IGN LOOKS AT THE UPCOMING XBOX 360 ACCESSORIES
IGN has an article up where they take a look at the 5 upcoming Xbox 360 accessories and give a bit more detail on them than Microsoft gave out at E3. More importantly, they have pictures of 4 of the accessories, something I haven't seen anywhere else yet. Two interesting things to note; first off, Microsoft apparently is working on a 256mb Memory Card and secondly, the wireless headset will communicate directly with the Xbox 360 and will not require any controller attachments.

PANDEMIC POSTS FAQ ON MERCENARIES 2: WORLD IN FLAMES
Pandemic's Mercenaries 2: World in Flames website has been updated with a FAQ covering some of the more pressing questions fans of the series are dying to find out about. Unfortunately, the big question of what platforms the game will be available on is still apparently up in the air;

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"We have not made any final decisions concerning the various platforms for Mercenaries 2." Scott Warner, Lead Designer
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The plot seems to revolve around your character now working as a freelance mercenary (Ex-Ops is out of the picture) who was originally hired in Venezuela by a client who was about to seize power. The problem is this; once you finished the job, he attempted to have you killed - and even worse, he stiffed you on the bill. Complicating the matter further, the client's coup succeeded, and you'll now have to go up against his vast resources to teach him that, like the games catch phrase says, "Everybody Pays."

SEATTLE TIMES INTERVIEW WITH SATORU IWATA
During E3, the Seattle Times got a chance to speak to Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. Surprisingly, It's actually a pretty good read and not the usual clueless rambling you'd expect from a "normal" news outlet. As for Iwata's thoughts on the Wii name;

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"There were some criteria for us to come up with the name. It had to be short enough so that we didn't need any other nicknames or abbreviation. What we are targeting with Wii is not only existing gamers, but also people who have shown no interest in other games. These non gamers, for example, really cannot understand what GBA means, if GBA is something different from Game Boy Advance. We wanted something with a strong impact that people will remember as soon as they hear it.

Finally, we wanted a name unlike any video-game machines" Satoru Iwata
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You know, as much as I griped when the name was announced, following the whole E3 week, I've got to admit the Wii name is really beginning to click with me. I think it's all the fun people are having with the name - I mean, if just saying the consoles name is that much fun, the thing itself must be a blast!

In fact, forget about all the stuff Nintendo officially has said about the name, that should be their answer. "We wanted a name that could at least begin to provide you with the fun our console will."

Wiially. :)

MORE CONTENT COMING FOR ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION
An article over at Microsoft's Xbox E3 site notes that there is another add-on in the works for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This add-on, entitled Theives Den, adds a bit of high seas piracy to the game;

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"In the downloadable mission, which will be released in two weeks, you battle for control of a massive cave, complete with a haunting pirate ship. Once you conquer the lair, it forever belongs to your character.

You can start a band of pirates. You can plunder. And you can decorate your captain's chamber with furniture. " - Ashley Cheng, Bethesda Developer
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Now I know the last 3 downloads have been a bit of a dissapointment, but Arrrr - there be pirates! Be clicking here to see the article over at Xbox.com mateys!

BUNGIE REVEALS MORE ABOUT HALO 3
Bungie has posted a FAQ and Q&A session regarding Halo 3 over at Bungie.net. Find out more about the end of the current Halo trilogy and discover the full significance of everything shown in the Halo 3 E3 teaser. Yes, we said current trilogy, because according to the FAQ, this is merely the end of this story arc, and not the last "Halo" game ever. So what are you waiting for, click here for the FAQ and here for the Q&A session and get your answers you crave about Earth, Cortana's possible rampancy and the in-game rendering of the teaser.

