We've seen many arcade-style joysticks for video game consoles over the years, and the trend is making its way to the tablet market. The ThinkGeek Joystick-It attaches to your tablet's screen in a position of your choosing so that you can game on your shiny new slate in a decidedly retro way. The joystick is all-aluminum, works with any game that has an on-screen control pad, and does its thing without the use of batteries. We don't know how the device actually attaches to the display, but we do know that it is more aesthetically pleasing than other tactile control solutions we've seen at CES this year. The Joystick-It will cost $24.95 and be available by the end of January, so if old-school gaming is your thing, check out the demo video after the break.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/t...our-otherwise/ ...

We've seen many arcade-style joysticks for video game consoles over the years, and the trend is making its way to the tablet market. The ThinkGeek Joystick-It attaches to your tablet's screen in a position of your choosing so that you can game on your shiny new slate in a decidedly retro way. The joystick is all-aluminum, works with any game that has an on-screen control pad, and does its thing without the use of batteries. We don't know how the device actually attaches to the display, but we do know that it is more aesthetically pleasing than other tactile control solutions we've seen at CES this year. The Joystick-It will cost $24.95 and be available by the end of January, so if old-school gaming is your thing, check out the demo video after the break.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/t...our-otherwise/ ...

This might not be the "most impressive" Star Wars announcement you were looking for. Not that it's a bad thing the complete saga will be released on Blu-ray in September, and there was no mention of any exclusivity shenanigans, but despite making this the least disappointing thing that has happened to the series in a decade or so forgive us for being slightly underwhelmed. Fans will appreciate the promised 30 hours of special features -- or wait for Red Letter Media to recut them into a careful dissection of everything wrong about the prequels -- but the ability to buy the two trilogies individually for $44.99 ($69.99 MSRP) is definitely appreciated. You can queue your $89.99 ($139 MSRP) preorder on Amazon right now while you check out video of the announce featuring Lord Vader himself, including a peek at the trailer embedded after the break.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/06/s...ctober-30-hou/ ...

Microsoft's detailed the upcoming Xbox Live Marketplace content for the opening weeks of January.

Highlights include a big Activision and EA content sale (but whose will be better?) and Crackdown 2 on Games on Demand.

Here's are the full details:

IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Ring in the New Year with Activision and Electronic Arts
From January 11 through to January 17, enjoy special, one-time savings of up to 50 percent on more than 25 pieces of hot Activision content including "Call of Duty" Map Packs, "Guitar Hero" Add-ons, popular Arcade titles and more! This is your chance to stock up on all the Activision titles Santa didn't get you for Christmas. For details, please check your Xbox LIVE Dashboard on January 11.

Additionally, from January 18 through to January 25, fans can enjoy a special one-time savings of up to 50 percent on more than 25 pieces of Electronic Arts content, including fun Arcade games and more! For details, please check your Xbox LIVE Dashboard on January 18.

Go Gold in the New Year!
Looking to strike Gold in the new year? From January 28 (5:00 p.m.) through to January 31 (5:00 p.m.), try Xbox LIVE Gold for FREE! Now's your chance to take advantage of all Gold-only features. Play the latest multiplayer games online including "Halo: Reach" (Microsoft Game Studios), "Call of Duty: Black Ops" (Activision), and "Kinect Adventures" (Microsoft Game Studios), or chat with friends via Video Kinect.

Upgrade to Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack in January and score a free game, movie, and more!
Sign up for an Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack in the month of January and enjoy one of a range of special bonuses available at various times throughout the month including: an additional month of Gold Family Pack (13 months in total), "Snoopy Flying Ace" (Microsoft Game Studios), and / or a Zune movie rental for FREE! Log into your Xbox and check out the Spotlight channel to see if an offer is waiting for you!

Perfect for families, the Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack offers four 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold memberships for less than the price of two. Family Pack members also receive exclusive benefits and family conveniences. For more information on Family Pack, please visit http://www.xbox.com/en-gb/Live/JoinL...bership?Family.

AVATAR MARKETPLACE
January 6: New Year's Resolution
January 6: Food Fest
January 6: Burton
January 13: Dinosaur Pets
January 13: Xbox 360 Gear

XBOX LIVE ARCADE
January 5: "ilomilo" (SouthEnd Interactive/Microsoft Game Studios) - 800 Microsoft Points and available worldwide
January 12: "Zeit2" (Ubisoft) - 800 Microsoft Points and available worldwide (except Korea and Japan)

DEAL OF THE WEEK
The zombies are coming! Defend your house and protect your brains with an arsenal of home-guarding plants. Fight the fun-dead through day, night, fog, in a swimming pool and on the roof. Play seven lively game modes, including 2-player Versus and Co-Op. All for up to 33% off!

