The so-called micro-blogging tool Twitter has come to the Nintendo DS, to a mixed response.

There’s more going on of course than the devices inability to connect to secure networks - it just seems to pointless. Presumably, if you’re using Twitter on your DS, you’re on your DS, a device limited to a superb array of games. You can’t really do anything meaningful on a Nintendo DS, however, so why bother?

As things stand at the moment however, the latest Twitter platform is limited to Spanish.

That’s right, Mexicans can let the world know they’re having a plate of Nachos before beginning Guitar Hero on Tour, while Spaniards can let the world know what amazing footballers they have, but no one can actually do anything in English without knowing what the commands are, and sending to the right networks.

English version expected, however…

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Probably the funniest video game trailer ever…

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This is pretty cool, and underlines the future of telephone calls being routed through the VOIP system…

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“We believe that this will establish the PSP as a viable communication device.”

Out goes the headset, and in comes a direct competitor to the Apple iPhone with the simple addition of a built-in microphone as Sony embraces the Skype network’s VoIP support of the PlayStation Portable.  The next version of the handheld console will launch in October in both the USA and Europe for around £160/$294.

In terms of size, the PSP and iPhone aren’t worlds apart – however the PSP is slightly bulkier, and using it as a regular phone may well see it become as unwieldy as the T-Mobile Ameo.

Time will tell of course, but with the PSP now capable of web browsing, high quality video gaming, PvP and now phone calls, while Sony failed to see the convergence of cellphones and games console in the same way that Nokia and Apple have, they’ve certainly acted to resolve the oversight.

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Ever since rumours of the XBox 360 portable first materialized, fans of the console have speculated on how it might look…

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjMYE6xceV8]

Meanwhile, modded, portable XBox 360s DO exist…

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-pUvsdpdU4]

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How can a game look so good and play so bad?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Td28Q_ZU3Y]

The curse of the movie tie-ins returns, this time haunting Iron Man.  Odd, since if any Marvel Comics movie adaptation videogame should “work”, it should be this one - it’s got everything!

Disappointing.  Poor Tony Stark, having to be a flawed hero and have a poorly executed game based on him…

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The tech blogosphere is drowning in reports of the forthcoming battle between the Apple iPhone 3G, Sony PSP and Nintendo DS in the mobile consoles war.

Yet Steve Jobs reportedly doesn’t play games - or even like them!

So tells us id Software technical director John Carmack during his QuakeCon keynote:

“The truth is Steve Jobs doesn’t care about games. This is going to be one of those things that I say something in an interview and it gets fed back to him and I’m on his s***head list for a while on that, until he needs me to do something else there. But I think that that’s my general opinion. He’s not a gamer,” Carmack explained in an interview published today.

“It’s difficult to ask somebody to get behind something they don’t really believe in. I mean obviously he believes in the music and the iTunes and that whole side of things, and the media side of things, and he gets it and he pushes it and they do wonderful things with that, but he’s not a gamer. That’s just the bottom line about it.”

Oh and beware iPhone freaks - no sign of Doom 3 on your spangly new mobile gaming platform either.

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The BBC’s Darren Waters blog from the E3 event concentrates on the ever-so-slightly smug words of American Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aime, who revealed that as far as Nintendo are concerned:

“Fad is no longer operable. It’s inevitable when the paradigm shifts, imitation is just around the corner.”

Meanwhile global president Satoru Iwata said of the Wii’s success:

“Even if it is a revolution sooner or later people will become tired of a new form of entertainment. This happens faster when others try and reproduce the initial change. What seemed fresh, will inevitably be lost.”

Everyone knows that the various motion sensor controllers pioneered by Nintendo on the Wii and in the interface of the DS - and copied by Microsoft for the XBox 360 - have revolutionised gaming.

To such an extent that the hardware jerk-off fantasy that is the Sony PlayStation 3 looks dull in comparison.

However it would be foolish to forget that the games industry is cyclical. Nintendo’s current dominance is due to outside-of-the-box thinking and clever design as well as smart publicity.

Something that Sony have been lacking since the PS3 was released.

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This pushes the Wii firmly into the “fun for all the family” market, and hangs it up opn the peg, with Sony looking on with envy.

It’s such a simple idea, too - an LCD display that clips onto the Nintendo Wii, with a ball and socket hinge that allows the LCD to be positioned for any purpose, and folded down against the Wii when you’ve finished playing tennis or snowboarding or whatever, just like a laptop.

You can run the monitor off the Wii itself, or via a cigarette lighter adapter, leaving you with no reason to leave the ultimate family gaming system at home.

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General opinion certainly seems to be swaying in the direction that the new iPhone will do for portable gaming what the iPod did for portable music.

All in one mp3, video, phone and likely games  console the iPhone 3G has long since been touted as a possible catalyst for the portable gaming industry, with at least one recent article pointing out that:

Thing is, the iPhone can conceivably do anything the DS can, bar of course the dual-screen display. The iPhone offers full touch- screen operability, network connectivity, the ability to send and receive voice and video, plus it has the Wii-like trick of tracking the tilt and pitch of the device in your hands. Most of the games being developed for the iPhone now are based on this simple functionality, substituting a joystick for balance sensors.

Happy days!  It doesn’t matter how big or small the device is, or whether it has 3G - if I can play games on the new iPhone, Apple have got my dollar.

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