SONY COMPLETELY CLEARS UP LOWER END PS3 WIRELESS RUMOR
Eurogamer is stating that they got a reply from Sony on the whole Games Radar "the $499 Playstation 3 will not support wireless controllers" rumor, and as we all guessed, it's false. From the Eurogamer article;

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"Both configurations will support Bluetooth PS3 controllers. The only non-upgradeable feature of the 20GB configuration will be the HDMI output."- Sony representative by way of Eurogamer
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Nice to see the matter finally get completely cleared up - you'll be able to play your PS3 wirelessly no matter which model you pick up. Too bad the lack of HDMI wasn't just a rumor as well. Click here to head over to the article at Eurogamer.

GAMESTOP AND EB GAMES NOT TAKING PS3 PREORDERS UNTIL OCTOBER?
Evil Avatar is reporting that Gamestop and EB Games have decided to not take Playstation 3 preorders until October of 2006 in an attempt to head off some of the problems they had with the Xbox 360 launch. While waiting until you know how many units you'll be getting definitely seems like a step in the right direction, especially given the expected demand for the Playstation 3, I can't but somehow feel that this will actually lead to even less inventory going to the retail outlets in favor of high priced online bundles. Click here for the Evil Avatar news forums and begin wondering if the same will hold true for the Wii.

COMPARITIVELY, JUST HOW EXPENSIVE ARE THE NEXT-GEN CONSOLES?
While over at Kotaku, I read one of their news links about a chart Curmudgeon Gamer made showing both the actual costs of several game consoles at release, and their relative costs in 2006 dollars. If you can avoid the entire debate on the page raging over just how the relative figures were computed, you'll find it's a pretty interesting look at console pricing and how much people are willing to pay to get their game on. Click here for the Curmudgeon Gamer article - you may just be surprised at what you find.

THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE DO INDEED TURN... JUST VERY SLOWLY
CNN Money is reporting that ex-Infinium labs chairman and former CEO Timothy Roberts has been charged with artificially inflating the stock of Infinium Labs while simultaneously selling off his shares of the company. CNN Money can explain the situation far better than I could;

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" The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday accused Timothy Roberts of hiring a promoter to send junk faxes to tens of thousands of investors across the country, making it appear Infinium Labs was on the verge of launching a new gaming system, dubbed "The Phantom." Infinium, in actuality, had postponed the system's launch due to insufficient resources. It has yet to launch.

The SEC said Roberts made $422,500 from the scheme by selling more than 1.3 million shares of his own stock in the company - often without publicly disclosing those sales - and paid the promoter in Infinium Labs stock without registering the transfer with the SEC. Both activities violate federal securities laws. It is asking a U.S. District Court in Orlando, Fla., to force Roberts to surrender those proceeds, pay a civil penalty and be prohibited from ever again serving as an officer or director of a public company or participating in any offering of penny stock." - CNN Money Article
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It somehow actually feels great to see some of the people behind the scam that was the Phantom game console finally get some kind of legal payback. It's still beyond me how they could have convinced anyone to pony up more money for the Infinium Lapboard after finally announcing the end of the Phantom. While I'd much rather see actual criminal allegation of fraud, at least someone is finally doing something - who knows, maybe the SEC filing will cause many of the former victims... err investors of Infinium Labs to file charges. We can all dream, right?

Click here to head on over to the CNN Money article and if you want a laugh, head on over to the Infinium Labs website here, where despite the announcement that they killed the Phantom off (at least for the time being) it's still prominently featured all over the site.

NEW BEN HECKENDORN NES PORTABLE
Ben Heckendorn, creator of the Atari 2600 handheld VCSp and author of the ExtremeTech book "Hacking Video Game Consoles", has created his latest portable masterpiece. The nPod is a handheld, cartridge based, NES that merges a NES cartridge port to the processor of one of those "multi-game" NES clone TV units. I picked up Ben's book at the same time I grabbed ExtremeTech's other book "Project Arcade", and the projects are all well laid out, but I just haven't gotten a chance to build any them yet. I figure the next thing I build will probably be the tabletop arcade machine I worked out last summer, but the temptation to build a VCSp is always pretty strong.