Gaming

LAS VEGAS--CES 2012 ended with a bang, and CNET was there till the bitter, exhausted, don't know what to do with ourselves, end.

What better way to end the week than to dish about all the products we saw (and didn't see) and what it means for the tech world at large? And what better place to have a gambling show than in the gambling capital of the universe? Exactly.

In this episode, Apple rumors abound (of course), Angry Birds has basically jumped the shark big time, and where was HTC's quad-core phone? Also, Humiliation Day! And … Read more

This week, we explain why Google is petty and doesn't want Yahoo to find true love; we learn what a G-Stream is; Sony may take its PS4 cues from game developers; and Apple might ruin Karyne's life by making her buy yet another power cord.

The show opens with no movement on the points board, and you know what that means: I'm going to win this month, and Karyne has to go on air next week dressed as Little Bo Peep. That is going to be my favorite day ever! If you guys have a better idea for something she should wear, leave ideas in the comments section. Anything that's better than Bo Peep shall be considered.… Read more

Emily is home from Chile, and is welcomed back with an Ice Cream Sandwich rumor, a couple iPad rumors, and the duck timer, which we ignore, as usual.

On last week's show, we bet that the Droid Razr would be announced today and alas, it was! The score is now 3 to 2, which means someone is going to have to do something totally embarrassing in the next couple weeks.

Also this week, we unravel some Ice Cream Sandwich details; Emily gets all riled up about Amazon buying poor Palm; we remind ourselves that Sony Ericsson isn't actually Sony; we discuss the likelihood of an iPad mini and an iPad 3 next year; and we wonder why Angry Birds-maker Rovio would want to go public. Does it have anything to do with the CEO's nickname being "Mighty Eagle"? We hope so. … Read more

Sharon Vaknin fills in for Emily this week while Emily is on vacation, definitely not thinking about tech rumors. Or maybe she is? We'll have to ask her when she's back next week.

On last week's show, Karyne bet that the Galaxy Nexus (it used to be called the Galaxy Prime) would be unveiled today at CTIA, whereas Emily voted that it won't be released. Guess what? We both were right: Samsung was going to announce the phone at CTIA, but then decided to delay the announcement, citing Steve Jobs' death as the reason for the delay. We're not sure if we believe that's truly the reason.

Also this week, and speaking of Steve Jobs, there are rumors of a Steve Jobs biopic and we wonder who will play him in the movie; for some awful reason, Motorola thought using the Razr name was still a good idea 100 years later; Microsoft is planning on releasing a next-generation console someday; the Internet is abuzz with rumors of a 10-inch Kindle Fire before the holidays; and the dumbest TV show of all time has got to be "Real Housewives of Silicon Valley"...or whatever they end up calling it. … Read more

We sprint out of the gate for our first show ever, opening up with a bunch of juicy rumors and our first (obviously), very exciting rumor confirmation.

Yep, you guessed it: it's about the iPhone 5. But before you roll your eyes too hard, Apple haters, fret not, because the confirmation is that the iPhone 5 will be announced next Tuesday, October 4, which means you'll never have to hear an iPhone 5 rumor on our show again.* Praise be! (Now, we'd better get busy finding other rumors for you, or this will be the first and … Read more

Update: As Semiaccurate.com's Charlie Demerjian himself informs us, it was actually he who first wrote about Nvidia halting chipset development, albeit in more dire terms, back in August for his old haunt the Inquirer. Link here. Fair enough. We'll still credit Ryan Shrout at PC Perspective for obtaining what we understand to be the first on the record acknowledgment from Nvidia.

Credit PC Perspective for digging out the news that Nvidia has put its NForce chipset development on hiatus. Nvidia will continue to supply the market with current-generation NForce chipsets as necessary, but due to Nvidia's … Read more

Customers planning to do a little game shopping at a New York City GameStop this weekend were instead welcomed by their future insect overlords.

According to a WABC-TV report, this Memorial Day weekend, employees at a GameStop in New York City's Union Square were trapped inside for several hours thanks to, as they put it, a "bee infestation."

A swarm of bees surrounded the store's entrance and prevented employees from leaving and customers from entering, forcing the workers to close the store temporarily as they waited for help to arrive.

WABC-TV was purportedly given the runaround … Read more

Despite a failed deal with Take-Two Interactive, and a Spore DRM backlash, Eidos Interactive signed an agreement on Monday with Electronic Arts announcing exclusivity to multiregional distribution and licensing rights to selected titles from the their catalog for EA Mobile.

Now, Eidos will provide licenses to EA across all existing mobile channels and mobile devices for four key titles: Tomb Raider Underworld, Just Cause 2, California Games X, and Minesweeper, with a future option on the mobile versions of the majority of Eidos videogames for three years.

According to a news release, Javier Ferreira (VP of European Publishing for EA … Read more

The E3 conference opened Monday in Los Angeles with a press conference from Microsoft. Here are some highlights.

Microsoft showed off first-ever game play footage from the post-apocalyptic title Fallout 3 and announced that there will be downloadable content exclusive to Xbox Live. We saw real-time action from Resident Evil 5, shipping on March 13. We got a peek at the new co-op feature in the game, where players will be able to team up and make their way through together. Developer Square Enix also made announcements that included the release of four titles for Xbox 360 including Final Fantasy XIII.

As for console exclusives, we saw in-game action from Fable 2, shipping in October. Players will be able to seamlessly invite other friends who are also playing the game. Finally, we were blown away by the impressive game demo of Gears of War 2 shipping November 7. The game actually looks better than the original and will feature a five-player online co-op mode.

Microsoft will be releasing a new dashboard interface this fall that incorporates an avatar system--the Xbox answer to Nintendo Mii characters. The new feature allows you to join up with other friends to form a "party," a group of up to eight people where you can share multimedia items or start a game. A new mode called Primetime will actually incorporate real-life TV shows like 1 vs. 100 and allow Xbox Live members to play and watch these game shows and possibly even win real prizes.

Microsoft also announced… Read more