news via gamingbits

Nintendo of America is releasing a couple new Wii commercials in the coming week. The two commercials are based on creating a Mii. Wii gamers already know the success Nintendo has on its hands with the Miis. The Mii commercials show Nintendo knows it as well by placing it in the spotlight with these two ads.

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news via mercurynews

NINTENDO'S INNOVATIVE SPORTS SIMULATIONS CAPTIVATE A NEW POPULATION OF GAMERS

It's too early to say that Nintendo's red-hot new console, the Wii, is bringing huge numbers of newbies to video games. But it's not too early to /recognize/ cite the hints of exactly that kind of revolution.

Could the Wii be a short-lived fad? Not likely, but impossible to rule out. Could its converts people with almost no previous gaming interest turn out to be a relatively small pool of consumers? Sure.

But until hard research arrives, we're left with anecdotal evidence that is remarkably rich and intriguing.

Nintendo says employees are recounting one example after another of reeling people in as soon as games such as the ""Wii Sports'' versions of tennis and bowling are demonstrated. Those games are based on using the Wii's one-hand remote to simulate the movements you would make if you were playing those sports for real.

Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president, says he has a non-gamer girlfriend how did that happen? and that he doesn't have to worry about her becom ing sick and tired of all things Wii. Instead, he says, she's usually the first one in any group to say she wants to keep playing.

Skeptics can argue that anything Nintendo reports is self-serving. But feedback from Mercury News readers has been just as emphatic. It's not just a local reaction Web readers are putting in their two cents from around the country.

And it's the bowling game, despite a huge first wave of publicity about

the tennis game, that's inspiring some of the best anecdotes.
In a comment posted on the Mercury News blogs, one gamer wrote that he never had been able to interest his mother in anything he played and that she hadn't even tried a game since the 1980s. But when the Wii entered the house late last year, ""She noticed my brother and I playing bowling, and a few minutes later . . . we were playing a video game together.''

It wasn't just a momentary attraction, either: ""She used to love bowling, but due to a bad knee and busy schedule, hasn't been able to play in years. (The) Wii brought back some of the fun that she'd been missing, so I left it at her house. She plays with my brother at least once a week. I couldn't imagine her wanting to play if the game were done with traditional controllers.''

The ""mom'' factor shows signs of emerging as a Wii theme. Before the console launched, there was considerable speculation about whether the Wii could draw in meaningful numbers of new women players. But consider this tale from the blogs:

""I also brought my Wii console home for Christmas, and my mother, who I have never seen try any game except for "Tetris' in her life, after seeing what my brothers and I were doing, asked to play some "Wii Sports' tennis! It was definitely a moment to get out the camera and take a picture!

""I thought she would enjoy it and then let others play. No! She proceeded to play game after game for over an hour! I have been completely amazed at how the Wii brought that out of her (finally!) and how she can now appreciate my love for gaming.''

There are scattered press reports of group events being inspired by the Wii a video-game bowling tournament at a retirement community in the Chicago area, for instance and a recent comment on the Mercury News blogs referred to a Wii-themed party:

""My girlfriend's dad and his partner (both 50ish) bought a Wii. Not after seeing ours in action, but after visiting a some of their friends for a Wii party. Now they have more games then me. I am amazed this is the first console they have ever owned. The pull of "Wii Sports' and "Wii Play' is stunning.''

The recently released ""Wii Play'' is a mix of sports and non-sports games, including table tennis, billiards and ""Tanks!'' (a maneuvering and shooting game). In a small way, it symbolizes the next challenge for the Wii: Sustain the interest created by sports simulations with a broader set of games.

Among the upcoming major titles are ""Super Paper Mario'' (early April), a more traditional video game despite including Wii innovations, and ""Mario Party 8'' (late May), a conglomeration of group-oriented games. If Wii newbies migrate to those games, we can start talk ing about Nintendo changing the entire culture of entertainment.

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news via techwhack

Nintendo to let Wii gamers compare their Miis

Japanese videogame console maker Nintendo has said that they are currently working on developing a new channel for their Wii gaming console.

This new channel would allow Wii gamers to compare their Miis. Mii is a virtual character Wii gamers can create on their consoles. These characters can be used to play games with other gamers on the network.

Nintendo game creator Shigero Miyamoto said in a statement that they expect to launch this new channel soon and it would enable gamers not only to share their custom avatars, but to vote on them in popularity contests.

Nintendo also confirmed that the first of their Mario games for the Wii gaming console would be released later this year. The game has been titled “Super Mario Galaxy”.

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new release via SG57

Ok. Ive taken the liberty and modded lua player to allow you to assign, and unassign devices. This means you can now flash to flash0,flash1 and read from disc0 and even use IrShell's usbhost/nethost devices, all in Lua (however those may be used... maybe a better file browser? :S)

Anyways... This is a mod of Cool's Lua Player v0.20. Because of such a high bricking rate this may dish out, I put enough security, that the only way for you to get a brick, is if you, yourself, flash a bad file, be it corrupt, replacing a crucial system file, etc.

