The Game Dame™

Archive for July 18th, 2008

DIY Sit Down Arcade Cocktail Cabinet

Posted on July 18th, 2008 in I Love Technology.
No Comments so far

Last week I brought you the functional Nintendo controller/coffee table. This week I bring you the next must-have for your geeked out pad: The DIY Ikea arcade cocktail cabinet! Your average MAME cabinet costs a pretty penny, but if you happen to have a Macbook with broken hinges lying around like Frederic Sebton did, you can combine that with a $70 RAMVIK side table from IKEA and be on your way to joystick land in no time.

Unlike the Nintendo controller table, this MAMEbook cabinet didn’t require major carpentry and artistic skills. In fact, Frederick explains in his blog that “To cover the ugly bits, I just cut a piece of black cardboard, here seen under the top glass.” Cardboard?! Swank!! I love it when cheap and easy fixes come together so nicely.

The only thing that I think would bug me about the design is the way the sliding drawer holds the joystick. Seems like you’d cut off the circulation in your wrists playing over that edge. Frederic does say “I’ll replace the drawer later with a proper control panel once I figure out how.” Overall, though, the end product is pretty sweet.

Check out the step by step transformation on Frederic’s blog»

[Thanks, Ms. Sarah for the tip!]

More »

No One is Talking. Join the Conversation.

Rent/Buy Movies from Your PS3

Posted on July 18th, 2008 in Console/Platform-Related.
2 Comments so far

On Tuesday, PLAYSTATION® revealed their latest offer: users can now rent and purchase movies from the PLAYSTATION® store. As it stands, they’ve got close to 300 full length movies and more than 1,200 TV episodes, many of which are available in both standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD). The content is coming from top movie studios including 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate Entertainment, MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios and various television partners.

Rentals range from $2.99 to $5.99 and you’ll have 14 days to start the content. Once started, you’ve got a 24-hour window to view it. If you want to own a movie, that’ll range from $9.99 to $14.99. Whichever way you go, you’ll be able to download the content to your PSP for travel. Sounds good. I just wonder how many freaking software updates I’m going to have to install before it’ll work.

More »

2 People are Talking. Join the Conversation.

Wii Speak

Posted on July 18th, 2008 in Console/Platform-Related.
2 Comments so far

So in addition to the announcement about the Wii MotionPlus remote add-on, Nintendo revealed their plans to get on board with the rest of the consoles and add the ability for folks to chat through the Wii. The mic peripheral will ship out with Animal Crossing by the end of ‘08. In this video from GameTrailers.com, Katsuya Eguchi talks about the upcoming title and the mic:

[youtube vu3yoKaP35g]

I love how Eguchi defines the Animal Crossing gameplay: “The town is where you live and do the things you like. There are no required goals and the players are free to do things their own way.” Man. No goals? Roam around pimping out rooms and getting my hair done? That sounds AWESOME.

And when he talks about the mic and explains: “It’s not a singular headset, but a community microphone that lets every person in the room talk with another room full of players anywhere in the world” I guess that means we can look forward to hearing more conversations like the one in this video without having to strain so hard to hear everyone talking:

[youtube LWnyUtdcboc]

See pictures of the WiiSpeak Peripheral»