Three
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More ESRB ratings found for Virtual Console
The ESRB ratings website is a veritable treasure trove of nuclear launch codes, CIA secrets, and unannounced Virtual Console games. Recently, ratings have popped up for Mighty Bomb Jack, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire. While not all of the ESRB rated games have yet arrived on the console, it's fairly certain that they'll get here eventually.In addition, Super Ghouls n' Ghosts was announced not only for the Wii, but for the 360 and PS3. This would make it the first game to be released on all three systems' classic download services, which then brings up silly flame wars and pointless arguing.But seriously, the Wii version will totally be the best.(Note: The GameSpot article mentions that Galaga was also tagged for release, but we actually caught this back in January. We rock.)
Three million units sold?
VGCharts, the "premier source for videogame sales charts on the internet", has totaled worldwide Wii sales now in excess of three million units. The same list has Xbox 360 at 7.74 million, and the PS3 at a rather stunted 1.18 million. By comparison, other-unofficial-internet-tallying site NexGenWars has the three consoles at 9.18 million for the 360, only 2 million for the Wii, and 800,000 for the PS3.Which should you believe? We're inclined to roll with VGCharts, which seems to have a very meticulous method of gathering numerical data. The competition uses an arbitrary "unit sold every x seconds" formula until the site owner can alter the data manually after press releases and official data; in the first week of sales, the Wii inexplicably went from 700,000 to 400,000 in the blink of an eye.We all know that Nintendo promised four million worldwide by year's end, but over 75% delivered isn't such a terrible let-down. And hey! There are still five days left! C'mon, Nintendo, you can do it![Thanks, Richard!]
3's X-Series platform reviewed on Nokia N73
With cellular providers upping fees left and right, it's refreshing to finally see a provider offer up a valuable package to its users with a halfway decent pricetag. UK's 3 has struck a nerve with 3G gurus and multi-taskers alike, and its flagship X-Series platform has received a thorough critiquing from the folks at Digital Lifestyles. Currently running on Nokia's N73 (with Sony Ericsson's W950i to follow in January), the all-you-can-download approach to utilizing 3G applications apparently did fairly well in testing. Garnering praise in the diversity and usability departments, reviewers were pleased with the inclusion of Skype, Yahoo Go!, Mobile Mail, 3's web browser, and Windows Live Messenger -- all of which performed at least up to expectations for the low £5 ($9.85) per month fee. The only major digs came from the lack of SkypeOut support (which is promised for the future), no caller ID data on incoming Skype calls, and the inability to control / watch recorded shows via SlingPlayer. Of course, the latter headache will only bother those who spring for the £10 ($19.70) monthly package, which includes the ability to purchase the Sling software for a discounted £99 ($194.95) and use OrbPC to boot. Overall, the crew was generally pleased with the service and its performance on the N73, and while it called the SlingPlayer "a pig to set up," it dubbed the X-Series platform "the future" of cellphones.
MP3 vids: Samus blasting, ships blowing up
A delicious, full-course meal of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption videos has been served up by IGN. As one of our most anticipated launch titles games coming in 2007, we soak all things up Metroid Prime 3 related and absorb it into our bodies, using it to sustain our life force.These videos showcase not only some mouth-watering gameplay, but also a dazzling attention to detail in the graphics. The particle effects look better, textures look more crisp, and a cutscene of Samus floating out in space causes us to convulse in excitement. We really can't wait to get our hands on this game at launch in 2007.
Three-pane Mail.app turns into a plug-in
Well that was quick. First Mail.app received a widescreen, three-pane face-lift, and now it's been morphed into a plug-in. The author provides two different sets of instructions for installing: drag and dropping into your ~/Library/Mail/Bundles/ directory or using a couple of commands in Terminal. Go nuts ladies and gentlmen.
Give Mail.app a three-pane view
For those of you longing for the often-requested three-pane view in Mail.app, Tim Gaden at Hawk Wings has dug up yet another stellar find: an actual working version.This Ars Technica forum thread begins with the typical "gee, it'd be great if..." post which oh-so-often yields productive results such as the screenshot you see in this post: a hacked version of Mail.app with a three pane view. Fortunately, this hacked version of Mail.app has a different name (MailWidescreen) so you don't have to bite your nails over whether to overwrite your original Mail.app. Still, it would be good practice to back it up anyway for good measure.Personally, I think the three pane view in email apps is one of those needless 'change for the sake of change' developments that seems to have oozed out of an admittedly old email UI industry. Email subjects can be pretty useful and revealing, while most emails are never long enough to warrant all the space a three pane view gives to the message, and this view seems to enhance both of these complications: subjects are cut short, while white space is wasted on typically short emails. Just note Exhibit A - this post's screenshot.With my $0.02 out of the way, however, check out the forum thread for details on this hack's development, or simply use the direct link to the .ZIP file right here.
Triple boot your MacBook Pro
Booting only two OSs on your MacBook Pro is, like, totally so last week. Aside from earlier reports, it apparently is possible to bring a third OS to the party, as OnMac.net has posted a how-to wiki for booting WinXP, Mac OS X and Linux on a MacBook Pro via Boot Camp (so far, this is untested on other Intel Macs).Gentoo is the version of Linux used in the how-to, but the Slashdot post where I found this is confident that it would be simple to get other flavors of Linux working.But forget all this triple booting stuff... when is someone going to crack the 4 OS barrier? I want a quad boot with Microsoft Bob running on a MacBook Pro!
