Wii Price Drop to $150 and Arrival of Wii HD (Wi 2)

The rumors of Nintendo finally giving in to a price drop has appeared on various sites in recent weeks. More interestingly, the rumors of the possible upcoming announcement of the Wii HD (Wii 2) has gain traction and it does seem like it’s going full steam ahead with some expectations from Nintendo at the E3 conference this June.

Ever since Nintendo brilliantly made the first step of the gaming breakthrough with motion sensing gaming through its revolutionary Wii console in 2006, the price tag has never had an official price slash. The notable “discounts” would be through regular sales and also Black Friday sales. For e.g. I snagged a Nintendo Wii White Bundle with Motion Plus for $199.99 with $50 free credit from Amazon.com just this past Christmas shopping. That would drop the actual value of the Wii to $149.99. That’s as close as you can get to a cheap Wii. There were also offers seen previously for $170.

The Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 have both introduced price cuts and also improved slim editions. Sony introduced the PS3 in 2006, the PS3 slim in 2009 and price cut in 2009. Microsoft meanwhile launched the Xbox 360 in 2007, Xbox slim in 2009 and price cut in 2009. Everyone has been thinking it’s got to be Nintendo’s turn to take a step down in terms of retail pricing.

The most expected outcome would be a Wii HD which is backwards compatible to the current Wii. The Wii has been widely known to be behind the pack when it comes to graphics quality and has taken some bashing for the lack of details and focus on the kiddy games. But guess what, people kept buying it and it’s the best selling console ahead of the PS3 and Xbox 360! And Sony launched the Move and Microsoft launched the Kinect in 2010 to try and get a piece of the motion sensing gaming pie sector. This only proves that Nintendo got it right way back in 2006 and after much delay, Sony and Microsoft followed.

What Wii-ll Nintendo bring to the table this time? Let’s wait and see…. It should be interesting.

Best of Both Worlds: Street Fighter X Tekken Game Coming to PS3

This is gonna get the Street Fighter fan pumped up and the Tekken fans excited at the same time. Capcom and Konami have teamed up for a new release: Street Fighter X Tekken crossover game for PS3. The Street Fighter franchise has been a great tradition dating back to my kiddo days when the NES was the game console that every kid on the block wanted. Ryu and Ken are still the living legend in fighting games uptil today. With this collaboration, fans of fighting genre can have the best of two worlds with Street Fighter X Tekken (SFXT). This joint venture however will cast some questions on which franchise is the main star of the game. Obviously nobody wants to take any trademark moves or original features out of both the characters and the settings. To find the midway point of balance between the Street Fighter combo moves and Tekken’s settings can be quite a task in order to satisfy both sets of fans. Put this in your to-buy list. Better still, pre-order your copy at Amazon.com and be ready for the unleashing of SFXT come release date (TBD).

How to Disable Firefox Portable Splash Screen

For users of the Firefox portable, the splash screen is displayed everytime you open the program. There is a way to turn off the Firefox portable splash screen. In order to hide the Firefox portable spash screen, you will need to do an easy edit of the "FirefoxPortable.ini" file which you can find in the \Other\Source directory. In my case it was C:\FirefoxPortable\Other\Source. You can change the "DisableSplashScreen=false" option here. Just change "false" to "true". Save the file and then copy that file to the root directory where the Firefox portable launcher is. In my case it was in C:\FirefoxPortable.

It is important that the FirefoxPortable.ini has to be in the same folder as the launcher (FirefoxPortable.exe). This was tested with Firefox Portable 3.6.13.

Get the latest version of Firefox Portable from PortableApps.com

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Sony NGP (PSP 2) Rumored to Face Delays Due to Supply Chain Effects from 311 Japan Earthquake

There are rumors circling around about Sony’s next generation portable gaming console being delayed due to the supply chain no thanks to the Japan 311 earthquake. The Sony NGP comes with improved gameplay experience via the back panel sensor which makes use of the gamer’s fore fingers that are normally rested behind a portable gaming console. The NGP is expected to be a hit as it is considered a true 2nd generation of portable gaming console with fresh new features after Sony’s launch of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) back in 2006. The UMD will not be a feature on the NGP and there wasn’t much debate about the UMD being a failure which has seen it been phased out when Sony went for the PSP Go. Trying to revamp the portable gaming console scene, Nintendo has entered the market with its 2nd generation DS in the form of the Nintendo DS 3D in 2011. Game selection is still a constraint for potential portable gaming console buyers and many are eagerly waiting for the Sony NGP to provide truly satisfying portable gaming experience to teenagers, students, and frequent travelers (be it college students embarking for semester break getaways or working adults being dispatched for business trips). NGP, I will wait for you…..

Motorola Xoom Tablet - Can It Kill the iPad?

Motorola's much publicised Xoom tablet, powered by Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb, goes on sale Thursday with many potential tablet buyers waiting to see how it can fulfill its tag Xoom slogan: Redefining the Tablet Experience. The Motorola Xoom is will be the first tablet to run on the much-awaited Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS and dubbed as the 1st serious competitor to Apple’s iPad. Crowned the best gadget at the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 in Las Vegas last month, the hype surround the Motorola Xoom is gaining traction as the official sales date draws closer.

