Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata said sales of the company’s Nintendo 3DS device in Europe and the United States were weaker than expected after the portable gaming console made its debut in April for $250. However, Nintendo dropped the price of the 3Ds to $179 after the company reported its first quarterly operating loss. The move quickly boosted sales in Japan and has reportedly resulted in a huge boost of sales in the United States, too. Nintendo sold 50,000 units between August 1st and August...

Looks like the weekend’s going to start a bit early. Hulu’s subscription-based Hulu Plus service will launch for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 on Friday, and here’s the best part: it’s free for  Xbox Live (Gold and Silver) users until May 6th. After that you’ll have to drop $7.99 per month to kick back and watch your favorite shows from ABC, Comedy Central, FOX, NBC, MTV, and others. Hulu’s even adding Kinect support, which means you’ll be able to play, pause, fast forw...

According to analytics firm NPD Group, Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console has outsold Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3 for the sixth consecutive month. Microsoft moved roughly 1.37 million consoles during November, representing a 68% increase from the same period last year. Several weeks ago, the Redmond company announced that it had sold over 2.5 million Kinect motion-controllers since its November 4th launch.“The 360 platform accounted for over 40 percent of total industry sales ...

If you’re a Verizon Wireless customer with an affinity for QWERTY-keyboards, Android, and HTC, listen up. The HTC Merge, an Android 2.2 handset that is anything but a secret, briefly appeared on Big Red’s website today. The 360-degree view module, which is a treatment all Verizon phones get, was briefly live on the company’s website. The gang over a Android Central managed to grab a video of the hot little number before it was vanquished back into obscurity. Hit the read link if you want ...

If you are eagerly awaiting the DROID 2 to be released by Verizon Wireless, here is another good sign. The folks over at Droid-Life have found the devices 360-degree viewer on VZW’s website (a right of passage that all Verizon phones are treated to). To review: dummy units of the DROID 2 are on display and priced at some Best Buy locations, Verizon employees have been getting DROID 2 training, some Verizon Wireless and Best Buy locations are already carrying DROID 2 accessories, inventory numbers for th...

Announced earlier today after months of speculation, Hulu Plus has finally become official. For $9.99 per month, subscribers will be able to watch their favorite shows — including those from seasons past — on a multitude of internet-connected devices. Mobile devices are a go, with iOS devices including the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod touch (3rd generation) being the main attraction at this point in time. The best part as far as mobile is concerned is that streaming will work on both Wi-F...

Well it’s official — Microsoft formally announced the Kinect on Sunday evening with the aid of a performance by Cirque du Soleil. Previously known known as Project Natal, the Kinect plugs directly into the Xbox 360 and contains dual-cameras that are capable of tracking 48 points of motion without requiring gamers to use peripherals. The idea is that the Kinect will become the hub of home entertainment systems with titles and software for hardcore gamers while also attracting non-traditional gamers...

Remember the Samsung 360 H1 we scooped the hell out of back in September? Well here’s its successor, the H2. Building on top of what was already an very impressive featurephone with a 3.5″ OLED display and 5 megapixel camera, the H2 is said to have a Super AMOLED WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera with HD video recording (720p, no doubt), 1GHz Cortex A8 processor and run LiMo complete with Vodafone’s 360 services. Of course with this being a leak, all of this information is far from official,...

April saw the video game industry suffer through its worst month in nearly 10 years, as both hardware and software sales tumbled for a combined total of 26%. Consoles saw the biggest decrease with a 36% drop to $398.5 million, while software titles and accessories fell 22% and 9% to $249.3 and $118.4 million respectively. According to NPD research analyst Anita Frazier, some of the decline has to do with Easter falling in early April. If it were to have fallen in the middle of the month as it did last year, F...

Dust off your old pair of Vans and get ready to party like it’s 1995, because Tony Hawk: RIDE has finally been released in North America. Available for the Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, the game’s main attraction lies in its wireless skateboard controller that’s chockful of motion sensors and allows players to more or less feel that they themselves are on a real skateboard and part of the game. The game and skateboard are bundled together for $119.99, a far cry cheaper than your ...

We all knew that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was destined to smash industry sales records, but the pace at which the game is reported to be selling is absolutely shocking. By Activision’s own internal estimate, the first 24 hours of availability in the US, Canada and UK saw 4.7 million copies sold and generated approximately $310 million of revenue. As for the rest of the world, a good estimate is proving itself rather hard to come by, but Joystiq believes we’re looking at another 2.7m copies o...

All you movie addicts who own the PlayStation 3 no longer have to envy Xbox 360 users. Sony and Netflix are teaming up to bring movie streaming to the Ps3. The bonus for those on the PlayStation Network is, since your PSN accounts are free, all you need is a Netflix account to watch movies whereas Xbox 360 users need a $50-per-year Xbox Live Gold membership. The service will launch in November and if you decide to use your PS3 to access your Netflix account (why wouldn’t you?), Netflix will send a Blu-R...

Remember that mysterious LiMo-powered smartphone we exclusively showed you a week back? Well today it was made official alongside another handset as well as a new internet service, Vodafone 360. The two devices, manufactured by Samsung, have been dubbed the 360 H1 (the device we showed you) and 360 M1. The 360 H1 looks to be an all around solid device with a 3.5-inch OLED touchscreen display, 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash, 16GB of internal memory, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and HSDPA. The 360 M1, on...

2009 has not been a good year for video games here in the US. While console sales were up significantly compared to July, August marked the sixth consecutive month in which industry sales have declined year-over-year. According to numbers recently released by NPD Group, overall gaming sales were down 16 percent YoY despite positive sequential growth for each major console other than the Sony PlayStation 2. Accessory sales were up 2 percent but game sales were down 15 percent and console sales dropped a massiv...