console

At last year's E3, the Nintendo 3DS was arguably the headlining tech of the whole show, if for nothing more than its successful use of glasses-free 3D in a handheld game system.

Nevertheless, since the launch of the 3DS this March--just a few short months ago--the system's been luffing in a dying breeze. While the 3DS' capabilities show promise, the actual games, price, and battery life (or lack thereof) have soured the equation. Add to that the fact that the 3DS still doesn't have its Web browser, online e-shop, or last year's promised Netflix streaming … Read more

I haven't plugged my Kinect into my Xbox 360 in nearly six months.

The reasons are, to some extent, mine. But not mine alone. Still, whatever excitement I might have felt during the Kinect's debut has withered. It's not essential, not compelling. It's not why I play my Xbox 360. And if I don't have mine plugged in, I'm wondering how many other Kinects are suffering the same fate.

The Kinect's motorized movements get annoying. The Kinect camera is meant to sit under my TV and be innocuous, but it isn't. The … Read more

Six years. That's nearly how long it's been since the Xbox 360 first debuted back in the fall of 2005. The next year, the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 followed.

Typically, new consoles emerge no later than five years after the debut of the last iteration. This generation seems to be the exception. Perhaps that's because of the ripples of a recession, but we can also credit the Wii, PS3, and 360 for being hardy, versatile consoles. In fact, looking back at what these systems were compared with what they are now, it's hard not to … Read more

If you usually keep a known amount of hard-drive space clear, and suddenly find your system running low on space, a problem with the way the system handles log files may be to blame. You can use a tool like DaisyDisk or GrandPerspective to check the relative file sizes on disk, and if the problem is because of large log files then you may see these programs report one or two files using a large proportion of the hard drive. Many times a random increase in disk usage can be attributed to a problem with OS X's log management … Read more

Nintendo is dropping the price of its Wii game console to $149 and including a Mario game in the bundle, the company said early today.

Industry observers have been expecting the company to slash the price of the device--which has been $169 with a bundle. Their expectations grew further with last week's announcement that Nintendo will release a successor to the Wii next year.

Many observers thought Nintendo needed to do something to revitalize the console, which for years was unbeatable but in recent months has struggled to maintain its momentum. Sales have slowed, even as Microsoft and Sony … Read more

If your weekend was anything like mine, you could use a game break right about now. Let's just say I was up till the wee hours last night trying to rescue data from a dying hard drive.

I don't have the luxury of blowing off work today (oh, how I miss college), but I can definitely get some fun queued up for after hours. With that in mind, I've rounded up three rather sweet game-related deals:

Today is Day Six of Amazon's Ten Days of Free Game Downloads, which offers up a free "casual" … Read more

One of the most potentially damaging things a consumer electronics company can do to one of its existing products is confirm its replacement. So when Nintendo announced yesterday that its Wii "successor" would launch next year, the obvious question was how would the news affect its highly successful but flagging current-generation console?

On the one hand, would-be Wii buyers could decide to pocket their wallets and wait until the new device comes out. On the other, they could rush to stores to buy one now, thinking that the new system will cost significantly more when it hits store … Read more

A boatload of rumored details have emerged on what Nintendo's next console could offer.

Citing anonymous sources, IGN reported yesterday that Nintendo's upcoming console, code-named Project Cafe, could hit store shelves as early as October with a starting price of $350 to $400.

For that price, customers will get a 1080p-capable console that's about the size of Microsoft's original Xbox 360 and comes with the R700 GPU from Advanced Micro Devices, IGN is reporting. That, combined with a triple-core IBM PowerPC CPU, could make Nintendo's upcoming console capable of accommodating games that are visually superior … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer e-mailed questions from our readers. This week there were questions on maintaining iCal syncing on older versions of OS X, options to prevent batteries from expanding, using a hybrid drive in a Macbook Pro, and concerns about performance impacts of "Throttling Respawn" messages in the system console. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Maintaining iCal syncing on older Macs

MacFixIt reader "… Read more