Oh Sony, you just like to tease us, don't you? Two weeks after a brief mention at CES, Japan's been given the introductory taste of this tech giant's first ever TransferJet wireless Memory Stick. Meanwhile, Sony Style US has quietly added the same card for pre-order at $99.99 and cites February 8th as the possible launch date -- a slight delay from Sony's promised January launch. If the party's big enough, this TransferJet close-proximity radio technology could signal the death of cables and bulky card readers, but you'll still need compatible devices to work that magic on this memory stick. Sony will sure need more than just a few cameras to get us to make-dot-believe in this new ecosystem.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/20/s...-japan-taking/ ...

Before we get into the rumors, here's a fact: unless the Apple Tablet cures cancer, global warming and obesity in one fell swoop, there'll be plenty of disappointed faces leaving the Yerba Buena theater next Wednesday. The hype is that overpowering. But hey, that doesn't mean we are not curious to know what it will actually do, so let's get to the latest batch of uncorroborated scuttlebutt.

The Rumor: The Mac Observer believes these are legitimate photos of a 10-inch glass front for Apple's new machine. Coming from a "trusted source," the pictures seem to confirm a 10-inch screen size and an iPhone-inspired design (which includes an earphone hole!). In the pic to the side, you can see it resting atop a unibody MacBook Pro's keyboard for a sense of scale.
Our Take: Naturally taken in the worst possible light and suffering from a strong dose of noise and noise-reducing blur, the photos are close to impossible to verify. Their claim for legitimacy is also not helped by the blatant appearance of a scaled-up iPhone front plate -- something we could mock up ourselves if we had the patience.

The Rumor: Actual retail units of the fabled world-changing device won't be available until June. AppleInsider reports some analyst noise indicating that battery life and durability issues could delay the tablet's release until the middle of this year. Moreover, on the authority of "supply chain sources," it has been described as a "super iPod touch," with a suggestion it might have an ARM-based core inside.
Our Take: It's well known that the original iPhone followed a similar launch pattern of a January announcement and a June release, but Apple must be equally aware of how disappointing to its fans (and shareholders, more importantly) a paper launch would be. ARM internals seem logical, particularly since the iPhone already runs such hardware, and NVIDIA's Tegra 2 platform -- driven by a dual-core Cortex A9 chip -- has made some lofty promises about what can be done with the architecture.

The Rumor: The Guardian, via 9to5Mac, informs us that Apple has been in talks with UK mobile carriers about bringing its famine destroyer to the Queen's backyard in subsidized form. We're told it'll be bundled with mobile broadband contracts -- in much the same fashion as netbooks are treated currently -- but there'll be no exclusivity deals on the table so Orange, O2 and Vodafone are all in the running. There's also pretty firm word that the iWonder won't be making its UK debut until "later in the spring."
Our Take: Mobile broadband takeup is only going to grow in the UK and netbook bundles seem to have been popular so far, so it seems like a no-brainer to try and capitalize on this burgeoning market. As pointed out in The Guardian, behind the scenes talks don't always turn into real world deals, but at this point we'd be surprised if Apple wasn't talking to carriers about subsidies.

Well, we wanted photos and we got 'em -- in the signature grainy style that all pre-announcement hardware seems to appear. The latter two rumors have some intriguing synergy, though: both point toward availability coming significantly later than the announcement, and both seem to steer away from integrated 3G connectivity. We really can't wait to know -- if only to stop this speculative madness.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/20/a...-2010-edition/ ...

From Bioshock and Modern Warfare 2 to even Team Fortress 2, RPG elements are creeping into game genres that we never imagined they would. This change for the most part has managed to subtly improve upon genres that needed new life, but there's a cost that hasn't been tallied by the majority of game developers. 'The simple act of removing mod tools, along with the much discussed dedicated server issue, has made [MW2] a bit of a joke among competitive players. Gone are the days of "promod," and the only option you have is to play it their way. If Infinity Ward are so insistent on improving the variety of our experiences, they don’t have to do it at the expense of the experience that many of us already love. It really is that simple. If they don’t want to provide a good "back to basics experience," they could at least continue to provide the tools that allow us to do that for ourselves

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...e-RPG-Takeover ...

An anonymous reader sends in a nostalgic piece about Dungeons & Dragons and the influence it's had on games and gamers for the past 36 years. Quoting:
"Maybe there was something in the air during the early '70s. Maybe it was historically inevitable. But it seems way more than convenient coincidence that Gygax and Arneson got their first packet of rules for D&D out the door in 1974, the same year Nolan Bushnell managed to cobble together a little arcade machine called Pong. We've never had fun quite the same way since. Looking back, these two events set today's world of gaming into motion — the Romulus and Remus of modern game civilization. For the rest of forever, we would sit around and argue whether games should let us do more or tell us better stories."

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...ns-amp-Dragons ...

Call of Duty is the game series most likely to start a row between a couple, research has found (clearly these researchers have never tried to show the missus Mario Kart).

According to a study conducted by UK online discount site, MyVoucherCodes, one in five women have dumped their partner because of their gaming habits.

Research revealed that 80 per cent of women claim their other half spends too much time playing computer games or browsing the web. Furthermore, 70 per cent said the gaming addiction was the cause of arguments between the couple.

Research head, Mark Pearson said of the findings: "While men are more likely to spend their time running recon with, scoring goals against or shooting at people from all over the world, women are just as to blame for the time they spend online for relationship breakups according to the study.

