Check out this article from our friends in the UK Games too complex, Nintendo chief warns. Not surprisingly, Nintendo's DS is the answer to this rampaging complexity among modern games. According to Iwata, it will offer a broader appeal. "The players of DS will have even wider demographics than today," he said. "I hope people realised a DS game can be played by a three-year-old and a 50-year-old returning to games.

Really? A Three-year-old? I mean we know the DS is going to have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and dual screens with a touch sensitive pad but I mean is that enough to satisfy today's active and technologically advanced 3 year old gamers? C'mon Nintendo give us a break....

Yup - it's true. Sooooo long after the gamecube came out, Nintendo execs have finallly announced that next spring the successor to the hugely popular console will finally be released.

No news on what it's going to be like, or even exactly when it will be released but we'll keep you posted when we know.

You heard us. The pro-business shmucks over at cnn posted a very intresting conspiracy yesterday. Seems like M$ is currently doing some very intresting makret research into what would make a good Xbox 3, or would it be the Xbox 2 1/2?

Anyway this Xbox 3 would be similar to the Alienware Console we reported earlier this month, in that it would feature a fully functional version of Windows, CD burner, DVD player (with remote control), built-in access to Xbox Live and a hard drive. Control-wise, the system would come with both a keyboard and mouse and a standard Xbox controller. The price point this particular study tested was $599.

One slide they found even describes the base unit, which would require a PC monitor or high definition television, as being backward compatible with current and next-generation Xbox titles. It would also play PC games. We told you M$ wants a piece of the action of EVERY market didn't we? They aren't just happy with Consoles or PC or Media Centers they aslo want the Hybrid Console Market as well. What do you think?

Lunacy8m from GadgetMadness had the super observant eye today when he posted a news gem on both Portagame and GadgetMadness. Could it be? Could we possibly see the DS in stores for the Holidays? Nestled in a Reuters story about Nintendo's financials (yawn) we found this little gem:

"In order to have the DS out by Christmas, we plan to start production late summer or early fall and boost production every month," Nintendo Senior Managing Director Yoshihiro Mori told a news conference.

"The shipment forecast for the DS, due out later this year in Japan and the United States, is more optimistic than Sony Corp's target to ship three million units of its PlayStation Portable (PSP), a new handheld due out later this year in Japan."

We have our fingers crossed!

In Microsofts attempt to get more casual gamers to try XBOX Live, it will offer downloads of classic arcade games on their network.
This plan will be launched this fall under the name of Xbox Live Arcade. It will be an online service that will allow users to download a variety of poker, card, trivia, and classic arcade games.
A games catalog has already been shown on the Microsoft-stand at this years E3. The list features Namco classics like Dig Dug, Galaxian and PopCap, but also lesser-known more modern games like Bejeweled, Alien Sky and Feeding Frenzy.
Xbox Live Arcade games will cost around $10 each to download. To help generate interest Microsoft plans on giving away discs that will allow Xbox live subscribers to sample Arcade titles for free.

Well sorry to say that's just the way the ball bounces. As you know Sega was recently taken over by Pachinko dealers Sammy. This lead to many people thinking that

A) Sega would use the less-then-stellar atomiswave hardware to launch a new handheld console

B) Sammy and SNK NEO GEO would team up to release Sammys Dreamcast/Naomi-based arcade platform as a replacement for the Neo Geo.

Alas none of this is true.

Our pals over at Spong have debunked this rumor. In fact we find the

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Why $ony blows

Wow, and we thought our very own NTHaX0r hated M$. Check out what Jeremy Harrowitz reports about Sony's new PSP and the cover-up conspiracy that went on at E3 this year.

We couldn't of said it better Jeremy...preach on man.....

"Los Angeles is not the first place you'd expect a Japanese electronics giant to unveil its newest product, but with generally friendly journalists already in town for the annual Electronic Entertainment Exposition (E3) show, Sony couldn't have picked a more receptive audience. And, in fact, it did pick its audience, restricting invitations to its downtown pre-E3 press conference, selectively denying advance requests from journalists to attend the event, and posting security screeners at its gates to turn away unwelcome attendees...."

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When will it end? When will Bill be happy that Microsoft has touched enough of our lives? Kinda makes me think that he's trying to compensate for something lacking? :)

This all could have been avoided if IBM simply bought DOS rather than licensed it.

But now, 20 odd years later and Microsoft appears to own the world the electronic world anyways.

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In an intriguing turn of events, very contrary to the way our archaic IP law here in the USA is run, a judge in Spain has ruled that you CAN modify your Xbox any way you want. According to El Pa�, the ruling comes after the Guardia Civil charged Barcelona video games shop Innovagames with offering its clients "alteration of Play Station 2 and X-Box games consoles to allow them to read games from other parts of the world or downloaded directly from the Internet... by carrying out modification of their components as per diagrams found on the premises". (I wonder if they printed those diagrams out from Xbox-Scene?)

The loophole exists in article 270 of the penal code, which mentions "the manufacture, distribution or possession of means to crack computer programme security codes". It does not, however, cover "components of video games players nor, in general, equipment designed to run image or sound software".The judge concluded, therefore, that he must reject the Guardia Civil's case.

