Nintendo plans to launch a home fitness game. “Wii Fit” will be available for sale in Japan on December 1st for about 8,800 yen or $75. It uses a pressure-sensing “balance board” like in the picture below. The “Wii Balance Board” can sense motion and is used to play sport games like soccer, ski, aerobics and even yoga.

The company plans to launch “Wii Fit” on the other markets due to the success of the Wii console. Nintendo has outsold Sony’s PS3, which is more expensive and not so funny. Wii Sports gained success because it addressed to all kind of ages from kids to elderly. The rival PlayStation offers more expensive entertainment. Thus, Sony cut the price off by 10 percent in Japan this week.

Still I would prefer a nice “fitness game” from Nintendo. I would love to test that Wii Fit right away!

The gaming experts, Kotaku, just let go of a rumor on the market, that Microsoft is working on developing a new motherboard for XBox 360 that will use smaller ATI graphics chips, 65nm, and smaller memory chips all of these in the attempt of reducing costs and heat.

Called “Jasper”, the upgrade was announced by Mercury News and should go live somewhere in August 2008. Considering that when XBox 360 upgraded to Falcon motherboards, Microsoft reduced the price by $50, so I wonder if it will be worth it this time because 10 months it’s a lot of time and unless they have a cheaper solution Wii and Sony will take the lead.

I don’t know if you have ever played this game, but I’ve seen scenes from it. In fact, that was the first version, played by a friend of mine. I am telling you this game should not reach people under 18. It is extremely violent and can provoke psychological traumas.

The news about ‘Manhunt 2′ being banned have come today when British regulators didn’t accept the revised version of the game motivating the changes didn’t go far enough to alter the game’s “bleakness and callousness of tone.”

“The impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone, or the essential nature of the game play, is clearly insufficient,” explained British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) director David Cooke.

Manhunt 2 had been set for release in June, but Take Two Interactive Inc. suspended plans to distribute the game after it was rejected in US and Europe. After two months of changes, the game was accepted by the rating board for US release. It received Mature rating indeed. It will be available this Halloween for PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo Wii.

However ‘Manhunt 2′ remains banned in UK due to BBFC requests to eliminate the violent and horror scenes. Take-Two and Rockstar Games agreed to resubmit a further edited version of the game.

via Yahoo News

Microsoft has to be the worst company when it comes to keeping internal information secret. We had our proof this spring when rumours (and photos) of the Xbox 360 Elite version reached online magazines weeks before the official announcement.

Nothing apparently changed as Microsoft done it again with their announcement of the imminent Xbox 360 price drop. The confirmation came today, a week after some Walmart and Toys ‘R Us unpublished flyers spoiled the surprise for us. Microsoft decided to go for different cuts for the 3 versions of the console and here are the new prices:

• Core System $280 (- $20)
  
• Premium $350 (- $50)
  
• Elite $450 (-$30)

I guess the looks of that G15 keyboard from Logitech where not enough for serious gamers and the update brought a GamePanel LCD display. You get to keep an eye to any serious problems that occur while you’re having a game. The GamePanel can be customized to see system status, CPU memory or anything else you set.

If you guys don’t know the Logitech G15 keyboard here are more info:

- Backlighted keys to see them when you play at night

- 6 programmable keys with 3 shift (or mode) states

- Game Mode to disable or to enable the Windows key

- 2 hi-speed USB hubs

- 256MB ram and 20MB internal memory

- CD-Rom drive

- 22cm x49cm x 4.3cm and weights 1.08kg

- Windows XP and Vista compatible.

Buy the new Logitech G15 keyboard with the GamePanel LCD for $99.99, available right away.
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August 24th is the debut of the elite version of the Xbox 360 in Great Britain and even though no Microsoft official release mentions anything about the prices, three UK retailers - WHM, GAME and Play - are already gearing to take pre-orders on Xbox 360 Elite at £330. Voices say the three retailers have been tipped from other European regions where they have a live presence so that should be the price for the new Xbox 360 deluxe version in the UK. Add to it, that all the pre-ordering prices are the same in three sources, so I guess that’s confirmed.

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Great news for laptop users with the launch of the new high-end Intel Core 2 Extreme X7800 processor. It’s the first laptop CPU in the Extreme Edition brand to bring a lot of goods in one small and expensive chip. It runs at 2.6GHz with a 4MB L2 cache and an 800MHz front-side bus.

I know many will think of it as the perfect tunning processor and I say the same, because Intel just took the over-speed protection off. This is just like an invitation to overclock the X7800, but keep in mind that you’re the only one responsible if anything bad happens. Apart the 28% speed boost above the Core Duo T2600, Intel Core 2 Extreme X7800 has two new appreciated features: Enhanced Deep Sleep, consuming less power when the system is idle, and Advanced Media Boost so that you can edit your videos, images or music faster and better. The price is really steep, $851.

Prepare your dollars, because in about two weeks we get to see Core 2 Extreme X7800 processors live. I suspect it won’t be better than a Core 2 Duo ($300 cheaper) and I wonder if it’s going to be a MacBook Pros we’ll see it in!

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After several months of rumours and anticipation, Sony finally admitted they are currently working on an upgrade to their PlayStation Portable (PSP) console. According to Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, the new console will be 33% lighter, 19% slimmer than the current version and will also feature an improved battery.

The announcement also mentions faster load time for games and the ability to stream images directly to a high-quality display by a press of a single button. You can therefore enjoy, your games, videos or pictures even on your big screen TV. The good news don’t stop here as Sony gave September as launch data for their device so you won’t have to wait to long for it. Moreover the price is set somewhere below $200 area so it’s won’t be very expensive either.

[Source]

It looks like the long waited price drop for Sony Playstation 3 is live. You can now get the 60GB model for $499 and if you need more space, wait for the August release of the 80GB model in US and Canada, priced at $599 that has a bonus: a “free copy” of MotorSport MotorStorm.

Though Sony announced they won’t cut down the prices, it looks like they did and we’re here to comment the news. Who’s going to need 20GB more from the new model? What do you install on it, because that’s their biggest problem (not the price) : all the good games are on Xbox 360. Unless they add to the $100 price drop some new games or it won’t count that much in the eyes of a new client.

Press release

Playing on Nintendo Wii with your friends is going to be much more fun than it was until now. Why? Because Elecom was smart enough to bring real tools for the Sports pack That includes the tennis racket, the baseball bat and the golf club. I’ve played Nintendo and I agree this new upgrade looks great.

However, if you play with another friend make sure you have enough space between the two of you because the risk of injury is quite high. My biggest concern now is if we will see more cases of people ruining their TV by losing the Wiimote from their hands, or if there will be medical issues.

Elecom.co.jp