When I was growing up I was envious of my best friend cause he was the only one on the block to have an Atari 2600. I remember they were bloody expensive. The consoles were hundreds of dollars and the games were in the $50-$100 range - much like todays consoles and games.

But the fun you could have... Of course a lot of imagination was involved, after all the graphics weren't quite as advanced as they are now.

So imagine my surprise to see that Atari, who seems to be into retro these days, is re-releasing the 2600 console complete with real joysticks, faux wood panelling, and a whack of original games just like the original.

This is, of course, similar to the Atari 7800 we reported about a few months ago, but to me this one is more fun.

If you are like me (that is - old) you probably remember that these were the first true handheld consoles:

I remember my friends having these 2 player consoles - we used to sit outside playing head to head baseball and football.

Of course there was a lot more imagination needed then as all you got with these was crappy little LCD players but it was fun none-the-less.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that it was time well spent with the latest cool gadgets. Had you told me that there's be the PSP, Xbox or even GBA I'd have laughed in your face. My console was the intellivision, and asteroids was in the arcade.

My how times have changed.

Today seems to be a big day for all types of news.

Another one in that that's cool but... category, click the link below:

more homebrew Nintendo DS fun - hack a day - www.hackaday.com _

We've been throwing this around the warehouse for a while - who would be the first major player to announce the next wave of online gaming.

Sure we have MMPG but Time Warner is taking gaming to a whole new (and old) level.

Later this year, the company plans on releasing "classic" games for download. Using emulation software, users with a PC and a broadband connection will be able to play classic games from older consoles like the NES and Genesis, as well as older arcade and PC games.

Throw in some advertising and Time Warner has yet another way to make money off of us.

For those readers of ours from across the pond, we have some news for you. The PSP will be hitting your neck of the woods in September of this year (just in time for all you college students to get one and pretend to listen when you are really playing games).

It will run you about 250 Euros.

NEC has won a contract from M$ to produce one of the chips that will go into the graphics system of the next gen Xbox.

The company will produce an LSI chip that will work with the main graphics processor produced by ATI.

The chip, will include NEC's embedded DRAM (dynamic RAM) memory technology and will be manufactured on the company's state-of-the-art production line at a factory Japan. No other details of the chip or deal were announced.

These guys know how to get that adrenaline rush back when you are playing a handheld.

Wired News: Sky-High Gamers Go to Extremes

So if you are really really excited about the new Xbox and want to see anything you can about it, check out this Ad found on MTV.

Portable gaming devices experienced incredible growth this year, with a major boost over the 2004 holiday season, followed by another lift in Q1 2005.

The longstanding dominance of Nintendo's GameBoy family was broken with the launch of the company's own DS gaming system. Also impacting these numbers were the launch of the PSP. Other platforms in the market, including the Nokia nGage and cell phones with the capability to play games, have a smaller share of the portable universe. Projected numbers show interest in the next-gen systems, DS and PSP, dominating through the end of 2005.

"Historically, handhelds, being dominated by the Nintendo GameBoy, were focused on the youth market," said Job Lawrence, product manager of IGN's GamerMetrics. "People who grew up with games as kids are now in their thirties, which matches our audience demographic."

Multiple handheld platforms are projected to create more competition for console and PC platforms in the coming months, with a share raising from 24 percent in Q1 2004 to a likely 36 percent of the gaming market by the fourth quarter. Sales and interest for the PS 2, M$ Xbox and GameCube are tapering, as these are reaching the end of their lifecycles. However M$ is about to announce details of their next system - the Xbox 360 - which could launch in time for the holidays and draw attention.

"What we see is less of a cannibalization of the console market from dedicated handheld systems, and more of a complimentary effect," comments Jay Horwitz, senior analyst at Jupiter Research. "For most gamers, handhelds are not substitutes for consoles."

Still lots of speculation about the X360 and what it will look like.

Here's a couple more images we found on a couple other blogs:

Seems like all the news these days is focused around the PSP. I've been looking for other stuff but other than a few bits on the 360 most is PSP.

So when I saw this I thought - god not another PSP article - until I read it and thought: Damn I might have to get me one of those.

Playboy plans to release some PSP flavored downloads of cyber bunnies in photo and video format.

There are two sets of fifteen photos and 1 video which is a couple minutes long will be available in two ways: non-nude (boring) and nude (woo-hoo!!). The non-nude variety will be available to all via Playboy.com, while the nudes will only be available to Playboy 'Cyber Club' members. At least until they appear in news groups and p2p programs.

Did you ever want for the ability to turn your lights on and off. Have full control (Play, Stop, Pause, Menu) of your DVD player, TIVO, and High Def TV, all wirelessly from your PSP? If so, click on this link:

LiquidIce's PSP Hacks: PSP Home Control 1.0

News today that the Xbox 360 may be sold at two price points. For just under 300 bux you will get the base system which doesn’t have a hard-drive or backwards compatibility. For another 100 M$ will bundle the system with some soptional add ins which could include WebTv.

If this is the case then it has also been rumored that three quarters of the systems initially produced will come with the add-on.

In other words if you don't want to shell out the extra greenbacks you might be waiting for the base unit to hit the shelves.

Turns out the official Nintendo forums have tons of posts of dusgruntled PSP owners who have sent in (on their own dime) their PSP with faulty pixels only to get one that's worse.

and the companies response sounds like "well you can keep trying....If you want to continue to fork out shipping fees."

