BREAKING: Kids want overpriced electronics for Christmas

It’s not just the children of the UK who would prefer overpriced hunks of plastic from Apple this holiday season.

Nielsen is reporting that among American youngsters aged 6-12, 31% want an iPad in the next six months. 29% want an iPod Touch (the same number want a computer), and only 25% want a DS. PS3 leads among home consoles, with 21% desiring the black behemoth, compared with 18% for Wii.

Consumers 13+ are most looking to buy a computer (20%). The first Apple product on the list is the iPad in fourth place, beating out any video game systems. Thankfully, the Wii comes out ahead of the PS3 and 360 in this category. The DS is behind pretty much everything, with only 8% interested in buying one in the next six months. That still manages to beat the as-yet-to-be-hyped-in-the-real-world 3DS at 6%, and the similarly non-hyped PSP at 5%.

Source: Nielsen
Image: Adapted from christmas morning by scottfeldstein under a CC-BY license.

Can’t wait for Gran Turismo 5? Blame Microsoft

This image comes to us from the PS3 display case of a Zellers here in Canada. It seems would-be Gran Turismo 5 purchasers will have to wait until Microsoft gives the okay.

Sure, this is easily explained as an employee screw-up, but I think it’s more fun to imagine Sony’s competitor issuing false press releases to confuse the masses.

Great praise goes to apocalyptic_girl, who took this picture herself and sent it in.

Get ready to tea bag: Microsoft wants yet more Halo

If the departure of Bungie from Microsoft’s pudgy, sweaty hands has you worried that you’ll be out of games to bond with your bromates over, have no fear. Phil Spencer, Corporate VP for Microsoft Game Studios says:

There’s no explicit strategy that says we’re to ship a Halo game every year. I will say I think one Halo game every three years — which was kind of our old cadence – is probably not frequent enough.

Spencer isn’t quite ready to concede that his company wants to engage in Activision levels of franchise exploitation, but he did give “kudos” to the company for the popularity of Call of Duty, and attributed part of their success to the sustained milking process involved.

There you have it. If things in your bromance have been shaky lately, have no fear. You’ll be pounding shots and crushing beer cans during all-night tea bag sessions for years to come.

[source]

The Empire Strikes Back: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen suing Apple, Google, Facebook, kitchen sink, your mom

Maybe he’s sick of seeing his old company’s glory days slipping away while the market cap of ancient rival Apple passes them by. Maybe Google’s near-monopoly makes him jealous. Or maybe he’s just trying to horde as much cash as possible before giving it away to charity (as he has pledged). Whatever the case, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a suit against Apple, Google, AOL, Facebook, ebay, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube.

Allen contends that his company, Interval Licensing, owns patents on some of the core features found in the services of the companies listed above. Allen claims to own patents on things like giving internet viewers suggested products based on what they are viewing, among other obvious and widely used website features.

Allen’s suit lacks a specific dollar amount being sought. Although, considering the company’s he’s after, Allen surely wants a lot of money. Perhaps even all of it.

[source]

Microsoft makes up numbers, pretends Kinect has value

The above images come from inside Microsoft. With the $149.99 price point of the Kinect having been revealed, the company apparently decided it was time to make up some dubious charts combining random products that would make the 360 + Kinect look like a better value than the Wii (and Move).

Of course, someone buying the 360 with Kinect bundle for $300 is getting two-player functionality out of the box, so it’s fair enough to include an additional Wiimote and Nunchuk. The Wii’s price would have really started shooting up if they had included the cost of controllers three and four as well. Then again, so would have Kinect’s, seeing as how a person would have to get a second bundle for that.

It’s curious that they included Wii Fit in the package. I don’t think I’ve heard of the Kinect being able to weigh people. It’s also interesting to note that Microsoft neglected to mention the higher price point (generally about $10) that 360 games carry compared to Wii games.

[source]