Industry magazine sources say that Nintendo and Sony both will be launching their much awaited handhelds in the US and UK during the same week of March 18, 2005.

The Sony PSP is expected to go for $249-299 and the Nintendo DS will sell for $199 or lower.

You read it on the Internet, it must be true!
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The ladies over at ActiveWin are reporting that in Asia the Xbox is set to take over the PS2 for most consoles sold. Sony's PS2 and the XBox are currently embroiled in a two-way fight for market dominance in the republic, with the PS2 traditionally holding its edge over the newer rival.

However, it appears that Sony's edge is being eroded fast. According to an industry source, the XBox is actually outselling the PS2, garnering 65 percent of the monthly console shipments in Singapore. M$ has it's eyes on Japan next...only time will tell if that is one market they can conquer.

Game Makers' Hand-to-Hand Combat

Although we usually like to cover our own news. All you console fans go check out this good article from the folks at Wired News. Who aren't owned by Fox, Disney or M$, at least not yet. They make a good case against the VirtualBoy 2 or as some people call it the Nintendo DS.

Right now, the Game Boy Advance has a firm hold on the portable category," said Richard Ow, an analyst with NPD Group, a market research company. "If the DS flops, that means they would go from (owning) almost all of the category to almost none."

Looks like the E3 rumor mill is in full swing, E3 2004 will surely be remembered as the year of the portable gaming device. With Sony's PSP announcement and Nintendo's DS unveiling, this year's show has already had more than its fair share of portable goodness - but Sega's shock revelation that it is developing its own device must top the lot. Fake or not? Check these boxes out

"According to Yuji Naka, who unveiled the machine to shocked games industry representatives at a Sega E3 press briefing held just half an hour ago, with their new creation (code-named 'Prometheus') Sega are not attempting to directly compete with either Sony or Nintendo. 'Prometheus' is instead being billed by Sega as "the videogame equivalent of the iPod"....

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Looks like we are set to see another new console in our crowded market. And the only place you will see new pics of it is here at the CC. What are we talking about? Well it looks like Alienware is joining the hybrid DISCover console market. These are PC's that are set-up to mimic console's. Basically they are PC's for people who want something that plays all the latest PC games but they don't want to worry about opening it up and fooling with all the parts.

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The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is going on right now. And although we here at the CC couldn't get a ticket this year, we did manage to hack the exclusive feed that gamespot has from the show. But when it comes to the biggest games of the show, much of the suspense is already gone: the industry has come to rely more heavily than ever before on sequels. Even the show itself is something of a sequel, as many of the games featured this year have been previewed already.

"It's going to be a really exciting E3, but at the same time it's going to be really disappointing, because the biggest games, the biggest software titles, are going to be the same ones we saw last year," said Dan "Shoe" Hsu, editor of leading games magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. Among the sequels starring in this year's show that also featured in the last E3 in some form are Halo 2 from Microsoft, Half-Life 2 from Valve Software and Gran Turismo 4 from Sony.

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Microsoft Demo'd the games Fable, Forza and Jade Empire at the E3 conference yesteday. Xbox owners in for a treat! Even though Fable has been secretly developed for years, when the title finally hits store shelves in September, it will be revolutionary!

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In what can only be described as the world's ugliest handheld, a company called Vias has released what they describe "as the world's first handheld gaming device based on the x86 architecture, the Eve Mobile Gaming Console is said to be capable of instantly running thousands of existing PC games."

The lame part is threefold. Number One, the screen is not foldable. It's always gonna be in that L shape. Number 2, it won't be able to run today's games, much less than tommorows blockbusters. Check the system stats below. Number 3, it's just plain ugly. Let's hope a re-design is in the works for this ugly duckling.

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M$ is now using it's Xbox Live technology to check each Xbox on it's service to see if the hard drive has been replaced. If your hard drive is any different than the one it came with, you will be banned, even if your new hard drive is locked.

Download Xbox Live Code

This file above is a disassembly of Xbox Live's security code as of March 6 2004, and it shows

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Once again Sony is up to it's old tricks. For years they have not played well with others, instead of adopting to the CF or SD card format they have instead used their own Memory Stick Format. To further this, this week Sony launched it's own online content system. And more importantly their new PSP handheld will only play movies and music downloaded from this service. From here they can cut consumer choice out of the loop forever.

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Nintendo unveils a new portable

Just like we have been predicting for months, today the Big N decided to give USA Today the scoop on it's new portable. I just hope we don't have another Virtual Boy on our hands....

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Infinium Labs Inc. , the secretive video-game company, Monday took the wraps off of its Phantom gaming console and service, setting a November 18th launch for the system which is designed and built to play PC games on televisions.

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Welcome to the Future of The Console Conspiracy. As you can see we have moved to a Blog Format. For almost 3 years we have been around, at first covering the Gameboy Advance scene and then moving on to our current format which is covering all the non-mainstream news about Video Game consoles.

You won't find regurgitated news releases here, only hard and fast news stories about what is going on in the video game world. Enjoy our new format and please make sure you leave us any feedback you may have in our comments section.