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Strap on your Guitar Hero X-plorer Controller, plug it in, and CRANK IT UP! The Guitar Hero X-plorer Controller feels just like a real guitar, making it the ultimate way to jam on your Xbox 360™. With the Guitar Hero X-plorer Controller, you turn into a rock star every time you play Guitar Hero! Now you can compete with this second guitar controller and rock till you drop. ...

Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch has been foreclosed, and everything in it is being auctioned off. That includes the deposed King of Pop's rather massive arcade game collection. If you were wondering where all the arcades in the US went, now you know: Michael Jackson's house.

The collection includes somewhere in the area of one hundred video game machines, including store demo units of game consoles from the Genesis up to the Dreamcast, and dedicated arcade units including a Guitar Freaks unit, Sega's impressive R-360 machine and Galaxy Force II. In fact, the collection seems rather Sega-heavy, which is no surprise since Jackson was, himself, the star of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (whose arcade machine is not part of the auction!) and a guest star in Space Channel 5.

The only acknowledgment we'd like to make to the controversy surrounding Michael Jackson is this -- the fact that he is a ruined, disgraced pop star means that you can get a bunch of arcade games at rock bottom prices. As far as we're concerned, he sang Thriller, then he was in some video games, and then nothing else happened ever.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/21/wh...de-collection/ ...

The poor brains housed inside the skulls of the 2009 DICE Summit attendees were recently ravaged by an onslaught of gaming industry statistics -- though, really, if they willingly joined the audience of a speech being delivered by NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier, they probably knew what they were getting themselves into. Here were some of the highlights: According to the group's calculations, 58 percent of Americans ages 13 and up play video games, console-based online gaming increased by two percent over the past year and retail sales of PC games have declined by 50 percent over the past seven years.

However, here's the statistic that probably permeated the discussions of attendees as they left the conference hall: According to the NPD, last year saw nearly six million new gamers pick up their first controllers, a figure which lends itself to a retail market that is "very dominated by young people." The group's findings put digits to a familiar trend -- "the audience for some hardcore games is not as large as it is for more casual or family-friendly games," Frazier succinctly surmised. Seriously? We hadn't noticed.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/21/di...play-last-yea/ ...

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has struck down as unconstitutional a California statute purporting to ban the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. In a 30-page decision (PDF), in Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger, the federal appeals court ruled that 'the Act, as a presumptively invalid content based restriction on speech, is subject to strict scrutiny and not the 'variable obscenity' standard from Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968). Applying strict scrutiny, we hold that the Act violates rights protected by the First Amendment because the State has not demonstrated a compelling interest, has not tailored the restriction to its alleged compelling interest, and there exist less-restrictive means that would further the State's expressed interests. Additionally, we hold that the Act's labeling requirement is unconstitutionally compelled speech under the First Amendment because it does not require the disclosure of purely factual information; but compels the carrying of the State's controversial opinion.'"

http://games.slashdot.org/games/09/02/21/009236.shtml ...

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Today at DICE, Nintendo announced the first downloadable DSiWare game for North America. Moving Memo may be more of a toy than a game, allowing users to draw pictures and turn them into flipbook-style animations. You can also add sounds or use pictures taken with the DSi camera. Your cartoons or movies can be shared with other users over wi-fi by uploading them to a special website. People that download your creations can perform their own edits. In Japan, users self-police their content by flagging any movies on the website that they think are inappropriate.

Shigeru Miyamoto and Yoshiaki Koizumi are working on the project, which was released as a free download in Japan last year. Nintendo did not reveal whether or not the software would be free in North America.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/955/955932p1.html ...

In typical fashion, Nintendo Japan has waited until pretty much the last minute to share details on what will probably be one of next month's biggest DS games over in Japan. 3D Picross (or, as it's known in proper Japanese, Rittai Picross) hits Japan on March 12, and at long last received an official website today.

