Red rings, yellow lights; what no blue mouth?
We know all too well about the Xbox’s infamous red ring of death and now the PS3 seems to want a piece of the action with its yellow light of failure.
This kind of attention is not necessarily the best type of attention, but they always said that any publicity is good publicity. So what about it Nintendo, are we going to see a ‘blue mouth of MotionLess’?
Neil Berman
It’s Official: Xbox 360 Elite Down By $100
Now’s the time to get l33t.
Can’t stop tho, I’m on a deadline to get thru
because the countdown to September 22nd is well underway…
Gotta go!!!
Neil Berman
Cheaper PS3 Still Too Expensive To Worry XBox 360
Hmmm…$299 for the lowest PS3 in the range a number of years into the current Wii/PS3/Xbox 360 cycle. Well it’s a start I guess, but let’s not expect it to turn the XBox 360/PS3 balance on its head anytime soon.
At $199 the XBox 360 arcade is still the obvious choice for the recession conscious consumer and it comes with access to a huge selection of games compared to the PS3. The Wii continues to be the broad-based family-fun choice. With many of Sony’s businesses languishing, is it really the right time for its cheapest PS3 to still be a Benjamin more expensive than the cheapest XBox 360?
Neil Berman
theONbutton@CES – Halo Wars Screenshots
Here are some first-look screenshots from Halo Wars for your deeelectation and deeelite, following Steve Ballmer’s announcement of the game in last night’s Microsoft keynote. Enjoy…
Neil Berman
Sony promises to increase prices, meanwhile Dell offers PS3 for $319.99
Now here’s a good holiday deal. If you’ve been waiting for Sony to drop the price of the PS3 you may need to wait a little longer. But…if you head on over to Dell’s US website pretty sharpish you can snag one for 20% off for a limited time. Not sure if that will help Sony catch the monthly sales of 2 MILLION Wiis shipped in November alone, 
but it might help prolong the PS3’s agony a little longer…especially as how it was crushed 2 to 1 by the XBox 360 and 5 to 1 by the Wii last month. NPD’s reported sales figures for Nov were Wii: 2,040k units, Xbox 360: 836k units, PS3: 378k units.
Interestingly the ratio of Xbox 360 sales to PS3 in October was 1.87 to 1, whilst in November the 360 pulled ahead to 2.21 to 1, probably due to the price cut. Microsoft clearly doesn’t need to do much to ward off the PS3 anymore, rather it seems to have it’s eyes on the Wii’s spot instead…although I can’t see it happening in this console generation. It’s sure turned out different to the way we all thought back in 2005 though, the Playstation franchise needs something big now and these days Sony is in big trouble.
Back on the home front, I’ve been nurturing an ever-growing addiction to Halo 3 on the XBox 360. I have 
been joining the faithful army of online Spartans and when I say army, think mass hordes…there are typically 250-300,000 Halo 3 gamers online each evening, US time.
Helping to make all this happen for me is a new Trendnet router. 
Replacing a Trendnet 108mbps b/g, this 300mbps b/g/n speed demon has gigabit ethernet and flies along with rock-like stability. Installation was a breeze, but pretty please Trendnet next time add a MAC address import feature; typing in all those addresses gets tiring!
I’ve also been giving the new HTC Touch Pro (at&t Fuze, the one the half gig ROM and 288mb RAM) and Samsung i907 (at&t Epix, the one with the optical mouse) a good workout recently…reviews to follow shortly. Suffice to say they’re not too shabby.
Neil Berman
Mac users finally get Netflix instant viewing, caught thanking Microsoft
Netflix is now offering instant viewing to Apple users…and the Mac version, unlike the Windows one, is powered by Microsoft Silverlight. Today’s Apple experience is defined by the strength of its multimedia offerings and its increasingly bitter negative advertising campaign towards Microsoft. So it is perhaps the ultimate irony for Mac users that to enjoy Netflix’s industry leading video player we have to rely on downloading Microsoft’s Silverlight first.
