Renting a movie off of the PSN, now, that's something that would expire, and we're all familiar with that. Fareo at the Retail Gamer posted these shots with the same quality applied to games. And, purely speculation here, he reasons that since PSPgo owners are no longer able to rent games from GameFly or anywhere else - lack of the UMD drive and all that - such a service would only make sense. Wouldn't it?

Sure. This isn't a completely foreign concept. Sony's also surveyed the acceptability of such an idea.

Here's another screen proving the point.

Digitally Renting PSP Games? [The Retail Gamer]

Sure, you can't play Gears of War on your Wii, but you'll soon be able to go a few rounds in Gun Cogs, one of the eleven handheld LCD tributes to today's hottest titles coming to WiiWare as part of Alten8's Squibs Arcade. What is Squibs Arcade?

SQUIBS ARCADE takes inspiration from the current generation of AAA titles, distilling the game play to its most fundamental form, and re-imagining them with the style and passion of the classic LCD games.

As you can see in the gallery below, Alten8 has most of their bases covered. Assassin's Creed becomes Crowd Wader, Metal Gear Solid is channeled through Cardboard Axel Much, Wii Fit morphs into We're Fat, and Grand Theft Auto becomes Jack A Motor.

Other titles included in Squibs Arcade include Clown, Button Basher, Fantasy Turn Base, Call of Honour, Lots of Levelling, and Regret the Fist, most of which carry their inspirations in their names.

I absolutely love this idea. Companies often talk of distilling gameplay down to its purest form. It doesn't get much more pure than a handheld LCD game.

Originally planned for release this month, the second Gizmondo handheld now won't be out til next year. If it ever comes out at all. Thanks to the bum financial situation the world finds itself in, most of the company's investors have backed out, leading founder Carl Freer to totally reinvent the device.

It'll still be built around either Windows CE or Google's Android, as first planned, though instead of being a pure gaming device, it'll now launch as a smartphone/gaming device combo. A next-gen N-Gage, if you will.

Best of luck, Carl.

Yes Dear, There Will Be a Gizmondo, Just Not This Year... And It Will Be Different [The Nordic Link, via Gizmodo]

The MyRacer is an oddly named handheld games device from Korea. It comes with a 320x240 color screen, an MP3 player, subway map and the ability to play Adobe Flash Lite files. It ships with Mini game heaven, Super Action Hero, Penoa jeongi, Punupunupong, and Come2us soccer 2006.

The 1GB of storage can hold up to 1000 Flash Lite games. Actually, I'm not sure there are 1000 Flash Lite Games. Maybe use it for MP3s instead. If you can't contain your enthusiasm, this will set you back 90,000 Won ($70-ish).

Korean Portable Game Player, MYRACER

The new iPod Touch 2G runs at 532MHz as opposed to the 412MHz of earlier models - including the iPhone 3G (the G's mean something different, don't worry about it) and Handheld Games suspect there may be undocumented differences in the GPU speeds as well.

After some experimentation, the four iterations of the device are ranked as follows:

1. iPod Touch 2nd Generation
2. iPhone 3G
3. iPhone (original)
4. iPod Touch 1st Generation

This YouTube clip is meant to illustrate the difference in app loading speeds between the four models, although it would probably have been more visually effective if he has hit the icon on each at the exact same moment.

As it it, though, this is a bit like watching Rick Wakeman playing loads of keyboards at once.

2nd Generation iPod Touch Faster than iPhone [Touch Arcade]

Asked by Five'sThe Gadget Show in the UK about the possibility of a Microsoft handheld to compete with the Nintendo DS and PSP, Xbox UK's head of gaming & entertainment Stephen McGill put paid to the suggestion. Again.

“No thank you, we’ve got plenty going on with the 360," said McGill, "We don’t want to get distracted by going into the handheld market.”

Maybe if we all keep asking him, though..

Xbox handheld: only available in dreamland says Microsoft [The Gadget Show]

"But there's still very good business to be done on the less glamorous platforms - look at PlayStation 2, it's still selling bucket-loads of consoles and bucket-loads of games, though they've got to be the right games for the right platform."

He noted that the PSP is "kicking the arse of pretty much every other system out there" in Japan because the right games have come out - with a bit of luck, he thinks that some of those games will come out in Europe and be just as successful.

Seems to me, though, that as the most technically sophisticated handheld on the market, it's no compliment at all for the PSP if one of its mainstay UK developers is comparing it to a last-gen console.

PSP has a good few years left in it still, says Kingsley [GamesIndustry.biz]

With the enormous popularity of the iPhone and the phenomenal success of the iPod, anything handheld from Apple seems like a sure fire hit. But on the other hand you have Apple's inability to bring a lot of quality games to their platforms. If this gaming device does come to fruition, will it end up being the next DS or just another Gizmondo?

Apple Trademark Application [TARR via Trademork]

"There are a few things to do, and it will be a while before that happens," Murphy continued. "But yes, the product has been recovered from the liquidators and we are bringing it back to market."

