1P Start

I’ve run into a bit of a space problem at my apartment and it’s giving me some tough choices. Namely, what do I want to keep in boxes and what do I want to toss out or give away. One of the final things to get consideration for axing are my game consoles, but the time might be drawing near. If I don’t do something now, the amount of old consoles I have will continue to grow. As the graph below demonstrates, by the age 100 I’ll be crushed to death by old video game systems.

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This past week has seen a multitude of rumours spreading from both online forums, and industry insiders, over price drops for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3. But are any of them true, and at the end of the day, does it really matter when the Wii is kicking so much hardware sales ass?

The talks f a price cut for the PS3 have emerged solely from Internet forums, and seem to be insistent that the console is due for a reduction in price to £299. And this will reportedly be announced by Sony on or around January 28th, which is next Monday by my reckoning.

A couple of things point to a possible reduction in price for Sony’s behemoth of a games console. For starters, there is the white PS3 coming to the States, which despite Sony denying is going to happen, I would put good money on. What better way to introduce the new colour of console than by coupling its launch with a well publicised price cut?

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In news, or at least rumour, that is sure to please the multi-console owning people amongst you, it looks like the white Playstation 3, that up until now has been a Japanese exclusive, could be on the way to the US and Europe soon.

When the console came out in Japan, thousands of PS3 fans in other territories felt left out and wanted a piece of the white action. Don’t ask me why, it is just a colour after all. And it seems, after waiting a while, either to increase interest, or work out whether it would sell in sufficient numbers to warrant it, Sony has decided to release it around the world.

At the moment, this is just rumour based on recent filings with the FCC which includes a cover letter from Sony of Japan. It seems the documents, along with pictures of the unit, were filed way back in October of last year.

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Ladies and Gents it pains me to say my farewells to 1PStart. I’ve been here only a short time, though I’ve been at Xbox 360 Rally (another 451 site) for just under a year. I will miss you guys, though you’re probably throwing a party, chanting “he’s leaving! Huzzah! Huzzah!”. If you do miss me, though, you can find me at my new home BingeGamer.net.

It’s been fun, and I hope to see y’all around.

P.S.: Qbix — E-mail me, dude. I’m still gonna get your GTA IV to ya.

Have you ever sat there and thought to yourself “You know, while I love the high definition quality of Blu-Ray on my 52” LCD widescreen TV, nothing would make me happier than to be able to watch my Blu-Ray films from my PSP”? …yeah, me neither. In fact, I’ve been strongly anti-UMD for a long time. Regardless, if you are one of the literally dozens of people who are clamoring to watch their entire Blu-Ray library on the palm-sized PSP screen, you’re in luck as Sony is about to make that very thing possible.

How, you ask? Well, it’s actually very simplistic. You just buy a Blu-Ray movie, pop it into your PS3 and download it to your PSP’s flash memory. It’s really that easy!

…though it’s still unclear as to why the image used to demo this new service is of Howard the Duck…

Sony, PlayStation 3, PSP

If you owned a GameCube and didn’t own a Wavebird wireless controller, then you sucked. The Wavebird was the epitome of Nintendo awesome for the ill-fated lunch box, and it’s sad to pass along to you all that Nintendo will stop stocking stores with the handheld slice of awesome, even though they will continue to stock standard GameCube controllers.

Why Nintendo would cease to supply us with Wavebird controllers is a bit of an anomaly to me. Considering the Wii allows for GameCube controllers to be used, and Nintendo’s sudden penchant for wireless controllers, you would think the Wavebird would be a natural choice for continued production.

Oh well, as long as Nintendo continues to sell it on their website, and so long as there are stores like GameStop, you will always be able to find a used Wavebird. If you don’t have it, get it.

Now.

[GoNintendo]

Nintendo, GameCube, Wavebird

People, I am having the kind of bad day you only hear about in myth and legend. Let me preface this by saying that sometime last night one of my cats, Noel aka Fat Cat 2.0, died. Then later this morning, we find another of my cats, Rico, sick as all hell. In fact, as I write this my mother is taking Rico to the veterinarian.

So naturally I would want to unwind, play a little Mass Effect and get my mind off of this terrible day, right? Not so fast said the electronic Gods. I grab my Game of the Year off of the shelf, pop the disc in the Xbox 360, and grab my controller in anticipation… (slightly NSFW language after the break)

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Expreview, a site I’ve never heard of before now (I don’t get around, I’m sorry) is reporting that nVidia’s newest graphics card, the nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2, will be released on February 19th, 2008.

We can not learn much of the card, Only knows it will be a dual GPU card and communicate with built-in SLI. It also have a SLI connector so it will become the another card supporting Quad SLI like its predecessor 7950 GX2. The power module of the card is somehow different, it have one 6pin and one 8pin power connector.

The previously rumored release date for the high-end 9800 GX2 was sometime in March. While the above refers to the GeForce 7950 GX2 as the immediate predecessor to the upcoming 9800 GX2, the new card will be using dual G92 chips as the 8800 GX2 does. It will be very interesting to see how this new card performs, though my rational side has a hard time believing that nVidia would already want to trump it’s 8800 series.

…I get the distinct feeling all our console readers saw was “crap, blah, blah, techno crap, more crap, blah, even more techno crap, blah, blah”. I assure you, console faithful – this all makes perfect sense.

If it’s true, of course.

nVidia, GeForce, 9800 GX2

You’re never going to find a lack of crazy things on eBay, but this is just stupid. With Christmas fast approaching I would be willing to bet that you (and many others) are getting increasingly desperate for the ever-elusive Nintendo Wii. Well, not to fear my friends because eBay user “saxa_pepper” has one, and they’re willing to give it away just for you. All it will cost you is $1,983,298.02.

