PJ McNealy this, PJ McNealy that. This analyst from firm American Technology Research has been very vocal over the last few days about the on-going developments in the gaming industry. Last time we heard, the guy mentioned both Nintendo and Sony next-gen consoles sold-out at their respective launches.

Well, what do you know, McNealy is creating a buzz once more by coming up with the actual number of units available for the Wii and the PS3 last week. According to him, Nintendo managed to came up with 425,000 to 475,000 units and around two million units more will be available until the end of this year.

On the other hand, things aren't as bright and as hopeful for Sony according to the study conducted by the said research company. At first glance, it may look well that the PS3 indeed sold out. But McNealy is saying that Sony was only able to provide a total of 175,000 units, and 15,000 of those were used for kiosks.

Sony actually promised around 750,000 units ...

One thing Red Kawa found out when working on their PS3 video format converter and player was that swapping out all those Memory Sticks, memory cards, USB HDDs, and so forth, was a tedious and annoying workout. So no one could blame them if they wanted to create something to parallel their video converter: a file server program that could make a PC and a PS3 talk over a wired or wireless net.

Now, after installing this program, the Red Kawa File Server (and for free, too!) onto their PCs, the PS3 can view, access, and copy files stored in the PC HDD using the PS3's web browser. The way we see it, it can be particularly useful if you're the type to hot-swap files between your PS3 and the PC.

We're looking at video format conversion and upload, and homebrew development mainly. It would be interesting to note if this can work the other way, too: copying files from the PS3 HDD to the PC HDD. Nothing said about that.

Second bonus: apparently the PSP can also ...

Filed under: Gaming
Have some PS1 games kicking around, or just are itching for some "Twisted Metal" action? Sure, you could go the easy route and download them from the PlayStation Network, but what if you were one of the 99.9% of folks who couldn't get their hands on a next-gen console? Well today there was a new PS1 emulator released for the PSP that will apparently play most games, but like previous attempts, there are still are some bugs that need to be worked out -- the intro movie on Final Fantasy 7 won't play properly (although the game itself is fine) and the L2 and R2 buttons don't always work right, for instance. So if you've got a PSP and a PSX but no PS3, this may be your only chance to load up your favorite classic titles for quite some time. 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System...

It's silly, this video is. Filled with cute women, and a monkey. Rather, a monkey-fighting woman fights men in this video.

What are we talking about? Her name is Eileen, and she uses a monkey-styled kung fu to subdue her opponents. She's one of the main people you'll see throughout most of this video for Virtua Fighter 5, along with Shun Di, master of the Drunken Fist, Vanessa Lewis, the tough brawler girl who fights suspiciously like Paul Phoenix, and Kage, the ever lovable ninja of death and destruction.

Now, this video is supposed to be from Sony's Paris showroom for the PS3. Whether or not the French are good gamers remains to be seen, but they aren't too impressive as fighters in this video. Still, it's an excuse to see more of Sega's prolific technical fighting game, and that's always a good thing. Enjoy!

Download: [Virtua Fighter 5: Gameplay from Paris]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
There's no question that the guys over at Wicked Lasers are completely laser obsessed, and their most recent laser-based endeavor -- extracting the Blue laser from a Blu-Ray player to create what they call the "Sonar laser" -- is a testament to this fact. Apparently the supply of the Blu-Ray diode is so short (we wonder why) that their team of laser engineers were driven to ripping apart a retail Blu-Ray player in order to extract its most valuable component. Presumably this extreme method is the justification behind the $1999.99 price tag that Wicked Lasers has placed on the Sonar laser, although we wouldn't bet on them getting every diode this way. Personally, we're left wondering why Wicked Lasers didn't up the exclusivity factor by using gutted PS3s. That way they could've charged $2599.98, geddit? 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as i...

Well, everyone is climbing on board the next-gen bandwagon, and it's about time, too. We all know that several homebrew applications which allow us to read ebooks or view comic books on the Nintendo DS are already out there, but (correct me if I'm wrong) for the first time, an author has officially announced that he and his publishers will be compiling some of his work in a format which is custom-tailored for the DS, the Wii, and the PS3.

