News via Evil Dragon

wejp released a new version of GMU, his great music player.

New in this release:

* recursive adding of directories to the Playlist
* enhanced cover viewer (with a new big-cover-mode, which can be activated in the config file)
* Umlauts and other Non-ASCII-Codes work
* Support for ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8
* When you press down from the last item in the file browser or the playlist, it automatically goes back to the first entry.

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

RyanB has posted a new releaseof his excellent Genesis Emulator for the Nintendo DS, heres whats new:


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

New From Play Asia:



features
Bluetooth Wii Remote Control
Maximum controller connections: 4
Operating distance: 5 meter
Size: 148mm (L) x 36.2mm (W) x 30.8mm (D)
Pointer: Pointing function
Motion sensor function
Oscillating function
Buttons: A, B, - (Minus), + (Plus), Home, 1 and 2
Extension unit connectable
Speaker
Player indicator

Buy here --> http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-1q85.html ...

A new Gamecube Game release that also plays on the Nintendo Wii:

Heres the details:

Sonic Riders (Player's Choice)



features
All-new air board racing. New blend of snowboarding, surfing and high-speed racing combat.
Innovative “Turbulence” air-system. Catch the drift of your opponents and leave them in your wake!
Insane tricks. The more difficult trick you pull off, the more points you get!
4-Player Ultimate Battle. New rival group, the Babylon Rogues sets the stage for scorching head-to-head multi-player battles up to 4 players.
Over 13 outrageous tracks, plus multiple modes, and tons of bonus unlockables.
Collect and customize your Extreme Gear with over 40 unique types of equipment to choose from, as well as equipment upgrades.
Unravel the mystery in Story Mode. You’ll play as two opposing teams, complete with cut-scenes.

description
Dr. Eggman has thrown down the gauntlet, calling out Sonic and friends to join his World Grand Prix. But, just what is the egg-shaped genius really planning? And who are the legendary riders known as the Babylon Rouges that beat Sonic to the signup? At unparalleled breakneck speeds, you’ll catch the turbulence air stream of your board-bound opponents and blaze past them while busting out wild stunts and tricks. Take full advantage of your characters’ talents in Speed, Power, or Flight and challenge up to three friends to find out who really is the fastest rider in the world!

More info / buy here --> http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-1pzo.html ...

A new Gamecube Game release that also plays on the Nintendo Wii:

Heres the details:

Sonic Riders (Player's Choice)



features
All-new air board racing. New blend of snowboarding, surfing and high-speed racing combat.
Innovative “Turbulence” air-system. Catch the drift of your opponents and leave them in your wake!
Insane tricks. The more difficult trick you pull off, the more points you get!
4-Player Ultimate Battle. New rival group, the Babylon Rogues sets the stage for scorching head-to-head multi-player battles up to 4 players.
Over 13 outrageous tracks, plus multiple modes, and tons of bonus unlockables.
Collect and customize your Extreme Gear with over 40 unique types of equipment to choose from, as well as equipment upgrades.
Unravel the mystery in Story Mode. You’ll play as two opposing teams, complete with cut-scenes.

description
Dr. Eggman has thrown down the gauntlet, calling out Sonic and friends to join his World Grand Prix. But, just what is the egg-shaped genius really planning? And who are the legendary riders known as the Babylon Rouges that beat Sonic to the signup? At unparalleled breakneck speeds, you’ll catch the turbulence air stream of your board-bound opponents and blaze past them while busting out wild stunts and tricks. Take full advantage of your characters’ talents in Speed, Power, or Flight and challenge up to three friends to find out who really is the fastest rider in the world!

More info / buy here --> http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-...j-70-1pzo.html ...

Today's top slot on the hottest gaming video charts is occupied by the vomiting Wii that we showed you earlier (we're convinced it's another new Nintendo game innovation called Chase the Disc, making the gamer get even more active), so we're moving down to number two -- a way to hack your Wii and surf the web before the browser comes out.

The Wii won't officially have it's Opera 9 browser until later, but clever individuals have figured out how to "hack" the settings on the Shop Channel (which is basically a stripped-down browser), and venture out onto the web. It's not the prettiest solution, but it'll get you surfing until the real thing finally drops.

Video Here ...

Via Newyorker

Fifteen years ago, the video-game industry was ruled by one player, Nintendo. The company had machines in a third of American homes, and it was Japan’s most profitable electronics company. The title of a 1993 book summed up the situation: “Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World.” Then the Sony PlayStation arrived, and everything changed. Today, Sony is the dominant force, and its chief rival is not Nintendo but Microsoft, which makes the Xbox. Two weeks ago, the début of Sony’s PlayStation 3 was greeted by crowds of hysterical consumers anxious to get their hands on the new console, billed as the most powerful gaming machine ever. When Nintendo’s new console, the oddly named Wii, appeared, a few days later, there were excellent reviews and expectations of good sales, but no more talk about world conquest. If Sony and Microsoft are the major-party nominees, Nintendo is more like a cool third-party candidate.

