Nintendo hopes Wii is ready for new console

Nintendo's next generation video game console has an official name: Wii.

Formerly known as code-name "Revolution," the company dubbed its new game Wii (pronounced "we") because it plans to "break down the walls" that separate hard core gamers from everyone else.

Nintendo wants to create a system that everyone can use. It also wants a system where you don't need a nickname. PlayStation is PS2 or PS1, XBox is X or the box.

Wii, Nintendo hopes, will be just Wii. And they probably hope "we" buy a lot of them.

-- I know you gamers have been waiting on this, so.... A company called Exent Technologies has launched a suite of in-game advertising solutions, so if the middle of your Doom quest online, you could be feted with ad to buy Diapers.

The solution allows for the enablement of in-game ads without the need to access the video game's source code. Until now, implementation was limited to new releases which would have had such progamming designed into it.

Now, the company claims publishers can "easily flip the switch on in-game advertising campaigns for games that were never originally designed to support it."

-- Casual game provider Game Trust released updated software which includes universal chat, free instant messenger, buddy lists, and social networking links for 65 integrated games distributed across prominent online brands, including MiniClip.com and Shockwave.com. The new enhancements, as part of the Game Frame Version 4.8 release, create a Community Gaming experience for players worldwide.

Every player can extend their Game Frame profile with a link to their personal site, allowing players to learn more about members of the community.

-- Former Southern Cal QB and Heisman award winner Matt Leinart is writing a blog for EA Sports detailing the days leading up to the NFL draft this weekend. Is he going to talk about the wild photos of him partying that are all over the net?

Sony opens up PSP to more uses

Sony is making viewing multimedia content, including podcasts, easier to look at on its PSP system.

A new 2.7 firmware upgrade, now available for download, delivers support for the Macromedia Flash Player, which allows users to experience videos and other multimedia content right from their PSP system.

Also, audio content from RSS channels can now be saved directly to the Memory Stick Duo, enabling users to listen to their favorite podcasts at their convenience.

Click here to get the download, which can also be taken down wirelessly to a PSP system with a Wi-Fi connection.

--- DISH Network customers are getting their OLN channel back beginning today. DISH and OLN have reached a multi-year agreement after the channel went dark on the mini-dish provider.

"It was important that we negotiated a fair contract, enabling DISH Network to remain a tremendous value for our customers," said Eric Sahl, senior vice president of Programming at DISH. "We understand that this has been a difficult period for our customers, and we thank them for all their patience. We look forward to a long relationship with OLN in which we can provide the network to our customers."

OLN returns to channel 151 in America's Top 180, DishHD Gold or any higher programming package. National Hockey League fans can now catch exciting playoff action including tonight's double-header involving the New York Rangers at New Jersey Devils at 7 p.m. (EDT), and the Colorado Avalanche at Dallas Stars at 9:30 p.m. (EDT). Visit www.OLNTV.com for a complete NHL playoff schedule.

-- There's NetFlix and Blockbuster and now MovieBeam, an over-the-air downloadable movie service that is coming to Charlotte soon. You buy the MovieBeam player for $199 and it comes with 100 movies installed. Each week, up to 10 movies are automatically downloaded via a small antenna to the box. You don't need cable or satellite.

Rental fees are $1.99 to $4.99 and browsing the website
shows that the service has the type of new releases you'd expect to find at the other services of this type.

-- A new iPod docking station is a must-have for users of the fantastic storage device. It comes with an RF remote and a USB charger and lets you easily connect your iPod to a computer, stereo or television set.

-- VSO Software's Image Resizer seems like a good creation. It allows users to resize pictures or change their format (from gif to jpeg for example). This tool can help improve pictures management and saves storage space. Image files which are smaller in size are more easily sent by email, something difficult to do with the original file size.

The resizer (available as freeware) handles images in all popular formats: bmp, jpeg, gif, png and can converts them at the preferred resolution (from 320x200 to 1600x1200, including even Ipod photo and video, Sony PSPS, HDTV and DVD). The images will adjust automatically to the size of the desktop or to the source used to display them.

