DSi -

Gaming Podcast 167: Waiting in LineGaming Podcast 167: Waiting in Line

March 30, 2010| schommer| 0 Comment| 8:48 pm

The gaming podcast this week includes a little reaction on PAX East and a bit of history on Vanguard. For the news, this week, we’re busting through a few key news stories:

Sony taking out “other OS” feature
DSIWare games not transferable to DSi XL
Nintendo announces Nintendo 3DS
Sony thinks 3D belongs on consoles and not hand helds
Major Nelson’s gamer tag was hacked

Derrick explains a bit about his opinion of PAX East and how such an event might not be exactly built for him. We’re also busting through some great community feedback. Special thanks to the community of 2old2play.com, Wombat from Cheap Ass Gamer and Lady J of SFX 360 for the PAX Panel.

This weeks Question of the Week: “Everyone loves shoot em ups. What was your favorite shoot em up? Xevious? Space Invaders? Galaga? Ikaruga?”

Gaming Podcast 145: Best of Both WorldsGaming Podcast 145: Best of Both Worlds

October 27, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 10:12 pm

This week we’re flashing back to Metroid II for the Game Boy, something new and different from the normal arcade/console/pc flashbacks. We’re also tackling a good deal of community comments and hitting up the news wire:

Netflix coming to PS3.
Analysts think DJ Hero demand is below expectations
iPhone developers next victims of piracy
Nintendo releasing new bigger DSi in Japan
Players of Chinese MMO must play character of the same gender

We didn’t get to cover history this week because we had lots of back-and-forth arguing about Netflix and the PS3 and rants upon DJ Hero and its “obvious” low-demand. This weeks question of the week, are there any good sim games left that are simple?

Gaming Podcast 137: BeateratorGaming Podcast 137: Beaterator

September 1, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 8:30 pm

This week’s gaming podcast covers a bunch of topics you’d expect to hear in a gaming podcast. What? Yeah, we’re flashing back to Master of Orion and taking a little look into the background of Stephen Barcia all while covering a bit of news and community comments. This weeks news includes:

Microsoft Having Trouble With Halo:ODST
FCC Wants Universal Game Rating System
Microsoft announces price drop on Xbox 360
More Big Name Games coming to the iPhone/iPod Touch
PlayStation 2 God of War games coming to PS3
Nintendo DSi Games to hit shelves this fall

This week’s question of the week is pretty simple: what, in your opinion, is the best generation of consoles from the earliest until today’s consoles?

Gaming Podcast 117: Grinding My Neighbors Pug?Gaming Podcast 117: Grinding My Neighbors Pug?

April 7, 2009| schommer| 0 Comment| 4:23 pm

This week we’re taking a stroll down memory lane of Deus Ex, hitting up some information about Warren Spector and crashing through some good game news including:

New Guitar Hero Game a “best of” compilation.
Latest DLC for Fallout 3, not working so well.
New Linux based gaming console.
PS3 Outsells Nintendo Wii in Japan.
Sony Gets Snippy about DSi.
Rumor: Mortal Kombat Devs Leaving Midway.

Of course, we forgot our Question of the Week, so let’s ask it now: How many bad/buggy patches and content updates would you accept before you give up on the developer? Ton’s of great comments this week, hopefully you’ll remember to answer the question we forgot to ask in the show.

Also, check out the show if you’ve got a PS2 and want two volumes of Popcap’s casual games, as we’re looking to give them away.

DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…DSi Will Be Region-Locked, Sad Face…

October 6, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 12:44 pm

One of the greatest things Nintendo has done was allowing the DS to be unlocked for regions. This allowed gamers around the world to share their favorite games from all cultures and countries with just a click of the “buy” button at an online store.

The DSi loses this great freedom by locking it down to a region. “Nintendo DS software is region free so you can play any DS software on DSi from any region. You can also browse the internet on your DSi wherever you are in the world and exchange your photos with friends from around the world,” says Nintendo (CVG).

Much like the US Entertainment Industries need to lock down everything and contribute to global piracy, Nintendo follows suit with their hand-helds, tis a sad day indeed. Of course Nintendo reasons it all away by yelling parental controls and making it easier for regions to access their own content.

“DSi is region locked because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region. Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit.”