You might expect, then, that Nintendo would be struggling to stay afloat. After all, the prevailing wisdom is that companies need to be market leaders, or face disaster. This approach was famously institutionalized by Jack Welch, who, when he took over as C.E.O. of G.E., laid down a rule that he described as a “central idea” of his tenure: the company would quit any business in which it was not No. 1 or No. 2. The lesson that people took away from this was clear—third place is for losers. “First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado,” Alec Baldwin’s character says in the film “Glengarry Glen Ross.” “Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.” Nintendo, though, has not just survived out of the spotlight; it has thrived. It has five billion dollars in the bank from years of solid profits, and this past year, though it spent heavily on the launch of the Wii, it made close to a billion dollars in profit and saw its stock price rise by sixty-five per cent. Sony’s game division, by contrast, barely eked out a profit and Microsoft’s reportedly lost money. Who knew bringing up the rear could be so lucrative?

Sony and Microsoft are desperate to be the biggest players in a market that, in their vision, will encompass not just video games but “interactive entertainment” generally. That’s why the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 are all-in-one machines, which allow users not just to play video games but also to do things like watch high-definition DVDs and stream digital music. Sony and Microsoft’s quest to “control the living room” has locked them in a classic arms race; they have invested billions of dollars in an attempt to surpass each other technologically, building ever-bigger, ever-better, and ever-more-expensive machines.

Nintendo has dropped out of this race. The Wii has few bells and whistles and much less processing power than its “competitors,” and it features less impressive graphics. It’s really well suited for just one thing: playing games. But this turns out to be an asset. The Wii’s simplicity means that Nintendo can make money selling consoles, while Sony is reportedly losing more than two hundred and forty dollars on each PlayStation 3 it sells—even though they are selling for almost six hundred dollars. Similarly, because Nintendo is not trying to rule the entire industry, it’s been able to focus on its core competence, which is making entertaining, innovative games. For instance, the Wii features a motion sensor that allows you to, say, hit a tennis ball onscreen by swinging the controller like a tennis racquet. Nintendo’s handheld device, the DS, became astoundingly popular because of simple but brilliant games like Nintendogs, in which users raise virtual puppies. And because Nintendo sells many more of its own games than Sony and Microsoft do, its profit margins are higher, too. Arguably, Nintendo has thrived not despite its fall from the top but because of it.

Nintendo’s success is not an anomaly, either. The business landscape of the past couple of decades is replete with companies that have flourished as third wheels, and with companies that have struggled to make money despite being No. 1 in their industries. (Today, would you rather be Honda or G.M.?) And while it’s true that in many industries there is a correlation between market share and profitability, one doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. A recent survey of the evidence on market share by J. Scott Armstrong and Kesten C. Green found that companies that adopt what they call “competitor-oriented objectives” actually end up hurting their own profitability. In other words, the more a company focusses on beating its competitors, rather than on the bottom line, the worse it is likely to do. And a study of the performance of twenty major American companies over four decades found that the ones putting more emphasis on market share than on profit ended up with lower returns on investment; of the six companies that defined their ...

When people line for Wii pre-orders, chances are it will be a success. And when stores start putting up signs offering to purchase those consoles at prices slightly higher than retail, you know in your heart of hearts that the new console is going to flatten and destroy Japan. The Nintendo-centric Super Potato in Den-Den Town has put up notice that it will purchase "used" Wiis for 1,000 yen above the 25,000 fixed sticker price. Not expecting Yahoo! Auction craziness, but rather, consoles snapped up fast and sequestered away to people's homes for the upcoming New Year's holidays. ...

New research by Nokia has highlighted the growing importance of community and connected features to mobile gaming consumers.

Forty five per cent of players make use of multiplayer features at least once a month, with 62 per cent of the 1800 participants sampled wanting to share demos with friends, and 79 per cent stating they would sample a trial game sent by someone they know.

"These research results further validate that consumers are looking to the next-generation of mobile gaming to meet their gaming needs," said Jaakko Kaidesoja, director of games and multimedia at Nokia.

"Consumers are demanding great graphics, great content and great gameplay and we have listened. Next year, we intend to deliver superior mobile gaming experiences which will include great looking, involved and connected games that are easy to find, manage and play."

"Web 2.0 saw the birth of a new, more empowered use of the internet and with the next-generation of mobile gaming we are on the brink of the same evolution," added Kaidesoja.

"Nokia has recognised consumers' desire for communities and connected social gaming. We are evolving our online community strategies to bring truly connected, easy-to-use mobile gaming experiences to millions of mobile device owners worldwide."

Other highlights of the research by Nokia revealed that 80 per cent of users play mobile games once a week, with an average session lasting 28 minutes.

Despite being mobile by name, 62 per cent of mobile games are played at home, just pipping 61 per cent of titles played while on the move.

When considering a purchase, 83 per cent of users cite gameplay as the key motivator, followed by replayability (79 per cent) and game genre (78 per cent).

In terms of distribution, 34 per cent of respondents prefer over-the-internet (OFI) methods, with over-the-air (OTA) proving more popular with 45 per cent of those sampled. ...