Week of January 10 - Zombies...Back from the Dead:
"Zombie Apocalypse" (KONAMI) - 400 Microsoft Points (50 percent off) and available worldwide (except Germany, Japan, Korea, and South Africa)
"The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai" (Microsoft Game Studios) - 400 Microsoft Points (50 percent off) and available worldwide (except Korea, Brazil, and South Africa)
Zombie Prop Avatar (Microsoft Game Studios) - 160 Microsoft Points (33 percent off) and available worldwide

Week of January 17:
"Plants vs. Zombies" (PopCap Games) - 800 Microsoft Points (33 percent off) and available worldwide (except Japan, India, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia, South Africa, and Korea)

GAMES ON DEMAND
January 4: "Crackdown 2" (Microsoft Game Studios) - Available worldwide (except Japan and Korea)
January 11: "Need for Speed SHIFT" (Electronic Arts) - Available worldwide (except Japan)
January 18: "Transformers: The Game" (Activision) - Available worldwide (except Japan, Brazil, Czech Republic, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia and South Africa)
January 18: "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (Activision) - Available worldwide (except Japan, Brazil, Czech Republic, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Russia and South Africa)
January 18: "Dante's Inferno" (Electronic Arts) - Available worldwide (except Japan and Korea)

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

It's new hardware, but possibly not as you expected it. Former platform holder Sega has launched a new range of machines in Japan… that attach to male urinals.
Wired reports that the new devices, called 'Toylets', have been rolled out for testing at a number of locations in Tokyo. Each basin is installed with a pressure sensor and LCD screen. The games are controlled both by the strength and direction of the user's wee.
Between sessions the screen is able to display advertising.
Four titles are include din the trial version of Toylet - 'Mannekin Pis' (try and wee as hard as you can), 'Graffiti Eraser' (remove paint by weeing on every part of the picture), 'Milk from Nose' (wee harder than the bloke before you and the on-screen character sprays more milk out of his nose!) and 'The North Wind and Her' (wee harder to increase the strength of the wind and try and blow a girl's skirt up).
Should user's feel inclined they are able to use a USB stick to save their game data.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/42413/Sega...urinal-console ...

Microsoft has announced that motion sensing camera Kinect has sold over 8 million units in the 60 days since launch, smashing the target of five million set before release.

The success has helped push Xbox 360 sales to more than 50 million units sold worldwide, said CEO Steve Ballmer at CES in Las Vegas yesterday, and the Xbox Live service now has over 30 million members.

"A new member joins Xbox Live every two seconds," said Ballmer. "Kinect and Xbox Live have helped drive consumer demand for the Xbox itself. Xbox 360 has been the number one selling console every month for the last six months here in the United States. And sales for the Xbox 360 are now over 50 million units worldwide.

He added: "As many of you know, we predicted that we would sell about five million of these Kinect sensors by the end of the holiday season. We beat that forecast. In the first 60 days we sold over eight million Kinect sensors worldwide. This has been the biggest holiday and the biggest year ever for Xbox."

Microsoft also showed off a new social application for Xbox 360, Avatar Kinect, that allows users to interact using Kinect and their own Xbox Live avatars, promising to map facial expressions. Due in Spring, Avatar Kinect will be free to Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

Ballmer also revealed that the Netflix service on Xbox Live will get Kinect support in the Spring, as will Hulu Plus, later this year.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...8-million-sold ...

Sony is working on a visor-like personal 3D display known as the Headman, which enables game playing without the need for a TV - 3D or otherwise.

The firm's executive deputy president Hiroshi Yoshioka revealed he had been using the headset to play Gran Turismo 5. "Nobody - not even my wife - interrupted me, so I could get the highest score," he claimed at CES last night.

The device, which does not yet have a release date or price, contains two small displays, one per eye, and built-in earphones.

Focusing primarily on home electronics, Sony didn't have much more gaming news to reveal at its press conference, bar stating that the PlayStation Network now boasts 60 million sign-ups. The company did not reveal how many of these translated to active accounts.

Speculation that Sony might confirm the much-rumoured PlayStation phone at CES was left unrewarded, although CEO Kaz Hirai at one point hinted that the firm was "integrating into mobile the assets we've collected in the PlayStation family."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...eadset-display ...

Sony's machines may win weekly battles in Japan, but it's Nintendo's consoles that won the 2010 war.

Enterbrain, owner of Famitsu, recorded 2.96 million sales of DS between 28th December 2009 and 26th December 2010 (via Andriasang). A mere 73,233 sales behind is PSP, with 2.89 million sales.

That gap widens to the third-place Wii (1.73 million) and fourth-place PS3 (1.59 million). Xbox 360 managed 208,790 sales.

Enterbrain also shows Pokemon Black/White as the best-selling game in Japan last year rather than Monster Hunter Freedom 3.

Those Pokemon games (two SKUs on DS) arrived in September and since then have amassed nearly 5 million sales (4.91 million)! Equally incredible was Monster Hunter Portable 3's sprint to 3.48 million sales after a 1st December launch.

Numbers for New Super Mario Bros. Wii in third are more realistic, standing at 1.60 million. Not bad for an old-timer, released March 2009.

Fourth to 10th are as follows: Wii Party (1.54 million), Dragon Quest VI (1.30 million), Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 (1.28 million), Friend Collection (1.20 million), Super Mario Galaxy 2 (900,539), Inazuma Eleven 3 Spark/Bomber (890,440), Wii Fit Plus (849,664).

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...japan-2010-are ...

How many PlayStation Network accounts are there? 60 million, according to Sony overlord Sir Howard Stringer.

"This is a significant base of connected products," he declared, speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 (thanks Engadget). "As Godzilla once said," Stringer added, "size does matter."

Then again, that 60 million figure represents PSN accounts registered accross all networked Sony products (such as televisions), and not just on PS3 and PSP.

Sony's CES performance was a glitzy affair, hammering home a 3D vision of the future on all devices and culminating with a Cirque du Soleil tribute to Elvis (If only Microsoft had thought of that).

Sony even unveiled a futuristic visor that you wear and which can display 3D content such as PS3 games.

But there was one notable absentee: the heavily rumoured PlayStation Phone. The PSP2 was nowhere to be seen either.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...unts-are-there ...