Nintendo wants better games for better systems

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has challenged game developers to think out of the box when creating video games. I applaud him. As good as the technology is getting with delivering graphics, the actual game play hasn’t changed much since the days of Pong.

Iwata promises to give developers all the tools they need to create new and better games, including the controller for Nintendo's next home console (code-named Revolution), which lets users control the action on their television screens through the motion of the controller itself.

The controller, Iwata hopes, will enable developers to create new kinds of gaming experiences, ones that enhance the experience for hard-core gamers while making video games more accessible and less intimidating to novices.

"This new approach is like stepping onto an unexplored continent for the first time, with all the potential for discovery that suggests," Iwata said. "No one else can match the environment we're creating for expanding the game experience to everyone. Our path is not linear, but dynamic."

• Iwata also announced partnerships with Sega and Hudson to offer downloadable access to their classic games via Revolution's Virtual Console.

Revolution owners will be able to relive their past gaming glories from the Sega Genesis console by playing a "best of" selection from more than 1,000 Genesis titles, as well as games sold for the TurboGrafx console (a system jointly developed by NEC and Hudson). These games join Revolution's access to 20 years of fan-favorite Nintendo games from the NES, Super NES and
Nintendo 64 eras.

• Iwata said a new game, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, would be released for Nintendo DS later this year.

Madden Bowl Championship Tonight on ESPN

Here's the beauty of blogging: I get a press release -- kind of late -- about an event happening tonight (Thursday April 20th) and I can still let you know about it.

In the old days, this would've been something I couldn't have told you about in Friday's newspaper. And it's a good one, at least for you sports video game heads:

Tonight (Thursday April 20) at 9:30 p.m., ESPN will air a special presentation of the 2006 EA Sports Madden Bowl, filmed on location at the Colony Club in Detroit during the week of this year's Super Bowl. It pits the top eight Madden gamers in the NFL against each other in a sudden death tournament to determine the best in the league.

The finale of this two-part special airs Thursday, April 27^th at 9:30pm.

Competing are: Willis McGahee (Buffalo); Marcus Trufant (Seattle); Edgerrin James (Arizona); Chad Johnson (Cincinnati); Alex Smith (Tampa Bay); Antonio Gates (San Diego); Mark Clayton (Baltimore); Santana Moss (Washington)

2K Sports scores with College Hoops 2K6

I am still without an Xbox 360 and I'm sad about it. Really. The only way I can enjoy fabulous 360 games like 2K Sports' "College Hoops 2K6" is to tote my games over to a friend's house.

But it's probably just as well. If I had a 360 in my house right now, I'd be playing this game all day long. Graphically, college basketball has never looked better. Even though the players' names cannot be displayed on their jersies, per NCAA rules, you can recognize many of your favorite players and coaches.

The players sweat and their faces have appropriate expressions and the entire experience is just so, well, pure. You get real fight songs that sound like real bands playing them. There's authentic crowd noise, that comes and goes at the right time. You can see the student sections bouncing up and down.

A new right analog stick-based shooting system will remind you a bit of EA Sports' controls, but works well to enhance shooting, and every feature you could want is in the game. If your team isn't playing in this weekend's Final Four, you can put it there with this game and it won't look much different than the broadcast CBS is putting on (CBS by the way is using this game to diagram plays during its pregame shows for the Elite 8 and Final Four). Get this one. Or at least click here and view the trailer.

Microsoft's new Ipod killer?

There have been rumors floating around for months that Microsoft was developing what some have dubbed an "iPod killer," a device that would download music and also be used to play video and videogames.

This week, San Jose Mercury News writer Dean Takahashi put out some more credible information. Takahashi has just finished a book, "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft's Next-Generation Video Game Console."

While reporting for it, he got serious wind of Microsoft's new project and just who the company has coordinating the effort: the director is Greg Gibson, system designer on Xbox 360, and Xbox finance chief Bryan Lee is handling the money side of the project.

Takahashi thinks the Microsoft handheld device would resemble the PlayStation Portable unit, would probably debut in 2007 and could probably run many of the original Xbox games at launch. The code name for the Microsoft's "iTunes"-like music service? "Alexandria."

