A News.com report covering consoles, handhelds and software.

Nintendo van hits San Francisco

At around 9 a.m. Friday, a nondescript white van pulled over and parked on Second Street in San Francisco. To anyone outside, it just looked like something a young couple might travel around in.

In fact, the inside of the van was a gamer's fantasy (click here to watch video): a collection of nearly everything Nintendo is promoting for the holidays, including its latest games, its Wi-Fi-enabled Nintendo DS handheld game console, and several GameCubes.

Video: The video game van
Nintendo takes its show on the road and CNET News.com's Vincent Tremblay gives you a look inside.

And the point: to woo journalists into the van and ply them with the best Nintendo has to offer.

The so-called Holiday Media Van Tour has been going on for nine weeks. Along the way, it has made its way through most regions of the U.S., hitting cities like New York, Boston, Baltimore, St. Louis, Phoenix, L.A. and so on. San Francisco was the last stop on the tour, much to the relief of Nintendo product tester James Sakshaug, who had been onboard for the last three weeks.

Inside the van, Sakshaug showed off a series of games, including "Nintendogs," the company's ultra-hip and ultra-canine answer to Tamagotchi, in which players take control of a dog, teach it tricks, feed it, walk it and even pick up after it.

And he said that upon its release, "Nintendogs" helped the DS outsell Sony's PSP, at least for a while, two-to-one.

Anyway, Sakshaug said that Nintendo had kept the van away from gamers because the company didn't want some of its pre-production equipment to get into their hands. And thus, in the middle of one of the most gamer-centric cities in the world, a van full of video games sat unnoticed by anyone who didn't know what they were looking for.

Game stealthily promotes female sexual pleasure

As a professional game designer, Heather Kelley is no doubt used to facing difficult challenges put to her by her bosses. But, according to Boing Boing, one she recently undertook on her own may have a much broader effect than anything she ever did for Ubisoft, her employer.

"I wanted to design a game that would improve actual sex in the world, and for an underserved population," Kelley wrote on her Web site. "In other words, I want my game to teach techniques of female sexual gratification to a target audience of females."

Her idea was to create a game that would help women--or girls--learn about their sexuality using a non-sexual metaphor. Thus, she created "Lapis--a magical pet adventure," in which users play with androgynous rabbits, scratching them (digitally, on a Nintendo DS), petting them, tickling them and generally trying to elicit positive responses.

In the end, Kelley writes, "Lapis" is not about addressing sex and sexual pleasure for women directly. The idea, rather, is to approach it indirectly and hope that females who play the downloadable game--what she calls a "stealthy primer on female sexual pleasure"--will gradually come to the realization that the game is about them and their bodies and not just about tickling a cute little bunny.

"The hope is that the game would entertain females--without them ever needing to understand the sex metaphor," Kelley writes. "But at some point when they did start figuring out the connection to their own sexuality and pleasure, they would have learned some ideas and techniques behind sexual satisfaction."

Xbox 360's a power hog

If the $300 price tag for Microsoft's new Xbox 360 game console seems steep to you, just wait til you get the electric bill.

The new gaming system, which has topped holiday gift lists since its Nov. 22 retail debut, is "obscenely power hungry," according to Will Greenwald, a CNET product reviewer.

Using special testing equipment, Will and his review team found that the machine draws about 160 watts of power, more than twice as much as the original version and double rivals' systems. That puts the Xbox 360 ahead of most other home entertainment devices in terms of power consumption with the exception of big screen, high-definition TVs, which are the SUVs of the living room.

CNET reviewers estimate that spending an average of four hours a day on the machine will add as much as $35 a year to your electricity bill. But if that's not a concern, consider this: some of the units are reportedly overheating. A suit filed on Friday against Microsoft seeks class action status, claiming the product is defective.

