Stix is a Wiimote for the PC

Posted in PCs by Conner Flynn on July 2nd, 2008

Stix is a Wiimote for the PC
So you’ve wanted some motion control on your PC, but so far every mod you’ve attempted fails miserably. The folks at GoLive2 are here to help with Stix, a Wiimote for the PC. No, it won’t sing Mr. Roboto or Come Sail Away, but it will let you have a Wii-like experience on your PC.

It’s launching with a companion website called sphere that has hundreds of “free Web-based games” available, which usually means suckage. The Stix 200 will work with those games while the Stix 400 will apparently work with normal PC games. It will be available in August.

Sony Ericsson F305, all about the games

Posted in Sony Ericsson by Conner Flynn on June 15th, 2008

Sony Ericsson F305, all about the games
Sony Ericsson is launching a new gaming phone named the F305. It’s a quad-band GSM phone with support for EDGE network speeds, Memory Stick Micro slot, 2-inch 176 x 220 display and music playback, a built-in accelerometer for motion controlled games. Comes with Bowling, Bass fishing & Jockey, which all use motion control.

To play, just mimic the actual motion, just like how you use the Wii. I like that the face buttons are all game-oriented. It will be announced on the 17th and should drop in the 3rd quarter of the year.

Nintendo again dominates sales, Wii shortage ensues

Posted in News by Darrin Olson on June 13th, 2008

Nintendo dominates game console sales in May 2008 with Wii and DSAccording to the latest NPD Group report for game sales in May, this is the fourth month in a row that Nintendo has come out on top for the number 1 AND number two spot for console sales. The Nintendo Wii and the handheld Nintendo DS were the two top-selling hardware units for May, 2008.

Nintendo sold over 675,000 Wii consoles in May and almost 453,000 Nintendo DS’s, which would probably explain all the new colors and designs they have been coming out with lately for the DS. Sony’s Playstation 3 followed with a little under 209,000 units sold and Microsoft sold 186,600 Xbox 360 units during the same period.

Wii Knockoff: UltiMotion Swing Zone Sports

Posted in Wii by Conner Flynn on June 11th, 2008

Wii Knockoff: UltiMotion Swing Zone Sports
Were you one of those kids who was forced to play with the far inferior Duplo blocks while all your friends rocked the LEGO world? This is alot like that, only far more embarassing where your friends are concerned. What we have here is a Wii for the insanely cheap, or for those who like to make their kid go to bed crying at night.

UltiMotion Swing Zone Sports is made by Jakks. And priced at just $80. You get a tiny console thing, a motion controller and five plastic accessories for the Wiimote that go with the five games in the console: tennis, bowling, football, baseball and golf. It’s the Fisher-Price of motion-controlled gaming.

iPhone app store in July, tons of apps

Posted in iPhone by Conner Flynn on June 9th, 2008

iPhone app store in July, tons of apps
The Application Store is coming in July. It’s chock full of applications too. Here’s a brief rundown. eBay has an auction application for the iPhone—available from the store for free. Loopt is an application that uses CoreLocation services to find people near you, you stalker. A dedicated TypePad client will be available for free. How about the AP delivering a news channel, that can handle photos, news, and video from the AP network. Mow Cow is a music application that allows you to have a band in your pocket, just be careful where you play. Major League Baseball even got in on the act with a baseball app for stats, results, and video. Modality will let you see anatomical images and really zoom in for some queasy fun. And that’s not a complete list either.

$9.99 iPhone games from Sega, Pangea & Digital Legends

Posted in iPhone by Conner Flynn on June 9th, 2008

$9.99 iPhone games from Sega, Pangea & Digital Legends
Good news for those who want more games on the iPhone. Super Monkey Ball has 110 stages and your choice of four monkeys. They showed a quick run-through during the keynote, and it looks like the graphics are superior to anything else on the phone. Pangea also demoed some games, like Enigmo and Cro-Mag Rally, where you can use the iPhone as the steering wheel. Some are describing the games as having very nice high-quality graphics, and being “totally playable”. Digital Legends was also on hand and demoed a God of War-type game that only took two weeks to develop. That one supposedly has graphics that fall between the DS and PSP. Expect that one in September.

Weekly roundup of neat stuff

Posted in News by Conner Flynn on May 30th, 2008

Weekly roundup of neat stuff
It’s that time of the week again, which means a look back at the week that was in our network of blogs. It’s been a busy week all around and as usual Poptherapy kept you abreast on all the latest geek news and popculture, while over at Wealthyreader it was all about ways to get wealthy or stay wealthy. Our health blog, Healthyreader focused on ways to stay healthy and enjoy it all. Health, wealth and geekiness is a great combination. Here’s some of what you may have missed.

Dreamcade Vision 29 arcade machine with 200 games

Posted in Games by Conner Flynn on May 16th, 2008

Dreamcade Vision 29 arcade machine with 200 games
Arcade gamers have a ton of choices these days. Dream Arcades has just come out with another, called the Dreamcade Vision 29 Arcade. The limited edition gaming arcade machine has a bumped up screen size of 29 inches. That makes the Vision 29 the Donkey Kong of gaming arcade machines and it has a whopping 200 games.

If that’s still not enough, you can add more games. It also has plenty of analog game control options on its keyboard, which can be fully customized with your own color options. Other features include an MP3 jukebox so you can have some tunes while playing. It can be yours for $2499.

Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 details for N. America

Posted in PS3 by Darrin Olson on May 16th, 2008

Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3 40GB bundleIf you were hoping to somehow get your hands on that gun metal gray Metal Gear Solid 4 Playstation 3 bundle, here’s your chance. Konami has issued a press release showing that they exclusively will have a 40GB MGS4 PS3 bundle available for North American with the pre-sell starting on May 19th. This is not the same as the 80GB bundle we had talked about last month but a new offering available only from Konami.

The package comes with a Gun Metal Gray, 40GB Playstation 3, a matching wireless dualshock controller, Metal Gear Online, a Blu-ray disc with 2 hours of exclusive additional content and the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Limited Edition game. The bundle is priced at $599.99 and will only go while supplies last so if you want one of these you’ll want to keep on top of this offer. In fact, you can add it to your Wish List on the Konami site now to keep up with the offer.

Xbox 360 sells 10 million units for the win?

Posted in Games by Darrin Olson on May 15th, 2008

Xbox 360 has sold 10 million units in the U.S.Microsoft is touting some new statistics trying to gain some additional momentum for the Xbox 360 game console, stating that in the U.S. they have sold 10 million units. There is no refuting that this is quite an accomplishment, but Microsoft is trying to add some more significance to the 10 million unit mark.

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry, ” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.

Nintendo launches WiiWare for the Wii

Posted in Wii by Darrin Olson on May 13th, 2008

WiiWare My Life as a game downloadable game for the Nintendo WiiNintendo has announced the launch of its WiiWare game download service for the Nintendo Wii. This launch comes almost a year after Nintendo announced the WiiWare game development platform last June. If you’ve hooked up your Wii game console to the Internet you can connect to the Wii shop channel, buy some Wii points and start downloading some new games online.

The Wii points exchange rate is at $1 USD to 100 Wii points and the online games run from 500 to 1,500 Wii points each with six games initially available. The service offers games built my independent developers that they can then post and sell through the Wii Shop Channel. The initial game lineup is different in the U.S. than those launching in Japan with the single exception of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King, which launches in both.

Car visor plays everything, kills you dead

Posted in Automotive by Conner Flynn on May 12th, 2008

Car visor plays everything, kills you dead
This may be the last gadget you’ll ever buy. Both because it does everything and because it is the ultimate distraction leading to your fiery demise. At least you’ll be distracted while that tanker truck rams you. Not only can the visor play DVDs, audio and video files, it can play retro video games on its 7-inch LCD 16×9 widescreen display. Just hook up one or two gamepads that are included and you can play emulated 8-bit games. (You get several on an included disc).

It plays DVD, SVCD, VCD, DVCD, CD, CDG, CD-R and CD-RW discs, as well as digital media files stored in MP4, MP3, WMA or JPEG formats. You can even send game or movie audio to your car’s stereo thanks to a built-in FM transmitter. I’m hoping it’s only available as a passenger visor, for all of our sakes. If you’re ready to turn your car into wreckage, this will cost you just over $100.

EA creates Boom Blox with Spielberg for the Wii

Posted in Games by Darrin Olson on May 9th, 2008

EA creates Boom Blox video game with Steven Spielberg for the Nintendo WiiThis week EA announced the release of Boom Blox for the Nintendo Wii, the first game created by the company in partnership with Steven Spielberg. The game takes players through a destructive path of blowing their way through puzzling challenges in 5 different “worlds” as a single player, co-op or multi-player modes for up to 4 players at a time.

The game features more than two dozen “blocky” characters, each with their own personality and of course with Steve Spielberg involved there ended up being a lot of “explosive action” throughout the game. Through funny gestures by the characters and using some potentially destructive tools in the game such as bowling balls and fire hoses players can bust their way through the challenges.

Grand Theft Auto IV sales exceed expectations

Posted in News by Darrin Olson on May 7th, 2008

Grand Theft Auto IV sales exceed expectations on first weekAccording to a report in the NYT, Grand Theft Auto IV reached sales of over $500 million in its first seven days on the market. Take Two Interactive said the game sold approximately 6 million copies worldwide since its launch last Tuesday.

The numbers significantly exceeded expectations of many analysts who expected to see around 5 million copies sold in the first two weeks. Take Two also stated that 3.6 million of those copies were sold the first day of the launch globally for around $310 million in sales. This number even exceeds the numbers we saw for the Halo 3 launch for both first day and first week sales.

Walmart promoting Wii Fit for Mothers Day gift

Posted in Wii by Darrin Olson on May 5th, 2008

Wii Fit promoted as gift for Mothers DayWalmart is moving in a more creative direction for the latest upcoming holiday and is promoting Nintendo’s Wii Fit as a “perfect gift for moms” for this Mothers Day. The retail giant has thrown traditional flowers and candy out the window as the Nintendo product is dominating the Walmart website home page with pre-orders for just under $90. The orders even come with a $10 gift card to Walmart so you can come back and get yourself a little something extra later on. The site’s home page portrays kids and men using the Wii Fit board as well, not to miss out on any type of demographic.

Walmart’s Mothers Day Wii Fit pre-order promotion with the gift card runs through May 11 and the Wii Fit will officially launch on May 19 for $89.99. Walmart will ship any pre-orders on or shortly after May 21 and ensures consumers that they been working with Nintendo to have adequate inventory to fill the pre-orders.


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HealthyReader.com web site

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