Specifically tailored for each region is a nice way of saying that each region has to pay the penalty of not being “first” (second, or third) to get some cool new features. Although Nintendo could put emphasis on the region the gamer lives in with complete access out of those bounds if they wanted, they’ve chosen to use this as a crutch to lock users out of content.

Users will get their content, of course. It just means more home brews, software hacks, hardware hacks and workarounds for the system. If that’s what Nintendo is trying to inspire, then they’ve done their job right.

However, wouldn’t it be great if they could just come out and say “we don’t want certain people accessing specific content until we say you can.”

DSi To Supplement Nintendo DS In The USDSi To Supplement Nintendo DS In The US

October 4, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:59 am

Unlike Japan, Nintendo has not invaded the entire home consumer market here in the United States. This leads them to believe there is room for both the DS and the DSi here in the United States. The DS will no doubt be a cheaper alternative to the DSi and the DSi isn’t going to make its way to the US for some time now (well into 2009 we hear).

Right now we’re still working through what the strategy’s going to be here. But we think that there’s huge untapped potential for the DS Lite. Because when you’ve got only one in every five households in the U.S., compared to one in every two in Japan, it says there’s potential.

You’ve seen some of the work we’ve done this year with celebrities, that we’re bringing a lot of new consumers in to the DS. So I think there’s opportunity for both of them to coexist for some period of time. (kotaku)

We all though the DS was taking over the market, apparently it’s going a long way to go. Nintendo probably feels the DSi may take some of the market share for the original hand held so they’re going to keep them both in the market, initially. No doubt, the DSi will eventually out-live the DS over time, but there is no reason to take the DS out of the US market until the market dominance dies off.

Rock Band 2 DLC For WiiRock Band 2 DLC For Wii

October 3, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:03 am

Although it’s cute to say, the truth of the matter is this: Rock Band 2 for the Wii has DLC. We’re talking full online downloadable content matching the behavior of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Why is this significant?

The Wii has been the bastard child of rhythm music playing since its inception. If you’ve got the Wii and one of the other consoles (sans PS2) you’re probably more likely to purchase for the 360 or PS3 because you can extend the game with great downloadable songs. Breathing new life into your console one dollar at a time can be a life saver if you don’t typically buy a lot of games; let’s face it, Wii gamers don’t buy a lot of games.

This news also brings on the announcement of real online play like the other consoles. The Wii will have online play matching that of the 360 and PS3; without the ability to talk to your fellow band mates we’re guessing. Is it fun to play in a band with a bunch of mutes? Better than nothing I guess.

This begs the question, how will it store all the DLC? As a Rock Band addict I must admit to having several hundred megabytes of downloadabe songs. Will this be all resident on the SD card? We also wonder, will this allow us to play Rock Band DLC on our DSi sometime in the future?

(Thanks, Kotaku)

Nintendo DSi – New Features, Same LookNintendo DSi – New Features, Same Look

October 2, 2008| schommer| 0 Comment| 9:17 am

Nintendo finally came out and announced the Nintendo DS redesign, called the DSi. This product will have an SD memory slot, a 3.25 inch screen (bigger than the last) and a 3 megapixel camera. The DSi is 12% smaller than the DS Lite and will have a matted gray and regular white finish; no colors upon launch it seems.

Conveniently the DSi has an SD slot for saving photos from the 3 megapixel camera so that you can transfer them to the Wii and use their Photo Channel. The Wii already has an SD card slot so now both devices can work together via the sneaker net.

The DS redesign looks much like the typical DS in looks and layout, a bit sad in my opinion. I was hoping for something a bit more “sexy” and awesome – the Apple way of doing things. Alas, nobody has a design team like Apple so we’ve got what we’ve got and that’s the DSi.

How did the alter the networking? They’ve created a store system much like that of the Wii and will be renaming Wii Points to Nintendo Points to show its more generic versitile nature to the new DSi hardware. You’ll be able to download games to an SD card making the portable device more acceptable to storage size increases, unlike the standard DS hardware.

Nintendo never really mentioned the MP3 concept, using the “audio” more for crazy reasons such as slowing down the speed or increasing it, which may suggest it as another tool for language learning tools.

Any takers? SD card slot is a nice addition and a little more integration with downloadable content would be well accepted by all communities and cultures.

(Thanks, 1up; Image via Kotaku)