Sony and Nintendo phones discussed

THIS WEEK people have been discussing mobile phones from two of the major contenders in the gaming arena.

Slashdot posted this story concerning a mobile phone from Nintendo, stating that a patent had already been filed in 2001, and thatCNet is now discussing the need for a phone from the Japanese gaming gurus.

Next-gen.biz reports that a senior SCE official said the possibility of a Playstation phone was hugely seductive and "highly plausible".

"The Playstation is a proven success and so is Sony Ericsson,” Sony Computer Entertainment's co-chief operating officer, Jim Ryan, told the Economic Times. “Convergence with the two arms working together is definitely plausible. It is hugely intellectually seductive to have a console oriented phone."

PS3/PSP
Sony’s online Playstation store, which could previously only use the Playstation 3 as a conduit to buy PSP content, dropped its exclusivity on Tuesday by opening up to PC users.

PSP users can now download games using PCs directly from the Web instead of buying them in retail stores.

The Playstation store was also updated to include new PS Eye games, and Rock Band content, this week.

If you're wondering if the UMD for the PSP is at danger of being made obsolete by the downloadable titles, Sony has reiterated the support of the format.

According to Darren Cairns, head of online marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, who spoke to Gamesindustry.biz, said:

"The UMD business is still good for us and our publishers. It's still a burgeoning market, and we're still selling a large number ofPSPs on a weekly basis, so there are a large number of new people coming into the market."

Xbox 360
While Sony and Nintendo could be concentrating on mobile phones, Microsoft is examining the unification of the Xbox 360 with the Zune.

Microsoft executive J Allard says that the firm’s Xbox 360 console and Zune MP3 player are ultimately designed to connect to the same network.

""The Zune guys have to run really fast. The Windows Mobile guys are on a two-year release cycle. The Xbox team now needs to focus on cost reduction, distribution and quality process. Everyone is on their own cadence. The one thing that transcends all this is the network as the nexus," said Allard in a New York Times technology blog.

Last week Bungie released a plethora of stats concerning Halo 3.

43.28 percent of people whose Xbox 360s are connected to Xbox Live have finished the game on Normal difficulty, while 15.14 percent have conquered it on Legendary. 2.07 percent of people have unlocked all 1000 points of the Gamerscore.

The company also reveals that 8.68 percent of people have unlocked the Marathon Man Achievement, which involves locating and accessing all the Terminals in the Campaign mode.

Oddly, Halo 3 also became a feature on the New York Times best seller list.

Halo: Contact Harvest, the fifth book in a series of books based on the Halo game franchise, has made its New York Times Bestseller List debut, at number 3.

Wii/DS
Nintendo has apparently taken 'too many'pre-orders for its official DS TV Tuner, which launches in Japan this Friday.

Gizmodo has a further look at the device and uncovers a unique selling point - the inclusion of Game&Watch game.

Over 4 million pre-orders for the device have been made, a number that surprises even Nintendo, as the company had not formally announced the pre-order program.

According to data translated by consumer site IGN (via Gamasutra, the NintendoDS has crossed the milestone of twenty million units sold in Japan, just shy of three years after the system originally appeared on the market. TheDS' current incarnation, the DS Lite, was released in February 2006.

The Wii had it's first birthday this week, and Engadget had a nice looking cake to celebrate. µ