Thankfully nobody has been stupid enough to place a bid on the console, which retails for $1,983,048.03 less than what our enterprising fellow from Moreton, Merseyside, UK is asking. While this is by far the most absurd eBay auction for the Wii, it’s not the only one hoping to take advantage of desperate shoppers: A retail chain in Missouri has recently been accused of taking shipments of Wiis from Nintendo, and selling them on eBay at $150 mark-ups.

In the end, demand for the Wii is pretty high and there are people who are either desperate or stupid enough to pay somewhat inflated prices to get one. Maybe not $2 million worth of inflated prices, but inflated prices nonetheless. It’s sad to see people being taken advantage of like this.

Nintendo, Wii, eBay

I’ve said for a long time Japan gets all the cool bundles, and this only helps to further that point as Sony has announced that they will be selling a special Devil May Cry 4 edition PlayStation 3 in January. Not so much notable for the bundle of Devil May Cry 4 and a Blu-Ray movie, this bundle will mark the first official appearance of the long-rumored “ceramic white” PS3 that we’ve been hearing about since forever ago.

Now unfortunately at this time there are zero plans to bring this bundle stateside. But hey, as long as we get the white PS3 in the next few months…

Sony, PlayStation 3, Devil May Cry 4

I’m going to get a bit technical on you for a moment. I hope you can forgive me if you get lost… who am I kidding, I got lost, too. Here’s the story: Once Sony released the new PSP update 3.80, some hackers got into the coding and found some interesting little things that could hint that Sony is gearing up for yet another SKU of the PSP hardware.

Yes, that’s right: Another PSP.

“While working on the future 3.80M33, we found a VERY interesting string in the IPL’s playload: “/kd/pspbtcnf_03g.bin”

For those who do not understand here is a bit of history:

since 2.71 and especially in 2.80, we could see a string refering to pspbtcnf_02g which suggested the support of a new hardware or at least of a new operative mode. Later with the slim release we found out that the slim’s codename was this infamous 02g (proably standing for second generation) and that it used the _02g modules as well as pspbtcnf_02g
.bin. It means that they worked on slim firmware/kernel for months before the actual hardware was announced/released.

We believe it is the same with the 3rd generation hardware which they are now preparing for sure. Will it be yet another lighter (and pandora proof) psp or will it be the new psp phone? Time will tell”

My bet is on the PSPhone that everyone has been clammering about. While it’s possible Sony may be working on yet… another… PSP handheld, I have a hard time believing they’d be in development of one SO soon after the Slim’s release. But alas, only time will tell.

[lan.st forums]

Sony, PSP, PSPhone

Have you been able to find a Wii? Yeah, me neither. Then again, I stopped trying back in August, though after Christmas I’m definitely going to be getting back on the hunt for one, as I am dying to play Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. Even more than Super Mario Galaxy. It’s no secret to anyone that there is a definite shortage of Wii consoles on the market.

Even though George Harrison (I’ve got my mind set on you…) has said Nintendo is producing 1.8 million consoles a month, Nintendo has simply not been able to meet the demand for the Wii and, according to one analyst, could lose upwards of $1 Billion.

With a ‘B’. Nine zeros after the number one. One billion dollars.

Now thankfully the Wii prints money so Nintendo should survive without too much trouble, however this shortage is really riling up a lot of people. Since November Nintendo’s stock has dropped by 8%, and the seeming resurrection fo the PlayStation 3 may further knock Nintendo’s stock if the big bad N doesn’t find a way to remedy this shortage issue.

[CVG]

Nintendo, Wii

If you have $15,000 just lying around the house, and haven’t picked up a Wii yet, may I suggest you pick up this lovely piece of technological artwork?

According to the seller this is one of four Wii consoles that were built to help promote the upcoming Star Wars: Unleash the Force (I think he means “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”). He says he has two of the four, and is obviously willing to sell one to you, the people. So what all do you get for a simple $15K?

[eBay]

Nintendo, Wii, eBay, Star Wars, Darth Vader, The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess, Wii Play, Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy

Amazon seems to have an offer up called the “10 Days, 10 Deals.” Starting today, each day a different deal will be going on. Right now is a pretty nice PS3 bundle, where you can buy a PS3 40GB, and get a blu-ray remote and Stranglehold Collector’s Edition for free (about $100 is being saved).

Click this link to pick up the PS3, or just bookmark the page to see the other deals coming up each day, if a really big one comes up you bet Ill post it.

In another offer not part of the “10 Days, 10 Deals”, Lair for the PS3 is $25 off, so you can pick it up on your brand new PS3 for only $34.99. If you were on the fence with the PS3 before, Sony has been giving plenty of incentives the past month or so and it just seems to continue.
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Amazon.com, Deal of the Day, Playstation 3, PS3, Lair, BluRay

In a bit of news that will surprise absolutely nobody, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has fallen flat on its face in Japan yet again.

According to figures from Media Create Company released Friday, only about 6,600 Xbox 360s were sold between November 26th and December 2nd. The week before, only about 7,200 units were sold. For those of you who aren’t math majors, that means roughly 13,800 Xbox 360s have found homes in Japan over the past two weeks. This goes to further my theory that everyone in Japan who owns a 360 also owns Halo 3.

For comparison, Nintendo sold 74,000 Wii consoles last week. Again, for those of you who failed pre-algebra, Nintendo not only beat two weeks of Xbox 360 sales in a single week, but they beat them by 60,000+. The PlayStation 3 sold a respectable 37,000 units, which is also a kick in the 360’s ribs.

[Punch Jump]

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Sony, PlayStation 3, Nintendo, Wii