July 8 - 1:25pm EDT   Razer on Tuesday announced the release of its Razer Moray+ in-ear noise isolating headset and inline microphone combo. The replacement for the original Moray, the device is meant for those who do their gaming on a wide array of portable devices, including cellphones. The headset's 3.5mm audio jack fits into all iPhones, and Razer includes three adapters that make the microphone usable with Sony's PSP 2000 and 3000, the Nintendo DS Lite and DSi, as well as netbooks and most other notebook PCs. [full story]

May 30 - 1:10pm EDT   (Updated with PR shots) A leak Saturday morning on Sony's own PlayStation forums has confirmed major details of the PSP Go now expected to debut at E3. Spotted in a Qore episode slipped out early, the device is as rumored and switches to a slider design that renders it much more portable. It now also has 16GB of internal memory (plus a card slot) that gives it a much greater role as a media player and signals a shift to download-only PSP games; the PSP Go drops the UMD drive entirely. [full story]

May 20 - 2:50pm EDT   Nintendo entered into the world of portable exercise hardware on Wednesday through the imminent launch of its latest addition to Personal Trainer: Walking game for the DS and DSi. Each copy of the game will ship with two Activity Meters, or advanced pedometers, that sync wirelessly with the gaming system and count and record steps during a given period of time. The game's software then converts these into statistics. Each Activity Meter can store up to seven days of data, while the DS/DSi game card can hold up to five years' worth of downloaded data. A single game card can store four users and their data. [full story]

April 29 - 9:25am EDT   The long-rumored Sony PSP slider has gained further support with a new but detailed rumor that points to the handheld competing more closely with the iPod touch as well as Nintendo's DSi. Now given the title of the PSP Go!, the game console is still said by 1UP to move the controls from the sides to a slide-out panel but is now believed to be coming in versions with 8GB and 16GB of flash storage, letting them hold several games or more at once. Accordingly, Sony will shift to a more App Store-like model and put at least 100 old and new PSP games online as downloads. [full story]

April 24 - 11:50am EDT   In spite of the launch of the DSi, Nintendo is near releasing at least one more special edition of the DS Lite. The new bundle appears timed for Mother's Day and will tie in a lime green-colored version of the DS Lite with Personal Training: Cooking. In a relative rarity for DS bundles, it will also have a carrying case with a tropical print. [full story]

April 9 - 12:40pm EDT   The DSi gaming handheld has done very well in its post-Japanese launches, Nintendo claims. Despite having debuted in Europe and the US on April 5th, a Sunday, some 300,000 DSis were sold in the two regions during the first two days of availability. Nintendo has also revealed some of the non-gaming apps coming to the platform, which should include tour guides, museum maps and a coupon recorder. [full story]

March 25 - 3:00pm EDT   Nintendo's DSi should make non-game apps an important core of its DSi Shop mobile online store when the console is released on the 5th, the company revealed as part of its efforts at this week's Game Developers' Conference. Having spoken with CNET earlier, Nintendo said the handheld will get a free version of Opera's browser that is described as upgraded over an earlier version for the DS that depended on Nintendo's proprietary cartridges to work; the new version can be saved either directly to the DSi's internal 256MB of storage or to an SD card. [full story]

March 23 - 10:15pm EDT   Neil Young, co-founder of ngmoco, praised the iPhone during his keynote address at the Game Developers Conference, according to Gamasutra. "Our love affair with the iPhone began by simply touching it," he said. "This was rapidly becoming the most important device I had ever owned, it was an all-encompassing, complete device. And I knew that that device was going to enable incredible things for gaming." [full story]

March 20 - 4:05pm EDT   With the recent release of the NPD market research group's sales numbers for gaming consoles and associated game titles for the month of February, Microsoft product management director Aaron Greenberg boasted about the superior performance of the Xbox 360. In the Friday Gamasutra report, Greenberg points out Microsoft's 53 percent annual sales boost for the Xbox 360, saying it exceeded expectations. He also has something to say about rival Sony's year-to-year declines, which showed two consecutive months of declines, blaming it largely on a price of entry for the PS3 that hasn't budged despite the tough economic conditions. [full story]

March 11 - 7:40pm EDT   Nintendo has announced that shipments of its DS handheld gaming devices have surpassed 100 million as of March 6th. In contrast, Sony has shipped 50 million PSPs in roughly the same period of time. Nintendo released the first DS model in 2004, followed by updates such as the DS Lite in 2006. The company claims that 83 DS game titles have sold more than 1 million units each, while seven have achieved sales exceeding 10 million. [full story]

February 23 - 11:25am EST   A new rumor today from a "highly-trusted" source at VG247 indicates that Sony is reportedly slated to introduce a redesigned PSP this year. The PSP-4000 would have internals fundamentally identical to the existing PSP-3000 but would switch from the fixed-in-place screen that has dominated the console to a design with a Sidekick-like sliding screen. It would represent a "complete aesthetic overhaul" of the PSP, the tip says, and partly resembles a mockup circulating online (pictured). [full story]

February 13 - 10:45am EST   Sony today reached an unofficial milestone with news that it has sold its 50 millionth PSP. The achievement comes just over four years after the handheld PlayStation's launch in December 2004 and after two minor revisions to the design that have slimmed it down and added functionality, including a built-in mic in the PSP-3000 for game chat and Skype calls. The game system has also since gained direct access to a download store for PSP and PS1 games that has put increasing reliance on flash-based Memory Stick storage instead of the UMD disc format Sony initially pushed not just for games but for movies. [full story]

January 16 - 1:55pm EST   Nintendo late Thursday claimed an industry record by pointing to NPD Group data revealing that it sold 10.17 million Wii systems in the US for 2008, making it the first video game system of any kind to crack the 10 million mark. The achievement tops Nintendo's own previous best of 8.52 million for the Nintendo DS in 2007; the handheld itself topped the older record this year with 9.95 million trading hands. The console creator further observes that about 132 million games were sold just for its platforms in the same year. [full story]

January 14 - 11:45am EST   Nintendo's DSi handheld could surface in the US as soon as the start of April, a leak from IGN claims. Multiple purported sources from within Nintendo say partners are being advised of an early April ship date, most likely April 4th, and that the system will cost significantly more than the stock DS Lite with a $180 price tag versus $130 for the earlier console. The dual-camera system, SD card slot and extra software all contribute to the cost. [full story]

December 12 - 10:35am EST   Nintendo late Thursday revealed that the company had sold two million Wii consoles in the US during November based on NPD Group data. The figure is a record amount of console sales for any month outside of December for Nintendo and was nearly paralleled by the DS, which reached its second-highest ever total outside of December at 1.56 million of the handheld. The tallies bring the Wii to a total of 15.4 million systems sold in the country since 2006 and the DS to 24.6 million since 2004. [full story]