So you want an HDTV for March Mania, but which one?

If you're buying a TV these days, it makes quite a bit of sense to go ahead and buy an HDTV, which deliver much sharper pictures than traditional sets. HDTVs also offer Dolby Digital sound via a stereo hookup, so your system will look and sound like a movie theater.

All that's cool, but which kind should you buy: LCD, plasma, DLP?

Panasonic vice president of technology, Jeff Cove, says it depends.

"Each of these technologies all look beautiful," Cove said. "You have to focus on what's the most important thing for (your) living room."

For example, if you want to put a digital set in a kitchen or a room with a lot of light, you probably want to try an LCD.

"It's the best performer in really bright viewing conditions," Cove said. "Plasma wouldn't be as good."

LCD sets go up to about 40 to 45 inches in most product lines and smaller digital sets, Cove said, tend to be LCDs. Plasmas start at 37 inches and have their own advantages.

"If you and your family are going to be sitting 10 feet away from the screen and sit all around the room, you probably want to go plasma," Cove said. "It gives you a wider viewing angle. Wherever you sit in the room, it gives you the same picture. LCD gives you the best picture when you're right in front of it."

DLP sets also provide strong pictures but don't have the panoramic viewing angle of the plasma sets, which I think deliver the best overall picture. Panasonic lent me a 42-inch plasma for a few weeks before Christmas. Right off the truck, the set was beautiful, delivering rich, accurate color reproduction and images so clear during the Panthers' last football game that I almost felt like I could jump through the screen and into Seattle.

Plasma sets deliver better contrast than the other slim line sets, which makes colors look richer. LCD sets can't produce dark colors, especially black, as well. And with sports, plasmas look much better as LCDs can sometimes appear blurry because they can't flash pictures as fast as a plasma.

Now, the old rear projection sets, heavy and wide, still put out quite a good picture and are the most affordable sets. If you want to go past 50 inches, the costs for plasmas explode and you may want to consider the old rear projection unit. But know that rear projections are fast becoming a dinosaur in the industry. And there's one reason why.

"You can't hang it on the wall," Cove said, "and that's important to a lot of people."

What kind of set did you buy or are you thinking about buying? Let me know.

DirecTV adding TNT HD in time for All-Star Weekend

DirecTV hi-def users will get a new channel, TNT-HD, beginning Feb. 17. You'll find it on Channel 75 if you subscribe to the company's $10.99/mo HD package.

The 24/7 HD presentation of the TNT East Coast feed will offer live NBA games and NASCAR races; series; movies; and TNT Originals.

The DirecTV HD package includes ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, Discovery HD Theater, HDNet, HDNet Movies and Universal HD. DirecTV customers with HD-enabled equipment can also receive HBO-HD and Showtime-HD if they subscribe to those premium movie packages.

TNT in HD is broadcast in 1080i 24 hours a day and uses Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The station also presents all of its programming, including promotional content and commercials, in 16:9 wide-screen, giving viewers a consistent viewing experience.

There was a full page ad in USA Today this week which stated that DirecTV users could get the new channel in time for the NBA All-Star Weekend which will be presented in high definition.

Time Warner cable users with high definition service also get TNT-HD, which broadcasts NBA games all season in high definition.

Memory Chips linked to XBox 360 shortage?

Most popular videogame question in my inbox these days is "Why can't I find an XBox 360 yet?"

Microsoft promises more are coming, but our sister paper, the San Jose Mercury News, reports
that one reason Microsoft is having trouble is that a German company, Infineon Technologies, is having trouble making enough of the chips at the right speed for the game console.

Peter Moore, head of Microsoft's game division, wouldn't comment to the Mercury News about the memory chip shortage and blamed the lack of 360s on store shelves on component shortages. The good news is Moore said consumers can expect to see more of the units on store shelves next month.

Industry rumors run rampant of all types of component failures with the box, some causing it to overheat and others causing it to lose information. The 360 has more than 1,700 components in it. In a month-long test with an Xbox 360 last month, I didn't have any problems.

