Something funny for you guys to read. Think the consoles are great? Well check out this article and see what could happen when you play the Wii. This is another reason why portable gaming is better. :)

First, it was the xbox burning a house down and now this. Portable gaming would never cause something like this. Check it out and enjoy!

Did Wii break your TV?
People aren't getting a grip on Nintendo's new system.
By Mike Smith
29 Nov 2006

Picture this. You're lining up the perfect shot in Wii Bowling, remote in hand. You set up the shot, swing the remote with all the strength you can muster, and... follow through a little more than you intended.

Somehow the remote leaves your sweaty-palmed grip and bang, smash, there goes your TV, window, photo of your granny, anything that happens to be in the path of the newly liberated remote.

Hold on, though. If you're wearing the (supplied) wrist strap, no harm done, right? So you'd think. As you can see, some Wii owners are finding the strap decidedly lacking. (Check out nascent site wiihaveaproblem.com for more strap malfunctions.) The problem isn't with the amply broad strap itself, but the considerably narrower section that connects the strap with the remote, which is prone to fray in some circumstances. The result is smashed remotes, smashed televisions, smashed windows, and unhappy (or, at least, somewhat red-faced) customers.

Teething hardware troubles are hardly new to the world of console launches, especially in the last year or so. The Xbox 360's original overheating issues are well documented, with the first production run of consoles suffering what is generally regarded to be an unusually high failure rate. We're even hearing the start of mutterings about overheating issues with some brand new PS3s. But it's probably the first time a console's design has lead --albeit indirectly -- to quite such a catalogue of destruction. To its credit, Nintendo appears to be happy to replace the wrist strap in some circumstances, but if there really is an underlying design weakness, then it needs to be addressed before an unfortunate (or worse, sue-happy) bystander gets beaned by a stray remote.

Sure, it's easy to laugh at the misfortune of these hapless Wii'ers, especially if you're still combing stores for miles around looking for yours. One broken strap could be regarded as misfortune, but as the volume of fractured straps grows, it starts to look more like carelessness -- or, at least, evidence of a lack of real-world testing.

In the meantime, wise Wii owners will want to consider hunting round the house for something a little stronger -- or waiting for one of the more opportunistic peripheral manufacturers to cash in on the opportunity to flog reinforced replacements at an inflated price. That's business.

-iamsiam

It used to be that if you wanted a new console you'd just go to the store and get one. I remember (barely - and this is going to date me for sure) when my best friend got his Atari. They had only just came out but his parents went to the local store and picked one up along with a few games.

Flash forward to the turn of the millenium and you find that buying a new console is akin to getting struck by lightning. In fact, I bet the odds of getting struck by lightning are less than the odds of actually walking into a store, any store, and being able to buy a new console. But why is that?

Well, I have my opinion...

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Will the DS ever be stopped? Hopefully not it continues to crush the competition in the video game world. The new US NPD sales numbers are out, and the system sales are striking: the DS moved 403,435 units, while the PSP was only able to get 153,353 units off the shelves and into the hands of gamers. The PS2 again outsold the 360, with 306,517 PS2 units moved to Microsoft's 259,458. I have an idea that the WII will soon be spanking all of them!

- iamlegend

As of today, Nintendo DS owners can download game demos at kiosks in the Atland International Airport! There will be six kiosks located at the A, B and T concourses. You'll be able to download some games to help you kill time between waiting for flights. What a great idea to bring this out right in time for the holidays!

So remember! If you've got a DS and you're stuck at the airport in Atlanta, you know what to do. Then come tell us about it.

Check out the article below:

Game On! Delta Air Lines Partners With Nintendo to Provide Travelers Access to Free Video Game Demos

ATLANTA, Nov. 20, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Just in time to entertain holiday travelers, Delta Air Lines is partnering with Nintendo to provide customers with access to free video game demos for the Nintendo DS portable gaming system. Today, on-the-go Nintendo lovers can begin downloading the interactive demos -- including Brain Age, Elite Beat Agents, Clubhouse Games -- in Delta terminals at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Through this new service, travelers can easily and wirelessly download Nintendo video game demos for free by bringing their Nintendo DS video game systems with them when they travel to or through Atlanta, standing within a few feet of the DS Download Station and following the simple download instructions. There are six units in the Atlanta airport on Concourses T, A and B. Delta also plans to provide this exciting enhancement in other airports in the coming months.

``Delta is excited to partner with Nintendo, makers of some of the most popular video games of all time, to provide yet another innovative entertainment offering to travelers,'' said Joan Vincenz, Delta's managing director of Product Marketing. ``This program reflects our ongoing commitment to provide a distinctive, enjoyable travel experience -- both on the ground and in the air -- especially during the busy holiday travel season.''

This airport technology addition is one of many changes Delta is making to improve the travel experience for customers. In September, Delta introduced the first of its new two-class, domestic transcontinental aircraft featuring all-leather seating in both first-class and coach. On these refurbished aircraft, every customer has a front row seat to great entertainment with Delta's state-of-the-art, digital in-flight entertainment -- boasting movies, live television, music and games -- available on demand at every seat. The airline's new standard in domestic transcontinental flying will be available to all passengers traveling on select Delta flights over four hours (or more than 1,750 miles), including those from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to cities including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle and others, beginning this month.

Earlier this year, Delta also began updating its international BusinessElite class with a similar, industry-leading entertainment system on its current fleet of 75 aircraft flying international routes. And beginning in 2008, Delta will be the first U.S. airline to offer its international business class customers a true lie-flat seat in its BusinessElite(r) cabin on ultra long-haul flights to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

-iamsiam

Well maybe not my whole weekend.

