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Onkyo's tiny ION-based P3 nettop has an even tinier removable DVD-ROM
If you're concerned about the future obsolescence of your miniscule Atom-based nettop, chances are its choice of optical storage is not what's bothering you. But, if that's what keeps you up at nights, Onkyo's P3 is your Ambien. Its ION platform sports the usual 1.6GHz Atom 230 proc, 2GB of memory, and 160GB hard drive. The DVD-ROM is a separate module that clips into a groove on the side and, while details are slim, that doesn't look like a standard form-factor to us, so if a Blu-ray upgrade or the like ever surfaces don't expect it to be cheap. The P3 itself (pictured again below with an LCD friend) isn't exactly a bargain to start, with an estimated MSRP of ¥69,800 (about $770) when it ships in March of next year. That's the price you pay for modular design.
Wrath of the Lich King will ship on DVD only
One of the most annoying things about installing World of Warcraft is that chances are your installer discs are in CD format, hence it's "discs" instead of "disc." That means you do a lot of swapping CDs out while installing the game. Okay, so that's obviously not a deal breaker, but it's still annoying. We have good news: both the Collector's and regular editions of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will ship on DVD. Hurray! We already knew this about the Collector's Edition, but that the regular edition will too is good news.Here's the bad news: they'll only ship on DVD. So if you're got a really, really old computer (and WoW will run on really, really old computers so you might), you'll be scat outta luck. That is, until a digital download version comes out. Inevitably it will, of course, but it probably won't be on day one. No Death Knight for you!Thankfully, this is not 1997, so we imagine that only a very tiny minority of WoW players will be bothered. And if you are affected, go buy a DVD drive for 20 bucks, you cheapskate! We thought we'd give you the heads up just in case.
id: RAGE hasn't been scaled down due to the Xbox 360
According to id Software the recent reports that its upcoming title RAGE has been drastically scaled down on all platforms due to the Xbox 360's media-size limitation are incorrect."There was NO CONTENT removed from RAGE because of the 360--NONE AT ALL," wrote Willits. "We feel the 360 is a great platform and will provide a fantastic Rage experience," id Software's Tim Willits told Shacknews. The original statement made by Willits mentioned the game had changed from "5 or 6 smaller wasteland environments but later decided instead to have 2 larger wastelands." The change was mostly due to the title shipping on two Xbox 360 discs but Willits claims the change was for the better of the game because it would reduce load times between all platforms.So, RAGE hasn't been scaled down because of the Xbox 360 ... it was changed because of the Xbox 360. Completely different, people!
TDK begins shipping 25GB Blu-ray media
We're not quite sure what you can use them for at this point (other than, maybe, as coasters for when you serve the good stuff), but TDK has begun shipping blank single-layer Blu-ray discs with a 25GB capacity. The discs are available in BD-R (recordable) and BD-RE (rewritable) formats, for $19.99 and $24.99, respectively. That's per disc. Yes, we were doing the math in our heads as well: That's about 79 cents per GB for the BD-R, which does come out to a bit more than the roughly 10 cents (or less) per GB of budget DVD-Rs. But those prices are sure to come down by the time TDK begins offering these in 50-disc spindles later this year. (By then, TDK will also have dual-layer 50GB discs available, for $47.99 and $59.99.) And maybe by then you'll actually be able to use these in some kind of drive.
