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Sell your messed-up DS Phat in Japan
Demand for the DS and DS Lite show no signs of abating. Japanese retailers are sitting on such a goldmine that they can get away with putting stuff like this on the shelves: a scratched, stylus-free, filth-ridden DS, yours for only $100! Box? Instruction manual? Get out of here! Gift wrapping extra. Store takes no responsibility if your kids get beaten up in the playground, or your partner leaves you for someone who knows crap when they see it. We'll take three. Do they come in candy pink?
Wii Warm Up: Technical difficulties redux
It's been a while since we asked, and while we hate to think of dead Wiis and broken nunchuks, we're sure there are a few out there. Some of them probably even belong to you guys. As much as it must hurt to discuss it, tell us your horror stories. We want to hear about your disc read errors and flailing, overzealous friends. Give us your bricks and your replacement stories, and we'll give you sympathy in return.
Battered DS Lite makes baby Jesus cry
When it comes to adding troops to the DS Fanboy regiment, we make sure to fill our ranks with only the manliest of men. (Uh, and womanliest of women.). As far as bloggers go, we're as Ford tough as they get. Even in birth, we exited our mothers' wombs uncomplaining, ready for the hardship ahead. Still, our eyes welled up when we saw this broken and battered Nintendo DS Lite. According to an employee at Best Buy, the handheld was returned after its owner claimed that it had just "stopped working." Customer service must have neglected to give the DS a good look, because we can't imagine any store taking back a product in this condition. The right hinge has been knocked out of place, every recess is filled and marked with grime, and one of its corners bares the teeth marks of a childish fit.The two VeggieTales stickers marring the Crystal White's once-glossy finish are the worst offenses. Is there any hell that this DS Lite wasn't put through? Head past the post break for more unsettling photos of this portable's mistreatment.[Via Digg]
PSA: DJ Max demo killed PSP
Did you know that DJ Portable Max 2 is one of the leading killers of PSPs in the country? Actually, it isn't. But, one PlayStation forum user became so frustrated at the incredible challenge provided by the music game's demo, that he threw the system in frustration. While it's ultimately his fault, one can't help but sympathize with him, at least a tiny bit. That game is really hard, as can be seen by the outrage in the demo's comment section:"god damn this is flipping hard, i can barely get past the first 30-40 seconds... Ahh! how do you do this?!" - Benny"THE DEMO IS STUPIDLY HARD AND ITS NOT WORTH IT" - Jack"I still game over in about 10 seconds" - DazIf only we all could be as good as Joystiq's Jared Rea.
What could you do with a broken iPod?
We get a lot of email to the TUAW tipline: scores of product recommendations, polite and not-so-polite suggestions, and "Won't you post about my new website?" press releases. When we get five consecutive emails, all within a few minutes, all from the same person promoting the same iPod purchasing online service... well, let's just say that it doesn't put us in a mood to post about your site, capice? (Oh, OK, fine. BuyMyBustediPod.com just opened and will buy your busted iPod. There, I did it.) Hopefully this guy can still get a few bucks for his iPod.It wasn't until I saw these emails, however, that it occurred to me: I've got a couple of broken iPods around here somewhere, and certainly friends and family have more... which service should I recommend for monetizing them? Back in December, both Ars Technica and WallStreetFighter listed some extant sites for second-hand sales, including:http://www.beyondthepod.com/http://www.ipodmods.com/sell.htmhttp://brokenpod.com/We even posted about BrokenPod back in February of 2006 -- and of course, there are the perennial options of Craigslist and eBay, or you could, I dunno, get it fixed or even try to repair it yourself. What we really need now, however, is your help: have you sold your broken iPod via any of these sites? Did they pay you as promised? Was the process easy and straightforward? Let us know your experiences; that way I can recommend a site with confidence and a clear conscience.Update: After all that, I got the original site's URL wrong -- it's http://www.buymyBROKENipod.com -- oops!
