Recently in Video Games & Gaming Category

If you can't get enough of Tony Hawk and outrageous skateboard action, then you will get a kick out of this!

T-Mobile has created a limited edition Sidekick LX and is providing sponsorship support and programming for the Boom Boom HuckJam 2008 North American Tour and events benefiting the Tony Hawk Foundation.

According to the company, Tony puts his personal design on the gadget by giving it a true skateboard look. The bottom cover of the device is outfitted to resemble and feel just like the top of a skateboard, including a texture like grip-tape and eight simulated screws. The limited-edition Sidekick also features a slate-grey shell, accented with blue and white designs and the well-known hawk graphic. A customized Tony Hawk theme will be included on the device featuring an exclusive video of Tony performing tricks, a Tony-inspired background and skate-themed swivel screen open and close sounds.

(Like I said, can there be too much Tony?

In addition, the Sidekick LX Tony Hawk Edition will be the first Sidekick to ship with video record, play and share. It also includes other enhancements such as a more personalized Web browsing experience, stereo Bluetooth support, easier downloads and more options for theme and background personalization.

Check out more at CrunchGear.

Apparently not to be missed if you're a hardcore gamer (and who isn't?), Video Games Live is an "immersive concert event" featuring music from the most popular video games of all time. Top orchestras and choirs perform along with exclusive video footage and music arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists, live action and unique interactive segments to create an explosive entertainment experience.

Sounds even better than Mama Mia!

Maybe better than Blue Man Group!?!?

Put on by the video game industry to help encourage and support the culture and art that video games have become, Video Games Live is exposing the new generations of music lovers and fans to the symphonic orchestral experience while also providing a completely new and unique experience for families and non-gamers.

www.videogameslive.com

No more guitars on the floor or the couch!

The ezStand from ezGear supports all gaming guitar controllers - and we love it for Guitar Hero (rock ON!!!)

What's there not to like? Small and compact, it's easy to set up with an adjustable neck that fits all size guitars (and it folds for easy storage if you really need to).

BTW, it's also great for Rock Band or ezJam Jr Guitars.

MSRP: $15.99

www.ezgear.com

Get ready to rock!

When the house lights go down this fall, a new generation of axe shredders, drummers and fearless frontmen will come together and rock with Guitar Hero World Tour, the latest installment from the #1 best-selling video game 2007 (but not 2008 based on what we know so far).

Guitar Hero World Tour is slated to transform music gaming by extending Guitar Hero’s exhilarating guitar frenzy into a "cooperative band experience that combines the most advanced wireless instruments with revolutionary new online and offline gameplay modes."

The game will feature a slick newly redesigned guitar, a genuine electronic drum kit and a microphone as well as an innovative Music Studio music creator that lets players compose, record, edit and share their own rock and roll anthems, along with online Band Career and eight-player “Battle of the Bands.” Read more from the Red Octane press release at CrunchGear here.

Researchers extraordaire NPD has just released its gaming console sales numbers for April and guess what? Nintendo took the number one and two slots in hardware sales, with the Wiihaving sold 714,200 units while the Nintendo DS sold 414,800 units. Third place went to the PSP with 192,700 units. These are staggering numbers and underscore the life in the gaming market, even in tougher economic times.

And while these numbers may be impressive, what's more impressive is that the Wii outsold the Playstation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, and Xbox 360 combined! Yikes!

For more details, check out Ars Technica here.

Xbox 360 with Blu-ray is coming?!

Now that starts to make the concept of the all-in-one home entertainment appliance take a new, higher-res turn.

Check out what Engadget had to say about it.

See what happens when one format wins out over another? All types of new tech innovation takes another small (or sometimes) large step forward!

One can only image what the "console war" will look like come holiday shopping season!!!

Why some of us may get very jazzed up about the upcoming release -- next month! -- of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, I just have to think how many other great guitar players and bands might have taken their spot in the queue ... What do you think? Guitar Hero: Hendrix or Guitar Hero: Clapton or Guitar Hero: Van Halen? Me thinks I could go on and on ...

The Sony PS3 will finally get in-game VoIP communications with the release of firmware update 2.4.

