Yeah, we’re all been-there-done-that with portable SNESs these days, but we’ve never seen it done like this. Marshall posted his creation, dubbed the “SUPERTENDO,” to Ben Heck’s forums, which seems to imply (along with the looks) that he took some queues from similar designs already floating around those parts. What really sets this one apart, however, is the vacuum-formed chassis and the instant “make me an offer” move to a sale — being owned by a major faceless media conglomerate ourselves, we like to see a guy who’s out for a buck. A quick hands-on Video is after the break.
[Via benheck.com]
Continue reading SUPERTENDO portable SNES hack elevates an artform to something impressively commercial
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds
SUPERTENDO portable SNES hack elevates an artform to something impressively commercial originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
At first glance it’s a little difficult to understand the necessity of another motion-sensing add-on. What could possibly be inside this particular block of white plastic that’s not inside those other countless slabs of white plastic that Nintendo has already slathered on the Wii? Sure, we know in theory that the gyroscopes that MotionPlus provides allows the controller to truly orient itself in 3D space, instead of just sensing acceleration in various directions, and breaks some of that reliance on the sensor bar, but do those theoretical advances result in a true leap in gameplay? We tested it out with EA’s new MotionPlus-enabled Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 and Grand Slam Tennis — the first such titles on the market while we wait for Nintendo to get its own Wii Sports Resort in order — and we’d say the results are pretty inconclusive so far. Check out our full impressions after the break, along with enthralling videos of both games in action.
Major thanks to The Golf Club at Chelsea Piers for letting us test this out at their facilities, and to golf pros Herb and Marj for letting us waste some of their valuable time.
Continue reading Wii MotionPlus review: it works, but so far the games aren’t worth the fuss
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Wii MotionPlus review: it works, but so far the games aren’t worth the fuss originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
As recently as May Sony has itself stated that a PSP phone “could happen,” and now a report from Nikkei business daily states that Sony is planning on putting together a team as early as next month to build product that would act as a combination of a PSP and a Sony Ericsson handset. It makes plenty of sense, both as a differentiation from Nintendo and as a confrontation of the looming iPhone threat — and hey, it might also act as a decent salve over the lukewarm reception of the pricey PSPgo. Unfortunately, if Sony is just about to get started on this, we likely wouldn’t be looking at any resulting product for a while to come. Sony declined comment according to Reuters, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but it’s worth keeping in mind that we’ve been hearing this sort of rumoring since back when the N-Gage (as a product) was still almost relevant.
[Via Mac Rumors]
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Handhelds
Sony investigating PSP phone? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Yeah, the PSPgo made the rounds at a little show you might’ve heard of called E3, but we tracked the thing down in the wilds of NY the other day, and thought you might like to see the wild slider action for yourself. We have to admit, the handheld looks better in person than it does in press shots, but only just barely. It’s perfectly playable and comfortable to hold, but it almost seems a regression in design sense for Sony. In comparison to the PSP-3000, the PSPgo feels just a teensy bit lighter, but that’s to be expected with the UMD drive kicked to the curb. At least it doesn’t feel cheap. Because it isn’t cheap. Video is after the break.
Continue reading PSPgo video hands-on quickie
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds
PSPgo video hands-on quickie originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick says he sees the number of games bought per console slowing if the price on the PlayStation 3 doesn’t go down, and that his company (the largest independent game developer in the world, thanks in part to that sweet, sweet Blizzard cash) might consider dropping the PS3 and PSP in 2010 or 2011 if things don’t improve. He says Activision paid $500 million in royalties to Sony last year, but the Xbox 360 and Wii are cheaper to develop for and offer a better return on investment. Still, with 23 million PS3s out there in the world, we’d think it’d be difficult to ignore the console entirely — especially for cross platform titles like the upcoming Modern Warfare 2, where a majority of the work takes place in content development and gameplay mechanics. Of course, with games like Guitar Hero, DJ Hero and Tony Hawk now demanding the purchase of peripherals along with the game itself, Activision itself could certainly be doing more to make gaming cheaper on consumers… but we suppose that’s another conversation entirely.