Ive now tested my example 4 times. It will first unassign the flash0 device/driver, than reassign it with write-read privelages. Than, it will back up your current 01-12.bmp (xmb themes image). Than finally, you press the [X] button to flash your own 01-12.bmp you want to replace your now old one with (but dont worry if you dont like the new xmb background theme, as your old one is backed up). It loads the one you want as your XMB background theme from ms0:/01-12.bmp, and the backup is saved the same, but with a .backup suffix.

Once done with it all, press START to return to lowser, or press HOME and go back to XMB and see how it looks.

Always a chance of bricking so be warned!

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news via IGN

Sony intends to bring features of its new online service to handheld devices.

March 9, 2007 - The shockwaves felt from the announcement of Sony Computer Entertainment's impending online community Home are still rippling through the industry. So far, of course, that impact has put all the focus on PlayStation 3, but in the future, SCE may be able to use re-direct some of the Home movement towards its other "Game 3.0' system, the PlayStation Portable.

In a Home technical FAQ on Sony Computer Entertainment's DevNet service, the company addressed the question of whether Home will be accessible outside of your PlayStation 3. The company confirmed that aspects of Home are being considered for use on PlayStation Portable and possibly cellphones. Sony did not answer directly what its intentions might be with a mobile version of Home or give a timeline of when to expect further answers on these possibilities. The full quote about how Home relates to PSP is as follows:


Q: Is Home a PS3 specific service? Will users be able to access Home through other devices? Initially Home will only be accessible via that PLAYSTATION®3, although over time our intention is to enable users to interface certain Home features and services via other networked devices such as PlayStation®Portable (PSP®) and mobile phones.

However it might be that Sony could "enable users to interface certain Home features" with PSP would be welcome -- this system is dying for a community network service of some type. However, PSP owners might want to temper expectations of a portable Home until we see what Sony actually does with it. It could well be that while the communication aspects of Home might come to PSP, it would be in the form of a more standard communication service -- text chat, VOIP exchanges, AIM-style Friend Lists, etc. -- than a full-fledged 3D version of home on the portable. Although Home is an amazing application capable of 3D gaming and other forms of interactivity, its underlying principle technology is simply standard communication methods (in fact, users can skip Home's virtual world entirely and just message or chat with each other on the standard PS3 XMB menu.) So, while your friends are exploring a 3D world of people and conversations, PSP home users might simply see a chat log and a Lobby List.

Even that, however, would be a huge service for the PlayStation Portable, which currently has no means of communicating with the PlayStation Network userbase and no community service of its own (unless you count the online crowd gathered for SOCOM and Syphon Filter battles.) Whether the PSP does or does not have a virtual world version of Home (and we're not saying it won't -- we're just saying that Home services might be quite different from what we're all excited about on PS3), that still means you would have Friend Lists and email access and the ability to challenging gamers before booting your favorite PSP game to see if anybody is online to play it. Plus, this would give PlayStation gamers a portable means of checking out what's going on at Home when they're not at home to check in on PS3.

Home is a major part of the future of PlayStation, and we'll be following its developments to see how Home expands and (hopefully) where else gamers can call Home.

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A naruto theme that is currently on my own psp. Its a great background (edited by Acidburn). It shows the first encounter of Akatsuki and the two tails demon in the manga comic of naruto. Its kind of a neon green theme complete with green battery and green volume edits.

how to install-
-Download the theme pack via attachment below onto your computer
-extract the content of the download onto your computer
-enter recovery mode via your psp
-toggle the flash0 via usb
-go into the folder vsh/resource
-In the akatsuki two tails theme folder move the Impose_plugin.rco and system_plugin_fg.rco into the resource folder on your psp
-place the image into your PHOTO folder on your psp and set it as your background

contributers-
gunntims0103
Acidburn (for the great background editing for psp)

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news via kotaku

Wired's Chris Kohler recently swung by Sega's office last week to check out what they have on tap for the Playstation Portable, and the news is good.

Sega has a big PSP push coming for this summer with After Burner: Black Falcon, Full Auto 2: Battlelines, Virtua Tennis 3, Crush, Alien Syndrome and Crazy Taxi all headed to the portable.

Kohler seems to think that puzzler Crush has potential to be a killer app and that the rest range from decent to time-killers, to... well, potentially, who knows.

Hit up the site for his full take on the games.

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news via cubed3

Eidos have released a selection of shots from the upcoming Touch the Dead first person shooter for DS, as players go head to head with sinister zombie creatures in a bid for freedom.

Touch the dead is an interactive FPS designed for the DS, and follows a similar concept to other survival horror titles in the genre. Rob Steiner, a sole survivor in a zombie-filled jail equips himself with some weaponry and attempts to break out by rekilling everything in his path.

A few gruesome shots that'll bound to give you a nightmare or two...



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news via nintendojo

According to the latest Friday sales figures from Media Create Co., the Nintendo DS Lite was the top selling hardware in Japan for the week of February 12-18. The sales number was 136,846 units sold but was lower than the previous week's 201,177 units. Still, this fared better than other consoles including 63,600 Wii units, 20,600 PlayStation 3 units, and 5,200 Xbox 360 units. The DS also landed six of the top ten weekly software sales including Layton, Beach DS, and Picross DS.

So far, Nintendo has sold 35 million DS units worldwide.

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