See the forum posts here.

The folks at the consoul games blog have found out that the PSP is intentionally capped at 2/3 of it's potential.

They go on to say that the video CPU is also capped, and these caps are in place to extend battery life.

The good news is this isn't a bios or firmware cap, but a software driven one. In other words the games are controlling the CPU speed.

So what does this mean to PSP owners? Not much at this time but what it could mean is that as battery technology improves game makers can begin increasing and even eliminating the caps allowing for full functionality of the console.

Famitsu pulled a fast one with their 'Control Aibo with PSP' trick, which has just recently revealed (to the English-speaking part of the world anyway) to be a hoax. This is why, ladies and gentlemen, the phrase "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is" has lasted so long.

It was a blogger that made this known, as in his/her post, he/she said:

"There is the message game, but lie information spreads to the foreign country, you felt you say, fearfulness of the message game. The ファミ, buying, when reading, " it is what, whether news item of the April $fools' $day while laughing with the orz " however it has parried it is is, don't you think?"

...

Yeah...

Anyway, kudos to Famitsu for fooling quite a bit of the western world.

Our friends at IGN get to preview the 360 - check out their post here:

Xbox: Microsoft to Preview Xbox 360 to the Press

I found an article on the Register today that says that if you aren't happy with the price tag of the new Gizmondo, there is a way to get it cheaper - quite substantially cheaper. for a 100 pound discount (because it's only available in the UK and I don't have that symbol on my keyboard) you can get the same Gizmondo handheld but you have to agree to receive 3 ads per day.

That's right, they will serve you advertisements (supposedly highly targeted to you based on the info you provide when you buy the console).

You can read the Register's viewpoint here.

I wonder who's going to be next? My bet is M$ and their future console. If they can server GPRS enabled adverts, you can bet they can serve them via the web connection on your Xbox

As weird as that sounds, it just might be what someone said while the PSP was still in development. It has been revealed in a recent copy of Famitsu magazine that certain button combinations, when inputted on a PSP, will cause your Aibo (assuming you actually bought one of the things) to perform tricks. As far as we can tell, this feature is either an unintentional side-effect, or an unannounced feature that Sony has yet to clue us in on. Though it was quite the rage in years past, the popularity of the Aibo on whole has waned significantly, although many users still swear by them. Given the fact that Aibos have been around for quite some time, it is not known as to whether or not the feature is only usable in the newer models, and the vagueness of the article only serves to make things more puzzling. Conjecture has also arisen that the feature in question could be a move by Sony to push more Aibo units out the door, though this seems highly dubious. Whether or not the feature is intentional almost seems like a moot point though, as this is the best thing that's happened to the Aibo since Dekavoice.

All in all, it's good to the see that the PSP has even more functionality than we had originally hoped. Plus, it's even better to see that old (albeit, robot) dogs can learn new tricks.

Microsoft will give the public its first glimpse of the next Xbox during a global MTV broadcast next month.

MTV outlets in North America, Europe and Asia will air a 30-minute program titled "MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed" on May 12 and May 13, the software giant announced Monday.

The program will air at 6:30 p.m. PDT Thursday, May 12 in the United States and at various times Friday, May 13 in other parts of the world. The show will be hosted by actor Elijah Wood, best known as Frodo in the "Lord of the Rings" films.

Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. announced today that the first week sales of the PSP™ (PlayStation® Portable) handheld entertainment system generated more than $150 million at North American retailers, outpacing the launch week sales for any other product in the space.

That works out to be 1/2 million of the little buggers.

M$ today announced the partners (publishers and developers) which have signed up to support the next Xbox system.

You are sure to see some names you recognize as this is an impressive list of some of the biggest players, as well as a number of smaller houses which have already committed to the next generation, and are showing plenty of promise.

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We got this from our good buddies at Sahas Katta.

Wanna play one game on many PSP's with your friends but only have one copy of the game? Read on...

Put the game into the first PSP and start it as a multi-player Ad-Hoc game. (Set the time to unlimited because moving the game between the units takes a while.) Enter the game.

Once you are in the game, take the disc out of the unit. It will warn you if you want to exit the game, say NO! The game should continue.

Now take the game and put it into the 2nd PSP, start it and go to Ad-Hoc games. Find the server (that is the other PSP) that has already started and enter the game.

Now you are playing each other on two PSPs with only one copy of the game!

If you want to, you can do this with as many units as you wish. As long as the game supports that many players.

Hello Everyone.
Long time no see. As you may of noticed we were gone for about a month and a half. We didn't exactly disappear without a trace but it sure seemed like it. Anyway thanks to NTHaX0r re-hacking our domain and ISP we are back online now and luckily we didn't even have to firebomb the warehouse to hide the evidence. Whew. Anyway thanks for joining us and stay tuned for some new stuff......

We have the scoop of all scoops for you.

You probably are already aware of how great a search engine Google is. In fact there’s a good chance that you’ve found our site through it. What you may not be aware of are all the consumer products Google has out there.

For example, did you know that Google has email (Gmail) and a photo sharing application (Picasa). Both are free (You have to download Picasa as it is a standalone application) and they also have Blogger (a free blogging platform).

Now we have news that Google has set its sites on a new consumer product that is aimed squarely at Microsoft in this move.

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