On a related note Xbox 360 owners who are Netflix subscribers are the first to get Netflix HD shows. Since current 360s all have Dolby 5.1, 1080i/p HDMI and Media Center extensibility for live TV streaming that makes the now-oh-so-cheap Arcade version a $199 bargain imho. And it plays games. If you’re quick you can get the 20gb hard drive for very very little from Microsoft too.
Neil Berman
Is everyone just buying iPhones now?
So at&t’s recent smartphone sale got me thinking “Is everyone just buying iPhones now?” A couple of weeks on, and a Fortune article rumors that at&t will be slashing the price of the worst-kept-secret-in-history-and-soon-to-be-released 3G iPhone by a mighty $200 suggests the answer is no. The whole smartphone sector is simply in a Great Depression.
Great news though for those in the market for smartphone. at&t’s recent sale offered the usually $299 Tilt for free on a new contract as a refurbished unit. Other free offerings included the ever popular Blackberry Pearl. With my contract ending soon, a free Tilt sounded good to me, but…
Why the price cutting? Media tales of impending economic doom are probably a factor, but beyond that the 2008 lineup of smartphone releases make current offerings seem like they should come free with breakfast cereals.
Apple, Samsung and smartphone superstar HTC are all expected to get fingers tapping on touch screens due in stores soon.
HTC’s eagerly awaited Diamond has now been announced and packs a VGA TouchFlo screen initially praised as an iPhone beater. 
Their soon to follow Raphael will have similar internals adding a five row Qwerty keyboard, and replaces the current Tilt. Both feature a 2.8 inch screen and 528mhz processor.
Samsung announced its CDMA Glyde this week on Verizon. Reviews have been mixed so far.
After a quick Gotham 360 session at Samsung today, there were no real life units on display yet.
Finally Apple is heavily rumored to be prepping a 3G iPhone for release sometime in late June.
I guess the hordes waiting for a piece of soon-to-be-last-gen tech in Apple’s W14th St store recently weren’t quite as clued-in on forthcoming releases. The store was dry of iPhone stock, presumably remaining supply of the current model is dwindling as 3G unit shipments get prepared. Nevertheless the eager folk in the line remained steadfast in their bizarre quest. The Gizmodo conversation with store staff is entertaining.
Of course the fundamental iPhone problem is likely to remain: only Star Fleet academy graduates can type fast on glass, as Data et al have proved on so many occasions. So 3G or no, I still can’t see Apple eating up the Berry’s slice of the corporate market yet. In fact RIM are fighting back with their sleek new 9000
believed to be YouTube compatible., which has apparently already racked up mighty sales volumes of one unit on eBay. Crackberry has details.
Meanwhile finally coming out of its time warp, T-Mobile announced 3G service on May 1st in the US…for voice. Thanks for nothing. Rumors started coming out of NYC that there was data as well. Great, things are looking up. Looking at my TyTN expectantly to see at least a UMTS connection, I’m disappointed to find the Edge network instead. 
Turns out that T-Mobile are sending 3G data over 1700MHz and a non-standard offshoot of 2100MHz, which is a first. Basically you need a new T-Mobile phone with a radio tuned into exactly the right frequencies. Thanks for absolutely nothing!
Back to at&t and iPhone users can now apparently get WiFi access through the carrier’s hotspot network. Nice that a year after its release iPhone gets access to something that Blackjack, Q, Tilt etc customers have enjoyed for a long time already i.e. high speed data on the move. Well, I say ‘on the move’ but that’s only true if the iPhone moves within the confines of the hotspot.
So with the 3G iPhone just around the corner, 1.0 owners can show off their old skool model by standing outside Starbucks to get their iTunes downloads whilst the newbies walk on by. Only kidding, you know I’m just jealous!
Neil Berman
theONbutton
Turning the world on, one gadget at a time.
