Late Night Consoling

An update to Sony Computer Entertainment's official Japanese site reveals that the name of the standard PlayStation 3 controller is the palindromic "Sixaxis." Internet sleuths noticed last month that "Sixaxis" had been registered as a trademark by Sony, and many correctly assumed that it refers to the PS3 controller. The "DualShock" name has been used for PlayStation home console controllers since rumble and analog stick features were added to the original PlayStation controller, but Sony likely no longer considers the name appropriate given the removal of rumble functionality. "Sixaxis" refers to the oft-referenced six axes of motion control afforded by the controller's sensors.

Sony also revealed accessory prices for the Japanese market. Sixaxis itself will go for 5000 yen (US$42.34), a many-buttoned remote for 3600 yen (US$30.48), and a memory card reader for 1500 yen ($12.70). The memory card reader, which Sony had previously announced, will allow players to transfer save games between PlayStation and PlayStation 2 memory cards and the PlayStation 3's hard drive. PS3 does not have a built in memory card reader, but the 60GB model does include readers for various flash card types. The 20GB model does not include those features.

No prices for non-Japanese territories were revealed.

Microsoft today announced that Strange Flavour and Freeverse Software's gesture-controlled Xbox Live Arcade game TotemBall will be announced this Wednesday. The game is free, and uses the Xbox Live Vision camera to control the game's character. Players move and turn by making gestures in the air while within the view of the camera. TotemBall includes a single-player platforming mode, a co-op juggling mode (the second player uses a standard Xbox 360 controller), a pinball mode, and various other game modes.

Strange Flavour and Freeverse Software's Totemball will be released for Xbox 360 on October 4, 2006 at 1am PST via Xbox Live Arcade.

Ubisoft announced today that it plans to publish Sega's PSP brain training game Mind Quiz in Europe. The game, published by Sega in Japan, shares a great deal in common with Nintendo's successful title Brain Age (NDS). The game was supervised by Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, who supervised and whose name appears on Nintendo's line of brain training games. Like Brain Age, the game features a mode that evaluates the player's "brain age." The game also promises a challenge mode and some kind of online functionality. - Screenshots.

Mind Quiz will ship this November in Erurope. No release plans were announced for North America.

It has long been known that Nintendo's upcoming Wii console will include built-in wi-fi support but will not include a standard wired ethernet jack. Today, the company confirmed to Computer and Video Games that a USB accessory will be made available allowing the console to connect to a standard non-wireless ethernet router. The company also apparently confirmed that the company's already released Nintendo Wi-Fi Connector, which plugs into a USB port on an internet-enabled PC and transmits a wireless signal to a Nintendo DS, will also be compatible with Wii.

Nintendo did not announce a price for the ethernet accessory.

Nintendo announced today that it has raised its financial estimates for the current fiscal year. It now expects net profits of 100B yen ($849M) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, up 20.5% from the previous estimate of 83B yen ($703). Similarly, it expects its sales for the same period to reach 740B yen ($6.3B), up from its previous estimate of 640B yen ($5.4B). Nintendo pointed to the continued enormous success of its Nintendo DS as well as a weakening yen as reasons for the revision.

In related news, Japan saw the launch of the highly anticipated Pokemon Diamond (NDS) and Pokemon Pearl (NDS) this week, and despite the series' general decline in retail performance over recent years, the two games collectively became the fastest selling game both for the Pokemon series and on Nintendo DS hardware to date. Sales tracking firm Enterbrain reported that the games sold a total of 1,586,360 units in only four days on sale. A North American release date for the games has not yet been announced.

GameSpot has an interview with Microsoft's Xbox marketing director Chris Di Cesare, speaking about marketing efforts for Epic's Gears of War (X360).