Psst.  I know it’s Saturday night and we all have lives…wait, no we don’t, we’re gamers. Amazon must have known this when they created this Gold Box deal. The Rock Box Ottoman that pops your Rock Band drum-set out like a jack-in-the-box, and happens to store your Rock Band instruments as well, is on sale.

[Amazon Gold Box (Product Page) via Imported Geek]

Man, I have all sorts of mixed feelings about this. Hardcore Gamer has placed their entire business, websites and printed mag, for sale on ebay with a starting bid of $42,000.

If I only had $42,000…

But honestly, is that the kind of shakeout that video game journalism is going through right now? A respected magazine with a popular website is placed for sale on ebay?

Honestly, if I wasn’t part of the credit-crunched masses of the U.S. economopocolypse, I would scramble to get a business loan together to jump on this opportunity. Of course, I also know that I’d have to drop my career and profession entirely and devout all my time and energy to this. For a man with a young family, that just isn’t an option. But for you aspiring entrepreneurs out there… this is a great opportunity.

Even if you drop the printed mag and go to digital distribution only, the website alone can easily grow to recoup the investment. The website is the hidden gem here. Advertising in the gamespace is still strong. It’s just the leadtime for a printed magazine is so long, that by the time news hits the actual “newstands”, its already old. But the online profits alone for this type of venture should make up for any overhead the magazine requires.

Back in the hayday of blogging in 2003-2005,  I too had hopes of taking Portagame to print. I’m actually glad I didn’t, and that this has been able to return to its hobby roots from where it started. My stress levels are much lower now than during the rumor reporting pre-DS and pre-PSP launch days, and my marriage and health have been saved. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change anything. Those were great days, even with the stress they carried.

I often talk about moving forward with Portagame to make it more of a community. I’ve been contemplating turning it into a forum-based community. With all the flac that 1UP, EGM, and now Hardcore Gamer are taking on, this might just be the right move. A place for true handheld gaming fans to gather.

We’ll see. I have a feeling 2009 has some surprises for us yet.

Best of luck to the current AND future owners of Hardcore Gamer. I respect the position that both parties are/will be in.

via Joystiq.

Bringing life, and light, back to the Gameboy Pocket, photobucket user TehBibin shows us that a good mod for a good system is sometimes worth the wait. The Gameboy Pocket is a fond memory for most handheld geeks as it was the first time Nintendo reintroduced the GB with a smaller, more sleek form-factor. The first of MANY re-introductions.

Of course, you could just go to eBay and find a Gameboy Pocket Light, but what fun would that be?

Gameboy Pocket Backlight

Gameboy Pocket Backlight Mod compared to iPhone

We may have Apple, but the Chinese have something that we don’t: the Oppo line of MP3 players and PMPs. Oppo makes some very sexy players that are a class of their own. At the top of that class is the Oppo MUSE PMP.

The MUSE is a 4GB media player, with a swivel screen and a D-pad for navigation and game playing. Included in the OS is a set of game emulators for “classic gaming”. ReeeHaw!

Even without the game emulator, this would still be a kickass PMP player. So while I’d prefer to have the emulators intact (obviously), I would be very happy if an import company white-labeled this and shipped it to the US with a translated OS. However, if Oppo continues to evolve in its making of kickass media players, then I might go so far as loading up the Rosetta Stone and learning myself some Mandarin. English is overrated anyway.

More sexy pics at Gizmodo and PMP Today.

Congratulations to developers of The World Ends With You for the DS ($29.99 @ amazon). They conquered the much respected X-Play’s Best of 2008: Best Handheld Game.

Runners up:

• Chrono Trigger DS ($36.99 @ amazon)
• God of War PSP ($36.99 @ amazon)
• Patapon PSP ($19.99 @ amazon)
• Professor Layton DS ($29.99 @ amazon)

Contrary to what you have heard, the hottest toy for gamers this year is NOT the Wii Fit. Nor is it the PS3 or those YALENDS (Yet Another Limited Edition Nintendo DS) that were released for black friday.

No, this years hottest game system is the Nintendo DSi. If you own the DSi, I guarantee you that you have the hottest and most exclusive toy of the season.

The DSi, for those who don’t know, is the next version of the Nintendo DS. The main feature that sets it apart is not one, but two onboard cameras. One is placed in the back of the unit, while the other is in the hinge of the front for games and applications that are built to take mug shots of the gamer. The other features are impressive but offen overlooked: larger screens, thinner case, an SD memory card slot, a built in web browser, and the ability to save and download games via WiFi from the new DSiWare Shop.

But, it is not available to consumers in the US. It is only released in Japan at the time being with no announced plans for the US. It is expected that Nintendo of America will eventually release the new DS here in the states, but no plans have been yet.

