Somebody had to be the first to start it up again. Last year, analysts clamored for months about the need for a Wii price drop, a din Nintendo quelled by actually dropping the price of the Wii to $200. On Industry Gamers, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey has kicked off the next round of calling for a discount, declaring that Nintendo needs to cut the price of the console to $150 to stop the declining sales and fill out as much of its install base as it can before its competitors' motion controls hit the market.

"We believe they also need to generate strong hardware sales momentum into their competitors release," Hickey said, "or face the draconian consumer perception of the Wii having a dramatically reduced entertainment value proposition over a faded technology innovation; Rock Band anyone?" In other words, with compelling motion control devices on the way from Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo needs to do something drastic to prevent the Wii from slipping from #1 to #1 by a smaller margin.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/16/an...ii-price-drop/ ...

With Street Fighter IV about to make an unexpected trip to the iPhone, it's understandable that Capcom has handheld ports on the brain. Could the PSP be next?

Answering some fan questions on her blog, Capcom's Natsuki Shiozawa has revealed she'd like to see the game appear on Sony's handheld. As would anybody wondering why the game would be ported to the iPhone and not to a handheld more suitable for rapid button pressing.

Like, say, a PSP.

Still, if Capcom is thinking handhelds, and SFIV sells well on iPhone, a PSP port surely couldn't be far away.

http://kotaku.com/5473504/even-capco...-iv-on-the-psp ...

This week, both Sony and Microsoft have moved forward with plans to integrate their console's online networks with handheld devices. Thing is, they're doing it wrong.

While Microsoft's WM7 interface looks amazing, the way it's making use of Xbox Live is wasteful. Counter-productive. Same goes for Sony; while it's admirable the company wants to allow PS3 and PSP users to access the PlayStation Network from Sony Ericsson phones, the execution is lacking.

Why? Because both companies, crippled by an inflexible corporate structure, are hung up on the word "exclusive".

How mobile access to your console accounts should work is via a universal app. A common program you can install on an iPhone, an Android phone, a Nexus One, a Windows phone, a Sony Ericsson smartphone. Because that's the variety of phones we, as console owners, possess. While every 360 owner has a 360, they don't all own the same phone.

It's a philosophy certain sections of these giant companies are in tune with. Microsoft, for example, has an application for competitor Apple's iPhone, for its Bing search engine. It also releases Office software for the Mac, despite Apple's computer being, in many respects, a rival to Microsoft's own ambitions in the personal computing space.

Microsoft does this because, to the people working on Bing and Office, it makes business sense. It's catering to a market, and in doing so, making money. The problem is, not all sections of these companies employ such common sense. They're cut off, operating in isolation (and in some cases even competition), so what may seem a logical idea to one area seems like heresy to another.

Clinging to outdated notions of "exclusivity", then, both Microsoft's Xbox Live Mobile and Sony's PlayStation Network will be available only to people owning phones sold by those companies. Own a 360 and an Android phone? You're shit out of luck, you can't use it. Own a PS3 and an iPhone? Same deal.

It's just so...disappointing. Here, years after the release of these consoles and the dawn of the smartphone era, and the first officially-sanctioned services to bring consoles and smartphones together are dead on arrival, rendered useless by the fact that the world's most popular phone platforms - a list that does not include anything running Windows Mobile (business customers so don't count) or anything made by Sony Ericsson - are cut out of the action.

Sure, there are home-made options - 360Live on the iPhone is particularly good - but in 2010 we shouldn't be relying on fan-made projects. I should be able to pick up my iPhone, and while way from home, be able to check my friends list, my Gamerscore and my PSN trophies on something supported by the console manufacturer. Hell, that's just for starters. I can do that stuff with Twitter and Facebook already. In a perfect world, we'd be able to send messages to other users and queue up our downloads as well.

But we can't. And probably never will. Instead, one day in the future, we may actually meet a person that was able to take advantage of all these neat new services. And they'll say how neat they were. And how it was such a shame he was the only person he knew that ever used them, since all his friends already owned iPhones or Androids....

http://kotaku.com/5473426/xbox-live-...hones-no-no-no ...

This week, both Sony and Microsoft have moved forward with plans to integrate their console's online networks with handheld devices. Thing is, they're doing it wrong.

While Microsoft's WM7 interface looks amazing, the way it's making use of Xbox Live is wasteful. Counter-productive. Same goes for Sony; while it's admirable the company wants to allow PS3 and PSP users to access the PlayStation Network from Sony Ericsson phones, the execution is lacking.

Why? Because both companies, crippled by an inflexible corporate structure, are hung up on the word "exclusive".

How mobile access to your console accounts should work is via a universal app. A common program you can install on an iPhone, an Android phone, a Nexus One, a Windows phone, a Sony Ericsson smartphone. Because that's the variety of phones we, as console owners, possess. While every 360 owner has a 360, they don't all own the same phone.

It's a philosophy certain sections of these giant companies are in tune with. Microsoft, for example, has an application for competitor Apple's iPhone, for its Bing search engine. It also releases Office software for the Mac, despite Apple's computer being, in many respects, a rival to Microsoft's own ambitions in the personal computing space.

Microsoft does this because, to the people working on Bing and Office, it makes business sense. It's catering to a market, and in doing so, making money. The problem is, not all sections of these companies employ such common sense. They're cut off, operating in isolation (and in some cases even competition), so what may seem a logical idea to one area seems like heresy to another.

Clinging to outdated notions of "exclusivity", then, both Microsoft's Xbox Live Mobile and Sony's PlayStation Network will be available only to people owning phones sold by those companies. Own a 360 and an Android phone? You're shit out of luck, you can't use it. Own a PS3 and an iPhone? Same deal.