What to do if you spill liquid on your laptop
Losing a laptop to a spilt glass of wine can be a very frustrating experience, particularly when said wine is of the cheap Rosé variant, as was the embarrasing case with this writer's late laptop. Well, one group of kindly DIY technology authors have assigned their noggins to the problem, and have created a post with an accompanying video which shows exactly what to do if you accidentally spill some red on your keyboard. Apparently, the best policy is to act fast -- just like the pretty, pretty, pretty good salt and club soda solution for carpet and upholstery spills -- by pouring off the excess liquid onto a towel, opening up the laptop, washing it under tap water, rinsing it under distilled water, and then leaving it out to dry. A quick reassemble later and the laptop should be back in working condition: but for how long? Also, if you do watch the video after the break, bear in mind that the music track is a loud variant of "Kung Fu Fighting," which seems to have been chosen purely for the line "and they did it with expert timing." Sigh.
What's broken with MMOs and their combat?
Do DPS, crafting, tank, and the future of aggro management make your heart go a flutter? Damion Shubert has been doing MMO design for ten years and is currently working on an announced project for BioWare. He held a roundtable on the next generation of MMO design and the big issue was: "Why does combat suck" in MMOs? Thoughts revolved around the idea that combat is overused, simple and easy for people to grasp. Shubert says, "Our combat models right now are asking people to enter no risk situation ... Players choose their own challenges and bore themselves to death ... then they bitch how the games aren't challenging enough. We force them to play cautiously, can you imagine if Gears of War told you not to take risks?" After years of watching MMO players and having access to background statistics of game he says people's penchant for exploitation is key. Player's will try to find the easy way out of anything. He also says one of the greatest innovations of World of Warcraft was how they rewarded their quests. WoW gives substantial rewards for completing quests and leads players down a path rather than having players camp and repeat the same single action over and over again. Shubert emphasizes that combat MMOs are not the only type out there and Korea makes us look pitiful, "They have MMO dance games, golf games and everything else." So, why haven't those types of MMOs caught on in other places and what other types of massive online game would we like to see?
Wii Warm Up: Had to replace anything yet?
When it comes to your Wii, have you had to replace anything yet? We're not talking about televisions here (let's hope you're not one of those victims), but actual system-related gear. Any controller malfunctions? We're particularly concerned about the cord connecting the remote and nunchuk -- it seems just a little short in moments of excitement, but maybe we flail a little too enthusiastically. What about the sensor bar? Any ripped cords or crushed plastic? Any problems with the system itself so far? Not anything that was broken out of the box, mind you, and not errors, but things you had to replace due to failure. Yeah, we know, it's specific. But we're curious about how long all these little items are going to last, since the controllers aren't exactly cheap. So how are they doing so far?
Guards bugged in Silvermoon City
As a sidenote to the Valentine's Day guide from earlier: Don't even bother to try the Love quests in the new cities. As Memory from Scilla notes, the guards there are completely bugged-- in Silvermoon, guards talk about Stormwind (I even, as a Blood Elf, had one try to speak Dwarven to me).Now, Drysc says it's a known problem that has to do with the event itself, so if the problem isn't fixed soon, it'll go away for sure by Thursday, since that's when the Love event ends. And there's no real point to tooling around looking for love in the expansion cities anyway-- Kwee Q. Peddlefeet isn't there at all (because not all players, I suppose, have the expansion, and that would mess up the popularity contest, since all the rewards are city specific). So this isn't exactly the end of the world, even though when you get Heartbroken, it may seem like it.But for the moment, good luck trying to find your way around an expansion city you don't know. I was trying to find the Mage trainer in Silvermoon, and had to just give up and run back to the newbie area to train my new spells.
Wii Warm Up: Technical difficulties
Since the release of the Wii, we've gotten a few e-mails from people reporting that they've had various problems with their systems -- and we're not talking straps here, but actual technical difficulties. In light of that, we figured it was a good time to open the floor to everyone and ask: have you had any issues with your Wii? Controllers not working, discs not reading, tears, recriminations, explosions ... any problems at all? If so, we want to hear about it.
