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GameSpot's Most Wanted Hardware 2006

We took a short break from stalking PR reps and sweet talking developers to put together a list of our most wanted hardware.

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By James Yu and Sarju Shah- Posted on Friday, August 18, 2006

It's expensive, may never live up to its full promise, and has the longevity of a Russian dwarf hamster, but there's something irresistible about unreleased hardware that drives us to seek out and examine every single piece of information about these new products, no matter how trivial it may be. We took a short break from stalking PR reps and sweet talking developers to put together a list of our most wanted hardware. Add a comment at the bottom of the page to get your own most wanted hardware onto the list.

Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player

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The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player will let you play high-definition movies on the Xbox 360. It currently doesn't offer HDMI output, which worries some since movie studios have the option to reduce the HD image resolution down to 540p on video connections that don't have high-definition content protection enabled on both ends of the connection, but it looks like the studios will hold off on the downgrading for a couple years since most of us still don't even have HDCP-compliant televisions yet. The player will be available this holiday season. Microsoft hasn't announced the retail price, but representatives have indicated that it will be a lot cheaper than a stand-alone HD-DVD player.

DirectX 10 Video Cards

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While most new OS releases mean nothing more to gamers than an unavoidable $100 software upgrade, Windows Vista will actually improve PC games with DirectX 10. The Direct3D10 graphics portion of DX10 will improve games by streamlining the graphics pipeline to make the PC more efficient at processing games. We expect graphics manufacturers Nvidia and ATI to release their DirectX 10 graphics processing units in time for this holiday season.

Our list doesn't include all the interesting upcoming hardware that we want, since we had to limit ourselves to the Most Wanted items for this feature. Complete our list by adding your most wanted hardware below (after you read through the rest of the feature, of course).



It's expensive, may never live up to its full promise, and has the longevity of a Russian dwarf hamster, but there's something irresistible about unreleased hardware that drives us to seek out and devour every single piece of information about these new products, no matter how trivial it may be. We took a short break from stalking PR reps and sweet talking developers to put together a list of our most wanted hardware. Add a comment at the bottom of the page to get your own most wanted hardware onto the list.

Black Nintendo DS Lite

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The Nintendo DS Lite is already available, but we only have the white Nintendo DS Lite here in the US. You'll have to journey to Europe to get the black version. However, if you're impatient enough to import one, remember to get a US Nintendo DS Lite AC adapter to get the charger to work with our 110V electrical system. Knowing Nintendo, we'll get the black version and other colors stateside as soon as everyone has bought the white one.

Red Octane Guitar Hero II Controllers

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Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2 became a hit by letting players mash away on the whammy bar and bust out solos. However, it can be difficult to rock out on a controller that's barely larger than a ukulele. Our contacts at Red Octane tell us that they're preparing a new, totally revamped controller for release later this year, likely in conjunction with Guitar Hero II. Get ready to rock!

Nintendo DS Browser

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Part hardware and part software, the Opera browser for the DS finally brings the World Wide Web to Nintendo's hit portable. The browser takes advantage of the DS's touch-screen functionality for both text input and Web browsing. Initial performance reports indicate that the browser is merely passable for e-mail and basic Web surfing, but we still have to get one just so that PlayStation Portable owner next to us will stop looking so smug while waiting for his pages to load. The DS Browser is currently only available in Japan. Nintendo has not announced if or when the browser will arrive in the US.

Our list doesn't include all the interesting upcoming hardware that we want, since we had to limit ourselves to the Most Wanted items for this feature. Complete our list by adding your most wanted hardware below.



It's expensive, may never live up to its full promise, and has the longevity of a Russian dwarf hamster, but there's something irresistible about unreleased hardware that drives us to seek out and devour every single piece of information about these new products, no matter how trivial it may be. We took a short break from stalking PR reps and sweet talking developers to put together a list of our most wanted hardware. Add a comment at the bottom of the page to get your own most wanted hardware onto the list.

Xbox Live Vision

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Microsoft teased us by showing off Xbox 360 camera prototypes months before the system even launched, but the final Xbox Live Vision camera won't ship until September, almost a year after the initial console release. Microsoft has told us that Vision owners will be able to use the camera to create video messages, add photos to text messages, and enable video chat. A number of Xbox 360 games and Live Arcade games will support gesture-based controls or include personalization options like customized portrait shots.

Sony PlayStation 3

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We want the PlayStation 3 if just to find out if the console is actually worth $600. It's got Blu-ray, a fancy multicore Cell processor, and a powerful Nvidia GPU that can produce a crisp HD display with resolutions up to 1080p. The PS3 will launch with an online network that will support multiplayer play and game downloads, as well as a healthy marketplace system that will let us spend our way into debt, one microtransaction at a time. Sony will release the console in Japan on November 11, 2006 and in North America, Europe, and Australia on November 17.

Nintendo Wii

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The Wii transformed the naysayers into believers and followers into devotees at this year's E3. Nintendo is aiming the Wii directly at the mainstream with a palatable sub-$250 price point and a new motion-sensitive controller designed to make games easier to pick up and play for the nongamer. The system will also have free online connectivity and a Virtual Console emulator that will let you buy and download old-school NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16 games and play them on the Wii. Nintendo hasn't announced the final price or launch dates yet, but we expect to learn more at next month's Tokyo Game Show.

Our list doesn't include all the interesting upcoming hardware that we want, since we had to limit ourselves to the Most Wanted items for this feature. Complete our list by adding your most wanted hardware below.



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