3D Picross is, as the name would suggest, a 3D version of the classic Picross DS puzzle game, itself a DS version of Nonogram or Paint by Numbers. The basic 2D Picross game has players mark off squares, eventually revealing a hidden picture. The new 3D version adds another dimension, replacing squares with blocks. Using hints, you break blocks and eventually reveal a hidden shape.

The game is controlled with a combination of the stylus and buttons. To destroy a block, you tap it with the stylus while pressing up (or x, for lefties). You can mark a block by tapping it while pressing right (or y). These controls can be previewed in advance through some movies at this section of the official site. The movies can be accessed by pressing the orange buttons towards the bottom of the page.

Nintendo appears to be packing the game full of content, with 350 default puzzles ranging from simple to super difficult. Video footage of some of the puzzles can be seen on this page of the official site.

But the fun won't end even if you've cleared all those. Nintendo will be offering downloadable puzzles via Wi-Fi. It plans on offering weekly puzzle packs consisting of five puzzles each. You can store a total of 300 download puzzles on your system, although this space is shared with puzzles that you've created yourself using the game's puzzle creation mode.

That creation mode fits into the game's online plans as well. Nintendo will be holding contests asking players to create puzzles around certain themes. Winning puzzles will be included in the weekly puzzle pack downloads.

With the Wi-Fi download packs and the user generated content possibilities of the puzzle creation mode, 3D Picross looks like it has the potential to be Nintendo's next big thing in Japan following Rhythm Heaven. Expect to hear a whole lot more following the Japanese release next month.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/955/955913p1.html ...

The latest episode of "Iwata Asks," Nintendo's series of conversations between company president Satoru Iwata and members of a specific project, hit the web this week, revealing some meaty information about the creation and development of the upcoming Nintendo DSi system.

In the dialogue, Iwata converses with Masato Kuwahara, head of the DSi project; Yui Ehara, designer of the DSi's shell; and Kentaro Mita, the member responsible for relaying ideas from the company to the team. A lot of great information surfaced in this conversation, pulling back the curtain a bit from the creation of the new system.

Development on the DSi began at the end of 2006 and had a relatively short schedule -- so short, in fact that the team wasn't sure if it was possible to do. What was most restricting was the fact that it had to be a supplement to the existing DS market and not a brand new system.

The idea of the cameras were there from the start: the system already had "ears" with the microphone, so it made sense to the designers that Nintendo give the next system "eyes." Two cameras, one on the inside and one on the outside, were put into the system after it was decided that one "swivel" camera would increase the system's cost and make it much more prone to damage. The idea of limiting the pixel count to 640x480 -- .3 megapixels -- was because the idea of the camera was for more than just taking pictures. Increasing the pixel count would add to the load on the processor and limit its application.

The inclusion of the SD card slot was something that was pressured in by Shigeru Miyamoto. For now, it's only used for saving photos and pulling in music, but Miyamoto did insist on it being added to the Nintendo DSi hardware, and and informed the team that he will definitely make use of it in the future.

It was also revealed that, by near completion in October 2007, the original DSi design was not well-received by the company, due to unnecessary bulk: the original system was to have two Nintendo DS slots stacked on top of each other, which made the system significantly bigger and bulkier. After a short redesign that involved moving the internal components to reduce the size of the external case, it was more widely accepted and liked within the company.

The DSi system's improved sound capabilities is through a new and improved audio codec. The reason for the DSi speakers being single holes instead of a series of them is simply due to aesthetics; the shell designer felt that it was important to have the system look as sleek and simple as possible.

The matte surface was, obviously, used to eliminate fingerprints.

Internal memory was added to the DSi design in order to give users the ability to make their system their own. The designers called it "My DS." It also gives users the ability to download software that wouldn't necessarily be available at retail. Examples include a Zelda calculator or an Animal Crossing clock that could be purchased at a very low cost.

The team is also proud of the fact that you can now put cartridges in and take them out without powering off the unit.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/955/955787p1.html ...