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[Zalis]

• Xbox 360: 28,681 units
• Wii: 27,057 units
• PLAYSTATON 3: 8,050 units

I was thinking it was similar to slumping DS sales, where most of Japan already owns the system.

[Heavens Angel]

Don't roll those eyes. Unlike most Wii patent lawsuits, this one could be a little more serious. Following a complaint filed in August, the U.S. International Trade Commission have agreed to investigate claims made by Hillcrest Laboratories that the Nintendo Wii infringes on four patents they hold for motion-controlled devices. If you're interested, you can check out Hillcrest's tech here. While the ITC clearly state that this does not signal any decision on the merits of the case, it does mean their judges will be taking a good, long look at it, and if they think Hillcrest have a case to make, will kick things up a notch. For the record, goods that violate Section 337 of the Tariff Act (which is what Nintendo are being accused of by Hillcrest) can, if found guilty, be withdrawn from sale in the US, since the law was established to prevent foreign imports from infringing upon American patents.

ITC INSTITUTES SECTION 337 INVESTIGATION ON CERTAIN VIDEO GAME MACHINES AND RELATED THREE-DIMENSIONAL POINTING DEVICES

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has voted to institute an investigation of certain video game machines and related three-dimensional pointing devices. The products at issue in this investigation are "Wii" video game systems and accompanying remote controls.

The investigation is based on a complaint filed by Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc., Rockville, MD, on August 20, 2008. The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the importation into the United States of certain video game machines and related three-dimensional pointing devices that infringe patents owned by Hillcrest. The complainant requests that the ITC issue an exclusion order and a cease and desist order.

The ITC has identified the following as respondents in this investigation:

Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Japan; and
Nintendo of America, Inc., of Redmond, WA.

By instituting this investigation (337-TA-658), the ITC has not yet made any decision on the merits of the case. The ITC's Chief Administrative Law Judge will assign the case to one of the ITC's five administrative law judges (ALJ), who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing. The ALJ will make an initial determination as to whether there is a violation of section 337; that initial determination is subject to review by the Commission.

The ITC will make a final determination in the investigation at the earliest practicable time. Within 45 days after institution of the investigation, the ITC will set a target date for completing the investigation. ITC remedial orders in section 337 cases are effective when issued and become final 60 days after issuance unless disapproved for policy reasons by the U.S. Trade Representative within that 60-day period.

http://kotaku.com/5051553/us-interna...ringement-case

imagine that nintendo not being able to sell anymore wii's in the us.

i guess ill sell mine on ebay if that happens for lots of money :D

[Sir Jack]

Why The 360 Didn't Ship With A HDD (And Why The PS3 Did)

Two sides of the same story here. On the one side, ex-Xbox man Peter Moore, who explains how the decision to include a HDD in the original Xbox eventually led to its early demise (they even had a pre-determined kill figure!), and thus why they didn't bother making them standard in the 360:

...not having a hard drive in every Xbox 360 was a hard decision, but we wanted to get price under control. The hard drive in every Xbox killed us; we we're still selling it at $199 and the hard drive was like $70. That's why we prematurely left the original Xbox, because the more we were selling – there was still great demand – it was killing us, and there was no way to bring the price down. So in the end we determined at around the 25 million unit mark that we just needed to slow this thing down and just not sell any more, and move to the 360 as quickly as we possibly could. And to this day people still believe we left the Xbox too early but it was purely for financial purposes.

So that's the Xbox. But what about the PS3?

SCE Worldwide boss Shuhei Yoshida says exactly the opposite. That the 360's HDD plan is silly, and that including a HDD has been an integral part of Sony's strategy with the PS3:

It’s one of the things we really supported when the hardware specification was decided for PS3. Like Microsoft did, we could have had an optional hard drive and settled for cheaper combinations of hardware, but if we had done that - from a [development] standpoint - we cannot rely on every consumer to have a hard drive.

So that really helps us to focus on [the fact that] every consumer has a hard drive. Now we can cache data so that gameplay is seamless.

Truth be told, the HDD was the best thing about the original Xbox, and the 360 is only going to increasingly suffer from the fact developers can't build games that require a HDD. We kinda wish they'd just stuck with it, since the cost argument is surely nullified by the fact nobody buys a HDD-less Arcade.

Short version: Original XBOX was killed off due to financial reasons (duh), PS3 gets a built-in HDD because it's better in the long run for developers compared to MS's "there are 360s without an HDD" situation.

I'm in agreement with Sony here. One of the few good things about the original XBOX was the HDD. MS not including one as a standard in the 360 is going to cause problems in the long run. It doesn't necesarilly a bad thing, as has been shown by the PS2 (some games required a HDD, but there were few of those), then again, the PS2 is still getting supported. However, with the added disadvantage of the 360's limited disk capacity could mean that the PS3 will surpass the 360 in the field of gaming possibilities in a year or two.

[Akirai Annuvil]

I doubt HDD is such a big deal tbh. Being able to dump data on a harddrive lessens load time and lag; then again so does good optimatization and carefuly programming. It might make development harder (and consequently more expensive) for the 360, but I doub it'd affect the gamer negatively that much.

Still won't buy a 360, rotten microsoft.

[Art]

The Force Unleashed is out in the UK now, off to buy it in a mo.

-Art

[Akirai Annuvil]

Wii gets Smell-O-Vision
Ok I'm not 100% sure whether the motion control part of the Wii is gimmick or innovation, but this is like going waaaaay too far.
I also don't see how anyone can think it will sell, at all, while priced ~150 euro.

(also if anyone knows the original version of this song, so that I don't have to constantly put on the trailer to listen to it, eternal gratitude is yours >.>)

[Zalis]

Wii gets Smell-O-Vision
Ok I'm not 100% sure whether the motion control part of the Wii is gimmick or innovation, but this is like going waaaaay too far.
I also don't see how anyone can think it will sell, at all, while priced ~150 euro.

This, from the same site, perked my interest.

[Akirai Annuvil]

Sexual innuendo heaven.
Nunchuck controlled espresso makers are funny though.

[Zalis]

From the gamersinc ticker:

Mega Man 9 will cost $9.99 on PSN, 100 Wii Points or 800 MS Points.

They need to fire whoever types those up. There are typos in about every other one.

In retrospect, this might not be the appropriate thread for it. Whoops.

[Feannag]

Jack Thompson Disbarred By !

Jack Thompson sues Florida Supreme Court!

It's all a conspeeeeeeracy!