Gaming Technology Blog

The results are in: the second quarter of 2008 was all Nintendo’s.
The company shipped 5.2 units of its Wii gaming console from April to June, dwarfing its nearest competitor Sony, which shipped 1.6 million PS3s. Microsoft brought up the rear, moving 1.3 million XBoxes.
Nintendo also trounced the competition in terms of software and handheld gaming [...]

Market research company Onepoll released a tally of the best 20 video games of all time, according to… well, a bunch of people. mostly in the United Kingdom. It’s a surprisingly varied mix:
20. Guitar Hero
19. Wii Play
18. Street Fighter II
17. Pokemon Red, Blue and Green
16. Frogger
15. Lemmings
14. Gran Turismo
13. Final Fantasy
12. Wii Sports
11. Lara Croft: [...]

It’s been a twenty-year wait, and in the end, is the returning thing still recognizable?
Compare. Above is the package illustration for the original Bionic Commando, which I played in my youth. He’s a clean-cut kind of super-agent with a funky stretchable bionic grappling-arm-hook-thing.
These are screenshots from the new version. Dreadlocks, really? An not a bionic [...]

Now that DC’s got some of its self-respect back, what with Batman: The Dark Knight making all sorts of noise all over the place, they’re launching DC Universe Online.
It’s a make-your-own-hero (or villain) sort of massively multiplayer role playing game, and it’s been three years in the making. It will be available to Windows PC [...]

It’s happened to at least once to every gamer: you throw down your controller (keyboard, joystick, gun, whatever) and exclaim, “I could make a better game than this!”
Well now Microsoft, via its XBox 360 console, is giving gamers a chance to put up or shut up.
So you use the available XNA tools that have been [...]

So the prices came out earlier this week for Intel’s latest batch of processor chips, and boy those Core 2 Extreme Quad-Cores cost a bundle. Way more than earlier reports led us to believe.
Why? Is it because desktops have been making a comeback lately, thanks to frugal techies looking for a cheaper alternative to laptops? [...]

It could the next generation in motion-sensitive gaming: the Darwin controller. Like Nintendo’s Wii controller, it transmits the player’s movements to the gaming console, which converts them into in-game actions.
But what makes the Darwin different (and possibly dangerous to the Wii) is that its sensors don’t rely on infrared in order to orient itself in [...]

The Seattle Times website has posted a neat little article delineating the philosophical differences between game console rivals Sony and Nintendo. With its PlayStation 3, Sony is intent in expanding the console gamer’s online options, from playing to downloading content to chat and other interactive experiences.
Nintendo and its Wii, on the other hand, is focused [...]

Ain’t it cool when some beloved cartoon or whatever from your childhood gets a makeover and is brought back out of the closer for a new generation of fans? Okay, it doesn’t happen as often as we’d like.
Hopefully Sierra’s Ghostbusters game won’t disappoint, though. And judging from this new trailer, there is reason to hope.

…in order to be replaced with 60G models.
The 20G models’ prices were also cut by $50. From $350, they now cost around $299 in the USA.
The expanded-storage 60G model, though is set to arrive in stores in August, and will cost $350 again.
Neither the $280, 256MB XBox Arcade nor the $450, 120G XBox [...]