A recent interview with Nintendo's VP George Harrison suggests the company is thinking of marketing the Game Boy Micro as a portable media device by bundling it with the Play-Yan adapter ?the device that lets you play MP3s or MP4 videos stored on SD cards on your Game Boy Advance SP or Nintendo DS. Bundling it with the Game Boy Micro could position that device as more of a direct a competitor to the PSP, although there's still no getting around that 2-inch screen. ...

an article from a UK games news site make of it what you will:

Internet piracy groups have now managed to 'crack' Nintendo DS, with games now freely available for download on the web.

Numerous games, such as Nintendogs and Super Mario 64 DS have now been illegally leaked on to the internet, with players able to download and play them via specially designed flash memory cards (pictured on the right).

These flash cards come in two sizes, 512MB and 1GB and are fully rewriteable, giving gamers the ability to swap downloaded games around as they see fit.

This follows persistent ongoing efforts to fully crack Sony's PSP handheld, where numerous games and a UMD dumping utility (enabling users to copy UMD data to memory) have already been released on to the web, with sources claiming software to play the files from memory stick is just days away. ...

British cheat product specialist Datel has announced the latest addition to its range - the Action Replay MAX DUO, which allows players to use cheats for both DS and GBA games on Nintendo's new DS console.

The product, which sells for UKP 29.99, is essentially two different products in one - a GBA cheat cartridge which can be updated with new cheats over the internet, and the MAX Drive for DS product, which also allows users to archive DS save games on their PCs, which is particularly useful for games which only have a small number of save slots.

Datel also plans to create a selection of "Powersaves" for the DS which will have built-in cheats, and can be downloaded off the company's website. ...

The much talked-about controller for Nintendo's next-generation Revolution console is still under development, according to designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who explained that the company wants to avoid an overly complex design.

"We're at a stage where we're adding and removing various kinds of functions, which has been very fun," he said at a business strategy conference in Japan.

The company wants the control to be basic enough to fits it "All-Access Gaming" philosophy, which it hopes will encourage non-gamers to try out Revolution and its current line of handhelds.

President Satoru Iwata unveiled Revolution, which will be released next year and includes broadband access to Nintendo's entire back catalogue of software covering 8-bit right through to 64-bit as well as GameCube backs compatibility, at the company's pre-E3 press conference in mid May.

Adding his thoughts at the meeting this week, Iwata said: "We expect that you will be surprised with the Revolution's controller," in comments reported by US website GameSpot.

Further Revolution revelations should be made before the end of 2005, according to previous comments from Iwata. ...

Where could I get a PassMe adapter for DS apart from GBAX. Thanks in advance. ...

In a Japanese press conference yesterday, Nintendo president Saturo Iwata gave us a few more tidbits about the Revolution, as well as more news on how the company's latest titles are doing.
Flanked by Shigeru Miyamoto, Iwata-san returned to his mission statement of bringing the simplicity and fun back to gaming, promising that the controller wouldn't be too intimidating for gamers old and new, and that it'd be wireless - sort of what we knew already, but interesting nonetheless. It seems, however, that a lot of time is going into developing it, with Iwata promising that we will be "surprised by the Revolution's controller." A touch screen, maybe? It'd make sense...







Talking of touch-screen magic, the DS has been a rampant success with Nintendogs, the tamagochi-esque dog simulator, being the DS' greatest asset, having a unisex appeal to Japanese gamers (40 percent going to female gamers) and thus flying off the shelves - could Iwata have been right to keep it simple?
The Revolution itself will allow gamers to play all GameCube games with all peripherals - those DK Bongos and Wavebirds will be fully operational - and we wouldn't be surprised if some sort of SNES controller á la the japan-only Hori (SNES-shaped one) is released to coincide with the Revolution.

On the subject of oldschool games, the internal memory of the Revolution at 512mbs will allow gamers to save their back catalogue onto the system, and if that space isn't enough, take the games onto SD Cards and save them onto their PC - could this be the end for the Nintendo emulation scene?

We're still waiting for the physical details of the Revolution's controller (it's currently undergoing testing and experimentation as we reported yesterday, and any actual games announcements. Iwata's promising it to be a "virtual console," less powerful but more fun (apparently), and will be announcing more as the year trundles along. ...