IGN's broken 360, cardboard coffin reviewed
It happens to the best of them, each curvacious white box having so much potential and so much to offer in its lifetime. But sometimes their life is tragically cut short for no particular reason, especially those first pioneers. IGN recently had to say goodbye to their broken Xbox 360 (a 2005 version at that) and chronicled the emotional journey they faced. A poem was written, the processed was journaled, and the cardboard coffin box came in the mail. And leave it to IGN to write a full review of the official coffin of the 360 ... you know, just in case you have to go through the process. We send IGN our prayers in hopes that they come to peace with the loss and accept a new Xbox 360 member into their gaming family.[Thanks, Jonah]
BackupHDDVD creator speaks out
Just about everyone and their respective grandmothers have now gotten a whiff of this whole "BackupHDDVD" thing that's been floating around, as muslix64 was able to break down the HD DVD content protection and allow folks to sidestep the AACS boundaries. The folks over at Slyck sat down to chat with the infamous hacker about his motives, his work, and the obligatory "hopes and dreams," and as we expected, he's simply yet another (albeit intelligent and determined) individual that's frustrated with the limitations that DRM presents. He refers to himself as simply an "upset customer" looking to "enforce fair use," further explaining that he wasn't able to appropriately play back an HD DVD film that he purchased "on a non-HDCP HD monitor." He also said that his success with HD DVD led to his shared efforts while taking down Blu-ray's content protection, and noted that any stronger protection to limit the abilities of purchased media would likely be "too costly to manufacture." Lastly, he showed a bit of humbleness by admitting that he "probably wasn't the first to do this," and suggested that the ones before him probably just kept quiet, but his overriding purpose with all of this is to simply "enforce fair use, not piracy" and to "benefit the consumers." Sure, there are certainly polarized camps when it comes to breaking down content protection, but before jumping to any conclusions, be sure to hit the read link and read the full dialogue.
Ground control to DirecTV TiVo users: reboot, please
As a good few PC users will tell you, sometimes the only solution is the three fingered salute, and for TiVo users having an array of troubles with your DirecTV service, it seems the answer could be as easy as flipping the power switch. Oddly enough, it seems the list of recent complaints surrounding unexplainable deletions and problems with Season Pass recordings can be remedied with a simple reboot. A DirecTV spokesperson even stated that "a reboot will clean things up and the unit will start recording again," but we've got a sneaking suspicion there's just more to it than that. Nevertheless, that's the word from the higher-ups, so if you're on the verge of a total meltdown due to AV misbehavior, try the trusty restart trick a time or two, and if it still doesn't get things ironed out (read: the likely outcome), at least you now know precisely who to yell at.[Via PVRWire]
The Big Box Project: Broken 360 in a big box
For some of us, we've experienced a bricked Xbox 360 and had to call the semi-helpful customer support people. During launch Microsoft kindly shipped out a box, paid for shipping both ways, and were cheerful if you had a defective 360. All was right in the universe. But now you have to supply the box and pay for the shipping ... dirty devils. The creator of the Big Box Project has a similar story, he too had a broken 360 and wasn't happy about having to pay for the box and shipping. So, he decided to turn the tables on Microsoft. Customer service promised that they'd use the exact same box sent to them to ship back a fixed Xbox 360. Now he is raising money to send his 360 (and possibly others) in a ginormous container so Microsoft has to pay big bucks to get it back to him. You know, shipping freight size containers costs lots of cash.And we ask, what's your opinion on this little project? Is his plan going to work, should Microsoft use the same crate sent to them, or is this one big money making hoax? Vent, discuss, and speak your mind.[Thanks, dpcough]
"Towel trick" provides temporary fix to Xbox 360's red ring of doom?
If you think we took that indubitably unscientific "decibel test" with a grain of salt, then we're throwing down a few barrels with this one, but the sheer weirdness of this should encourage all bricked Xbox 360 owners to give it a whirl. Although we're fully aware of how wrapping a soft cotton towel around your red ring-displaying console should not effect its status, well, it just might. According to numerous 360 owners who haven't taken advantage of Microsoft's newly-extended repair / replacement offer, they were able to bring a few previously dead Xbox 360s back to life, if only for a few hours at a time. Sure, this is far from an actual solution, and if anything, this should reaffirm that voice in your head telling you to call up Microsoft and get an RMA number, but nonetheless, it seems that blanketing your 360 with a towel, firing it up for 10 minutes or so, turning it off, and then removing the towel will mysteriously allow your machine to function for a couple hours. Granted, we don't know how many of these folks are fibbing, but we're putting it to you all to give this a go and report back, and if it does indeed work out, who knows what else those innocent looking towels can revive? [Warning: Read link requires subscription][Via TheXboxDomain]
What to do with your broken iPod
Before reading this article, I kind of knew that there were services out there that bought back broken iPods. I was aware that there were people out there interested in using them for parts or refurbing them to sell on eBay but I might not have thought of all these possible outlets. iPod ResQ is probably the best known of the bunch, and there's always eBay, but would you have known about iPodMods or NextWorth? Pop by and read the whole article, the author gives his insights into the reliability of the services and whether you'll want to do business with them.