Sony Computer Entertainment UK boss Ray Maguire stated:

“Our momentum will continue with the introduction of in-game communication in the summer, firmware update 2.4 and the strongest line-up of games through our third party partners and our own studios. I’d personally like to thank our trade and business partners for helping us on the start of the PS3 journey.”

Now the question is "what took so frickin' long?" Both the Xbox and the Xbox 360 have had in-game trash talking VoIPing via Xbox Live since like uhh forever. On the Xbox 360, there's memory reserved just for the guide blade functions, including pulling up friends list, enabling voice chat and custom soundtracks in all games. The Playstation 3's initial design never took this into account so it is much more difficult to add this to the design after-the-fact without causing game instability, affecting performance, etc. But if the 2.4 firmware adds voice chat and IM, without sacrificing game stability, then this will be a huge hit amongst PS3 fans. There's also going to be improved in-game chat perhaps via an in-game Xross Media Bar (XMB). PS3 fans have also been clamoring for in-game XMB GUI, which alas right now you cannot do.

Trivia: the XMB actually won an Emmy award for it's graphical user interface.

Via MCVUK

The HD DVD vs. Blue-Ray high-definition DVD format war is over. In case you missed it, Toshiba made a statement saying, "it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." As a result, Amazon and other online retailers have been having a fire sale trying to offload the Toshiba HD DVD players. You can pick one up for $79 or less.

In a further humiliation, according to TechRadar.com, instead of being listed as HD DVD players, they are now being displayed as upscaling DVD players. You know, the ability to "upscale" standard DVDs to higher resolution - albeit not as good as HD DVD resolution, err. I mean Blue-ray resolution. After all, HD DVD is now dead.

The biggest winner in all this is obviously Sony. The biggest loser in the consumer. While standardizing on a single standard is good for the consumer, Toshiba's HD DVD format and the HD DVD players have been consistently much cheaper than Blue-ray players - $150 vs. $400. Consumers have been slow to adopt HD players not only because of the preceding format war, but also because of the expensive price-tag. Toshiba saw a surge of consumers buying their HD DVD players over the Christmas season because they dropped the price-tag. Sony has stuck to their guns by continuing to offer standalone Blue-ray players for a whopping $400.

I expect consumers to not rapidly adopt Blue-ray players unless Sony drops the price to less than $300. Even $299 might get more consumers to bite. I will say this though - you can buy a Blue-ray DVD player included within a Sony PlayStation 3 also for $400. If I do buy a Blue-ray player I might just buy a Sony PlayStation 3 instead since it's the same price as a standalone player and you get a ton more features, including obviously video games. So the second biggest loser in all this might just be Microsoft and their XBox 360 console. I expect there will be a lot of consumers like me that aren't heavy gamers but will buy a PlayStation 3 just to get the Blue-ray DVD player. No wonder Sony isn't lowering their price - their trying to shuffle people into buying a PS3.

Sony may have lost the VCR vs. Sony BetaMax analog video format war but 23 years later Sony won the more important high-definition digital format war. Well played Sony... Well played...

Oh and if you want to see the most popular / best selling Blue-ray movies, check this out.

Rejoice! Skype on the Sony PSP may be unveiled this week at CES. Sony's CES page seemed to "leak" the details (click the PSP controller graphic on their site). The Sony PSP doesn't have cellular data connectivity so you'll need a WiFi hotspot to use this. Fortunately, PSP users get free T-Mobile Wi-Fi access. It's about time the Sony PSP got VoIP considering the Nintendo DS has been running VoIP for some time. Now Sony just needs to add SIP support to work with any SIP provider.

Question is, does this mean Sony will be killing off the Sony Mylo? which just about nobody has bought - even if it is a cool device. It provides users access to online instant messaging services, Web pages (fully-featured Opera browser), e-mails, play music, and view photos. But more importantly it came with Skype preinstalled.

Here's a screenshot of the Sony website with the text “Call friends, talk trash to fellow gamers or catch up with acquaintances via Skype for PSP system.” on the right-hand side:


Via Digital Battle.