Gaming

Normally we’re all for people modding their video game consoles (or whatever the hell else they’ve bought and paid

for), but three stores in the Washington D.C.-area decided to really push their luck and were raided by the Feds last

week for selling modded Xboxes with extra large hard drives. Usually companies look the other way on stuff like that,

but what probably really pissed Microsoft off was that they’d hacked the copy protections on the Xboxes so that you

could copy as many games as you wanted onto them, and some of the consoles they were selling came loaded up with 15 or

more pirated games. Dudes, you gotta keep this action on the down low, ok?

D-Link today announced the 108Mbps Super-G & Gigabit DGL-4300

GamerLounge Gaming Router which promises to make LAN parties a thing of ease, cheese, chips, and soda. The unit sports

four 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet ports with up to 108Mbps 802.11g, and D-Link swear up and down that this thing will

bless you with lag-free LAN parties. It also includes a Flash-based configuration tool that has various game

settings built-in for quick router settings. $179 and available now-ish.

It’s been confirmed that the PlayStation 3

is going to use a Cell processor jointly made by Sony,

Toshiba, and IBM, have built-in WiFi support, and use

Blu-Ray discs (25/50GB), now Nvidia makes the big

score and has announced that they will be powering the graphics in Sony’s next generation gaming console. behind it

with a new There’s no solid specs on what Nvidia is throwing in there yet, but it should basically be a new

GeForce GPU designed specifically to work with the Cell processor.

[Thanks, Soir]

Setting an example for any manufacturer that

sells anything with an LCD screen on it, Nintendo is actually following through on its promises, and is repairing or

replacing any new DS portable game console with even a single dead pixel (most manufacturers won’t offer a replacement

or repair unless there is a minimum of three or four dead pixels). Even more amazing, some people are reporting that it

only took a warranty fulfillment center four days to repair and return their DS to them.

There are no details about which specific consoles or games they’re from, or whether or not they’re cutaway scenes

or actual gameplay, but Games Radar has a couple of PlayStation 3 and/or Xbox 2 screenshots from a talk the CFO of

Electronic Arts gave last week in the UK. Click to see a pic of the other screenshot, which is from a driving

game.

[Via Joystiq]

Ok, maybe not surprising given how cheap it’s getting to put WiFi into things, but the CFO of Electronics Arts has

confirmed that the next-generation of game consoles (by which we assume he means the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 2, and

possibly the next GameCube) are going to be able to double as wireless hubs. Obviously you’ll be able to connect them

up to a home wireless network (rather than having to purchase a WiFi adapter like you do now), but the real reason

they’re doing this so you’ll be able to wirelessly play online games with your Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable.

It’s Friday, things are winding down, and so we figured we’d toss

you some highlights from the past week of Joystiq, our sibling site that’s just as crazy about video games as we are

about gadgets:

• The Nintendo DS - the beginning of a contentious

  relationship

• Half-Life 2 Deathmatch a reality

• XLink Kai: free online gaming for the masses

• Ask Joystiq: What do I get the gamer who has

  everything?

• It’s about time - World of Warcraft review is

  out

• Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater launch event

• Torus Troopers is yours for the price of free

• Halo 2: flying glitch revealed!

• Nintendo join the 21st century

It’s not like analysts haven’t been wrong or anything, but In-Stat/MDR has a new report out about the next

generation of video consoles coming out, and predicts that the Xbox 2 will most likely hit sometime in the fourth

quarter of 2005, the PlayStation 3 won’t be out until the middle of 2006, and that Nintendo is going to try and get the

GameCube 2 (or whatever they end up calling it) out sometime right before or at the same time that Sony drops their new

console on us.

What if the PlayStation 2 holiday demo disk Sony sent you

this fall wiped out your memory card and erased one of your games—like the final stages of Grand Theft Auto:

San Andreas? That’s pretty much the situation for some members of Sony’s PlayStation Underground Fan Club, who received

free copies of a trial version of the Capcom adventure game Viewtiful Joe 2, only to discover that playing the

disc deleted everything stored in their memory files. Sony says they’re doing everything in their power to

notify players, from sending out postcards to posting forum alerts to beating the guy who made the mistake to a bloody

pulp(okay, not that). A representative says “We recognize this as a serious issue and are doing everything we can to

alert the consumers who received the demo,” which, translated from the corporatese, means, Oh jeeze, we screwed

up. Ya think?

If you’re thinking about buying a

Nintendo DS, move fast—the company says they sold 500,000

units of the new double-screen game console during the first

week and the supply could be “depleted within days.” Given that Nintendo really did tell analysts they

expected to sell 1 million units before 2004 ended that leaves just another week or so to grab one. Game Boy Advance

SP, anyone?