Wii-related injury roundup
It didn't take too long for the first Wii-related injury to surface, and it was even shorter before Wiimotes folks starting breaking things with their wild flinging antics, but when your product spurns the creation of an entire website devoted to users getting banged up when misusing the controller, now that's an accomplishment. Of course, it's probably safe to assume that at least half these Wiinjuries are nothing more than backyard boo-boos that folks translated into Wiincidents to get their 15 minutes of fame, but regardless, when Nintendo sends out emails and offers beefier Wiimote straps to those having problems, at least some of this stuff has to be legitimate. First up is a high-heel-wearing dame who apparently dislocated her knee while going for the smash in Wii Tennis, but the remedy to this happening again should really be quite apparent. Next we've got a rowdy customer service guru who actually swung the Wii-bat so hard, it purportedly snapped something within his arm. Lastly, we've got a Agassi wannabe who didn't exactly pay attention to the overhead (glass) light fixture before serving an ace, and now he's reportedly got the bloodshed (and repair bills) to show for it. The moral of the story is that the Wiimote can be a potent weapon and injury liaison if not used properly, but hey, we can't deny the humor in folks taking themselves out when going FTW.Read - Dislocated Knee, via JoystiqRead - Broken ArmRead - Sliced HandRead - More Examples of Wiimote carelessness
Wiimote launches through window, insurance coverage questionable
While we initially felt Wal-Mart was being a bit old fashioned by not allowing Wii demo kiosks to be setup in stores due to "safety concerns," Walton and friends apparently had a good bit of foresight that we weren't aware of. After numerous reports of television sets getting the axe, and an innocently bystanding HP iPAQ getting all cracked up, we're wondering if folks aren't just staging their own Wiincidents at this point. Apparently warning everyone of how jeopardous these free-flying Wiimotes can be wasn't really taken to heart, as now a butterfingered gamer has quite an interesting tale to tell to the presumably skeptical insurance adjuster. While busting a few moves in Wii Sports, the nonsensical user let the controller fly, but instead of landing softly (and harmlessly) on the couch, it rocketed straight through his window, leaving a fairly dangerous scene as proof of gaming negligence. C'mon folks, we've warned you all enough by now, either strap on that thoughtfully included wrist strap, grab some sticky gloves, or tape up the windows -- your property, your call.[Thanks, Sean]
Today's hottest game video: Wii-mote plus sweaty hands = SMASH
The top slot on YouTube is occupied by the DIY-erless Wii sensor bar video that we've already covered today, so we're sliding down to number two. Although the video tells us something we already know -- Wii-motes love to fly out of hands due to shoddy wrist straps and break things -- we love their Zapruder film-esque replay of the alleged event over and over. While people haven't started duct-taping these to their wrists yet, Nintendo can expect a brisk business in replacement straps sales. That's where the real money lies in these consoles, and we've finally uncovered the bitter truth. Check out the video after the jump while you scrounge for strap change.
PS3 broken straight out of the box
Punch Jump received their 20 GB Playstation 3 only to discover it has a malfunctioning disc feeder. The sound that the Playstation 3 makes while attempting with absolute futility to consume the disc is what really makes this video pop. No launch is without its batch of faulty systems, Nintendo is currently dealing with fatal error 110213 on the Wii. After attempting every troubleshooting trick Sony said they would replace the defective unit. No word yet from Punch Jump the timeframe they were quoted it taking to receive a replacement unit. With any luck the guys over at Punch Jump will get their replacement before the New Year.