Gizmondo is coming back - it's official [Eurogamer]

Maybe the Blair Witch games missed out. Because the mechanic could be interesting—a fixed (be it wobbly) camera system following a first or third person game could be a fun, novel way to limit a player's perception (because, face it, even when we're forced into a perspective we're generally still actually seeing more than most real-life scenarios). Of course this "fun factor" point is arguable, but let's move forward for the sake of the topic.

Could you stand the experience? Does watching a film like Cloverfield or Blair Witch make you seasick? And do you think that being in a virtual video game would exacerbate the effect, or minimize such issues? Because I have a nagging suspicion that those reports of people puking in theaters are written by an older generation of reporters who haven't been accustomed to games like UT3, or even shows you see on MTV.

And if you answer those questions, then sure, you can feel free to rip the mechanic to shreds.

"Well! There you go, prophetic," Bach said enthusiastically. "In fact it has been a role reversal. We were on first this time like they were last time, we had a product that was more price-competitive this time, and we had a higher attach rate."

The article goes into a great deal of specifics as far as the profitability of his division within Microsoft versus the much more profitable software division, citing that Halo releases have been the only time the E&D group have actually posted profits, but Bach is keeping his eyes firmly on the long term.

Towards the end of the article, Edmonton Journal writer Steve Makris ponders the possibility of a Microsoft handheld gaming device sometime in the near future.

"We don't talk about what we are doing, but generally when I look at the hand-held space, we haven't seen anything there that says, 'gosh, we wanna go make a big investment there.' It's a fairly tough area, a place where Sony and particularly Nintendo are doing a pretty good job."

A two-inch color LCD display isn't very big, no matter how you slice it (though it's large enough for Nintendo to make a jeans pocket-sized game system around, its Game Boy Micro). The clarity of the 320-by-240 display is remarkable, and the brightness is also quite good. Still, I can't quite get past the size. It's too small to see a lot of detail in the games. I was already a bit put off by Ms. Pac-Man's tiny dimensions on the larger iPod's display; here it's almost to the point of being ridiculous... Because of the overall tiny dimensions of the new iPod nano, I found my hand cramping up during long gaming sessions — it was just a tad awkward to have the iPod nano perched in my hand with my thumb on the Click Wheel all the time.

We're going to let Sony and Nintendo beat the hell out of each other [in the portable arena]. When you launch a portable device, you are launching a new platform. So, you're fighting a war on two fronts.

We are looking at various ways to bring more to that [handheld] space. There is a lot yet that hasn't been done.

Gates also compared the 360 to the PlayStation 2, saying that that the smaller and cheaper Sony console came out before huge-assed first Xbox. He then talked about how great Xbox Live was and probably felt very, very smug inside.

Isn't that picture from the conference just horrible? Brian Ashcraft

Full Post Here [PC Mag] Thanks, Andy!

Earlier, we reported that the a research firm called the Diffusion Group believed Microsoft would be entering the handheld market in 2007 or 2008. Luke over at 1Up talked with Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, about the prospects of a Msoft portable.

Pachter mentions that his basis for such conjecture is the reorganization of the Home Entertainment division, combined with Bill Gates saying Vista will allow for convergence of 360, PC and mobile devices. But what kind of device?

I believe that the company is interested in turning the Xbox 360 into a media hub, and they are interested in offering a handheld device that will allow downloading of movies, television programs, music and games. Sort of a reverse-engineered iPod. Although the iPod form factor is exceedingly cool, I think that Apple would have preferred to make the device more game friendly.

Granted, all this is speculation, and the only thing that separates it from mere fanboyism is Pachter's job title. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [1Up]

A security guard at a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania was caught playing a handheld video game by the Department of Environmental Protection during an unannounced check last Friday. Even though no violation occurred and employees are allowed to engage in mind-simulating activities like reading or using the computer, the department now wants to ban video games. According to DEP's Kathleen A. McGinty:

The issue is not the guard's use of the video game, because current procedures don't specifically prohibit those games. The real issue is that his complete absorption in the game distracted him from noticing the repeated approach of our inspector. And that shows why this procedure needs to be changed and these video games disallowed.

So... Think it was a DS or a PSP? Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Yahoo] Thanks, Jason!

iRiver's PSP killer (almost dead, sorry) has been kicking about since last fall. Dubbed the G10, the multimedia device has 3D graphics processing and a purdy 262k color screen. Korean electronics site AVING.net has pics up of a very slick working model. The portable drops in Korea this August. Bring on the Kart Rider!

More Here [Aving.net] Thanks, Torokun!

Sega is working with Kenichiro Mogi, a senior researcher at Sony Computer Science Research Lab, on a thinking-based game for Sony's PSP handheld.

And Bandai Namco is looking to integrate the action-orientated gameplay of its Point Blank arcade titles into a new brain game.

If you're looking for the details of the upcoming Sudoku Deluge, the Beeb hooks you up.

Brain Games Aim to Boost Your IQ [BBC News] Thanks, bob tism!