Old School Atari Console

I just heard about the new Atari Flashback console today. Modeled after the Atari 7800, it has 20 built in classic games and will cost around $45.

INCLUDES:

Fifteen Atari 2600 Games:

Adventure
Air-Sea Battle
Battlezone
Breakout
Canyon Bomber
Crystal Castles
Gravitar
Haunted House
Millipede
Saboteur
Sky Diver
Solaris
Sprintmaster
Warlords
Yars’ Revenge

Five Atari 7800 Games:

Asteroids
Centipede
Desert Falcon
Charley Chuck s Food Fight
Planet Smashers

Retro is cool. This makes me want to dig my Atari 2600 out of storage.

Coming Soon: Tivo + Netflix

According to Newsweek, Tivo and Netflix plan to introduce a new service. Subscribers who belong to both services will be able to download their Netflix DVDs over the Internet directly into the TiVo boxes in their homes, instead of receiving them in the mail.

Creative Zen Media Player hits shelves today

Starting today, Microsoft based Portable Media Centers are available from major retailers such as Best Buy. More info from Microsoft:

Portable Media Centers are a new class of device that allows consumers to take all the digital entertainment that they store and manage on their Windows XP-based PC with them wherever they go. Windows Media Player 10 will quickly and automatically transfer photos, recorded television, home videos and music to a Portable Media Center. Creative Labs’ Zen Portable Media Center ($499) is available at major electronics retailers beginning Sept. 2; the Samsung YH-999 ($499) and iRiver PMC-100 (price TBD) Portable Media Centers will be available at retail later in the fall. Portable Media Center owners are able to download more than 200 films from CinemaNow Sept. 2, as well as condensed games, highlights and historic footage from MLB.com.

You can go here for more info on the Creative Zen, the first Portable Media Center to be available.

Maybe Dell will enter this market and lower the price point, as they did with the PDA market.

Creative Zen photo:

MSN Music Store

Microsoft is previewing their MSN Music store. The service doesn’t appear to be Mac compatible.

Requirements:

– Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, or Windows XP
– Internet Explorer 5.01 or later
– Windows Media Player 7.1 or later
– A 233 megahertz (MHz) processor or faster
– 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM or more
– Speakers and sound capability
– Payment with a valid credit card with a U.S. billing address
– To enjoy high-quality audio as a Radio Plus subscriber, you will need Windows Media Player 9 Series (or later)

GBA gets Cheaper

Nintendo has dropped the price on the Game Boy Advance to $79, a $20 reduction.

You can now buy popular cartoons (SpongeBob, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc.) to play on the Game Boy Advance for about $20 each. These new cartridges are labelled ‘Game Boy Advance Video’. We haven’t tried one yet, but it’s a great idea.

The videos combined with he price drop should breath some new life into this aging game platform.