Nintendo Takes Top Seven in Videogame Chart

The Wii is expected to do great in January's NPD numbers, when they are released, even as Nintendo is wondering why Japanese gamers are no longer interested in home gaming consoles. To keep the balance positive, Nintendo should take into account the performance it has achieved in the United Kingdom, where only one of the top ten games does not have a version for a Nintendo console.

Wii Fit remains the best sold game in the archipelago nation, while FIFA 09 shoots up to number two as Electronic Arts announces that players of the football simulation will be able to get a new game mode, dubbed Ultimate Team, that substitutes images of players with trading cards. Call of Duty: World at War continues its quest to sell better than its predecessor, Modern Warfare, and stands at number three in the chart. Expect Activision to release comparative sales for the two titles sometime in the near future.

The only new entry in the top ten is Mystery Case Files: Millionheir for the Nintendo DS, which is the first sign of a host of games made by Nintendo that are to follow. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is at number five, Mario Kart Wii is at number six, with Wii Play following in seventh place. Nintendo must be happy of its continued dominance of the United Kingdom, which is set to become a bigger market than Japan for videogames.

The only videogame that does not have a Wii version and cracked the top ten is Skate 2 from Electronic Arts, which is sitting at number eight. Mario & Sonic have jumped up three places with their Olympic videogames based on Beijing 2008, after finding out that they are also going to be featured in titles based on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

Guitar Hero: World Tour is also seeing a rebound, standing at number ten. Rock Band is nowhere to be seen.

Source : http://news.softpedia.com

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

The chic and customizable Xperia X1 is packed with multimedia features, but isn’t worth the steep price.

Sony Ericsson's first Windows Mobile device, the Xperia X1, got a lot of buzz last year for its slick and customizable software interface and stylish design. Although the Sony Xperia X1 is a feature-packed, well-designed handset with excellent performance, its assets don't warrant its sky-high price. At $800 (unlocked), the Xperia X1 can't compete with subsidized smart phones like the T-Mobile G1 or Apple iPhone 3G that offer the same features if not more.

The head-turning Xperia X1 is well-built and sleek. A brilliant 3-inch VGA touch screen display takes up the majority of the handset's face; six keys (two soft keys, Talk, End, Panels, OK) and an optical mouse lie below it. I didn't like these buttons, though: They're flat and a bit small, and not very clicky. Additionally, the small touch pad that you use as a mouse (Sony Ericsson calls this an "optical mouse") is tiny, making it difficult to use. I can't imagine someone with larger fingers using these controls very easily; my fingers are fairly small and I still had trouble.

The X1 has a reasonably slim profile for a handset with a slide-out keyboard. Measuring 4.4 by 2.1 by 0.7 inches, the X1 is about the same size as the T-Mobile Android-based G1. The X1 weighs 5.6 ounces, the same weight as the G1, but is about an ounce heavier than the iPhone.

The full QWERTY keyboard feels sturdy (some slide-out keyboards can feel flimsy, like they are about to detach at any second) and slides out easily. The keyboard is spacious, with large keys, though a little too flat for my liking. The X1 is ergonomically designed with a slight curve, making it comfortable to hold in your hand for long periods of time.

Call quality was consistently good over AT&T's 3G network. I experienced no dropped calls and heard a faint hiss on only a few calls. Parties on the other end were very pleased with the call quality, reporting clear sound and little to no background noise.

Sony Ericsson states that the X1 has a talk time battery life of 6 hours, which is slightly better than the iPhone 3G. We'll update this review with a final rating once the PC World Test Center completes its battery life tests. The X1's Windows Mobile 6.1 overlay allows a wide range of customization options. You can choose from nine different "panels," which are meant to represent the different facets of your life. You can use any of them as your Today screen, depending on what you prefer that day. The handset comes with 7 preloaded panels: Microsoft Today, Sony Ericsson (two versions), Google, 3D Fish, Xperia Radio and Media Xperience.

My favorite panel is the 3D Fish, which looks a lot like the iPhone Koi Pond app. The panel shows you the date and time, while three or four fish swim around it. The fish represent some kind of notification, depending on their color. You can download more panel themes from the Sony Ericsson Web site for free, though the options are a bit limited. The only one I saw worth downloading was the Facebook panel, which would allow you quick access to your profile and your friends.

The biggest issue I had with the X1's interface was its sluggishness - a common problem with Windows Mobile devices (although this was an improvement over vanilla Windows Mobile). Moving between panels could be slow and sometimes the touch screen wasn't as responsive as it should be. At times, it took multiple taps to get an application to open. The phone never froze up or crashed in my hands-on tests, however.

In my experience, many manufacturers that try to pack business and entertainment functions into one device often skimp in certain areas. The X1, however, is brimming with features. The X1 comes with the Microsoft Mobile Office Suite and support for Microsoft's Direct Push Technology for real-time message delivery and synchronization with your Outlook calendar via the Exchange Server. It also has support for POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts; and it comes with a PDF reader, a notepad and a task list.

The X1 comes with Internet Explorer and Opera Mobile. You can also access Google features such as search, Gmail and Google Maps easily through the Google panel. I browsed the Web over AT&T's 3G network and via the integrated Wi-Fi and was pleased with the X1's speed over both connections. I'm not a big fan of Opera Mobile, but I found surfing the Web easy enough.