But whatever the problem is, Microsoft is really ruining what was a great strategy to bite into Sony's market share with its second gen Xbox console. Gamers should've been playing games right now, not waiting on units. And each week that goes by, Sony's $500 PS3 unit gets closer and closer.

It's due in the fall, hopefully in plentiful supply.

HDTV so clear you can read the fans T-shirts

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been testing a Panasonic 42-inch plasma high-definition television mated with the new Xbox 360 from Microsoft.

All I can say is “wow.”

Until you’ve watched the NFL playoffs, the Super Bowl, big-time college basketball and your favorite TV shows (“Surface,” “Smallville,” and “24”) in high definition, you haven’t watched TV. And until you’ve played the new Tiger Woods game in high def via the new Xbox, you haven’t really played video games.

I’m going to be writing a lot here about HD, particularly about what it is and how to get it. It’s amazing technology. But first, let’s myth-bust: to get high definition television, you must have a high definition set.

You may see “presented in high definition” across the bottom of your screen when a program comes on, but rest assured, your old floor model 25-inch can’t show HD. HD is a form of digital television that is so sharp, you can see individual hairs on people’s heads. You can see what fans have on in the stands at a basketball game.

True story: My son, Trey, asked me who were the Jackson 5 last week during a Philly 76er game on ESPN-HD.

“Why are you asking, son,” I said back.

“Because,” he said pointing, “that man behind the basket has a T-shirt with that name on it.”

Like I said, “Wow.”

And gaming on an HD set is amazing. Even the old Xbox looks better in HD. Some games were created to use a different form of digital TV, one that is not HD, but still trumps standard TV.

These “480P” games are created to fill the screens of these new HD sets that have rectangular screens – like a movie screen – instead of the old square jobs we’re used to. So your old NBA 2K5 will look better on an HD set than it does even on your non-HD 50-inch square job in the den right now.

But the new 360 game system is created to play all games in HD, and a new adapter coming this year will allow the system to play the upcoming HD-DVDs, a feature that is going to be included with the new PS3 system, which will set you back $500, or about the same as a modified 360 I’m guessing.

People will pay, though.

Playing video games in HD is almost like playing for the first time. It’ll take you a long time to get over the “I can’t believe this looks so good” thing. The grass in Tiger Woods PGA looks like real grass. Tiger looks almost like the real thing. The courses look more realistic. It just adds to the game. Makes it more intense. Game play itself isn’t changed much, and most of these new 360 titles are simply graphically upgraded ports of the stuff we’ve played.

But by summer, we’ll get second generation 360 games from folks like EA Sports and Visual Concepts and the like, and given the power of the new 360, I think we’ll see new tricks, too. My guess? HD gaming is going to help video games grab an even bigger share of America’s pop culture pie.

Tell me about your HD gaming experience. Click on the comments link below.

Welcome to a better world

First of all, welcome to my new video game/technology blog.

The column is moving online. For the 10 years I've been doing this, this column has run a lot of places in The Observer: in Mecklenburg Neighbors, in the business section, in local news and finally in the entertainment section.

I think we've finally found the right place for it here, online. I can get you all the video game news faster, as it's delivered to me, with no wait times. I'll be able to tell you about the latest technological advances faster, too. We'll talk about satellite vs. cable TV, we'll talk Ipod vs. MP3, we'll talk about Madden football vs., well, no one else can make official pro football games anymore.

But you get the idea.

Feel free to post responses, reviews or questions about games you've played, or if you want to be a bit more private, just send me an email.

I would love for this to become a bit of a community where we can come in and share what we know, give up a cheat code or a killer play in a sports game.

I'm excited about the new spot for the video games and I'm also excited because I can tell you about all the cool techo-gear I get to read about and get my hands on. You can help me by telling me what kind of stuff you're interested in and what kind of cool toys you've seen.

And last, be sure to check back often. I'll be posting a lot. News happens in the video game and technology industry fast, and on the internet here, we finally can keep up.

Tough job, but ...

Langston Wertz Jr. celebrates a play he made while playing Nintendo 64 inside the Nintendo Video Game Company van. (JEFF SINER, The Charlotte Observer)