If you’ve been good and you want Santa to bring you a new Nintendo DSi this year, you’ll need to tell him to import it. That’s the only way you can get this years most exclusive gift (unless you live in Japan).

Buy the Black Nintendo DSi.
Buy the White Nintendo DSi.

I have yet to mention the PSP 3000 for a couple of reasons. 1) It isn’t that big of a deal. And 2) It isn’t that big of a deal.

What the PSP 3000 does bring is a brighter and more crisp screen, an onboard microphone, a PS button (for other-than-Sony-fanboys, think of this as the “Jewel” button), a thinner and lighter profile, and um, that’s about it. No new form factor. No playing of holographic games yet. There’s nothing 3000 about it.

What the PSP 3000 also seems to have snuck in is decreased battery life and a possible higher price. These are pretty substantial rumors at this point, but if realized it would appear that Sony is taking two steps backwards to take one step forward.

The PSP 3000 will ship in Europe on October 15th in a game bundle for £149.99 and in the UK on October 17th at €199. It will drop in Japan in between the European launches on October 16th for 19800 YEN .

The US, Australia, and the rest of the world has yet to get any official announcement of pricing or street dates.

As I watch the trailer for PictoImage, I can’t help but get the feeling that “this is lame”. Now I’m going to stress that this is just from watching the trailer. I have yet to review the game, and I probably never will.

The concept is sound. Utilize the DS touchpad and wifi experience to create a party game for up to 8 players off one cartridge. Then everyone sits down and plays a micro version of “Pictionary”?

I’m sorry. I just can’t see this happening with anyone over the age of 13. You may gain some new features by using fancy gadgets and software, but you simply can’t replace the classic. You lose out on the gestures, the interactions, the competitiveness, the foul language, the speed drawing, the pointing at the board and grunting “uh” hoping your team understands you, and all the other joys that you get from the classic group game. Sit everyone down, have them concentrate on a two 3-inch LCD squares, and see if the formula still works. I doubt it will.

The only reason I blog about this is because I decided to look at what is coming down the pipeline for new DS games. There’s some great looking games that are a month or two away still, but this week I’d say go blow your weekly DS budget on Apple applications. Unless you have a pre-teen daughter, then by all means go grab PictoImage for her and all her friends.

Time to voice up Portagamers…

You’ve probably seen the SLOOOOOOW transition we are making to a new site. We still have a new template underway, but we are running fine and dandy on this new WordPress install. (WordPress is so hawt!) Now we need to start considering a mascot. A brand. Someone or something that our readers will associate with. So, please either vote using the Poll or leave a comment on this post (rss junkies click here because your reader sucks and won’t support javascritpt).

Pocket Ninja’s kick ass! I wish I would have had a pocket ninja when I went through middle school. Not many kids messed with me because I wore camouflage, but knowing I had a pocket ninja on me would be enough to boost my self confidence through that horrible stage of life. I’d get the girls. I’d be able to climb the rope in gym. I’d be a rockstar in home economics! (do they still have that?) My braces would be invisible. My mid-class farts would be silent…and deadly…and mysteriously seem to come from the kid next me. School would be everything I remembered it to be, minus all the embarrassment.

Kids these days are lucky. They DO have pocket ninjas! Just in time for back-to-school too. Now kids (of all ages) will have the self-esteem kick they need to get them through the daily 8 to 3 (or 8 to 5 if you’re the adult kind of kid). The very addictive, and very fun N+ is coming to both the DS and PSP on August 26th. And get ready for this ninjas: both versions are only $19.99! (suggest retail price) Perfect for any lunch money budget.

N+ is a platformer starring, surprise, a ninja. You must run and jump through various levels of mazes full of traps and baddies. The portable version comes from the cult favorite flash game of the same title for the web.

There are some flash games that are worthy of console versions, and N+ is absolutely one of them. Being published by Atari, N+ isn’t just a run-of-mill cut version from the web either. Silverbirch, the producers of the game, added a good dose of extras to give a little extra umph to your pocket ninja. The single player mode has over 200 homework-avoiding levels, and the co-op mode has over 100 levels to keep those library study sessions productive. And in case you wanna pick a fight such as: “my pocket ninja is better than your pocket ninja”, there’s a new versus mode too! Over 50 levels of ninja-vs-ninja action to prove your pocket ninja is nothing to be messed with.

A huge feature I’m looking forward to is the included level editor. Yeah, N+ levels aren’t anything extravagant. Some walls, blocks, spikes, dangerous pits, robots, etc. They all look like they were drawn by Napoleon Dynamite. But that’s the beauty of it! These levels are so simple that even *I* would feel confident creating a few. I swear I have notebooks full of similar line drawings from my school days. I wonder if I can find them, they’d be perfect N+ levels! My first level will basically be a picture of a liger.

So, kids, get your pocket ninja in time for school. As I mentioned above it goes on sale August 26th for both the DS and PSP.