Apple sold more than 15 million iPads since its launch in April 2010 in the timeframe which the iPad had the market virtually to itself. The market for tablet is undeniably huge. No wonder so many are having a go at it. There will be increased competition in 2011 from Google, HP, RIM, Samsung and now Motorola. With the tablet market being such big piece of a pie just sitting their waiting to be captured, Motorola has made the right move to muscle out Apple’s dominance.

The Motorola Xoom hardware supports high-definition 1080p video playback. It has a 2 MP front-facing camera for video chatting via Google Talk over regular Wi-Fi or 3G and a rear-facing 5 MP camera with LED flash for photos and 720p HD video. The Xoom has a 1280×800 widescreen, now--tablet-standard 10.1-inch HD display and 3D graphics acceleration with HDMI-out support for you to hook it up with your HDTV. It boasts a few different types of sensors (gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer and barometer). Nope, still no USB port for a tablet. We’re still waiting for the 1st major player to come out with a tablet which has a USB port.

The default advantage that other tablets will always have is Adobe Flash support which Apple iPhone and iPad do not support. However, at first release, Adobe Flash and SD card feature will not be functional. Adobe Flash support will be available through an update via Android Marketplace in Spring 2011. A future software update will enable the SD slot. What a bummer. I guess Motorola must be very desperate to push their product out to the market before iPad 2 does while they let the software update team work on it at the same time. Who knows, this might actually trigger iPad 2 to be launched earlier than Apple had planned. But being typical Apple, they don’t need to because they always say theirs are the best.

The Xoom will run Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb, whose new features include a redesigned specifically to tablets, tablet-optimized user interface, a 3D desktop purportedly taken from BumpTop (which Google acquired in April 2010), improved multitasking, Google Maps 5 in 3D and browser enhancements. All previous Android tablets, most notably the Samsung Galaxy Tab, have run builds of the OS designed for smartphones, which took a bashing from Apple for ruining the market with a 7 inch screen on a smartphone OS.

The Motorola Xoom is retailed at $799.99 without contract and $599.99 with a 2-year data plan. At a staggering $800 price tag, there also doubters out there thinking anything over $500 cannot compete with the Apple iPad. What say you?

Motorola XOOM Tablet
OSAndroid 3.0 Honeycomb
DifferentiationLarger display in smaller form-factor, 1080p HD support, first tablet with Honeycomb software, dual-core 1GHz processor, and a wide range of docking options
Dimensions249.1mm (h) x 167.8mm (w) x 12.9mm (d)
Display10.1” 1280x800 resolution
Weight730 g
ProcessorNVIDIA® Tegra™ 2: 1GHz dual-core processor
BatteryUp to 10 hour video playback
Connectivity3.5mm, micro USB 2.0 HS, Corporate Sync, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz & 5GHz 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR + HID
Network3G, 4G LTE upgradeable, 802.11n w/Personal Hotspot
Messaging/Web/AppsEmail (Corporate Sync, Google Mail, POP3/IMAP embedded, Push Email, Yahoo Mail) , WebKit w/ Flash
AudioAAC, AAC+, AMR NB, AMR WB, MP3, XMF
Video720p capture/1080p playback/streaming, H.263, H.264, MPEG4
Camera5 MP rear-facing camera with dual LED flash/2MP front-facing camera
Memory32GB on board user memory, SD card support after software update, 1GB DDR2 RAM

And you can get your hands on one easily via Amazon.com, my favorite and most trusted online market place. Oh yeah, by the way, now Amazon Prime members can enjoy Instant Video streaming. We’ll see how many would swap NetFlix for Amazon Prime in 3 months.

iPad 2 Announcement Boiling

There have been rumors circling around about the near future announcement of the next generation Apple iPad, dubbed the iPad 2. We have all read about various reports about the new features of the upcoming iPad 2 like front facing camera, rear speakers and SD card slot to name a few. Now a new rumor has surfaced that the iPad 2 will be announced on March 2 in where else, San Francisco California!

Besides that, we are expecting a new lineup of MacBook Pros to be revealed by Apple this coming Thursday. The MacBook Pro lineup is long due for an overhaul to add some refreshments to it, something which they have done over the time for the successful Apple iPhone. New MacBook Pro will be another shot in the arm for Apple. And we’ll see if there’s any surprise from the iPad 2 to recapture some of the tablet market share taken away by the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Also noteworthy is that Samsung has already announced its 2nd gen tablet to rival the iPad (well, they are actually targeting iPad 2) with an improvement which drives the screen size to 10.1 inch from the previous smaller-than-ideal-for-tablet 7 inch.

2011 F1 Bahrain GP Cancelled Amid Gulf Unrest - Delay or Postponeme​nt Possible

It’s official. The cancellation of the 2011 Formula 1 (F1) season opener of the Bahrain GP has been expected by many due to the unrest encircling the Gulf region. The crown prince has decided to put a stop to the Bahrain GP for the sake of the nation’s political stability. It is safe move taking into consideration the calculated risk of negative exposure Bahrain may receive in the event of any unwanted incidents during the Bahrain GP weekend which was scheduled to take its stage on March 11 2011. They obviously do not want to show the world what they’re incapable of under the scrutiny of Bernie Ecclestone. Imagine viewers from all around the globe seeing a disruption to the F1 race or worse still, military force being exerted to control the situation.

