Since I’ve claimed this is not just another Swine Flu piece, I must back my claim by emphasizing how important this article is for the public good. In order to understand its relevance better, let’s take the example of the Mayan Civilization and its calendar. The B’ak’tun Cycle started on 11th or 13th August, 3114 BC, marking the beginning of the Mayan Calendar. Now, archaeologists have found inscriptions that claim the calendar was created up to 13 B’ak’tuns and no further, which corresponds to 5125 years roughly. Typical of their presumptuous trait, said dirt diggers automatically assumed that the Mayan calendar ends after 5125 years, and further stretched this hypothesis to conclude that the world would end after that amount of time. Eventually, some Hollywood director stumbled upon this whacky idea, made into a movie called 2012 that had spectacular effects and an equally spectacular lack of a plot, and laughed all the way to the bank carrying his millions.
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Americans spent a record $5.53 billion on video games in December, the most money in a single month, according to market researcher NPD Group. But even that wasn’t enough to make up for the rest of 2009, and so the year ended with a sales decline. It has been a rough 12 months for the industry, as the recession led people to cut back on discretionary spending and many gamers’ attention turned to cheaper or free online games.
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PSP is slowly adopting more and more features of the PS3. With firmware update 5.50, PSP will add “Information Board” to the XMB (PS3 version pictured above). This feature will allow PSP owners to quickly access news bits from Sony about new additions to the PlayStation Store. In addition, the firmware update will allow users to create and access sub-folders on the Memory Stick for music, photos and videos. The internet browser will also feature a trial of Trend Micro’s “Kid’s Safety” service, so parents can finally put an end to their children’s insatiable appetite for PSP porn.
Source: Joystiq
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The Nielsen group has released a new report on usage of the three major consoles. Coming as little surprise, Nielsen’s study has placed Wii in dead last, with the average player using the console 6.8 percent of the time during Nielsen’s study in December, 2008. During that same period, those involved in the study played Xbox 360 10.2 percent and PS3 10.6 percent — nearly double the Wii average. Clearly, the average gamer doesn’t have the endurance necessary for long-term waggling.
Source: Joystiq
Full Report Here
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Thanks to all who participated in our Street Fighter IV competition. Winner of the Collectors edition after the jump.
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Performance Designed Products (PDP) has come to GDC prepared to showcase the latest model of it’s new creation, the GameTrak Freedom — a motion controller for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Planned to be released on Microsoft’s console this fall, and the PS3 (potentially) next year, the Freedom acts like current motion controllers on the market but adds a special feature. Through the use of accelerometers, the Freedom establishes the pitch, roll, and yaw of the controller but, unlike other motion devices, it can calculate the precise distance, orientation, and speed of the controller with the use of two side-mounted sensor bars.
Source: Joystiq
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Zeebo CEO John Rizzo and Qualcomm games and services senior director Mike Yuen today announced the launch of the Zeebo console, intended for emerging markets worldwide, specifically BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which represents 800 million people. “In 2000 Bill Gates introduced the original Microsoft Xbox at GDC,” said Mike Yuen. “We’re honored here to release what we believe will be the fourth big console.”
Source: Gamasutra
Web site: Zeebo
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Merely 24 hours after NVIDIA announced that its PhysX technology would be coming over to the PS3, the company has gone and essentially announced the very same thing for the Wii. Or, as NVIDIA puts it, it has been approved as a “third party tools solution provider for the Wii consolue,” and as a result of that, the PhysX SDK is now available for registered Wii developers.
Source: Hot Hardware
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Due to popular demand we have decided to extend the contest date to the 26th of March 2009. Do take advantage and participate in the contest here.
