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Microsoft prepping Windows Phone 7 for an October 21st launch? (update: US on Nov. 8?)
We'd heard October. We heard Europe in October. We heard next month. Now, Neowin cites anonymous sources that Windows Phone 7 will arrive in the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy on precisely October 21st, and is preparing a good deal of marketing fanfare to support a fancy October 11th unveiling in New York City. We can't say whether the rumor's correct, but it's certainly picking up steam, as these particular numbers were independently reported by Pocket-lint and the Spanish publication El Economista earlier this month as well. Now all we need is an alleged US release date -- misery loves company, right? Update: Microsoft expert Paul Thurrott says that while Redmond's indeed holding an October 11th shindig in NYC, it's not a Windows Phone event... but his source tells him the long-lost US launch date is actually November 8th. Imagine that! [Thanks, Stephen]
Rumor pegs Nintendo 3DS for November 11th in Japan
Remember when Nintendo said it'd release its release date for the 3DS autostereoscopic portable game system on the 29th of this month? We may already have the magic number -- depending on how you interpret a few Japanese words. You see, a supposed video game accessory designer by the handle "nocchisan" recently tweeted that eleven Nintendo 3DS accessories will be released on November 11th, and asked his or her followers to kindly buy them up... while purportedly remarking that the 3DS itself will arrive at the same time. While the tweets in question can certainly be read that way, and it makes a certain amount of sense for accessories to appear at launch, our admittedly limited grasp of Japanese suggests an alternative translation: that it's the accessories themselves (and not the 3DS) that will all arrive at the same time. There's also the little matter of nocchisan himself, whose Twitter account has already disappeared -- we have nothing actually connecting him to the accessory company except a link in his tweet.
RIM's Blackberry Tablet might be seven inches, feature dual cameras and 1GHz CPU?
The rumor mill's been churning out quite the picture of RIM's Blackberry tablet over the past several months, and it's a research analyst who's most recently picked up the brush -- Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw, to be precise, who anticipates a 7-inch touchscreen device with a 1GHz processor, plus front- and back-facing cameras for video chat. Since that's a good 1.9 inches smaller than the slate rumored a couple months back, this latest spiel fills us with doubt... but hey, it's not like we had confirmation that RIM was even producing such a device, anyhow. It may be a while before we find out for sure, as Kumar told investors that even should the company succeed in an attempt to move up the schedule, the device still wouldn't launch until the end of the year.
More pics of Apple's supposed new laptops surface
Oh Apple -- release some new laptops so this madness can end. The forums at MacRumors are abuzz over a Taiwanese site that's showing off pictures of what appears to be a very close cousin of that MacBook Pro-esque casing we saw earlier. This isn't the same model, surely, but it does bear a striking similarity in both design and materials -- and after lots of deliberation and comparisons, we're fairly sure this isn't the Air either (the hinge ends in a totally different spot in relation to the keys). That machined quality we noted in the earlier post is present, though as we said previously, the sides of these housings do look like separate pieces. Regardless, if any of this is even remotely true (and not another Photoshop from someone's mother's basement), Apple is indeed taking its laptops in an Air direction, which isn't surprising -- but signs of these being the end-result of new manufacturing process? The jury's still way out. One more pic after the break of that controversial side piece.[Via MacRumors]
Rumor mill: Nintendo licensing iPhone games
The rumors are flying about gaming giant Nintendo licensing "a limited amount of content" for the iPhone, and the rumors all seem to point back to this post over on a site called No Heat. They name no sources (of course), but they say that these Nintendo games will show up on the iTunes store at $29, and say that the games will "cater to an older audience."Now, if anyone is going to provide great gaming content on the iPhone, Nintendo would be a good fit-- with the touchscreen, they've already got some great properties set up on the DS (Brain Age would be a great fit, and of course all of their famous licenses). There are lots of great input methods that I'm sure Nintendo would love to take advantage of.But $29.99 is a steep price for a mobile entertainment game, even if it's Mario. Super Nintendo games are running about $10 on the Wii's Virtual Console, so either a) Nintendo is going to make iPhone owners pay through the nose, b) the games will be DS quality-- because $29 is about what you'd find a new DS game for, or c) No Heat is making it all up, and this is just another product of the iPhone rumor mill.
Spring 2007 to bring Wii price drops and color choices?
Well it seems the bevy of Nintendo news just isn't slowing down, as the past 24 hours have seen DS / DS Lite power adapters recalled, Wiimote straps deemed unworthy, the truth (right?) behind how much loot Nintendo's pulling in on each Wii sold, and now we've got a potential price drop on our hands. Not even waiting for the backlog of lines that form each morning as Wii hopefuls stand vigilantly and await their prize to calm down, the big N just might have next year all mapped out already. While we've heard whispers of Microsoft knocking a few bucks off the Xbox 360's price, we aren't exactly sold on Nintendo cutting into those (questionably) sweet profits so soon after launch. Nevertheless, a very talkative Toys 'R Us manager apparently let a "few details" about the Spring 2007 plans "slip," insinuating that Nintendo would be "relaunching" (saywha?) the Wii for $200 and in a variety of colors to boot. Notably, this is about the time the firm will start pushing its WiiConnect24 service, but if sales keep up, the company shouldn't have to lower prices to entice folks to hop on in. While we can't entirely dismiss the (admittedly exciting) claims, we've really nothing substantial to go on here, and until we get confirmation from someone other than a retail store overlord, we're taking this one with a dash of salt.[Via Digg]