Anyways, I had decided a long time ago that I was going to get a Wii. So as the launch date got nearer and I wasn't hearing much about the Wii on the mainstream media around me (where I live it was all PS3 - very few mentions about the Wii) I figured my chances of getting one of the consoles were pretty good. Great in fact.

I figured out my route - starting at the store farthest from me and working back towards home just in case the store I went to didn't have one.

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So this isn't portable related but really give up hope. The wii is all gone people. Check out this list of how many per Target are arriving in a city near you. Crazy huh? Who released this info to the public? So if you can see the inital shipments to Target were not that big. Take Austin, TX for example. Add those all up and the city of Austin only got 348 Wii's for 500,000 plus people. Shame on you retailers!

http://wiinis.com/targetwii.htm

Or try this one as well

http://wickedsick.org/wii_finder/index.php?str=%28512%29

- iamlegend

Hey folks!

Got something for you on this good Friday. Found this commercial for the pink PSP. Check it out. Pretty cool!

-iamsiam

So it turns out some employee at a Walmart somewhere was trying to brown nose and inadvertently posted some FAQs that Walmart expects to receive from customers who are overwhelmed with a big decision: The PS3 or the Wii?

So because of this Walmart created some answers employees can use when they receive these questions. This is probably because most of the A/V employees I've seen at my local Walmart are older ladies in their 50's and 60's who wouldn't know a game console if it bit them in the a$$.

I think I'm going to my local Walmart and find one of these ladies and ask them what 1080i means,.

So anyways, some guy took a few snaps of the Wii and PS3 FAQ's, so here they are:

Walmart Console FAQ

Well we here at Portable Gaming love seeing our favorite handheld systems get moded. And this mod for the PSP is really cool. Check out the picture:

This guy spent 30 hours on this thing! Unfortunately he doesn't plan on posting how tos. I guess with 30 hours, I can see why he wouldn't want to. Go here to read more about it.

-iamsiam

Well almost everyone is talking about it - the PS3 release. The new console is even getting local news coverage where I live. It is the topic of "special reports" and the like.

So I thought it would be a good time to do a wrap up of some of the PS3 buzz on the web the past couple of days.

So lets start with a lengthy interview with Dave Karraker, new senior director of corporate communications for Sony.

Now, at first thought you may think "poor guy - joining Sony just at the time when the company seems to be suffering blow after blow, not to mention how poorly the PS3 is being percieved by the blogging community." But before you think that let me give you a little history of the guy.

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No really. I don't think I ever saw one in the wild. And now guess what? The Big N is pulling the plug. Check out this great article from Modojo about the death of the Game Boy console line. A good article about how the Game Boy was second string and once the DS assumed total control, how the Game Boy was sacrificed for the greater good of Nintendo. Nice and sad....kinda like Debbie Downer.

- iamlegend

So we came across 2 totally unrelated 360 tidbits but wanted to share them together. I think the title does that don't you :)

First lets take a look at just how hot a 360 gets. For example, did you know you could cook an egg on the 360? It's true. Just check out the video below:

Of course if you are more interested in a larger drive for the 360, check out this Flickr set. It appears that a 70 gig 360 may be hitting store shelve near you.

Folks! Here's another good deal I found for you guys! It's for the 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo and it's going for only $39.99 after rebates! That's a good deal my friends. It also comes with the adaptor.

Check out the link guys! Go here.

Let me know if any of guys get this.

-iamsiam

It must mean something when Yahoo has its own Wii page, hmm?

Even world famous BBC is all agog over the Wii. But we know why don't we?

And on Saturday the rest of the world will find out why.

Oh yeah, and if you want to know how many Wii's your Walmart will get, simply print out this barcode and ask someone to check the stock for you.

Let's start today by pointing you to a review of the PS3 as it appears on Next-Gen. While Next-Gen didn't do the review they've got a nice summary of it.

While the PS3 doesn't seem to impress coming out of the box, by the sounds of this first part of the review, they consider the $500+ price tag to be a hiccup in the decision making process.

In other words, game play may make up for the high price of the PS3. But I guess we'll have to let the public at large decide on that one.

So why is Monster bad?

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Looks like a Gizmondo clone to me! Check out the MP4 Player 'HR-28' It provides the following services: movie, music, game, image viewer, photo, video file. This can be connected into TV to play all kinds of contents such as videos file, and more. Also supports MP3, WMA, FLAC music files and MPEG4 AVI video files. Looks to be about 125.00 US Dollars if you import it from China. Not bad at all!

- iamlegend

We first heard rumors that M$ was banning access to Live for modders and now it's been confirmed.

According to Xboxic reports are beginning to fly of people who are being told they can't use the Live service because their Xbox has been detected as modded.

That means if you applied the firmware hack to play backups you may be at risk of losing your Live access.

In other news, M$ has rolled out an update to the Live service that provides users with support for 1080p high-def content. That means Xbox owners will be able to to play games and view movies in 1080p, the top notch standard for high-definition.

But the update wasn't without its issues. 2 Old 2 Play is reporting that some users are noticing that "Media is now tagged with a "Does not expire" message."

Guess that means that some downloaded media will expire thanks to new DRM??

Gotta love M$ - give you 1080 but then take away some of the benefits.

As we get closer to the impending launch date there has been a flood of new Wii insight so we thought we'd share it with you.

First comes news of DVD playback for the Wii. It was reported last week that a new Wii would show it's head in 2007 that offered DVD playback. Now it's been confirmed by Nintendo, however currently it will only be available in Japan. I bet that this will change, however, in the coming months.

There has also been concern that the Wii would have some of the shortcomings of the DS - namely that friends play would be difficult. This has been rules out however as we now have confirmation of the "Wii Number." A number unique to every Wii console. This makes it much easier to meet friends online.

But wait, there's more....

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