Recently in Video Games & Gaming Category

With the Nintendo Wii retailing for $249, Microsoft now says that it is cutting the price of its Xbox consoles!

This move will lower the price of its 360 Arcade by $80, to $199, and other models will see a $50 reduction, to $299 and $399.

Microsoft has lost ground over the summer to second-place Sony's PlayStation 3, and analysts noted it marked the first time a current-generation console has sold for less than the Wii.

Let's see how low those prices go before the holiday shopping season!

More at Bloomberg.

Talk about putting the kiss of death on a format that has just ever so barely just arrived, Samsung has said that it sees the Blu-ray format only lasting a further five years before it is replaced by another format or technology.

"I think it [Blu-ray] has five years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10," said Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK in a Pocket-lint interview.

Hoping to capitalize before it's too late, Griffiths believes that 2008 is the format's year.

Citing online rental sites like LoveFilm's adoption of Blu-ray titles, the move to offer cheaper players and a now clear path to adoption following the Blu-ray HD-DVD battle, Griffith says the format will be a winner, although not for long.

Instead Samsung is putting its faith in its OLED technology. The new technology, which is "ready to rock," is being held back at the moment due to high manufacturing costs.  

Check out more on what OLED may mean to you ...

The power of ultrasonic waves has been harnessed to produce "virtual" objects in mid-air.

The field of haptics -- integrating computing and the sense of touch -- has been around for some time, but has required gloves or mechanical devices to impart a sense of feeling.

Now, a team of Japanese researchers has developed a system that uses focused ultrasound to do the job, and its inventors may soon commercialize the approach.

With the expansion in multimedia on the web, our eyes and ears are flooded with sensory information, but the sense of touch has been largely left behind.
The popularity of vibrating gaming handsets has proven that it is a rich but untapped way to increase interaction. 

Read more about the future of gaming -- and beyond -- at the BBC here.

Publishing giant Electronic Arts has said that it's currently trying multiple new business models to help battle the critical problem of second-hand videogame sales.

(No problem for me!)

While retailers reap the benefits of selling the same product multiple times, publishers and developers don't see any income once a title hits the second-hand market.

But realizing it's powerless to stop retail from selling second-hand goods, EA is looking to combat the problem by capturing the consumer with online content and services.

"I'd actually make the point that for us second-hand sales is a very critical situation, because people are selling multiple times intellectual property," said Jens Uwe Intat, senior VP and general manager for European publishing at EA, speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz. 

Today, it seems like you can buy just about anything two or three times ... and what are auction sites like eBay supposed to do?

Course if all games where like Asteroid (above), would we have this problem?

Hillcrest Labs has apparently filed a complaint for patent infringement with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, D.C., and a separate patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, against Nintendo, related to the Wii video game system.

At issue are Hillcrest's U.S. Patent Nos. 7,158,118, 7,262,760, and 7,414,611, which relate to a hand-held 3-D pointing device, and U.S. Patent No. 7,139,983, which relates to a navigation interface display system that graphically organizes content for display on a television.

Since 2001, Hillcrest Labs has pioneered technology that allows consumers to interact with digital media on television using motion-control and pointing techniques. The company holds 29 patents in this area worldwide and has filled for more than 100 related patents.

Let's see how far this one goes. And why didn't they file it when the product first came out -- don't ya think ...

GigaOM has more.

 This was a monster massive online gaming experience not all that long ago, but has RuneScape seen better days?

Is anybody out there still questing?

Last time I looked there were almost 175,000 players online, but were you one of them?

I must know ...

It's always interesting to me to keep tabs on what's selling and what's not -- the proverbial what's hot and what's not.

Let's take a look at a favorite topic -- video gaming consoles.

Amid a long rant on Advertising Age about how Sackboy has a good shot at lifting PS3, we learn that (drum roll please!) according to noted analysts NPD Group, through June, PS3 -- which got a later start than chief rival Xbox 360 -- had sold 4.9 million units vs. Xbox 360's 10.5 million and Wii's 10.9 million since their introductions.

There, now that's settled ...

Gamers will see the release of Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) for their platform of choice this fall. Game developer Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two have announced that the popular title will hit store shelves on Nov. 18.

Naturally, gameplay in GTA IV will be a little different on the PC than it is on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, principally because gamers often use keyboards and mice instead of specialized controllers.

However, Rockstar is adding what it calls a newly expanded multiplayer system just for the PC.

One of the big draws for PC gaming is multiplayer, so if they can create a unique PC-oriented multiplayer experience, it could pull more people in. If it's something substantially different, and it's great, it could even convince some of the people who bought the console version to buy the PC version just for the multiplayer.

Wait and see ...

Check out more at eCommerce Times here.

Found a cool Text-To-VoIP Plug-In for MorphVOX Pro that allows you to speak over the Internet or soft-phone using customizable text-to-speech voices. Essentially it lets you type phrases/words, it converts the text-to-speech, and then plays it over your PC's audio connection.

This plug-in allows you to type text messages to your friends over voice clients such as Ventrilo, MSN, Skype, softphones, World of Warcraft Voice Chat, Counter-Strike and other VoIP-enabled games. They claim the plug-in is helpful for people who cannot speak with their own voice or who would like a text alternative to communicating with voice. Or perhaps your just a shy, pimple-ridden male teenager whose voice is changing making you sound like a girl, so this is one way to avoid embarrassment as you frag one of your enemies and shout "I blasted your [censored] sky high!".

The plugin ties directly into the Windows audio class no doubt so it should work with most VoIP applications. It appears they're using the Cepstral TTS engine, which is often used in Asterisk, the open source IP-PBX. In addition, the Text-To-VoIP plug-in works directly with the MorphVOX Pro voice-changing engine. This provides a way for you to morph a single text-to-speech voice into hundreds of different voices.

Go check out the Text-To-VoIP Plug-In here

Later today, the PlayStation Store will reportedly be updated with the addition of the PlayStation Home theme.

By downloading the theme, users are submitting an application to join the PlayStation Home Beta test community. This will be an inside experience test driving something that could be very cool -- and your input will help make it so.

Sony will be using a variety of criteria, including activity on the PlayStation Network, to determine who is eligible for the Beta community. 

Existing beta testers have automatically qualified to be part of the expanded beta.

Interested? Check it out here.