Wrestlevania

That's where my "change from a tenner" bit comes in... Pick up a compatible SATA IDE card off fleaBay, instead of using your mobo's built-in SATA connections, and there's no risk of corrupted firmware.

What a week for videogaming media! Not only has the Thumbcast relaunched, but series 4 of Consolevania is also upon us! Rejoice, brethren, for they are the way and the light! Or sound-only, in the case of the Thumbcast...

The method I've seen involves nothing more complex than fishing your 360's DVD drive out of the casing, connecting it to an external SATA card and updating it with hacked firmware. No chips, soldering or any other nonsense. Not that I'm condoning this sort of thing.

Fair point, but it still makes my piss boil.

I like how Bethesda's marketing people seem to think plastering banners with "Maxim 5/5 | FHM 5/5 | Loaded 5/5" will somehow shift copies of this game. I mean... fucking Loaded is now "critical" press worth taking note of?! Really, well done, morons. That's right; your biggest obstacle to sales here was the perception that lads' mag readers might not have heard of Fallout--and there's a fucking good reason for that, mind. Just outstanding target audience identification there, superb. Cock-ends.

Let the games begin...

That is cool and something I'd enjoy, definitely. I suggested a cardboard robot rumble for this year's igfest in Bristol, but I didn't have time to organise it. Anyway: no, I can't make either as public transport is prohibitively expensive.

It'd cost me nearly £200 just in train fare, grabbing bastards.

I've been shown; it's a doddle and you get change from a tenner.

Gentlethumbs, you've made my mother-fucking-month.

If it's anything, it'll be the EMBED elements plus the proprietary JavaScript audio playback functions. It doesn't crash Firefox 3.0.3 on OS X 10.5.5 for me, but the audio doesn't playback either. Can fix this and send you the code, if you like, Remo.

No, it certainly bloody is not. "Chuff" is uncommon British slang for ass/arse. "Chuffed," however, means you're really pleased with something. Anyway, nevermind all that: yay, Remo!

Sounds suspiciously like a Remo Productions item to me. Hmm...

I'm sure it is, if it wasn't bodged to be IE-only.

Is this a gold disc release or beta or what?

Holy crap on a very large stick, what the chuff is going on?! Wait, is this the first signs of the much-badgered, post-NCsoft-accidentally-half-the-company-so-go-make-games-yourselves idea, possibly..?

Also, the 'last post' arrows in the thread listing view don't work either since the upgrade. Sorry, "upgrade".

times one billion. /disgusting self-promotion (though quite what I've actually got to promote is up for debate...) Anyway, getting back on-topic: I think they're not bad, meself.

There's no excuse for not having a hugely profitable self-published digital distribution platform nowadays, none whatsoever. I have no sympathy or time for companies that moan about retail's greed or piracy taking sales, especially not from a behemoth like EA. Put up or shut up; lower the price and make it brain-dead easy to get software and all these issues - both on the corporate side as well as the consumer one - will melt away.

Am I stupid, or is this just a limp-wristed and highly cynical attempt to reenvigorate (non-)flagging sales of the Nintendo DS platform?

Oh, it's much better than that... Nintendo have stated that they fully intend to impose region locking on DSi exclusive titles, to stop gray importers "cannibalising" (i.e. short-circuiting tardy/lazy/limp-wristed) staggered market launches. Really think they're fucking with a lot of the exclusive goodwill they've had in the portable market in doing this. A sale is a sale is a sale. If you can't organise your distributors - or care enough to do a proper worldwide release - change your business. You're only encouraging gray importers (and mass piracy) otherwise. Why is it, 15 years on from the 16-bit frothing about grey imports--which actually changed laws in places like the UK, do console manufacturers and games publishers still fail so embarassingly to grasp this painfully simple fact?

It's just what the rumour mill churned out a couple of weeks ago and is a stupid idea. Making both screens touch sensitive would fundamentally break the DS design to such a degree as to make it a different platform altogether. And Nintendo certainly aren't that foolish. But I already own this stuff--why do I have to buy it again?!

So it has two touch screens now as well? That seems even more daft than gluing a shitty camera into the casing and adding an SD card slot. Personally, I think the loss of the GBA slot is a crime.

May be interested in procuring a guest pass for TF2 from someone in the near future; my desktop PC is finally up, running and none-too-shabby (performance-wise) for a total freebie*. * It was languishing, unloved and untouched for months, in my employer's server room.