Gaming

Let’s face it: you don’t have nearly enough game controllers and accessories adding to the spaghetti that is your entertainment center. This USB M.A.D. Game Pad gives you the option to remove a little steering wheel for those moments when you’re not driving about. Compatible with Windows Vista, XP, and 2000, this Brando product is available for $20. So, why? Apparently this thing is meant for the gamer on the move — it’s small and light, measuring only 4 x 2.5-inches and weighing in at a dainty 3-ounces. As for the size of the steering wheel? It’s tiny. Really tiny. For tiny people with tiny fingers. Can you feel the love?

If all the extra accessories aren’t making your Wii collection a mess, all the AA batteries you’ve thrown out have at least caused a lump in a landfill. To help out in the battery department, Sanyo has come up with the Eneloop charging station complete with a battery pack replacement pack for your Wii remote and a charging base that can support as many as four controllers at once. Remotes charge in a respectable 220 minutes and Eneloop will even charge sequentially so you don’t have to wait an extra couple hours for your next Smash Bros fix. Available for $73 as an import item, but we wouldn’t be surprised if this showed up on our shores for powerless gamers this fall.

UPDATE: Confused about why this is important? The new recharger uses a contact-free electromagnetic system so you don’t need to remove your battery pack. Oh - it’s also the first Nintendo-licensed recharger.

[Via Akihabara News]

We’re going to guess you’ve never heard of the Weemote, a little blue remote control made by a company called Forbis. The egg-shaped remote control and its parent company are reportedly in financial trouble ever since another company came out with something a lot of people are calling the “Wiimote.” While the Nintendo Wii Remote’s official name isn’t that word (we refuse to type it again), evil bloggers and retail chains have taken to the term and Forbis claims its brand has been diluted, confused, and passed up. Owner John Stephen told Game Politics that he would like nothing more than to have Nintendo buy out the trademark and let him move on to something called, oh, let’s say, the X Bocks, a new microbrewery project. The big surprise out of all of this? Nintendo isn’t interested. In fact, it has no legal reason to do so, either — it’s never officially called the Wii Remote anything else. Of course, that’s not to say Ninty shouldn’t do the right thing here (and make our jobs just a hair easier) by buying out the mark and sanctioning the nickname, but don’t hold your breath.

Sony and Microsoft may have sorted things out with Anascape (otherwise known as the self-proclaimed ruler of all analog sticks) before things got too out of hand, but Nintendo has been busy fighting it out with the company in court, which resulted in them being ordered to dish out a hefty $21 million earlier this year — a ruling that Nintendo naturally appealed. The big N is now facing another setback, however, as a US District Judge has rejected Nintendo’s request for a new trial, which could potentially result in a ban on sales of Wii Classic Controllers, WaveBirds, and GameCube controllers (not to mention GameCube systems). To avoid that, Nintendo will apparently either have to post a bond or put royalties from the controllers into an escrow account. For its part, Nintendo seems to be remaining defiant, saying that it “was already planning to appeal this case to the Federal Circuit court,” and that this new ruling “does not impact that decision.”

[Via Slashdot]

We weren’t terribly impressed with Nintendo’s recently unveiled MotionPlus add-on, but we’re even more disappointed by this. Reportedly, scads of third-party developers revealed at E3 that the Big N’s latest Wiimote accessory was just as much a surprise to them as it was to any of us. In other words, Nintendo didn’t bother giving its external devs any advance notice in order to get the ball rolling on compatible titles, or so it seems. Unfortunately, this also means that we probably won’t see any MotionPlus-ready games hitting shelves from anyone not named Nintendo for months to come, but it’s not like Wii Sports Resort can’t hold our attention for a solid year, right?

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

PSP hacker “FreePlay” has turned his gaze to the PS3, and come up with a method for the first PS3 homebrew outside of Linux and that little “hello world” proof of concept a few months back.. The minimal devkit doesn’t seem built to take advantage of the PS3’s wiles, however, and is instead working with the Java prowess built into the Blu-ray playback end of the PS3. Who knows how much power that’ll lend to homebrew developers, but it’s Java, so we’re not expecting great things either way. Wake us when we can play PS2 games, would you?

Interesting that this didn’t get announced at E3, but Games for Windows Live is now free for all. Yep, totally free, cross-platform multiplayer with the 360 included — which obviously raises the question of whether Live will ever be free on Xbox. We think that’s a pretty safe no — unlike Games For Windows, Xbox Live actually makes money, which is pretty hard to turn down, and without a ton of competitive pressure from, say, Playstation Home, it’s hard to see why Microsoft would turn that funtime cash fountain off. Still, there’s always hoping, right?

Can’t wait to understand what Netflix integration on the Xbox 360 will be like? Stop daydreaming and click on past the jump then, as Major Nelson takes you through the entire process on video. We could continue on explaining how easy it looks to navigate to one’s Queue, press play and pop some popcorn, but we’d rather let the aforementioned expert handle that.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Okay, okay — we get it. So maybe there’s just not enough room in a genuine Zapper to fit all the necessary innards of a Nintendo Entertainment System into, but it’s just a bit weird to see the Big N’s antiquated console crammed into some other light gun. Similar to the NES-in-an-NES-controller mod we peeked earlier this week, this unit includes a plethora of games and all the controls you need; just plug it up to a TV, pop a few batteries in there and you’re golden. Is it any surprise this guy was tracked down on Ben Heck’s own forums?

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]