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Video game industry analyst Michael Pachter has said today that he expects the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to receive price cuts again this year, which will lead to the Wii being forced into a price cut as well, in order to keep the remaining price advantage it has over its rivals.

"The Wii enjoyed a $350 price advantage over the PS3 at launch, and a $150 advantage until September. Now, the gap has narrowed to $100, with the feature-laden PS3 a tempting purchase for prospective console households," says Pachter.

"The holiday Wii sales boost was primarily attributable to a $50 gift card promotion offered by Wal-Mart; while we expect similar promotions at holiday next year, we expect the other consoles to be lower-priced by then, further eroding the Wii's competitive price advantage."

Pachter also says that the DSi handheld is most likely overpriced, compared to the iPod Touch, which offers a plethora of free apps as well as better music and video playback capabilities.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has given his response to last week's iPad unveiling, calling the device "a bigger iPod Touch," with "no surprises."

Additionally, Iwata denied rumors that Nintendo was working on an HD-enabled Wii and a DS with motion control. "I question whether those features would be enough to get people to buy new machines," he concluded.

Iwata also took a swing at 3D gaming, admitting he does not believe it will catch on, despite the success of films such as Avatar. "I have doubts whether people will be wearing glasses to play games at home. How is that going to look to other people?" he adds.

So far the main concerns critics have had of the iPad is the lack of multitasking, the continued lack of Flash-support, and lack of USB ports.

Intellect Wireless, a small company based in Virginia has sued Apple this month over wireless communication technology found in the iPhone, in what has got to be the millionth time Apple has been sued over technology relating to their smartphone.

The patent in question is for a concept meant to "receive and display caller ID information, non-facsimile pictures, video messages and/or Multimedia Messaging Services [MMS]."

Intellect is asking for $10 million in damages from Apple, but will accept a settlement.

The company has so far sued T-Mobile, Virgin, Helio, US Cellular, Motorola, LG, Sanyo, Samsung and HTC over similar patent disputes.

TechOn is reporting today that large OLED panels should become available mainstream starting in 2010, with LG Display planning 20-inch displays for this year and 40-inch displays by 2012.

Says VP Won Kim, in charge of OLED Sales & Marketing at the firm: "They may be expensive, but it will be possible to buy a 40-inch class OLED TV in 2012."

OLED displays offer superior quality to LED LCD displays, and can be as thin as a a few millimeters.

The current 15-inch OLED display offered by LG has a contrast ratio of 100,000:1 and "color reproducibility range of 98% of the NTSC standard."

According to recent figures from Valve, active Steam accounts grew by 25 percent, year-on-year, to over 25 million.

Monthly "player minutes" has reached 13 billion, an all-time high, says the company.

Concurrent users hit an all-time high as well in December, at over 2.5 million.

"Steam turned five years old in March 2009," added Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "With the introduction of each new platform feature released over the years - such as the Steam Community, Steam Cloud, and Steamworks - we've seen corresponding growth in account numbers, concurrent player numbers and developer support for the platform. As such, we plan to continue to expand and grow the platform to better serve the developers supporting the open platform and millions of gamers logging in each day."

Sony has announced that it will debut a new reality series, via the PlayStation Network, beginning later this month dubbed The Tester, in which 11 contestants compete in challenges to win the position of game tester at Sony America.

The show will be available for free to download.

The full press release:

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced it will debut the original competition reality series, The Tester, on PlayStation®Network for free download starting February 18, 2010. In the unique series, 11 hopeful gamers from across the country will compete in grueling physical and mental challenges to win a position as a game tester at SCEA and a $5,000 signing bonus, all under the scrutiny of a panel of judges, including actor/comedian and diehard gamer Hal Sparks. With the launch of The Tester, available for digital download only on PlayStation®3 (PS3™) and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) entertainment systems, SCEA further expands the current library of original and exclusive content on PlayStation Network.

According to the latest Net Applications data, the Google Chrome browser continues to take market share from rivals Internet Explorer and even Mozilla Firefox, moving to over 5 percent market share for the first time, ever.

IE fell to 62.18 percent from 62.69 in December and Firefox fell from 24.61 to 24.41. Chrome moved from 4.64 percent to 5.20. Notably, Firefox has fallen for two months straight, a fact that hasn't occurred in years.