So now teams will have to wait 3 weeks longer to strut their new machines and pit against each other for a head start early in the season. Looks like we’ll have to wait for March to see how does Ferrari’s F150 cope with Red Bull’s RB7 and McLaren’s MP4-26.

Also noteworthy is the match up of Lotus vs Lotus in Lotus Racing vs Lotus Renault as the damaging impact of the ongoing legal battle between Lotus Racing’s owner Tony Fernandes and the Malaysian automaker Proton who has a controlling stake of Lotus. Neither would budge on the issue; Proton doesn’t want to see its Lotus brand exploited by Fernandes’ Tune group while Fernandes is not willing to step down from the challenge because he doesn’t need to be bullied out on this fight. Tony Fernandes had bought the rights to Team Lotus from David Hunt, brother of former F1 World Champion James who had bought the defunct team some 13 years ago and Proton claims that they should have the rights to the Lotus name.

Samsung Galaxy Tab II - 10.1" Screen with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and 1GHz Chip

Samsung is about to unveil the latest update to its iPad-rivalling Samsung Galaxy Tab II at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The new 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab II will run Android 3.0 Honeycomb at 1280 x 800 resolution and on a 1GHz processor. Also rumors are saying that it'd have an 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording as well. Looking at the pre-official event photo, it seems to be bridging the gap between the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Apple iPad, at least appearance wise.

Looks like Samsung has taken Steve Jobs' comments pretty seriously. The Apple CEO previously condemned the Samsung Galaxy Tab I because of its size, claiming at 7", it's too small. Now we'll need to see how the market responds to the Galaxy Tab II powered by Android 3.0 Honeycomb and whether it can compete with the iOS experience.

First PS3 Custom Firmware is Released!

The PS3 jailbreak scene was kicked off with the release of PS3 jailbreak on USB dongle which did not require any hardmod (hardware modification) and done via the PS3’s USB port. It prompted Sony to file for an injunction in Australia court to ban the sale of the PS3JailBreak USB dongle while they work on their firmware update to close the loophole from firmware version 3.5 onwards.
And today, I saw a post about the first PS3 custom firmware being released. One can enable homebrew and in most cases play backup copies of your games right from the flash memory or disk memory instead of reading from DVD for improved read time when one installs a custom firmware in place of the original or official firmware from the manufacturer. Manufacturers have always been against the homebrew in fear of game piracy, which affected the previous PlayStation generations (PS1, PS2, PSP, Xbox, Xbox360, Wii, etc.) It has been reported that game piracy costs the industry billions of dollars every year.

PS3 jailbreak has already been confirmed doable for PS3 consoles with firmware version 3.41. Do a quick search on PS3 Jail Break on a search engine or the popular video streaming site should yield many usable results if you like to get more details or proof of its existence. Of course, homebrew fans would argue that Sony broke their promise when they launched the PS3 by blocking the installation of Linux. Nevertheless, homebrew is an area of interest because it enables the hidden capabilities of the console which are not put to use by the manufacturer through the official firmware. I’ve previously had CFW on my PSP and installed custom ROM on my Windows Mobile smartphones and I believe the idea of getting all the juice out of that internally powerful gaming console of PS3 or Wii sounds pretty tempting if the CFW is stable and reliable.

New Mario Wii Game - Mario Sports Mix (Feb 7 2011 Release)

Mario™ has a long history as a sports fan. Throughout his storied career he has pursued an interest in golf, tennis, baseball and go-karting, to name just a few. Now Mario’s tackling four different sports at the same time, all of them included on one disc for the Wii™ console. The game MARIO™ SPORTS MIX lets players jump into games of hockey, basketball, volleyball or dodgeball. The game launches on Feb. 7.

Mario Sports Mix presents these four familiar sports – but with a Mario twist. Players can choose from a variety of playable Mushroom Kingdom characters and can even challenge Mario and friends directly by playing as their own Mii™ characters. Each game contains a number of Mushroom Kingdom power-ups that can turn the tide of a game in an instant, such as banana peels, green shells and even mini mushrooms. In over-the-top Mario sports fashion, each character can unleash his or her unique special move that ranges from Mario’s fire dunk in basketball to Yoshi’s rainbow attack in dodgeball.

Players can also elect to hold their matches in a number of interesting venues. For example, the Wario Factory has conveyor belts that affect how the players move on the court, while in Peach’s Castle, fountains go up and down to block certain areas of the net in Volleyball.

Up to four friends who are in the same room can join in the fun, while up to four players (one or two at each location) can compete over a broadband Internet connection via Nintendo® Wi-Fi Connection. Players can play online against friends with whom they have traded friend codes, or anonymously against other opponents. Multiplayer modes require additional controllers, which are sold separately.