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'iGame Family' iPod dock for TV: includes Wiimote-esque controller, games
Click to iEnhance Elonex's iGame Family is a TV dock for the iPhone/iPod Touch (and other iPod devices) that comes with six games and a remote inspired by Nintendo's Wii console. The games include tennis, bowling, ping pong, darts, "firecracker" and "trampoline." The dock also allows users to play their iPod's music and videos through the television.Elonex is currently trying to recruit developers to create more titles for the console, which will then be sold at "official iGame retailers." We're currently checking with the company to see how much it plans to sell the device for and how integrated the wand is with non-iGame software.Update: The company let us know the iGame Family will retail for £79 in the UK. Still working on the wand answer, international release plans and price.%Gallery-73151%
An official server for South Africa
Here's an interesting post from what looks like a site in Zaire wondering if Blizzard will ever bring World of Warcraft to South Africa. It's true -- we all take it for granted that here in North America and Europe, the game is available, but in many parts of the world, it's not. And apparently there's a market in a place like South Africa -- Blizzard says they have about five to seven thousand players down there already (we'd assume they're playing on EU or US servers), and that probably doesn't count any of the players on private servers, which could be as many as 20,000. iGame is a division of an ISP called iBurst down there, and they say they're prepared to run an official server (within 24 hours' notice!) if Blizzard gives the OK, but Blizzard has told them that they need at least 40,000 players in the area to make it worth running an official server.There's another option called a "peering" server, which apparently does hook up to Blizzard's servers, but uses local connections and networks to make things a little faster. But again, Blizzard needs to assent to that, and it seems like they're hesitant at the moment.Oceanic realms have had issues for a long time, but at least the players there do have a chunk of servers dedicated to them. Are there any other major places in the world that don't have official WoW support yet? South America? India?
Battlefield 2142 scans of PC Gamer cover story leaked
The Battlefield 2142 hoopla is starting to look more and more real as scans of the PC Gamer issue in question have surfaced online with BF 2142 featured as the magazine's May cover story. Digg contributor Iced_Eagle has pointed us to an 8.5MB archive of images from the mag, with 9 pages concerned with 2142 and 2 pages having to do with Half-Life 2: Episode 1. If you're interested in knowing "where your unstoppable 20-foot Mech is," then you'd best get to that reading online or off ASAP. For those still skeptical of any gaming news outlet coming out with such a story in the general vicinity of April Fools' Day, keep in mind that the game appears to not only be the magazine's cover story, but that its coverage also fills up all those pages of print mentioned earlier. EGM merely dedicated a single page with a brief line in the table of contents to its Apple iGame prank this year, so this would seem like a lot of effort on PC Gamer or some extremely dedicated Photoshopper's part to fool the gaming public. Will this fall prove to be the point when the BF franchise finally frags in the future? At this point, it would certainly seem so. Read on for further details about the game; the cover pic links to the scans.
Apple's iGame is totally iFake
Here's the deal: a leaked scan from the April issue of gaming mag EGM promises that "Apple bites into the portable-gaming market" with a handheld game system dubbed--we kid you not--the iGame. While we don't doubt the veracity of the scanned images, faithful readers of EGM are well aware of their April Fools jokes including, but not limited to, the Sheng Long code in Street Fighter II, and the ire-inducing Wind Waker preorder bonus. The entire thing has been catalogued and transcribed at Station A for the curious. Future Apple product prognosticating is an ancient tradition that EGM is pretty late to, with a particularly weak entry no less. Who's gonna believe the iGame when we all know that Apple is definitely working on a Video iPod, that's also a cell phone... and a tablet PC... and that's the system that will have handheld gaming functionality! You heard it here first, folks.See also:Blog debate: is Apple making a game console?[Via Engadget]
Fake Patrol: the iGame
Behold, the world of tomorrow! Or maybe not. We've been getting a few tips in today about a blog post over on Station A that supposedly reveals the next big thing from Apple: the iGame. It looks like the bastard child of a Gameboy and iPod. Seriously, would Apple make something so ugly? Maybe all bets are off since the HiFi but still... I don't believe it. I seriously doubt Apple would 1) announce anything in Electronic Gaming Monthly (have you seen the offenses to graphic design in that magazine?), or 2) risk the obvious comparisons to their previous attempts at a game machine, the Pippin. Perhaps the deal breaker on this one, despite the pleas of "this is not a fake" from the author, are his initials: AH. We can clearly deduce this is Alvar Hanso. You do not want to trust that guy. What do y'all think? Fake or real? Or would you even buy such a beast?
