Techies gather round, for Buffalo Technology has another plug-in wireless device aimed at Wi-Fi-capable consoles (and yes, that would mean you Sony and Nintendo button mashers) which they call the Wi-Fi Gamer. If their joint offering with Nintendo was a treat for Wii and DS gamers with XP rigs, this new device might tickle your fancy. We know you've got lost of love for your current Wi-Fi routers, but check this one out.

Not larger than a pack of playing cards, the Wi-Fi Gamer can work devoid of Windows computers - holding off the idea of port-hogging port on your PC. Instead the AirStation OneTouch Secure System (AOSS) gadget connects to an open port in your home or office LAN and runs its own wireless access point with the press of the "Connect" button.

And while Nintendo consoles have been working with AOSS for significant time now, even Sony has upped the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable (PSP) to AOSS compatibility levels with their recent firmware upgra...

Time magazine interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto, the video game designer who created the Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Nintendogs, and Pikmin series of video games.

And he said some interesting stuff that also got us thinking...

Violence in video games. Miyamoto is one smart cookie:
The obvious objective of video games is to entertain people by surprising them with new experiences. Violence is one means of doing that, [though] I look to make people laugh or smile. But the more we have parents playing video games themselves, the more they will understand the interactive world and how to deal with games that have a tremendous amount of violence.
Wise words indeed from Shigeru Miyamoto. Did you hear that, oh ye lawmakers and anti-gaming lawyers? Video games - like all kinds of art - seek to create an experience. Violence is one way - not necessarily the best way, but it's still one relevant way because adults play video games too.

Remem...

 
If you fancy yourself as the next big dance sensation, stop reading and join American Idol. However, if you're not yet ready for the big leagues so to speak, you can live your dreams in Electronic Arts' Boogie. Essentially a karaoke and dance game for the Wii, this game provides budding performers with a way to channel their creativity without inconveniencing Simon Cowell.

The game allows gamers to dance or sing songs from famous artists like Kool and the Gang which is pretty cool in itself, when you really think about it. Furthermore, don't think it ends there as you can even create your own musical clips with a selection of production tools.

The interface looks very intuitive judging from the screenshots. The game is slated to be out on August 9 in the U.S. and August 31 in Europe. So go get your groove on with Boogie, think of it as training for your future dancing career.

    
  

Filed under: Fan stuff, Friday Video
Okay, we (and by we, I'm pretty sure here I only mean me) may be fans of Wii Fit, but we still have to offer up some props to this guy for sliding in a humorous reference to the balance board and the forthcoming fitness title in naming his altered-Pong video and homemade controller.

But we still laugh when he falls off. No idea what we're talking about? Then hit the break and check out this week's hilarious featured video! Now we just have to work on convincing our wonderful columnist Mike Sylvester to try out something similar (and film it for our pleasure).

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Atari confirmed the other day that upcoming video game Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 will indeed have online capabilities. Despite the confirmation, the company didn't furnish any more details regarding the said feature.

Now, we just learned some info regarding this - all thanks to the mag scan and translation that were provided by XiaoMayi. Accordingly, the online play is exclusive to the Wii version of the title, meaning those who are planning to buy the PlayStation 2 version will have to be contented with old school single-player mode.

Aside from that, it was also said that the online play will come with six different features namely:
Custom battle: with a customized character Normal Battle: with regular characters Friend Battle: against a friend Ranking Battle: battle to be the best in the world! Ranking: world and national classificationsShop: the shop.We expect to hear from Atari soon regarding more details about the above mentioned features. Dragon B...

Filed under: Virtual Console
It's strong women day for the European Virtual Console! As usual, the ladies are outnumbered (that's par for the gaming course), but today, at least they're present, and our girl Samus is even a star! Chun Li is pretty awesome in her own right, too. But it's not all about the ladies this weekend for you gamers -- though we'll risk saying that Metroid may be the best of this lot, since there are already other Street Fighter games available already (and hey, it's Metroid!).
Metroid -- NES -- 500 Wii points Silent Debuggers -- Turbografx -- 600 Wii points Street Fighter II Turbo -- SNES -- 800 Wii points Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: Fan stuff

Has the time limit run out on Martha Stewart prison humor? We hope not, even though we know the 'baking a file into a cake' humor died out eons ago.

Martha appears on the cover of the August Wired magazine, promoting a feature inside on how to bake a Wii cake. It is amazingly cool to us that a mainstream magazine has not only the Wii on its cover, but a Wii cake. Gaming cakes seem so much like the exclusive domain of the Internet.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Filed under: What are you playing?

Ugh, no new games this week. So, our game-playing plans this weekend only extend to the Virtual Console, where we hope we can scrounge up enough time to take Paper Mario through its paces. Really, we've got nothing else to play, which makes us a very sad panda.

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Filed under: Fan stuff

Atlus gave away this little surgery-sim souvenir last week at E3, but we've seen it pop up on a few sites and even an eBay auction already, so you might be able to snatch one for yourself if you're intent on acquiring every single piece of Trauma Center merchandise. While the "syringe pen" concept is nothing new, this particular novelty item seems tailor-made for the sequel's title, New Blood.

For those of you who're still upset that the series seems to have completely defected the Wii, you could always try to replace its ink contents with a stylus. Maybe that'll inject some new life into Trauma Center: Under the Knife? Did you see what we did there?

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Here's the latest on sales of hardware and games for the weeks ending on July 7 and 14. July 14, it has to be noted, is just a day after E3.

 
Recent data gives light to Sony's claim of a doubling in their sales since their US 100 price drop. For the sales week ending on July 14 at least, sales for the PlayStation 3 rose 131 , more than double, outrunning the sales of the 360. The Wii rose by 10 but the Xbox hardly moved, selling only 1 more than the previous week.

The Nintendo DS is enjoying a ginormous success; although sales slipped by 5 , you can hardly scoff at more than 97k units sold in a week. The PSP sold only 50k on the same week.

It also looks like the top 5 games in Amazon last July 8 seems to be just as popular to non-online shoppers. The most popular games for each console is Wii Play for the Wii, The Darkness for the Xbox 360, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3. Still going strong for the Wii are Mario Party 8 and Resident Evil 4. S...