Looky here, Netflix is offering a streaming disc for the Wii similar to their PS3 offering.

If you have Netflix and a Wii with an internet connection be sure to login and go to the Watch Instantly tab to request they send you the disc.

New James Bond flick? No. A 22 carat casual gaming console for those who have £299,995.00 and no financial sense.

Who says the “days of conspicuous consumption are over”?

From engadget

In case plans by AMD and a slew of other tech vendors planning to showcase 3D Blu-ray compatible products at CES wasn’t a tip-off, the updated specifications are done. The key details? First, that the Blu-ray Disc Association has chosen the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec to store 3D, so that even though it is now providing a full 1080p frame for each eye, it will only require about 50% more storage space compared to the 2D version, and all discs will be fully backwards compatible, in 2D, on existing players. Better than backwards compatibility, the PlayStation 3 will be forwards compatible with the new discs

How many times have you missed a jump because you weren’t able to judge depth correctly? Being able to see the 3d in games would be huge! A game changer, pardon the pun. Let’s just hope we don’t need barf bags for the trip.

Arstechnica reports that Microsoft is temporarily banning players that exploit what they’re calling a glitch but to me looks like a tactic. Basically if you hold a grenade then equip the javelin when you are killed the grenade goes off turning you in to a suicide bomber.

“While IW works on getting the MW2 glitch fixed, people we catch using it will recieve suspensions from LIVE. Play fair everyone,” Toulouse said via Twitter. He also noted that this policy isn’t anything new, and that it’s in place for more games than just Modern Warfare 2. If you get caught taking advantage of the exploit, you’ll be banned for 24 hours. If you’re a particularly bad case, the banning could last up to two weeks.

The ban isn’t for Modern Warfare 2, it’s for the entirety of Xbox Live. If you’re banned, no new content for you. No playing online… in anything. Major Nelson posted the details on his blog: “Keep in mind, this isn’t just a ban on a particular game. This is a ban on the Xbox Live service as a whole, so you won’t be able to go online at all during your ban. Initially, you may be banned for a day, a week, or depending on severity, permanently! Kiss that $50 goodbye,” he wrote.

Check out their article for more details.

Not so fun if you’re bombed but banning seems harsh and unnecessary to me. The game’s incredibly popular and I doubt this is having a big impact on its playability. Isn’t this kind of creativity the heart of emergent gamplay? It’s entirely within the rights of the developers to patch the game to prevent it, but I say until then if you can do it in the game world without code/hardware modification then it’s fair play.

Tesla Motor’s blog has a customer post on how he helped sound engineers at Microsoft Games Studios sample squealing roadster.

…engineers from Microsoft Game Studios (some working on Forza, some on Project Gotham Racing) asked if I was willing to take my Roadster to a track so they could record a variety of sounds. Some time ago they had the opportunity to record Tesla motor noises when a prototype was being run on a dyno at Tesla. But the teams were excited about the prospect of recording other sounds, particularly tire skid and squeal noises, without the interference of loud engine and exhaust noise. Of course I said “yes.”

The teams arranged to use a local motorsports park that was formerly a small airport. We met early (7:30 AM!) so they could mic-up the car. Two hours later, they had three large boom mics “suction-cupped” to the side and rear of the car, plus a mic in the trunk, and two up front over the swaybars and near the front tires, plus one in the cabin interior, the latter mostly to record verbal “clapboards” to identify each segment. A sound engineer with the recording deck rode shotgun and I did the driving.

Who knew exotic $100k electric sports cars elicited such exotic requests to borrow the keys.

Watchout bloggers, the Federal Trade Commission’s blogging guidelines have taken effect…

The FTC will require that writers on the Web clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products. The commission also said advertisers featuring testimonials that claim dramatic results cannot hide behind disclaimers that the results aren’t typical.

The FTC said its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final guidelines, which had been expected. The guides are not binding law, but rather interpretations of law that hope to help advertisers comply with regulations. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could result in various sanctions including a lawsuit.

I’d like to wholeheartedly embrace this guideline so come on somebody send me some free stuff!

Scott Meyer has got a game related comic today. Take a gander…

I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to Basic Instructions. I check it out daily for a dose of hilarity.

Who wouldn’t want a mustache controller?

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I got my PS3 Netflix disc and I’m happy to say it works. Though, it might not work as you expect unless you’ve read the follow up stories to the announcement. First off it’s based on BD-Live so the disc appears under the XMB movies category and the software can’t be installed on the hard disk. That seems to be the biggest disappointment but lets face it it’s not the end of the world. (I’m curious as to whether it would work in any BD-Live device, but I don’t have one to try it on)

The first time you load it up it shows an alpha numeric code that must be entered into Netflix’s website. You can’t get into the PS3 web browser without exiting so this seems unduly cumbersome, but you only have to do it once. After that it’s smooth streaming.

The interface controls are simple. You can flip from category to category and within a category you can browse titles. It shows twenty five categories, however after the obvious ones like recently watched the categories are the wacky Netflix sub-categories such as “Visually-striking Dark Sci-Fi & Fantasy” or “Witty Con Game Movies”. I’m not sure how it decides which ones to display. The number of titles displayed for a category is limited to 100 and moving through them is slow. This makes browsing a bit rough. You’re best off loading up your watch instantly queue from a computer.

If the rumors are to be believed the interface limitations are due to BD-Live. And Netflix was forced to do this as a BD-Live disc to circumvent an exclusivity deal with Microsoft. They say later this year there will be a PSN downloadable release. Hears hoping the new year rings in full category tree browsing and text search. I wouldn’t mind 1.5x play too.

They finally did it. Just a year after the Xbox 360.

From the PS3 blog

We’re excited to announce today that Netflix and Sony have partnered to bring you thousands of movies and TV episodes streamed instantly from Netflix to your TV via your PS3 system at no extra charge. When the application launches next month, you’ll be able to access and watch thousands of Netflix choices directly through the XMB. We think that the nearly nine million PS3 enthusiasts and 11.1 million Netflix members in the U.S. will make quite a match.

At least they say they did it and it’ll be available next month. I figure that means they signed a contract and now have one developer looking into it.

Got an update for you. It seems it won’t be available as a download initially. Instead you’ll need a disc from Netflix. If you’re already a member you can log in and sign up for it to be sent to you.

1. Sign into their website
2. Click the instantly to your tv tab
3. Click “Instant Devices”
4. Select the PS3
5. Follow the link under “already have a ps3″