(Posted by: Eric Rees)

Once again, endadget taking the scoop here and getting a massive hands on with the new Xperia Play, or for those of us in the gaming world, the Playstation phone.

Supposedly this phone is running the newest Android 2.3, and time can only tell if all of these bad boys will ship out of the box with this as-of-yet rare OS. This bad boy has got a 4-inch multitouch LCD screen with a pretty significant color performance for an LCD. Sony says the screen is powered by a Bravia engine to power that good color and screen performance. At the moment it's impossible to see what processor is powering this beast but we do know that it's running around 1GHz at the moment. It's got 512 MB of RAM to add onto that and with that comes out to a humongous 1,689 Quadrant score. Quadrant is a test that pushes the phone to it's max in processing internally and graphically and this phone blasts away almost anything in the market right now. It's got a front and rear facing camera as well thrown in, because all phones these days need those. 

The rest of the phone, except for the gamepad, is pretty run of the mill; 4 buttons across the bottom, one power button on the top, a volume rocker and a camera button. The right side of the phone has added a left and right trigger so that when you flip it on it's side you can use them when you access the gamepad. The pad itself is branded with Sony's trademark triangle, circle, X and square buttons with a D-pad on the left. The most interesting part is the touchpad area in the middle that is to serve as the dual analog sticks; which anyone who has played as PSP knows that these are necessary. 

From what it seems this is a pretty solid phone and a decent gaming machine as well to back it up. Sony's got some time to fix things since this hasn't even really be announced yet but look for them to spruce up the User Interface and talk about games on this bad boy when they do.

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

So I had to go to endgaget for this wonderful news because it just happened about 8 hours ago, while most of us were sleeping so official screenies haven't been released yet.

Sony has announced the successor to the PSP and man it's looking to be quite the contender in the mobile gaming world. This is the project that is now known as the NGP. But let's get down to the nitty gritty shall we?

This new system will be shipping with an ARM Cortex A9 processor in it. For those of you who aren't up on the chip tech lately, that is a quad core processor; yes a QUAD core. Basically, it means that the processor can do more than whatever computer you're reading this on right now. It's also packing a quad core Graphics Processing Unit to go along with that main processor. It's got Six-axis controls built in which we expected but here's where things start to get interesting.

This baby is going be shipping not only with a rear camera, but also a front facing camera as we have seen is so important in all the cellphones that are shipping these days; speaking of cellphones, this will also have 3G connectivity. Facetime with your PSP? Sounds pretty cool right? It gets better. There is a touch pad on this device. If you guessed the screen you are half right, the screen is touch capable. There is a touch pad, on the back of this device. Sony is really looking to make us forget about the PSPgo.

Speaking of that atrocity, this system will ship games on small flash cards, almost like the DS, so we'll never have to see another UMD again. We will see down the road more games announced for this, none as of yet, but I'm also anxious to see the battery life with that quad core CPU. It's going to be a battery hog ladies and gents.

(Posted by: Alex Deckard)

Many of you may remember the announcement late last year that Gearbox had picked up work on the endlessly delayed Duke Nukem Forever.  Well, for the first time in this game's colorful history, we have an actual release date.  Not a "time-frame" and not "when it's done".  May 3rd, 2011.  The game will then be released worldwide on May 6th.  It would appear that this much maligned game will finally see the light of day.  Will the game be amazing?  Will it even be good?  Maybe.  But now, for the first time in a long time, we are actually on the cusp of finding out.  So mark your calendars.  On May 3rd, it's time to hail to the king, baby.

Trailer after the break.

(Posted by: Harrison Milfeld)

Early this morning, Nintendo finally announced the pricing and the North American and European launch dates for the Nintendo 3DS. The US launch price will be $249, which is a far cry from the supposed $300 price tag that many thought would be after the Japanese 3DS presser months ago. A $250 price will undoubtedly fair well with American and European consumers; however, no pack-in game was mentioned. In addition, the handheld will finally launch stateside on March 27th, while Europe will get the device a few days  earlier on March 25th. Reggie Fils-Aime, president and COO of Nintendo of America, stated that there will also be at least 30 3DS titles available before E3 2011. The handheld will also launch in two colors, which are Aqua Blue and Obsidian Black. Also, the touted 3DS Virtual Console will still allow you to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games at launch. 

