Tech Culture

The Nintendo DS family of game devices will soon have a successor, and its name is the 3DS.

According to Nintendo's Tuesday announcement, the 3DS will boast 3D gaming capability without requiring users to wear "any special glasses" to play titles.

The company said that the 3DS will "succeed [the] 'Nintendo DS series.'" Perhaps most importantly, the 3DS will boast backward compatibility, allowing users to play games originally built for the Nintendo DS or DSi.

Nintendo was stingy with details. It didn't indicate how the 3D functionality would work with the 3DS. It also … Read more

Those who thought Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch would not live up to the promise of being a great mobile gaming platform are in for a big surprise.

Apple sold 19 percent of all portable game software in the U.S. in 2009, up sharply from 5 percent in 2008, according to a new report released by Flurry Analytics on Monday.

It's clear that Apple is taking share from Sony's PlayStation Portable, and to a smaller level, the Nintendo DS. According to Flurry's report, Sony fell from 20 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2009, … Read more

If you're in the market for a PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii, you've probably noticed that they're hard to come by. Most online retailers are sold out and if you call around, it's likely that most brick-and-mortar shops are sold out, too. One of those shops, GameStop, said in a recent earnings call with investors that those shortages are expected to continue.

"I am not exactly sure that I have a total answer, obviously, it is a question that we ask the platform holders," Bartel said in response to an investor question on why shortages continue to plague the market. "Consequently, I can tell you that we do anticipate that we will be in that situation for the PS3 for another couple of months, unfortunately, because we could sell a lot more hardware than what we have on both that and the Wii platform."

Bartel went on to tell investors that his company expects to have Wii in-stock sooner than the PS3, but it will still take some time.… Read more

Game blog Joystiq has screens of what it says is an upcoming build of the Xbox 360 system software that will allow USB mass storage devices to serve as memory units.

The feature, which Joystiq says is due out in the next few months as part of the spring system update, will turn any USB-based storage device--be it an external hard drive or a flash drive--into a memory source up to 16GB, which will work just as the Xbox 360 hard drive and memory units do. This includes allowing users to copy games to these devices, instead of having to … Read more

Nintendo is awfully fond of telling its customers that the upcoming DSi XL will boast screens that are 93 percent bigger than those in the DSi Lite.

So fond is it, in fact, that Nintendo has decided to poll social network users on what they would like to see become 93 percent bigger. According to the company, the "poll lists fun, humorous options, including sound speakers, swimming pools, and furniture." It's available as a Facebook application or via Nintendo's Twitter profile.

Speaking of Twitter and Facebook, Nintendo also made it clear in a statement Thursday that … Read more

Update: Microsoft announced an updated version of the Xbox 360 on June 14, 2010. The new model has a smaller chassis, 250GB hard drive, and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, but no Blu-ray. See the Xbox 360 Slim product page for additional information.

A recent post on the A9VG forums has led many to believe that what you see above is the new "Valhalla" motherboard for the Xbox 360 console. Underneath that fan heatsink is supposedly a CPU/GPU combo chip that will allow for the overall size reduction of the board.

Sony was able to breathe new life … Read more

An exercise in taking yourself out of, well, yourself is to follow William Shatner on Twitter.

It's not merely that he tries to end each of his tweets with the touching personalized sign-off, "My best, Bill." It's that Twitter.com/William Shatner is so darned revelatory.

A few days ago, the Kirk with the smirk offered this tweet: "Help us build www.MYOUTERSPACE.com to be the best that it can! Your feedback is priceless; you don't want to miss this. My best, Bill."

Good Lord, I thought. Has the captain bought himself … Read more

Is Blu-ray the root of Sony's troubles in the gaming space? Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft's director of product management, seems to think so.

Speaking to Edge magazine in a recent interview, Greenberg said that because "Sony bet on the physical disc" for entertainment, it's facing "associated costs" that might be holding the PlayStation 3 back.

"The fact that we're able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost," Greenberg told Edge. "Being $100 cheaper is part of the reason why we'… Read more

Gamers have long known that patience is rewarded with cheaper, less-buggy games. But does that adage hold true for the inclusion of digital rights management as well? Not always, but history does show us that time makes even the strictest of DRM less sucky.

This could become especially important given the latest round of DRM implemented by both Ubisoft and EA, a system that requires players to have a constant connection to the Internet in order to play. Otherwise, they're simply kicked out to the main menu until a connection can be had again.

Needless to say, this new … Read more