"I'm no relationship expert, but it seems that as technology improves, our ability to interact with those around us lessens - hopefully these statistics will be the push people need to reassess the way they treat loved ones."

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

Dead or Alive is headed to PSP in the form of Dead or Alive Paradise, a continuation of the massively pervy Volleyball series (sorry, no fighting).

Like previous DOA perv-em-up titles, Paradise focuses on volleyball, gambling, a crap-ton of swimsuits and taking pictures of girls wearing very little.


Kasumi, Risa, Hitomi and Rio (and their wobs) will all be appearing in the game, reveals the latest issue of Famitsu (via Kotaku), which will apparently include the ability to play your own music from the PSP's memory stick.

DoA Paradise will be released in Japan on April 2, 2010 bundled with a special Kasumi figurine... to perv over.

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

There's much talk this morning of Zune phones after Jefferies & Company issued a note stating that Microsoft is preparing to launch a device based on Windows Mobile 7.
Microsoft has always maintained - at least on the record - that it's role in mobile is purely software-oriented, but with Google's recent unveiling of the Nexus it wouldn't be surprising if the Redmond company's long-rumoured Pink project came to fruition sooner rather than later.
In the note, analyst Katherine Egbert said industry sources were pointing to a launch within the next two months (either at Mobile World Congress or the spring CTIA show).
The device will apparently be Zune-like and be produced in partnership with an OEM.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/35703...ours-resurface ...

Microsoft VP of games Phil Spencer has said the company's decision to launch motion control hardware is "a huge investment" and one that's fraught with risk.

"If there isn't risk in Natal then I don't know what's keeping me up at night," said the exec, in an interview with Eurogamer. "We're trying something completely new where there's no device in your hand. We're trying to build a set of new games, new experiences that will have the same quality metrics of our past games, but really entice both existing 360 customers and new people. It's a huge challenge, a huge investment and it's fraught with risk."

Responding to accusations that Microsoft has historically taken fewer risks than Sony when it comes to first-party development, Spencer pointed to both Natal and Xbox Live as examples of the company pushing forward new ideas.

"When I look at Live and I think about the innovations in the XBLA space and the games that we've pushed forward, I actually would have agreed that a couple of years ago I thought some of the things we were doing online were not differentiated enough," he admitted.

"But when I look at the last year and the set of games that has come out from us in the Live space - we brought that XBLA focus into the first-party studios about a year ago, and I think the change in the quality of games that have come out is remarkable."

The studio currently has a number of creative people working on Natal titles, he said, adding that it was not being "overly-prescriptive" in the kinds of experiences that were being built, instead letting key creative talent experiment with the technology.

Resulting games would not naturally end up being casual ones, he said - instead he expects the Natal experience to feature in almost all games in the future.

"In terms of segmenting by genre or hardcore vs. non-hardcore, you should expect that over the years you'll see Natal experiences show up on almost all of the games - similar to the way you do with Live today. At the beginning of Live it was all about sports, racing and shooting games. Now if you found a game that didn't have some kind of Live functionality it would seem like it wasn't a complete game. I think Natal is likely to get there as well."

Earlier this month, it was revealed an internal chip had been dropped from Natal's final spec - predicted to be a result of cost-cutting.

Spencer refused to be drawn on how exactly that had affected the games in development for the platform, but did say Microsoft was nothing but positive about the current technology.

"As you can imagine, there have been hundreds of decisions made on the technology," he said. "The goal is always to make the games better and the experiences better. In no way have we had to cut back on the development of the games we're doing - they're more feature-rich today than when we started them a year ago."

He also couldn't confirm whether Natal would retail at the rumoured price of below £50. But he pointed out how aware Microsoft was of the importance of pricing.

"We know that price is important. Xbox 360 has shown that we're conscious of price points, and I think the price drops we've done have resonated very well. The momentum we've had in '08 and '09 is a combination of the value of our platform and the content we have.

"We understand, going into Natal, it's the same equation - we have to offer experiences and hit price points which really resonate with consumers. This is a broad consumer product. It's for the entire audience which has 360s today and the millions of people who will buy 360s because of Natal. We understand that only works if we hit consumer price points."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ught-with-risk ...

Wii Play has been revealed as the biggest selling console game in the US over the last 15 years, followed by Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Three Call of Duty titles have made it into the top ten - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sits just beneath San Andreas at number four, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is at number seven, and Call of Duty: World at War is at number nine.

It puts the number of Activision best-sellers at four, while Nintendo has three in the top ten - the aforementioned Wii Play, Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii.

EA had just one title - Madden NFL '07, and there was one surprise entry at number ten in the form of Namco Museum.

The figures were calculated by IndustryGamers using NPD data from when the company first started tracking sales in 1995 and take into account sales from all SKUs, in the case of multi-platform titles.

"I like the number of non-traditional games on the list. It shows that non-traditional content can be lucrative and have wide appeal. From Wii Play to Wii Fit to Guitar Hero, these are all games that don't fit in the traditional gaming 'box' yet have enjoyed great success," commented NPD industry analyst Anita Frazier.

The full top ten was as follows:

01 Wii Play
02 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
03 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
04 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
05 Wii Fit
06 Mario Kart w/ Wheel
07 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
08 Madden NFL '07
09 Call of Duty: World at War
10 Namco Museum

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ndo-activision ...