Start saving those pennies, gamers. We only have almost two months before this thing starts flying off store shelves. 

We'll have more as this story develops. 

This week the guys talk about the iPhone on Verizon, Donkey Kong bananas, the joys of DLC and the 3DS.  Also, the possibility of an Angry Birds breakfast foods line is discussed.  It's all that and so much more, this week on The Gameshoe Podcast!

(Posted by: Harrison Milfeld)

As you may know, we here at Gameshoe love Angry Birds, and I mean we adore every faucet of the game's angry, yet spherical protagonists. We love the game so much that it gave us the bright idea of filing a patent for an Angry Birds-themed cereal. Although, as popular the game has been for many months, all it took to dethrone the Lite version of Angry Birds from the top spot in the iPhone app store was a small title called Bubble Ball. The catch? Well, the game was designed and coded by a 14-year-old eighth grader by the name of Robert Nay. 

Released on Dec. 29, Bubble Ball has become the most popular free app with two million downloads so far. The physics-based puzzle game is supposedly the first of many titles to be developed by Nay. Nay, who resides in Spanish Fork, Utah, created Bubble Ball using a software developer's kit called Ansca Mobile's Corona SDK. As of now, the game is currently available for both the iPhone and Android. 

(Posted by: Eric Rees)

You guys want to see one of the slickest applications for android that have been released yet? AND it has to do with Playstation? Everyone wins.

This official Playstation application has been released in the UK but not in the US, unfortunately for Playstation, the android following don't really do exclusive releases for long. Here sits the application that allows you to keep up on all things Playstation, including your friends on your PS3. 

The first tab labled, "My PSN" allows you to see your friends list on your PS3 and check their profiles. You can even compare your trophies with theirs in a nice little user interface that tells you how much more awesome you are then they. 

There is a "News & Blog" section that keeps you up to date on Playstation information and news that is updated almost daily. The next two tabs allow you to search almost any game or piece of media that Playstation has on their servers and allows you to play trailers, get information and just read about the game in general. It's impressive.

The amount of polish that went into this app is surprising, a lot of high profile apps don't run as smoothly as this one does and I'm glad that Playstation got their game together and decided to put out a good product. Are we just gonna pretend this isn't a pretense to the Playstation Phone?

It's the latest episode of The Gameshoe Podcast!  It's finally up, delayed by such trivial things as "work" and "packing".  This week, Gameshoe turns one year old, and the guys talk about it the only way they know how: talking about video games and leaving Eric out because of a poor connection.  Also, there is talk of Minecraft and WOW, as well as a healthy amount of nostalgia.  It's all that and more, here on The Gameshoe Podcast!

(Posted by: Harrison Milfeld)

Price drops from both the Microsoft' Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3, along with the release of their subsequent motion-control peripherals, were not enough to dethrone yet another another successful year for the Nintendo Wii and DS. NPD Group released their 2010 sales numbers yesterday, with the Nintendo DS claiming the top spot with more than 8.5 million sold in 2010. The Nintendo Wii was tops for home consoles with 7 million sold in the United States.

In December alone, Nintendo sold more than 2.5 million of their popular handheld and more than 2.3 million of their home console. For those taking count, that brings the lifetime U.S. sales of both systems at 47 million for the DS and 34 million for the Wii. 

Now, granted, the release of Kinect and PlayStation Move haven't quite hit their stride, so only time will tell how much market share both motion gaming peripherals  will take away from Nintendo's lead. In addition, Microsoft experienced console shortages in the months of November and December, temporarily halting the 360's surging sales in the fall. Still, as reports from NPD have suggested, sales of the Wii have started to dwindle month and after. 2011 will surely be a real test for Nintendo with Kinect and Move gaining much-needed momentum.

This week, we've got no Eric AND no Ryan, but Matt is back to offer his insight.  Harry has returned at long last, and Alex is sick and kind of hard to understand.  There's talk of Pokemon, as well as a very short New Releases section.  Listen to the guys calling out some pretentious douche from MIT, as well as extolling the virtues of replacing all meaningful human contact in your life with more Gameshoe!  It's all this, a bag of chips, some dip and a tray of small saugsages this week on The Gameshoe Podcast!