A Wii Phone from Nintendo? C’mon; this seems a little far fetched, or is it? Recently we’ve seen the iPhone, rumors of a Zune Phone and now this.

According to T3 there is a distinct possibility that Nintendo may be coming out with some type of phone combined with the console remote. There had been some rumors last year about adding a microphone to the controller, and Nintendo has been taking advantage of internet based services with the Wii console, lately. This combination could possibly lend itself nicely to some type of VoIP service.

T3 found this information via the patent office showing plans of a Wii remote looking device with gaming keys and what looks like a dialing keypad. I wonder what kind of damage someone could do with this? We’ll keep watching…

Image Source: T3

According to reports, Wii console hackers have created a mod chip for the new Nintendo game console that will allow users to directly boot backup games from consoles of the same geographical region.

The modchip named the Wiinja, has been developed only a couple of months after the Nintendo Wii has been generally released and the creators intend to have the modchip available for purchase February 1st.

Only requiring the soldering of five wires, the Wiinja site has step by step instructions for installing the chip as well as a schematic diagram. The site also states that the use of the Wiinja modchip is for areas of the world that allow the creation of back up games, and is only to be used to play back ups of the games that you own, of course.

This makes two of the three next-generation …

Nintendo is adding a new News Channel to their game console that will show up for users in the Wii Menu Saturday.

The Associated Press has contracted with Nintendo for two years to provide news and photos for the News Channel on the Wii, which will be accessed through a map-based graphical interface. Users can navigate the map to locations around the globe and zoom in on areas of the world to get more regional news, zooming out will get news pertaining to a broader geographical area. Subcategories will be available for the regions, such as Business, Sports, Art, and Technology.

“What Wii has done for video gaming, we hope it will also accomplish for news,” says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “Just by pointing at your TV screen, you become your own interactive editor, instantly …

Nintendo has announced the release of over a dozen of new and classic games for the Wii. These games will be available in the first quarter of 2007 and help maintain Wii’s promise to make gaming accessible to all gamers - young and old, veteran and new alike.

The first three months of the year will see the release of much-anticipated games like Wii Play, SSX Blur, The Godfather Blackhand Edition, and a new Prince of Persia Rival Swords. Beyond the current library of 34 new Wii titles, the schedule for upcoming Wii releases includes:

Feb. 14 - Wii Play with Wii Remote
March 27 - Disney’s Meet the Robinsons
March - Bust-A-Move Bash!
March - Prince of Persia Rival Swords
March - TMNT
March - Bionicle Heroes
March - Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII
Q1 - Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
Q1 - SSX Blur
Q1 …

In a move that surprises no one, the family of the California woman who died after drinking too much water in a “Hold Your Wee of a Wii” contest, is suing the radio station. Jennifer Strange, a 28 year old mother of 3, died of apparent water intoxication after the contest.

The competition involved 20 people drinking water at regular intervals with the stipulation that if they used the bathroom they were out. The reward for the contest was Nintendo Wii. Strange was attempting to win the Wii for her kids. She ended up winning the second place prize, tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert.

What is particularity damning is that the DJ’s were aware of the danger from over consumption of water. Ten people, including 5 DJ’s were …

I’ve been getting a little tired of walking into my local Fry’s store lately and seeing a stack of PS3’s, and then looking across the isle and finding lots of Wii accessories and paraphernalia but no Wii consoles. At first I thought I was just not cool enough to know where they are but this last trip I went against my internal instincts and asked an employee. It appears there were no Wii’s in stock. At first I thought it may be just the Portland metro area, but after a very small investigation I found I’m not alone in my search for the Wii game console.

This is frustrating for those of us who would rather avoid the lines and wait until things settle down so we can just stroll into a store and pick up a game console …

We have more details in the previous story on the woman who was poisoned by drinking too much water as a contestant in the “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest. It appears that the DJ’s knew the contest was possibly dangerous and the woman complained of ailments on air. Now 10 people have lost their jobs and a homicide investigation is pending.

One of the DJ’s is quoted as saying “Can’t you get water poisoning and, like, die?” and “Maybe we should have researched this” before the contest started. During the contest Strange, who eventually died, offered to drink more water and the hosts joked that she looked 3 months pregnant. Strange is heard on a recording of the show saying, “I could probably drink more if you guys could pick …

A California woman who participated in a radio station contest to see who could drink the most water without using the bathroom, died of water intoxication. Jennifer Lea Strange was discovered dead in her home in Sacramento at about 2 pm on January 12th. Strange had participated in the radio station competition earlier in the day. The winner of the competition was to receive a Nintendo Wii.

