks, I'll try to put in some more work on Xeon.

Xeon is an Xbox Emulator for Windows. ...

News from Lik Sang

Among other low profile releases, three new hot and exciting smash-hits have arrived in stock for the Nintendo DS in the last few days. After getting the preorders dispatched, it's now time for us to go into the action.

Rayman DS

Ubisoft's limbless hero Rayman reaches all the way back to 1995 with a lush 2D platformer for PlayStation, Saturn and Jaguar. The title did everything beautifully and earned a space in the hearts and memories of gamers, but it wasn't till 5 years later when a sequel would arrive. Like Super Mario 64, Rayman 2 moved into the 3rd dimension, and once again did everything perfectly. IGN for example said "if you love platformers, you must buy Rayman 2: The Great Escape -- it's that simple", and even "if you mildly enjoy platformers, you must buy the game." What was called by many "one of the best 3D platformers ever created" was released for PlayStation, N64, Dreamcast and PC. Now the French magic has touched the NDS, and is now shipping, one week ahead of its actual release date.

While many found Super Mario 64 DS took a hit from the lack of analogue stick, Rayman seems to improve upon the touch screen solution. Unlike the center of your 'virtual stick' being where ever you drop the stylus, here an actual analogue stick is shown on the bottom screen, and stays put. You can still adjust it's position and size if needed though, and this prevents running your stylus smack into the side of the screen. All 45 levels from the original Rayman 2 are here, from waterfalls to lava caves and pirate hideouts. Across the diverse environments Rayman will not only do the usual running and jumping, but skiing, swimming and flying, along with riding rockets and whirlwinds just to name a few. If you're tiring of trying to collect all 150 stars in Mario, Rayman is here to refresh your apatite for the 3D platformer.


Space Invaders DS

One of the first and most well known videogames of all time, Space Invaders has hit just about every console in history. Now the NDS proves it's no exception this Thursday, when Space Invaders DS arrives from Japan. As if you needed proof of the games popularity, over there in the late 70's, the game was so amazingly popular that it caused a coin shortage until the country's Yen supply was quadrupled! This handheld edition combines the vintage game play of that legendary shoot-'em up in classic mode, but with an extra New Era mode too.

New Era mode takes you on a 60-level world tour, battling waves of invaders in 20 different locations around the globe, eventually reaching a showdown with the UFO mother ship on the moon. Power-ups and new weapons help in destroying the fleet, while puzzle elements have been added to the mix too. When defending Big Ben in London for example, you need to shoot the ships above in a certain colour coded order. The power-ups that'll help you save our planet include protective shields, rapid-fire shots, column-clearing laser beams and some all important back-up in the form of additional support craft. Space Invaders DS looks set to unleash the addictive shooting on a new wave of gamers, and again, will be in stock from Thursday.


Touch! Kirby's Magic Paintbrush DS

As mentioned with the original 2D Rayman, the 'lush game' had wonderfully colorful and bold visuals. It's rare titles have such a style, but Touch! Kirby's Magic Paintbrush is such a treat for the eyes. This is somewhat fitting, as Kirby's world has literally been turned into a painting by an evil sorceress. Using your stylus as a magical paintbrush, you'll help Kirby return the world back to normal. By drawing lines you can create new paths for the automatically moving Kirby, ramps to speed him up, or walls to stop him heading into spikes or such. You'll need to keep an eye on the amount of paint you have left though, being careful not to run out.

11 different various attacks come in handy for enemies, which are pulled off and upgradeable via power ups by jabbing the pink blob himself. There have been a lot of remakes for NDS so far, which are fine, but it's nice to have something fresh, totally original and only possible on NDS, and Touch! Kirby's Magic Paintbrush is all that.
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Today i was given the chance to write a review on a new product thats a Flash Card/Writer and also a GBA gamepad for GBA emulators for PC, heres part of that review:

Once Finished downloading you click on My Favourites and then its gets very interesting because thats when the Gameboy Advance Pad kicks in, basically you can try all the games before you flash to a cart and to be very honest the GBA Pad was excellent, playing Mario Kart on it was great and much better than any normal controller you get for PC,

Read the rest of the review of this new flash cart for the GBA (and it also works on the NIntendo DS) on this PAGE. ...

The Nintendo DS emulator iDeaS has finally been released, heres whats in this release:

Emulation status
----------------
• ARM7TDMI
32-bit ARM CPU support (100%)
16-bit THUMB CPU support (100%)

• ARM946E-S:
32-bit ARM CPU support (90%)
16-bit THUMB CPU support (100%)

• Real sync emulation for HBlanks and VBlanks
• GFX Mode 0
* 16 colors support
* 256 colors support
* BG0/BG1/BG2/BG3 support
* 256x256 up to 512x512 tile maps support
* Default priorities support
* Horizontal/Vertical flipping support
* Horizontal/Vertical offset support
* FadeIn/FadeOut Effect support
* Alpha-blending Effect support
* Rotation/Zoom
* Windows 0/1 support
• OAM support
* Horizontal/Vertical position
* Horizontal/Vertical flip
* 8x8 up to 64x64 sprite size support
* FadeIn/FadeOut Effect support
* Alpha-blending Effect support
* Trasparent OBJ

• 256 colors line-per-line palette support

Download Here.

Heres some Nintendo DS Demos to try with the emulator.

Thanks to Keith of Emufanatics for the news. ...

Scherzo has posted some great screenshots of his new Nes emu for the Dreamcast, heres one to looky at:



More screenshots Here. ...