It's just so...disappointing. Here, years after the release of these consoles and the dawn of the smartphone era, and the first officially-sanctioned services to bring consoles and smartphones together are dead on arrival, rendered useless by the fact that the world's most popular phone platforms - a list that does not include anything running Windows Mobile (business customers so don't count) or anything made by Sony Ericsson - are cut out of the action.

Sure, there are home-made options - 360Live on the iPhone is particularly good - but in 2010 we shouldn't be relying on fan-made projects. I should be able to pick up my iPhone, and while way from home, be able to check my friends list, my Gamerscore and my PSN trophies on something supported by the console manufacturer. Hell, that's just for starters. I can do that stuff with Twitter and Facebook already. In a perfect world, we'd be able to send messages to other users and queue up our downloads as well.

But we can't. And probably never will. Instead, one day in the future, we may actually meet a person that was able to take advantage of all these neat new services. And they'll say how neat they were. And how it was such a shame he was the only person he knew that ever used them, since all his friends already owned iPhones or Androids....

http://kotaku.com/5473426/xbox-live-...hones-no-no-no ...

Your used (or torrented) copy of SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3, the latest entry in the SOCOM series for the PlayStation Portable, may be missing something: online play.

Sony is taking new measures against rampant piracy of PSP games and discouraging used purchases of the latest portable SOCOM by requiring players to register their copy of the game online. According to a new IGN interview with John Koller, director of hardware marketing at SCEA, you'll need a voucher or a legit digital download of the game to enjoy online multiplayer.

Both of those are included in new retail copies of the UMD version and in games purchased from the PlayStation Store. Those going the used (or stolen) route will need to drop an extra $20 for an "online entitlement" voucher.

Publisher Electronic Arts has taken similar measures recently, offering content for "original purchasers" of Mass Effect 2 and The Saboteur. We suspect Sony and EA won't be the only game makers riding this bandwagon in the near future.

http://kotaku.com/5474128/sony-gets-...-new-psp-socom ...

We came, we saw, and we're still scratching our heads over what Opera is up to with its Mobile World Congress demonstration of its Opera Mini browser running on the iPhone 3GS. But before we get into that, let's talk performance: it's fast. Opera Mini is very, very fast on the iPhone. Loading the New York Times, for example, was about 5x faster than loading the same page in the iPhone 3GS' stock browser. Pages loaded smoothly and were interactive just as quickly as the content began to load -- not unlike the Safari browsing experience. From a functionality standpoint, Opera Mini operates exactly as it does on other, less-contentious platforms. So while double-tap to zoom is supported, pinch-to-zoom is not. The iPhone version does, however, remember the state of the browser when you exit Opera Mini. As such, you'll find your tabs and recent pages right where they were when you last used the app.

The impressive performance gain has to do with how Opera Mini works. First, it's not doing any rendering of the pages or code processing locally. Web pages are processed by Opera's servers before sending just the results to the iPhone. Not only does this speed up the local processing but it also limits the amount of data sent -- a potential big money saver for people browsing while data roaming (like us in Barcelona) or for those without unlimited data plans.

Unfortunately, Opera refused to let us or anyone photograph the app or take any video of it in action. We couldn't even photograph the Opera icon in the launch bar or the wallpaper adorned with the Opera logo. Why? It looks just like Opera Mini beta on any other device so it's not like we're exposing any competitive intelligence. And it's not like Opera would be violating any Apple NDA related to the SDK or the app approval process. Unfortunately, Opera was unable to give us a valid reason other than, "you just can't."

So why is Opera making such a fuss about this before it has even submitted to Apple for approval? We have three theories that we discussed with Igor Netto, Senior Product Manager within Opera's Mobile group. Click through if you like conspiracies.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/17/o...-fast-but-why/ ...

We've already had a pretty clear indication that Nintendo's inevitable DS successor would have at least some form of motion control, and an unspecified third-party studio has now offered some additional confirmation of that, and some downright glowing impressions of the device itself. According to CVG, an "insider" that's currently using a DS2 development kit says that the DS2 is "genuinely the best thing I think I've ever worked with," and that it has "a 'tilt' function that's not dissimilar to iPhone, but does a lot more." The source further added that The Pokemon Company is getting "special attention" with it (rest easy, everybody), and that Nintendo likely won't be showing off any hardware at GDC next month. Yeah, that sound you just heard was the rumor mill being cranked up a notch.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/17/t...on-sensing-ni/ ...

Nintendo has seeded the DS2 development kit to a few selected companies, including the hardware itself. According to one developer, Nintendo said the DS2 was the first version and not final, but he is very impressed with the new controls:

It's genuinely the best thing I think I've ever worked with. I can tell you that it's got a 'tilt' function that's not dissimilar to iPhone, but does a lot more. We know that The Pokemon Company are getting special attention with it.
I wonder if this move was always on the cards or if it's just a reaction to Apple's huge success in the gaming arena, a success that has turned upside down both the idea of games distribution and some of the conceptions for mobile gaming previously set by Nintendo and Sony, especially when it comes to the importance of physical controls. Would the new DS2 include capacitive screens too? How could Nintendo one-up the sudden and serious threat that Apple now represents? We will have to wait a long time to discover the answers. Probably too much, probably way after the iPad and the next iPod/iPhone generation appear.

http://gizmodo.com/5473894/next+gene...-tilt-controls ...

An iPhone insurance carrier says that four in six claims are suspicious, and is worse when a new model appears on the market. 'Supercover Insurance is alleging that many iPhone owners are deliberately smashing their devices and filing false claims in order to upgrade to the latest model. The gadget insurance company told Sky News Sunday that it saw a 50-percent rise in claims during the month Apple launched the latest version, the iPhone 3GS.

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/0...urance-Company ...