British sci-fi and fantasy author Darren Reid has just given the announcement that he would be releasing free ebook versions of his novel "The Lord of Darkness and Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book One". The said ebook has been optimized for use with the browsers of the mentioned consoles, and will be followed by further releases within the next few months.

Other titles that are already scheduled for distribution by the end of this year and by early 2007 would be "Two Wizards: A Chronicles of the Shadow Prequel", the graphic...

Insomniac Games' new title for the PS3, Resistance: Fall of Man was supposed to take up 22GB of space on a Blu-ray disc, giving PS3 gamers value for money and a game with highly-detailed graphics to boot. However, a NeoGAF forum user who ripped the disk on Linux seems to think otherwise. The forum user named squatingyeti actually found over 17GB (17.75GB to be exact) worth of artificial padding which brings the game up to 22GB.

For the less technically minded amongst you, we'll explain what artificial padding is. It's simply rubbish data placed on the disc to push the data which is actually going to be used (game data such as music, graphics etc) to the outer edge of the disc, therefore letting it be read first by the laser and making a game load quicker. This may seem like it is a good idea to make the game seem larger, but Blu-ray is supposed to be superior technology and has a constant read over the entire disk.

Hopefully the aptly-named padding files are jus...

So. We already told you guys about the apparent problems some PS3 users have been experiencing with their newly-bought consoles. Specifically, the defective cell chips and problems with the disc loader (remember we even brought you a YouTube vid that a lot of you decided was fake to begin with?).

Well now, we have yet another batch of PS3 issues to deal with: overheating and jammed memory cards. Yep, apparently, some of our fellow PS3 owners in Taiwan have been experiencing these problems with the consoles that were launched in their country.

After such complaints were forwarded to the Cabinet's Consumer Protection Commission (and after their intervention in the matter of course), Sony Computer Entertainment Asia has agreed to replace PS3 consoles if found to have "serious defects."

This agreement was reached during a recently held meeting between the CCP Commission and Sony, with the latter agreeing to replace the "defective consoles" with new ones IF the co...

Black Friday. The day after Thanksgiving, called "black" because accountants use red ink for losses and black ink for income. Black Friday is a nice way to start the end-of-year shopping extravaganza.

Tomorrow is Cyber Monday, the unofficial start of the online shopping season, and Reuters got together eBay, Shoppin.com, and PriceGrabber to see what's going on.

Elmo. TMX Elmo was the most searched-for-item on Black Friday on eBay and Shoppin.com. On eBay, 2,537 TMX Elmos were sold on Black Friday for an average price of US 70.10. That's far less than the 250 bucks I saw as an asking price for a TMX Elmo.

Is Elmo worth it? For 250 you can have lots of giggles with a Wii or a PSP Entertainment Pack. Seriously, the whirring of the TMX Elmo's motors, the horribly stricken look on its face, and its jolty and nervous movements make it look as cuddly as a metal clucking chicken. Other QJ writers think its adorable.

Still, I just watched Pink's "Stupid Girl...

Filed under: Gaming
If you're still on the hunt for a PS3 (and haven't fell for one of those eBay scams just yet), here's an alternate (and relatively safe) way to finally snag one of your own while earning some bragging rights to boot. If you're not the savviest camper (or thief), but you're packin' the heat when it comes to programming skills, listen up -- the "0wn a PS3 and own it" challenge is in full effect, and the one thing between you and a PS3 is a seemingly simple web hack. If you manage to replace the JPEG image (pictured above) on the linked website while abiding by the site rules (no DOS attacks, etc.), you become the proud owner of a modified PS3 which sports a 160GB hard drive, HDMI cable, Fedora Linux pre-installed, and a free game for when you're not tinkering around in the OS. The site is reportedly running on this very PlayStation 3, loaded up with Fedora Linux and a presumed heavy amount of security around the said picture. So, what are you waiting for? Hit th...