Cheers to real-life 'Final Fantasy' potion

Coming to a beverage aisle near you: the "Final Fantasy XII" potion. Square Enix, maker of the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, says it will team with Japanese drink maker Suntory to concoct an energizing brew timed with the March 16 release of "Final Fantasy XII" in Japan.

According to a story on 1up.com, the drink will come in blue crystal-themed bottles and will bear the taste of various mystery herbs. A few swigs may or may not help you accumulate hit points.

View pics of the potion at Gamebrink.com.

Sony plans parental controls for PS3

Parents concerned about the kind of material their children are exposed to should be resting a little easier today.

All Headline News reported that Sony has decided to implement parental controls on its next-generation video game console, PlayStation 3.

That device is expected to hit North American shores (and stores) in the fall of 2006. It appears it will have some sort of toggle to enable parents to restrict which games their children play by using the Entertainment Software Association's rating system.

All Headline News has written that Microsoft has already implemented such a parental control system for the Xbox 360, which launched last week. The publication also said the ESA has promised that Nintendo will give parents similar control over content with its next-generation console, Revolution, which is expected next year.

All in all, this is good news for parents. Their only concern now should be how quickly the hacking community figures out how to cut through the controls so little Johnny can watch and play whatever he wants on his new machine.

Smash my Xbox 360

Given that thousands of people stood in long lines for hours the night before the Xbox 360 launch to get their hands on one of the hot new consoles, one might expect a frenzy to actually start playing with the machine.

But to a group that spent 55 hours in a tent in front of a Best Buy to get an Xbox, play wasn't the point.

Unless, that is, you temper your definition of the word "play." This group got its console and then--surely to the shock and dismay of the other nutcases who stayed overnight to buy an Xbox--it took a sledgehammer to the brand new machine.

That's right. A sledgehammer.

Why would someone do that? Well, surely for the shock value. The most hilarious part of it all was that the members of the group didn't pay a penny of their own money for the opportunity to destroy a video game machine that a few gamers would have probably risked jail to kill for.

In fact, the group--which had previously pulled the prank with an iPod--paid for the Xbox with donations collected by its Web site.

The site now has a video of the Xbox destruction. Ben Lovatt, one of the group's organizers, says more than 200,000 people have visited the site to view the carnage.

The upshot is that I thought times were still tough out there. But when a group is willing to blow $430 just for thrills, I guess I was wrong.

Xbox 360 crashing, overheating?

Bloggers and forums are buzzing this morning with reports that Microsoft's eagerly anticipated Xbox 360, released yesterday, is prone to overheating and crashing. Gamers are reporting freezes in the middle of playing, and some say that they've gotten email back from Microsoft customer support that says a flashing orange screen (what happened to that pretty Microsoft blue?) means the box is running too hot.

No word yet on how widespread the problem actually is, or whether Microsoft plans to do anything about it.

Hard-core gamers go without sleep

PALMDALE, Calif.--Since Microsoft's Zero Hour launch event for the new Xbox 360 is a non-stop, 32-hour shindig, it stands to reason that even the hardest of the hard-core gamers here might need a little sleep.

To be sure, some of the many motels and hotels in the Palmdale and nearby Lancaster areas were full up with Zero Hour attendees who needed the comfort of a real bed. But a whole lot of the 2,000 or more gamers who made their way to this desert town an hour outside Los Angeles couldn't be bothered with leaving.

Which meant that in the middle of the night, the giant, 200,000-square-foot hangar where the event is being held was home to an untold number of gamers who just couldn't keep their eyes open to shoot another bad guy or race their way around another sharp turn.

Melvin Harris was one of these committed gamers. A 32-year-old from L.A., Harris arrived at Zero Hour around 8 p.m. Sunday night and promptly began a marathon session of Xbox launch games like "Call of Duty 2," "Project Gotham Racing 3," "Need for Speed: Most Wanted" and "Kameo."

"I slept around three hours," Harris said. "I slept from about 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. on some of the bigger beanbags...I slept fine. I woke up at 7, and went and brushed my teeth and went out and got something to eat."