Contest Link: Street Fighter IV Contest
Review link: Street Fighter IV Review

Along with all of the commercial and critical software hits of the Xbox 360, Xbox Live’s innovations in online, and Microsoft’s successes against more established videogame hardware makers, the ugly blemish staining those accomplishments will be the defect known as the “Red Ring of Death.” To Microsoft’s credit, though, after a period of denial, the company made substantial, fiscally painful moves to help remedy the hardware-killing issues that are alerted through three flashing red lights on the face of the console. Notably, Microsoft admitted in July 2007 “an unacceptable number of repairs” that had to be done to Xbox 360s, subsequently earmarking around $1.1 billion to cover the cost of an extended warranty good for three years for “RROD”-afflicted systems
Source: Edge Online
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Remember that $100 PlayStation 3 price drop you’ve been hearing about for a year or more? The one that keeps not happening? Well it’s about to, according to Mike Hickey with investment firm Janco Partners, with Sony set to announce something “in the next couple days.”
Source: PC World
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Read the review of Street fighter 4 and participate in the contest. We are giving away a copy of Street Fighter IV Collector’s Edition with two action figures and a full length anime movie. Review and contest link after the JUMP…
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Gamers beware: Keeping too tight a grip on the console and furiously pushing the buttons can cause a newly identified skin disorder marked by painful lumps on the palms, Swiss scientists said on Tuesday. Called “PlayStation palmar hidradentitis” by the scientists, the skin disorder can cause painful lesions on the palms similar to patches found on the soles of children’s feet after taking part in heavy physical activity, they said.
Source: Reuters
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Shuttle Inc., the leading designer and manufacturer of small form factor (SFF) computers and accessories, today announced the availability of the new custom liquid-cooled SDXi Carbon extreme gaming solution. As an extreme performance system for gamers, enthusiasts, and even professionals working with graphic design, animation, or CAD, the Shuttle SDXi Carbon features a powerful quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 processor, dual-slot NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics card, and high-speed DDR2 memory (up to 16GB) to deliver the best possible experience for today’s most demanding applications.
Source: Hot Hardware
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There are two things that have to be said about this custom Xbox 360 arcade cabinet: it’s big (like the original Xbox, only even bigger) and it’s pretty pricey. Only serious Xbox devotees need apply at $2250 (Rs 1,10,000 approx)… but that is, after all, cheaper than a lot of gaming PCs, and it would take quite the pimped-out PC to match this project.
Source: Technabob
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Michael Torchia’s mission is to have Nintendo pull their Wii games off the shelves until they make important changes to their products. People around the World are sustaining serious injuries due to the lack of proper warnings on their products and Torchia is taking a stance to ensure that people are aware of the potential dangers.
Source: News Blaze
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Danny Johnson, a 14-year-old from Texas, is the latest gamer to break a world record in Activision’s Guitar Hero III, earning himself an endorsement deal in the process. Johnson managed to pull down 973,954 points on Dragonforce’s “Through The Fire And Flames” during a “media-sponsored” event at a Best Buy in New York City, topping the previous record of 899,703 set by Minnesota’s Chris Chike, reports The New York Times. Video after the jump.
Source: Wired
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Researchers at Durham University have modified a video game and turned it into a fire drill simulator.
The team used Valve’s Source, the 3D game engine used to drive Half-Life 2, and created a virtual model of one of the university’s departments. Developers plan to use it to examine people’s behaviour in a fire and to train people in good fire practice. The simulator can be adapted to mimic the interior of most buildings, although modification will be needed.
Source: BBC
Watch a video here
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That is a real wanted poster and that is a Mii on it. The Kanagawa kops (Japan) are searching for the Mii, or a someone who looks like it, anyway. The blogs that have posted about this are inconclusive as to whether that is the actual Mii of the actual suspect (to say nothing of how they might have gotten it) or if the cops used the Mii creator to build their composite.
Source: Kotaku

Nintendo is working with Panasonic Medical Solution, Hitachi, and Nec to develop a nice little add-on to the Wii Fit. Basically, your personal data is forwarded (if you want) to a health professional to give you advice on improving your BMI and how to keep fit. It’s schedule to be launched in in Japan April, 2009, if all goes according plan.
Source: Akihabara News