The X1's multimedia player impressed me. The touch-friendly player has a similar interface to the PlayStation and the PSP. The player is fairly basic, but has a playlist function and supports album art. I was disappointed that there was no equalizer, however. The media player supports MP3, MP4, AAC(+), WMA, WMV, MIDI, MPEG-4, WMV and many other video and music formats. It also has podcast support, an FM radio, a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack (which many handsets, like the G1, lack), and a streaming media player.

The 3.2-megapixel camera has a few advanced features such as auto focus, 3x digital zoom, three quality settings and five picture sizes. Image quality was good, with fairly accurate colors and clear details. But on a handset this expensive, I expected better specs and features, like Nokia's 5-megapixel N97 (similarly priced, and sold unlocked, too).

The Xperia X1 is a solid, feature-packed handset, but unfortunately, it is not worth its $800 (unlocked) price tag. It doesn't have the beefy multimedia specs to compete with other smart phones on the market with subsidized prices. If an X2 is in the works, I hope Sony Ericsson will find a carrier to offer it at a more reasonable price. In the meantime, consumers looking for an affordable touch screen Windows Mobile phone should consider the Samsung Omnia from Verizon, ranked third on PC World's Top 10 Cell Phones.

Source : http://www.pcworld.com/

Sony Plans Ahead

Since its inception, Blu-ray technology has been causing quite a stir in the media and games industry. The format wars, the criticisms, the storage capacity, the color, the smell, anything that people could pick at has been poked. It doesn’t matter whether or not people liked it - the damn disc has spoken and it’s here to stay (that’s what it said to HD DVD, at least). Of course, gaming aficionados are gonna do the whole cartwheel thing when they find out Sony’s next step in taking the words “home entertainment” to the next level. So what’s this oh so marvelous news coming from Sony? Does the word “hybrid” do anything for you? No? Well, it gives me butterflies in my tummy… and when I say hybrid I don’t mean vehicles that use shit like compressed air, for crying out loud.

The hybrid thinga-majig I was speaking of involves Sony marketing the PS3’s multimedia capabilities by throwing out PS3 hybrid game/movie Blu-ray discs this year. Say wha? According to the boys over at Sony, your average PS3 game takes up around 30GB to 40GB of a Blu-ray discs current 50GB capacity. Sony plans to use the remaining space by including movies on the discs to fill the remaining gap of wasted space - unless, you know, PS3 games really start going storage crazy like Metal Gear Solid 4.

In a recent interview with Video Business, John Koller, director of hardware marketing for the PS3, stated,

We’ve talked about the player holistically up to this point. It was a brand effort versus a feature-based effort. We really need to elevate that point, that [rival players] don’t match up dollar to dollar, feature to feature with the PS3.

Whether or not the hybrid Blu-ray discs would constitute a higher price-tag wasn’t really stated. But I’m pretty confident that when it’s released, it will be a tad more on the dollar. If not, then, well… I don’t know, you can do the friggin’ Hokey-Pokey and turn yourself around.

Koller also states,

We are actively pushing, and the way that we see the future is that the movie and the game are placed on the same disc. There are a lot of developers who say, we have this game based on a movie, wouldn’t it be great to marry these concepts? We will definitely see this stuff this year,” he added, predicting two or three such releases during 2009.

This is beyond awesome news for PS3 owners who will have the ability to have the best of both worlds in one disc. This move might save a crap load of cash. The issue that bewilders me the most, though, will probably have to be whether or not these movies retain their high-definition quality with such limited space (unless Sony is working on a compression wonder we’re not aware of). Because we all know that Blu-ray movies take up just about, if not more, space than games. I’ll say this much; if the movie quality is that of DVD, you can take that hybrid and shove it sideways up your ass. Sure it’s a grand idea. But what would be the point when I only buy Blu-ray movies now? Should I own two copies and spend the extra buck on an unwanted hybrid? Or the developers can offer a choice of a hybrid or a standalone game. Spending extra cash on an unwanted feature doesn’t sound too great, ya know. I’m crossing my fingers here, guys. I hope that the hybrid becomes as great as it sounds. If not, well, the guys at GameStop will have to put up with my bitching on illogical business decisions for a long time (and that is a warning to you, GameStop store person reading this!).

Source : http://loot-ninja.com/

Sony's Tucson studio expands game

Sony Online Entertainment's Tucson Studio announced an expansion of its online mulitplayer strategy game PoxNora, according to a news release.

The expansion — dubbed Ancient Awakening — is scheduled for release Feb. 24 and is the ninth expansion for PoxNora.

The Tucson studio was formerly Octopi. Sony Online Entertainment purchased Octopi recently for an undisclosed amount of money.

Source : http://www.azstarnet.com/

Sony's Tucson studio expands game

Sony Online Entertainment's Tucson Studio announced an expansion of its online mulitplayer strategy game PoxNora, according to a news release.

The expansion — dubbed Ancient Awakening — is scheduled for release Feb. 24 and is the ninth expansion for PoxNora.

The Tucson studio was formerly Octopi. Sony Online Entertainment purchased Octopi recently for an undisclosed amount of money.

Source : http://www.azstarnet.com/