Of note as well is the fact that Internet Explorer 8 has finally surpassed IE6 for most used IE browser, at 22.31 percent to 20.07 percent.

The Spanish language blog MuyComputer has reported today that Microsoft will be launching the long-anticipated Zune Phone this month at the Mobile World Congress event in Spain.

The presentation of the device will come from Microsoft and Nvidia as the phone will use a Tegra chipset, giving it the ability to play 3D games among other features.

The site adds that the phone will have a 480x272 resolution screen, 720p HDMI-out, weigh 70 grams, and use Windows Mobile 7.

We will keep you updated.

Mockup:

Microsoft has announced they will begin selling a 250GB HDD add-on for the Xbox 360 in Japan starting next month.

Beginning March 11th, the drive will cost ¥15,540 (about $172 USD).

The drive marks the largest stand-alone unit ever available for the console.

Microsoft has no plans to sell the drive outside of Japan, adds spokesperson Kei Iwasaki, so it seems that North American and European gamers will have to stick to the smaller stand-alone units Microsoft has available in their regions.

The Xbox 360 Elite has 120GB of internal storage.

According to a recent FCC filing, an AT&T-compatible Google Nexus One has been approved, and could be available for the GSM-based provider within a few months.

Currently, the Nexus One works for T-Mobile and AT&T, but 3G only works on T-Mobile's network. A Verizon version has been promised for the "Spring."

The filing shows an HTC smartphone being approved with model number 99110. The current Nexus One has model number 99100. The new device has support for AT&T 3G, a different band then that used in Europe, where Vodafone will have a version in the Spring as well.

The phone currently sells at www.google.com/phone for $180 with T-Mobile contract or $530 unlocked.

Rockstar Games has announced that they will be bringing two downloadable Grand Theft Auto IV episodes to the PlayStation 3 and to PCs, months after they debuted, exclusively on the Xbox 360.

The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony will cost $20 each, and become available on March 30th.

Buyers can purchase the episodes individually, or buy both together as the Episodes From Liberty City bundle.

Matthew Delorey of Massachusetts has been arrested this week, accused of selling hacked Comcast cable modems that would allow buyers to have free Internet access.

Delorey has also been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of wire fraud, each of which has a maximum sentence of 20 years and a fine of $250,000 USD.

The alleged hacker sold the modems via Massmodz.com, which has since been taken down. The modems were modified to have the MAC addresses spoofed, technically stealing Internet access from paying customers.

Delorey was caught when FBI agents purchased two of the modems. The hacker also posted videos on YouTube
titled "Massmodz.com How to Get Free Internet Free Cable Internet Comcast or any Cable ISP - 100% works" and "Massmodz.com How to bypass Comcast registration page with premod cable modem SB5100, SB 5101."

T-Mobile is set to add a new "flagship" Android device to their lineup of smartphones, one that likely signals the end of the T-Mobile G1, the original Android-based device.

It is still unknown what the phone will be called, but it is either the MyTouch 2 or the MyTouch Slide, with either name possible given that it is a sequel to the MyTouch 3G and, you guessed it, it includes a slide-out full QWERTY keypad.

The new device will have an HVGA touchscreen, a trackpad, and a four-row physical keypad. It will run Android 2.0, but will also use the HTC Sense interface. The camera is likely 5MP, with LED flash. As with past devices, the MyTouch 2 will include a microSD memory card slot.

The device will launch at under $200 with contract.

Prototype:

Google has written a blog post today that officially ends wider Google support for Internet Explorer 6.

Reads the full post:

The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+

Mozilla Firefox 3.0+

Google Chrome 4.0+

Safari 3.0+

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products -- as well as new Docs and Sites features -- won’t work properly in older browsers.

As of December 31st, 2009, Nintendo has sold 67.4 million Wii consoles, with 32 million in the U.S., 9.7 million in Japan and 25.7 million in Europe and other regions.

Additionally, 510 million software titles have been sold, with 275.8 million of those coming from the U.S.

The popular handheld console, the DS/DSi, has reached 125 million, with 45 million sales coming from the U.S., 30 million in Japan and 50 million from Europe and other regions.

Despite the strong sales, Nintendo reported that overall net profits were down 9.4 percent for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2009, most likely due to slightly weaker sales of the Wii, alongside Nintendo's price cut on the console.