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has wafted away a little smoke surrounding the next-gen Revolution, killing off rumours surrounding the next-gen console's featured retro download functionality while speaking at a business strategy conference yesterday.
Revealing that the Revolution's system to download back catalogue Nintendo console games is called Virtual Console, Iwata-san confirmed that first-party games from Nintendo's previous consoles released for download onto Revolution will not be made available for free, saying "...we have no plans to distribute [the games] without charge."

However, for users to gain access to the downloads it might not simply be a case of paying up on a per title basis. Iwata-san stated that Nintendo believes "there's a number of ways that we can use the system, such as to offer a bonus download with the purchase of a new game, or allow some games to be downloaded during a limited time during a campaign period."

Although much of the focus on Virtual Console in past weeks has been directed toward first-party titles to be made available, Iwata-san said that Nintendo hopes to create a format that can additionally be used by third-parties "to make a profit by using the resources from our past."
He also let slip that we'll be able to download demos to our DS at home, although didn't elaborate on this feature. Nor was any mention made of DS-to-Revolution connectivity, which surely must be on the cards, but Iwata-san did touch on Revolution's internal 512Mb flash memory briefly - it will be used for downloading games through Virtual Console, for saving game data and for expansion of the Revolution's capabilities, whatever that means.

Satoru Iwata spent time talking about Nintendo's online service, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, during the business conference too, saying that it hopes that 90-plus percent of punters will use the service to play online games.

In Japan at least, Nintendo is to establish 1,000 wireless hotspots in key areas and shops selling Nintendo products, and users won't be charged to play games published by Nintendo online. It could be a different story with third-party published titles though, third-parties potentially charging for online play.

It was also revealed that Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection users will be able to shut themselves away from the general pubic and choose to play online in 'closed', private sessions just with friends if desired.

And if you're concerned over a lack of wireless internet connection in your home, the good news is that, according to Famitsu, Nintendo plans to release a USB network adaptor that you can plug into your PC that'll act as a point of connection for Revolution and DS.

To date, Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing DS are Nintendo titles confirmed to feature Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection functionality, although it won't be too long before the two are accompanied by similarly geared-up friends. Iwata-san said during the conference that 25 third-party publishers are currently working on games that'll support Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. ...

Word seeps out today from that leaky old barge known as the games development community that dev are finally getting their grubby paws on Xbox 360 beta development kits right about now.
"So what?" you might reasonably opine, "how does that affect the price of fish?", ah but care you should, as it's going to allow those devs to finally start upping the ante as Microsoft gears up for the crucial next six months before 360 launch.

Actually these kits may be about a week behind schedule as major 360 developers we talked to at E3 expected to have the kits within a week or so of show close.

At E3, Xbox 360 devs were having to show off their games running on Macs at what they were saying was only 30 percent of the 360's total power. In many cases it led to accusations and perceptions that 360 was not the generational leap forward it might have been. "Xbox 1.5" was a phrase which was cruelly bandied about amongst cheeky UK hacks way before the Sony execs got in on the act and adopted it as a line of attack. Maybe we should ask them for a royalty?

However with these kits now purportedly in place, developers should have all the ammo they need and it's also strategically important for that crucial 360 launch line-up. If there's no buzz about the actual games this Christmas and people aren't tearing down the walls to get their hands on Gotham 3, Gears of War and Perfect Dark Zero, then 360 will face a real uphill struggle at launch.
Word also comes our way that some key components like the 360's GPU and CPU have gone into production too, an equally crucial milestone for Microsoft, although apparently they will be holding off production of the unit itself until pricing has been finalised. ...

Whats new:
- Release for GBAX.COM & EMUHOLIC.COM Coding Competition 2005
- Support for new games: Black Tiger, Black Tiger (bootleg), Black Dragon and Pang.
- Game Fixes: Nekketsu Kouha Kunio Kun (Renegade)
- Video update function optimized
- Underclock (20%) option added
- Single or double video buffer option added
- Several optimizations
- MAME core simplified
- Removed more MAME code (usrintrf...)
- Gamma corrected (Intensity bit set to 0)
- Some fixes in I8035 support (A bug in 1.2 version).
- Some fixes with the sound in games like Galaxian (A bug in 1.2 version).
Get from here ...