The contest started at 9 am at 107.9 KDND “The End.” The “Morning Rave” morning show had a contest called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii.” Each contestant had to drink an 8 ounce water bottle every 15 minutes. After the first contestant dropped out each remaining contestant had to drink a larger quantity of water. Many of the contestants …

The PlayStation 2 and the Xbox 360 had a pretty good year with game sales. This news comes on the heals of PlayStation 2’s surprising sales showing.

Of course Madden topped the charts as usual. Of some surprise is the number of Super Mario Bros. games sold for the Nintendo DS. The Super Mario franchise continues to shine and Mario apparently ages very well. Another interesting sales figure is for the Brain Age title. Not a game so much as a series of brain teasers and mental exercises developed by Japanese neuro-scientist Ryuta Kawashima, the title’s strong showing gives us evidence that video games do make you smarter!

Platform
…

The gaming industry did well in 2006, however the real king of the consoles may surprise you. You know that the Wii beat the PlayStation 3. You also know that the Xbox 360 beat the Wii. But who beat the Xbox 360? The PlayStation 2.

Yes, the best selling console of 2006 appears to be the six year old PlayStation 2. Why did a ancient (in gaming terms) console outsell all the brand new rigs? It’s probably the availability of excellent games and the often overlooked economics aspect.

Sony has an incredible lead in game sales. Four of the top 10 games sold in December were for the PlayStation 2, including the number two game, Guitar Hero, which sold over 800,000 copies. The PlayStation 2 also had the number one …

Fenner Investments is suing Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft over the design of their game console controllers. Fenner, located in Texas, is claiming they hold the patent entitled “Low-Voltage Joystick Port Interface.” The suit claims that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are causing damage to Fenner by their infringement of the patent in their respective controllers.

It appears that Fenner is claiming to own the patent on joysticks or ports that connect joysticks to another device. If this is the case it may have a far reaching affect on game hardware manufacturers.

It should be noted that Fenner recently also tried to sue wireless makers such as Nokia and Cisco over another patent entitled “a method and apparatus for managing a communications network for mobile users.” That suit was dismissed.

Sony and Microsoft were also recently …

According to Japanese gamer magazine publisher Enterbrain, Nintendo’s Wii has outsold the PlayStation 3 in Japan. Some think that this could be an indication of the success or failure of each platform in the US. SlipperyBrick previously reported that Sony claimed it had shipped one million units in North America.

Wii’s stronger sales happened in spite of the fact that the unit went on sale three weeks after the rival PlayStation 3. Enterbrain says that the Wii sold 1.14 million units versus the paltry 311,000 units sold by Sony.

Sony’s PlayStation 3 is relatively expensive and the cheap model sells for 49,980 yen (about $425) while the Wii sells for 25,000 yen (about $210). The speculation is that the price of the Wii, couple with its unique motion-sensing …

At CES 2007, Sony Corp. said it met its goal of shipping one million PlayStation 3 game consoles in North America in 2006. Sony did not say how close it came to shipping 2 million units world-wide in 2006. The PS3 has not started selling in Europe yet. It is scheduled to go on sale around March of 2007.

The PS3 has been plagued by production problems mainly from a shortage of blue laser diodes which are a necessary component to the Blu-ray players included on the high-tech console. Rumors have circulated that Sony may dump the Blu-ray format because of the ongoing component shortage issues.

Nintendo, with its much lower tech (and some argue much more fun) approach is expected to have sold 4 million Wii’s in 2006. Microsoft said it expected to sell …

DarwiinRemote is an open source software application and framework that allows you to use the Wiimote to control the applications on your Mac by using it as a mouse or mapping the Wiimote buttons. The Wiimote is one of the revolutionary controllers for the new Nintendo Wii game console.

DarwiinRemote works by syncing with the Wiimote using the Bluetooth connection on your Mac. DarwiinRemote reads data to and from Wiimote and captures the various events raised by the controller. With the DarwiinRemote Framework you can monitor acceleration, buttons, sensor bar, LEDs, and the Rumble feature.

The DarwiinRemote interface displays a graph of all three acceleration forces acting on the Wiimote. When you move the Wiimote, the graph shows the intensity of force. In addition, a log records the history of the commands sent out by the Wiimote.

DarwiinRemote was first released on December 6th, …

Analysts are reporting that the shortage of the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintindo Wii game consoles may continue up until March or even longer.

Paul-John McNealy from American Technology Research said that even though Sony has a target of shipping 1 million game consoles by year end, that could translate into 600,000 to 800,000 actual units being shipped since the 1 million included ones that are warehoused and in-transit.

Consumers are still waiting in line to get the Wii and PS3 game consoles according to reports, and the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 are expected to have increased sales as substitutes when the Wii and PS3 cannot be found. Employees at major stores in southern California have reported sporadic shipments of the game consoles which are being purchased as fast as they come in. Workers reported saying …