Gamertell

While the DS has won fans the world over with its unusual gimmicks and touching interactive games, the PSP is getting love for its mature games and practical applications. Rather than trying to beat the DS by making the PSP appear even more foolish with strange extras, developers have decided to take the higher road.

With its peripherals the PSP tries to make itself more useful in everyday life. There are no card readers or additional controllers here. Rather than relying on gimmicks, the add-ons are ingenious items that you don’t even realize you need until you see what they can do.

And while the DS add-ons are designed to work only with games, the PSP’s are designed to make life in the real world easier or more interesting. Even when the extras don’t work as well as they claim, they still deserve points for trying.

Sadly, all of the following extras are only available overseas. It is a tragedy, because each add-on could be immensely useful to PSP owners the world over. All of the extras in Japan allow the PSP to act as a translator, camera, television and GPS unit…

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Electronic Arts announced today its soundtrack for the singing, dancing and music video-creating game Boogie, which will be released for the Wii on August 7, 2007, in North America and August 31, 2007, in Europe. The 38 songs span four decades from “ABC” by the Jackson 5 to recent pop hit “Fergalicious” by Fergie.

Boogie will ship with a microphone and has a suggested retail price of $59.99. The game is rated E10+ by the ESRB and 3+ by PEGI Europe.

Click through to get the full list of songs with the artist who made each song popular…

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After guitar, karaoke, keyboard, drumming and even friggin’ bongo video games, you knew it was only a matter of time.

Harmonix (as well as MTV and EA), makers of Guitar Hero, will release Rock Band for the PS3 and Xbox 360 for the 2007 holiday season. The game will work with a Fender Stratocaster guitar, drum and microphone peripherals (no word on keyboards, though that is a PC game).

Rock Band will include licensed music grabbed from multi track masters provided by EMI, Sony/BMG, Universal, Hollywood Records, Rhino and Warner Chappell Music. Specific titles have not yet been released.

If it is taking after Guitar Hero‘s release model, we’ll see plenty of peripherals sold separately as well as pricey bundles. The nice thing about both systems is that they are USB friendly, so all of the devices will likely use USB ports (which should theoretically work with a PC as well).

Oh, and if the Rock Band site is any indication, it looks as if it might support two guitarists (a lead and bass guitar) along with a lead singer and drummer. Now if someone can hack the Nintendo bongo controllers to work with the game, you can get your island groove on, too.

Read [Gamespot] Game Site [Rock Band]

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Product: Nintendo DS Headset
Price: $10-15
Rating: 75/100 (C)
Pros: Works as both headphones and microphone for DS games. Made specifically for the DS.
Cons: Microphone is not sensitive enough - or microphone arm not long enough - to get consistently clear microphone reception.
Overall: Works great as a headphone but microphone is a bit lacking and lacks long-term comfort amenities.

Nearly two years ago, Nintendo first demonstrated its online chat (DSpeak) using the DS Headset at E3 2005. Then nothing. It took the release of the latest two Pokémon games, Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl (stop humming that Prince and the New Revolution song) for Nintendo to finally let DS owners chat online.

That also make it perfect timing for Nintendo to release their own DS Headset in the US featuring a built-in microphone. Never mind that at least two other companies (Datel and Turtle Beach) had already released their own DS compatible headsets in the US. Nintendo is finally following through.

Design – The all white headphones with matte grey highlights - matching the white DS Lite - that wrap around one ear with a mouth shaped opening.

It has an approximately 41 in. cord, 4 in. microphone arm (3 in. from the edge of the earpiece) and 3/4 in. cluster of speaker holes (no stereo). The all plastic ear piece can be worn on either ear with the speaker swiveling along a vertical axis. The microphone arm vertically swings 90 degrees. It is light, weighing only 4 oz. (15g) not including the cord.

The plug fits only the DS port with a standard headphone jack and small rectangular jack attached on the same plug.

Features – The DS Headphone is made to work with the DS’s unique port allowing audio to be heard through the single headphone and sound to be input through the microphone.

Performance – Audio sounds about as good as an inexpensive set of headphones, coming through a little better than the DS’s built-in speakers.

The microphone works but has inconsistent pickup. I tested this with the online Live Chat feature in Pokémon Pearl/Diamond and the person on the other end said the sound was extremely faint and choppy as opposed to loud and very clear when using the DS’s built-in microphone. It worked a little better in games with non-chatting features, such as training dogs in Nintendogs, but you will still get more reliable and consistent accuracy from talking really close to the DS’s built-in microphone pinhole.

Overall – Although the microphone arm is longer than most Bluetooth devices, it did not perform consistently for all games. It’d be nice to be able to adjust the microphone sensitivity or specific uses or, even more simple, lengthen the microphone arm.

Audio playback, however, works pretty well. The earpiece is rigid plastic, lacking padding and the ability to mold to your ear for comfort so it is a little uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time.

The Nintendo DS Headset is far more convenient and less socially silly than talking into the game system but it’s not the ideal microphone solution. At $10-15, the price is about right for the overall quality it provides

• Rock Band cometh
• EA announces soundtrack for Boogie
• Important Importables: PSP peripherals