Having trouble playing Super Mario on your Android-powered device? Perhaps a NES controller might be able to help you out. A modder out there combined a breakout board, Arduino, and a blueSMIRF Bluetooth module to allow the NES controller to be used with the Android-device. Check out a video of the user playing Super Mario Bros. 3 with this controller after the jump!

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Bad news for Microsoft Kinect fans who don’t speak English, in a recent interview, Microsoft’s PR and Event Manager has said that the Kinect will not support voice control in all regions when it’s launched this November. Voice control will only be available in the US, UK, Mexico, and Japan. Apparently it isn’t just about speaking English, as voice control will actually be disabled in countries such as Spain, France, Germany, and Italy at launch, and they will have to wait until a spring 2011 update that will enable voice control in order to enjoy the feature. Users who do have an Internet connection will apparently be able to get the update via “other solutions that do not involve an additional cost”. Bummer. At least we know that voice control will arrive if you′re patient enough.

Permalink: Kinect Voice Control Not Available In Some Countries Until Spring 2011 from Ubergizmo | Hot: iPhone 4 Review, Droid X Review,
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Sony&rsquos IFA press conference in Berlin did reveal some rather disappointing news for those who are looking forward to enjoying 3D Blu-ray playback on their PS3s - simply because the planned firmware update has been pushed back to an October release instead of rolling out this month. While it might just be one month, it will certainly be an agonizing wait for a select bunch, while the rest of the world decides to move on and enjoy their new iPods. Something tells us that future iPod devices will come with stereoscopic 3D capability - what say you?

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Hmmm, it looks as though the Xbox Live subscription service is going the way of credit cards - we are talking about the Gold subscription package being usurped by what could very well be the new Xbox Live Platinum subscription. Of course, with a cost of around $100 in the US, this new subscription will definitely come with a bunch of new enhancements, with speculation pointing towards the organization of an iTunes library from one’s Xbox 360, as well as getting additional items for games like Halo: Reach and gaining access to new TV subscription options. In the current economic climate, it doesn’t really make any sense to come up with something more expensive, but perhaps Microsoft knows something that we don’t here.

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It’s probably a rather stressful period of Sony’s PS3 console. First we had the PSJailbreak which claimed to allow users to backup their games to a hard drive, and now a hack called PSGroove has surfaced, claiming to be an open source PSjailbreak. According to this latest hack, the code must be downloaded and installed on an AT90USBkey or Teensy++ USB development board, after which homebrew folks will be able to execute unsigned third-party apps and games on the PS3. Currently the ability to boot ISO files is temporarily disabled, but you can be sure that a workaround will be available pretty soon. What will Sony’s response to this be? Now that a code is out in the wild, a lawsuit might not be able to keep this under wraps.

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If you haven’t played it before, you’ve probably heard of the insanely-addictive Angry Birds game. It was previously only available on the iOS platform, but has since been launched for webOS. The good news for Android-owners is that the developers of Angry Birds have been sending out emails notifying folks that the beta for the game will be available to Android users this Friday, which is just around the corner. Is this the game that you’ve been waiting for to arrive on the Android platform?

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Microsoft has announced a new Xbox game controller that has a tweakable directional pad (D-Pad). By rotating the D-Pad, it can be turned from a “Disc” design to a “cross” design. That’s a very welcome change for former PlayStation (like me) users who got used to having across design. Now everybody is happy and fighting games requiring a “down+diagonal-down+forward” motion will take on a new dimension. Plus, it really doesn’t that the new design looks clean and less plastic. The controller comes on November 9 for $64.99.

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Chipmaker AMD is rebranding itself and will be eliminating the ATI mark from its graphics chip moving forward. The plan is to switch “ATI Radeon” and “ATI FirePro″ with “Radeon” and “FirePro″ and add AMD’s logos to the chip designs. According to the company, awareness of the AMD brand is higher than the ATI brand, and ATI is outgrowing its competitors having surpassed rival NVIDIA in the number of discrete GPUs shipped.

A major impetus behind the new rebranding could be that AMD is hoping to create an integrated microprocessor where the CPU and GPU is merged; having two brands there may cause some consumer confusion and so AMD may be opting to just go with one brand. The first of the CPU-GPU merger will be known as the AMD Ontario, and will be available soon.

Existing ATI products will not be renamed to AMD branding; instead, new graphics products will be getting the AMD mark next year.

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Microsoft is going the polar opposite to Nintendo by announcing an increase in Xbox Live Gold membership from November 1 onwards in the following territories - US, Canada, Mexico and the UK. For those living Stateside, a one-month Gold subscription will cost $9.99, where a three months’ package will hover between $19.99 to $24.99. For those who know that they will get some serious gaming done throughout the year, then a full year membership will cost you another $10 more from the current $49.99 price point. It might not seem like much for avid gamers, but think of the economy of scale that Microsoft is banking on here (pun not intended), and you will come to realize that a slight increase in fees will result in much welcomed revenue by any company out there.

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Have you been waiting to upgrade your old school Nintendo DS into the DSi and DSi XL units, but never really made the jump simply because of the price barrier? Well, come September 12th, you′ll be a very happy person since Nintendo will be slashing the prices for both the Nintendo DSi and DSi XL. Sitting pretty at $169 and $189 respectively at the moment, they will drop to $149 for the DSi and $169 for the DSi XL - that’s a $20 discount which you can use for other more essential items, perhaps? There is no further word on a price cut in other regions though. It might not sound like much, but you could purchase a cheap $19.99 game with the money saved to get your portable gaming adventure started. [Press Release]

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