Here’s a look at Nintendo’s “Wii Shop Channel” and “Virtual Console” for the Wii.

Take a look at the Mii Channel on the Nintendo Wii:

Please note that I filmed this video while wearing no pants or underwear as a blatant disregard for the oppressive Powet.tv show dress code.

It’s been 5 months today since the first issue of the new Gargoyles comic was released and we still haven’t seen a second issue. Originally planned to be one issue every 2 months this comic has been delayed apparently because the art took longer to complete. By that logic shouldn’t we expect the same 3 month delay for all subsequent issues?

Regardless of the excuse Diamond Comics has finally listed Gargoyles #2 to be distributed on November 29th 2006.

The publisher’s production schedule states the comic is delayed until December. Frankly Diamond Comics has a good reputation and Slave Labor has had errors stated on their site about this comic before. When it was originally delayed Diamond Comics reflected this while Slave Labor made no mention it.

I wouldn’t stake my reputation on a November 29th date at this point though this is a more plausible date than we’ve seen before. More information and a review will be forthcoming as the comic is released.

What better way to celebrate PS3 launch day than to watch the guys from SmashMyPS3.com smash a unit in front of a bunch of lined up geeks.

Thanks to Zac for finding this.

And special thanks to spooie for this picture of G4 Tech TV’s Olivia Munn licking a PS3:

And if you read the forums you could have seen all this hours ago.

Original word was that the Wii component cables would only be available online. Later it was announced that a few retailers would have them in stores on launch day. In anticipation I checked Nintendo’s online store every few days hoping to order a set before launch day fearing I’d be unable to find them in Canada. The result was that the Wii was never and still isn’t listed in the listing of systems in the store and up until a few days ago a search for “component” yielded only results for the discontinued Gamecube cables.

Well today a search showed the Wii component cables were in the store, not reacheable by navigating through the links but only with the search and most frustratingly of all sold out until at least November 28th already! These things are harder to get a hold of than the PS3!

If you really hate yourself please check out the King Kong 3 disc deluxe edition or if you have more money than you need get this totally retarded King Kong deluxe limited edition gift set.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

When the X-Box 360 had problems playing original X-Box games it was somewhat expected. It was announced a good while before launch and the reason was because the hardware was so different. Up until this weekend Sony’s claim was that backwards compatibility would be supported for PlayStation and PS2 games. Now that it’s released in Japan we see that that’s not true at all.

According to this BBC article a Japanese newspaper has claimed that 200 games don’t play properly on the new system. Though Sony has acknowledged the problem and first stated it on their web site the day of the Japanese release of the system, they aren’t giving a number of how many games are affected.

As usual promises are made to add compatibility for problematic games through patches available online. This is all so familiar.

Sony now has the following statement listed on their description of the PS3’s features:

NOTE
Some PlayStation 2 or PlayStation format software titles may perform differently on this system than they do on PlayStation 2 or PlayStation systems, or may not perform properly on this system. PS3 does not support a vibration controller.

Gamers can go to this page on Sony’s official site to check to see what games don’t work. Unfortunately it’s all in Japanese so good luck in making much sense of it. Search for nothing to get a list of all games. The right colum shows if the game works or not. In fairness it took me a while browsing through that list to find a game with a reported problem but if you narrow your search down to include only PlayStation 1 games you’ll notice that problems are a lot more common. Use this to translate.

It still remains to be seen if Nintendo shares the curse of the current generation of game systems but given their track record of backwards compatibility in their handhelds I’m not terribly worried.

Last year’s X-Box 360 shortage caused a ridiculous amount of overpriced systems selling on ebay within the first week of the system’s launch. After about a week the auction closing prices settled down to about 10% over the sticker price. So what does the world learn from this? Absolutely nothing apparently.

Check out these completed auctions for a $1,995,00 Wii and even worse a $14,900.00 PS3. These aren’t even auctions for systems now. They’re pre-orders to be shipped this weekend when the systems are launched. Sure they include a few launch titles but those are terribly unlikely to sell out in the first couple of days. One only needs to do a quick ebay search for Wii or PS3 to see the ongoing auctions and ebay users can click on the “completed items” box on the left to see what these auctions finished at.

Sure the PS3 will have less systems at launch than the X-Box 360 but with it’s heafty price tag it will also sell that many less systems. Is making sure you get a system on launch day really more important than say… a car? Paying more than a couple of dollars over sticker price for the Wii is terribly ignorant seeing as the sytem is likely to be able to fill demand into December. You can pay 2000$ on ebay or you know… you can pay 250$ in a store next week. I personally walked into a Toys ‘R Us on a random Sunday afternoon in Septemeber and pre-ordered my Wii which I’m told is almost certain to be in 9am launch day according to the expected number of systems they’ll be getting. That’s a net savings of $1750 US!

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. Keep checking ebay to see just how much higher these people are willing to pay for these systems before the price drops back to MSRP.