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Nvidia launches GeForece GT 240

While we wait for Nvidia’s next gen chip, codenamed “Fermi”, the company has followed its old style of re-branding and re-releasing old chips. Well, not quite this time, as the new GT 240 chip is still the same technology, but is built on 40nm process and includes DirectX 10.1 support — at a time where the big deal is DirectX 11.

The new graphics card is mainstream oriented, and should offer decent performance and low power consumption, at a decent price. The chip is outfitted with 96 stream processors clocked at 1360MHz, while the graphics core runs at 550MHz, with idle power load at just 9W. It’ll retail later this week for $99.

60% of UK Xbox 360s have failed

It’s no secret that the Xbox 360 hardware hasn’t been the most stable out there, in fact, it’s quite crappy, with an estimated “official” failure rate between 30 and 40 percent. But it seems that the rate is even larger in the UK, where CNet recently did a poll which revealed that a whopping 60% of the consoles have failed at one point or another. While it’s not a scientific study, it’s still surprising, especially considering that GameInformer did a similar study in the US, where over 50% of the users reported console malfunctions.

Xbox 360 wireless N adapter available next week

Microsoft’s new wireless adapter, which support the new, and much faster N WiFi standard, will be shipping next week for $99 — quite a lot for something that comes as standard with the PS3 and the Wii (although those don’t feature N speeds). The old wireless adapter will still be available and retail for $75.

Nvidia’s DX11 graphics card delayed until 2010?

Fudzilla claims it has details that point towards Nvidia launching their next generation graphics chip, codenamed Fermi, in January 2010, as opposed to in December, as originally planned. Granted, Nvidia never officially announced a release date, but did mention December as a viable time.

However, DigiTimes — a far more reputable source than Fudzilla — claims that the date is even further into 2010, as Nvidia CEO stated that the card will likely launch in the first fiscal quarter of 2010, which begins in March. If true, this will mean that AMD’s cards, which are already out, will be given a good 6 month head start as the only DX 11 cards available on the market.

Nvidia posts $107m profit in Q3

Despite falling behind in both sales and technology to arch rival AMD, Nvidia managed to turn a solid $107 million profit in Q3, on revenues of $903.2 million, mostly fueled by the mobile and laptop sector. Compared to last year, that’s an increase of 16%, and from the previous year by 18%. The company said that it expects revenues in Q4 to be up 2% from previous year.

The company is set to release their brand new graphics card and technology later this year, called Fermi.

Sony sued over PS3 firmware update

Owners of PlayStation 3 systems that have been broken by the latest firmware update have filed suit on behalf of everyone who downloaded system update 3.0 or 3.01. Two gamers from Texas and Iowa allege that the latest update caused PS3s consoles to malfunction, with problems including loss of controller use and the malfunction of the Blu-ray drive.

Their main complaint seems to be that Sony is charging a $150 fee to repair the consoles that were broken by the firmware update. The two are now seeking a class-action lawsuit against Sony.

Back in 2006, an owner sued Microsoft for bricking his console with an update and settled out of court.

Dual-gpu ATI 5970 spotted in the wild

ATI’s upcoming dual-gpu based card, the Radeon HD 5970, comprising of two 5870 chips — which themselves are the most powerful graphics chips today — has been spotted in the wild over at PC Perspective. The card, measuring at 13.5″ inches, needs both a 6 pin power connector and an 8 pin connector as well, meaning it’s gonna draw a lot of power when fully throttled. The card is expected to be in stores this December.

Nintendo announces DSi XL

Nintendo has gone ahead and confirmed various rumors of a new DSi with larger screens, by officially revealing the DSi XL, which the console will be called in Europe. The new console will have 4″ screens instead of the regular 3.25″, and the whole system will be substantially larger (as you can see above) and will even include a full sized stylus. So far the console has only been announced for Japan (as the DSi LL) and Europe (as the DSi XL), but we expect a North American announcement to come shortly.

Nyko launches DSi camera accessory

Nyko, the master accessory maker — well, not really, but they do make a ton of accessories for games of all kinds — have released a lens attachment to the Nintendo DSi camera, which offers 8X zoom to the rather weak 0.3 Megapixel camera. But at least it works, as you can see on the image above. Won’t win you a Pulitzer in photojournalism, but at least it won’t burn your pocket; $25 is all it set your back.

PS2 celebrates 9th birthday

This day, nine years ago, Sony launched what would become the best selling console of all time, the PlayStation 2. On the 9th anniversary of the launch, Sony revealed the staggering sales numbers: 140 million units sold worldwide, beating out the DS and GameBoy, with 120 million and 108 million units sold, respectively.

What’s even more amazing, is that some 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) games have been released for the PS2, developed by over 450 different developers, and there have been sold over half a billion PS2 games in the US alone. Wow.

Xbox 360 system update gets pushed out

If you’ve signed into Xbox Live today you may have noticed that a mandatory system update has been pushed out. But don’t get too excited, this is not the update thatincludes Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm. That update will hit next month.

Instead, the update adds WPA2 for the 360’s Wireless Network Adapter.

Exciting? Nope. Necessary? You betcha.

via majornelson

QuickDev16 card offers SNES homebrew

The Quickdev16 card, which plugs into an SNES, offers quick and easy access to SNES homebrew — the cartridge packs an Atmel AVR ATmega644 chip with a boot loader, a USB connection with which to upload a ROM, 16 megabits of SRAM, plus an RS232 converter (whatever that is). Who whole (tiny) package can be had for only $120 — cheap, when considering we’re talking about “game development” here. If you’re up to it, there’s more details about the card here.

GameStop reveals Modern Warfare 2 minimum specs

We’ve known that Modern Warfare 2 would be making its way onto store shelves on November 10th for some time now but Activision has kept quiet about the minimum PC requirements. Today, GameStop has put up a picture of the back of the box that reveals said minimum requirements and I have to say, they don’t look too bad.

Below are said minimum specs:

OS: Windows Vista/XP
Processor: AMD 64 3200+ or Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz or better
Memory: 16 GB free hard drive space / 512 MB RAM (XP) / 1GB RAM (Vista)
Video Card: Shader 3.0 or better 256 MB nVida Geforce 6600GT / ATI Radeon 1600XT or better

Anyone in dire need of an upgrade?

Altec Lansing releases “stage gig” speaker

Good news to all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band fanatics, speaker-maker Altec Lansing has released the “Stage Gig”, a single speaker that sits at the bottom, facing the playing bad, just as if you’d have if you were a real musician, performing on a stage. But since you’re not on a real stage, and since you’re holding plastic guitars in your hands, you might wanna shed $100 for another plastic attachment that emits sounds of your fake plastic band right on your face.

Black Wii hitting UK on Nov. 6

Gamers in the UK unhappy with the current white chassis of the Nintendo Wii will be happy to hear that a limited edition black version will be hitting store shelves on November 6th. As for the rest of Europe, you’ll be getting it on November 20th.

This limited edition comes with a black Wiimote, Nunchuk and Motion Plus. If you want the fancy black Classic Controller Pro, you’re going to have to buy that separately.

via techfresh