[Via Joystiq]
Filed under: Gaming
Activision threatens to drop Sony if Sony doesn’t drop PS3 and PSP prices originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Rumor mongers seem hell bent on Microsoft building a brand new Xbox, despite what we assumed was wonderful news that current Xbox owners wouldn’t have to shell out for new hardware to handle Project Natal. Well, Microsoft has already hit back against 1UP’s rumor of a new Xbox coming in Fall 2010, calling the report “nonsense.” Others have pointed out that the camera hardware actually does almost all of its own processing, so a slight hardware bump to the 360 would be kind of pointless — though most seem to agree that Microsoft will package Natal with the 360 in a new SKU akin to the Arcade or Elite.
Meanwhile, TeamXbox, the ones who seemed to think the Zune HD was a portable game console of sorts, have a new rumor in the works: the next Xbox 360 won’t be out in 2010 because Microsoft is going to wait for 3D-capable TVs to become more commonplace and launch a stereoscopic 3D console at that time. It sounds enticing, but given the fact that the Wii has succeeded directly in the face of its next-gen television empowering PS3 and Xbox 360 competition, we can’t say it’s the most likely of ideas — if anything, Microsoft will need to have some solid backwards compatibility for us 2D “Take On Me” types.
[Via PC World]
Read - Microsoft sources play down reports of new Xbox
Read - TeamXbox predicts 3D Xbox
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment
Like weeds: new Natal Xbox rumor shot down, 3D Xbox rumor pops up to take its place originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | Comments
Face it, not all mods are created equal. Take this SNES PC Case Mod, for instance, built by quangDX and DuPPs (their real names? we think not). Sure, they could’ve just crammed some PC guts in there and called it a day, but with love, care and some Lego spacers, they’ve crafted a true piece of art. The gutted Super Mario World cartridge acts as a slot-loading CD drive, there’s a perfect lineup of connectivity in the back, and the real piece of magic: USB extenders disguised as regular controller plugs, and a reworked SNES controller to plug into ‘em. The main guts are courtesy of an Acer Aspire One, and even the webcam and mic have been crammed into the front of that poor shredded cartridge. This is how it’s done, folks.
[Via Gossip Gamers]
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming
SNES PC Case Mod scores endless style wins; can never bring back your childhood originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
NVIDIA is filling in what it presumes to be holes in its next-generation GPU lineup, adding the 40nm G210M, GT 230M, GT 240M and GTS 250M, with GDDR3 memory ranging from 512MB to 1GB, to its existing GTX 280M, GTX 260M and GTS 160M laptop graphics cards. Apparently the new cards sport “double the performance” and “half the power consumption” over the last generation of discrete GPUs they’re replacing. The cards are SLI, HybridPower, CUDA, Windows 7 and DirectX 10.1 compatible, and all support PhysX other than the low-end G210M. Of course, with integrated graphics like the 9400M starting to obviate discrete graphics in the mid range — even including Apple’s latest low-end 15-inch MacBook Pro — we’re not sure what we’ll do with eight different GPU options, but we suppose NVIDIA’s yet-to-be-announced price sheet for these cards will make it all clear in time.
Filed under: Gaming, Laptops
NVIDIA pops out five new mobile GPUs to fill invisible gaps in its 200M series lineup originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Sure, once you get Doom onto a device there isn’t much stopping you in the homebrew department, but we thought the implementation of an NES emulator on webOS outside of the Classic environment was worth noting — even if it happens to be astoundingly easy to pull off. All it requires is a quick trip to root on the device a compile of the FCEUltra NES emulator for Linux and bam, it’s good to go. Hit up the read link for instructions (we’re sure we’re simplifying things just a tad) — and no, the incredible appropriateness of using a Contra ROM to kick things off hasn’t escaped us.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Handhelds
Pre gets NES emulation in Linux; our thumbs are in for a world of hurt originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Jun 2009 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
We’ve already seen a bit of guitar in DJ Hero, but apparently it might not just be a one way street: Neversoft (developer of the Guitar Hero franchise for Activision) hinted to Eurogamer at E3 that they’re interested in bringing the DJ Hero turntable to future versions of Guitar Hero. They also aren’t ruling out the possibility of bringing drums to DJ Hero — which seems to us an even more exciting prospect — and we’re sure in a few years time you’ll be able to direct wire Activision to your bank account and fill you living room to the brim with more-or-less interoperable pretend instruments.
[Via Joystiq]
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Neversoft interested in bringing turntables to Guitar Hero, making large amounts of money originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