Harris wasn't alone. He said that all around the hangar, gamers were crashed out on the beanbags, particularly in the bleachers Microsoft had set up near the main stage area. (This reporter shamefully admits he had to partake of an actual motel bed).

By Monday mid-afternoon, most everyone was up and back at their gaming. But here and there, a gamer could be found about as passed out as possible. In many cases it looked as though they had simply fallen asleep while playing a game, as they were laying on their beanbags, still in front of the consoles where they had last been playing.

Buy, buy, buy

PALMDALE, Calif.--It's 4:20 on Monday afternoon and deep inside the hangar where Microsoft is holding its Xbox 360 launch event, the hard-core gamers are separating themselves from everyone else.

At 9 p.m., the many people on hand who have purchased one of the next-generation consoles will finally get their machines. Or at least, the people at the front of the line that began forming at 1 p.m. will.

Indeed, the line began when Norm Edwards, a 33-year-old game writer from Brentwood, Calif., sat down on one of the hundreds upon hundreds of beanbags here. And quickly, others begin to fill in behind him. Now, a little more than three hours later, about 60 others, each with their own beanbags, have joined Edwards in what looks to be one of the most comfortable lines for a product release of all time.

In any case, in front of the 24 cash registers where gamers will be able to buy their Xboxes later Monday, a long line of shopping carts filled with games beckons. Each basket is filled with at least 100 copies of games like "Madden '06," "Amped 3," "NBA 2K6," "Gun" and others, most of which are selling for $59.99.

But some games seem to be selling better than others. According to Art Plummer, a supervisor for Best Buy--Microsoft's retail partner at the Zero Hour event--games like "King Kong," "Perfect Dark Zero" and "Project Gotham Racing 3" were selling like hotcakes.

"We're almost out of 'King Kong," Plummer said around mid-afternoon Monday.

While gamers were waiting until evening to pick up their console purchases, they could easily hand over their credit cards for any one of the games or Xbox accessories like a wireless controller, a 12-month subscription to Xbox Live or a rechargeable battery.

Thus, while Microsoft has got a captive audience until they actually turn over the consoles, there is no shortage of gamers walking around the hangar, bags of games and accessories in hand.

And if the growing line for consoles is any indication, the last in line to get their consoles may have to wait until close to 1 a.m. to get their paws on them.

What's inside YOUR Xbox 360?

Okay, so you don't have your new Xbox 360 yet. No one does, after all, since they don't hit the market until next Tuesday.

But actually, some of gamer and gadget sites got their hands on a few (sadly, I can't say the same for those of us at CNET News.com). And one of those sites, AnandTech, decided to do something pretty interesting with their 360.

Sure, they could have plugged it in and played games on it. But that would have been soooooo conventional. No, these guys don't roll like that.

Instead, they decided to take a bunch of tools to the poor console and rip the thing apart to see what's inside.

Now, they didn't just smash and burn. Instead, they did this meticulously and documented just about every step of the procedure, from taking the outer case off, to removing the hard drive (included in the more expensive Xbox 360 premium), to taking the drive apart, to removing the heatsinks from the motherboard, to exposing the CPU, the GPU and the chipset and so on.

And at each step, they offer pretty pictures to show exactly what the Xbox should look like if you have deconstructed along with them--assuming you didn't break something along the way.

This is pretty geeky stuff, and I'm not sure I believe they can put it all back together without finding themselves with a few extra parts at the end. But if they can, I wonder if they might not be getting a job offer from Microsoft at the end of the day.

Regardless, these folks view their project as something of a public service. For that, I applaud them.

"The Xbox 360 launch is less than a week away," they wrote at the end of the last of the eleven pages the project fills. "So if you're eagerly awaiting one to be delivered, at least now you don't have to worry about taking yours apart - happy gaming!"

December 2005 archive

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