Wii outselling PS3 'six to one'

Nintendo's Wii console outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 in Japan last month by six to one, says research.

Nintendo sold 270,974 Wii consoles last month while Sony sold 41,628 PS3s, according to Enterbrain, a Japanese publisher that tracks console sales.

Nintendo has sold about 2.76m Wii consoles in Japan since the launch last December, while Sony has sold 970,270 PS3s since it debuted last November.

About 17,616 Xbox 360 consoles were sold in June.

Last week, Phil Harrison, PlayStation's head of worldwide studios, told US Game Informer magazine that pundits should not judge the success of the console based on the launch software line-up.

Struggled

He said: "You only have to go back to the games that launched PlayStation 1 and Playstation 2.

"If you took those few dozen titles and analysed them, you would never have imagined that either of those formats would have on to sell over 100m units each."

Globally, Sony has struggled so far to replicate the success it had with the first two PlayStation consoles.

The machine has also suffered from a lack of "killer" exclusive titles which showcase the power of the machine.

PlayStation fans are still awaiting some of the biggest franchises on the machine to emerge, such as Metal Gear Solid, Killzone 2 and Gran Turismo.

PS3-eSATA: free the SATA port on your PS3

If, like me, you’re the owner of a PS3, you’ve probably realized by now its potential for games and video, and also the fact that there is not a single great game on the market yet! Well, except for MotorSport (I’m totally hooked), but where’s the online mode?? Anyway, let's say we’ll have games on the PS3 at some point, or maybe we’ll have a console emulator (for NEC PC Engine, Super Famicon, Neo Geo, etc.), even a nice DivX player… You’ll also realize that 60GB is good, but hardly enough after a while… Kurouto Shikou is coming to the rescue with their PS3-eSATA, a SATA and eSATA slot for PS3 that allows you to plug any kind of hard disk, and even install the OS of the PS3 on them. You can even unplug the hard disk from your PS3 and plug it on a PC to backup your data, Great!

(Via:akihabaranews)

Xbox HD-DVD Player Lookin' Gooooood!

One of the major complaints from people wanting to get into high-definition DVD is that it's prohibitively expensive. Well, if you've got an Xbox 360, that argument may be fading away: The Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player add-on is only $199 and is so far meeting with positive reviews. PC Perspective has the most comprehensive coverage I've seen (and Tom also has a mini-review)... and there's more.

Turns out the Xbox 360's HD-DVD player also works with any PC right out of the box. You don't even need drivers for it. Just plug it in via USB and Windows recognizes it as any USB optical drive. Thus, it may be a great choice even if you don't have an Xbox 360 but still want to get HD content on your computer.

But if you want HD-DVD on your TV (and I'd expect that's where you would want it), your excuse that the Xbox is too expensive may run out. From the look of things, you'll be able to get the $300 Xbox 360 Core System (which has no hard drive and a wired controller) for a cool $100, beginning Thanksgiving Day at 11am PST. How do I know this? Amazon is running a promotion where customers vote on which mega-discount they want. The $100 Xbox 360 is, by far, winning the vote, and I expect its 90% share of the vote won't budge within the next week. So head on over to Amazon come Thanksgiving, get your $100 Xbox and $199 HD-DVD player, and, boom, you've got an HD-DVD setup for $120 less than the very cheapest standalone HD-DVD player that Amazon sells. And you can play Viva Pinata with it.

While I'm still not entirely sold on high-def DVD, this at least removes its single biggest obstacle. Am I crazy? I'm sure you'll let me know...

Meanwhile, if anyone else can find a better deal, let me know in the comments section below!

Update: Amazon is now listing there would be only 1,000 units of the $100 Xbox if (and when) it wins the poll, so you better be ready right at 11am on Thanksgiving morning. Visit Amazon's home page to see the deal!