What do you think the next Xbox will be named?

1. Xbox 3
2. Xbox 720
3. Xbox (a different number)
4. Xbox (a non-number)
5. A brand new name, without ''Xbox'' in it at all
6. F******* piece of **** douchebag-designed defective crap 69

By Isabel Reynolds

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo's attempt to rescue its failed 3DS handheld games gadget failed to dispel market gloom, triggering a 5 percent share slide and stoking deep worries for an iconic brand desperate to win back users.

On Tuesday, President Satoru Iwata introduced what he said was an unprecedented range of games, aimed at attracting everyone from hardcore gamers to fashion-conscious girls and fans of the long-running Mario series.

The Japanese company also announced on its website a new 1,500 yen ($19) slidepad accessory needed for certain games.

But analysts and investors dismissed the line-up as lackluster and largely irrelevant in the face of cheap or free games played on the likes of Apple's iPhone and iPad and Google-powered Android devices.

Nintendo has been criticized for sticking rigidly to its own hardware, meaning it has no access to the new generation of mobile devices.

"I don't think the new games will make any difference," said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment.

"Nintendo succeeded by pulling in people who weren't gamers and their needs now are no longer being filled by Nintendo, they are happy playing games on their mobile phones," he said.

Nintendo's shares ended 5 percent lower in a strong market. The Kyoto-based company's shares have plunged nearly 50 percent so far this year, hit by the 3DS flop and doubts that it can replicate the success of its Wii home console with the next generation WiiU, announced at the E3 games show in June.

Nintendo, which means "Leave luck to heaven," was forced to announce price cuts of up to 40 percent in July to try to boost slumping demand for the glasses-free 3D version of the DS, but this only temporarily spurred sales.

In July, Nintendo slashed its outlook for the business year to end-March to its lowest in 27 years as it braced for losses from the 3D gadget and a stronger yen.

In a subdued Tokyo conference hall on Tuesday, an appearance by the company's star game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, wielding a toy sword and shield raised a laugh, but a series of 3DS game images depicting Miyamoto and Iwata as a pair of young lovers was met with silence.

LINE-UP OF GAMES

"From the end of this year to the beginning of next, we are planning the kind of extensive line-up that has probably never been seen before in the history of video games," Iwata told reporters and guests.

"We will make an all-out effort to see that the 3DS sells enough to become the successor to the DS," Iwata said.

That will be no easy task, given that earlier models of the DS had sold a cumulative total of about 148 million units by the end of June this year. The gadget, along with the motion-controlled Wii home console, enabled Nintendo to dominate the industry for years.

In Japan, 3DS sales leaped to more than 200,000 units in the week of the price cut, but swiftly fell back to about 55,000 units, according to research firm Enterbrain.

That leaves only the secretive company's famed content, never made available on other firms' hardware, to revive sales.

"The only possible way for Nintendo to revive would be to stop concentrating on mobile games and switch to Wii-type games for the whole family," said Makoto Kikuchi, CEO of Myojo Asset Management. "However, at the moment, I can't see this change coming."

Iwata took a 50 percent pay cut, and other executives took 20-30 percent cuts to take responsibility for the poor performance.

Analysts have cut their full-year operating profit forecasts for Nintendo by an average of 45 percent in the past 30 days and the stock is now trading at 45 times its estimated forward 12-month earnings, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Shares in software provider Capcom slumped by 8.3 percent after the company said it would be developing the next generation of its hit Monster Hunter game for the 3DS.

Nintendo slashed the price of the 3DS after sales shriveled to just 710,000 units in April-June from 3.6 million in the first month after its launch, and a tiny fraction of the 16 million unit target for the year.

Macquarie Securities analyst David Gibson said he still expected the 3DS gadget to sell about 14.5 million units over the year. ($1 = 77.000 Japanese Yen)

(Additional reporting by Tim Kelly and Natalia Konstantinovskaya; Editing by Joseph Radford and Anshuman Daga)

Zombie Attack Preparedness Info from the CDC

Updated: Thursday, 19 May 2011, 3:34 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 19 May 2011, 3:29 PM EDT

(EndPlay Staff Reports) - When it comes to disaster or emergency preparedness, the Centers for Disease Control works like a well-oiled machine to ensure they're ready for anything. And when we say anything, we mean it; according to a recent post to the CDC's blog, they've even got a plan for a zombie apocalypse.

The post, titled Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse , advises residents – in jest – on how to organize a plan of action to put into place should a horde of the walking dead take over and seek out your brains for dinner.

The CDC report suggests that a zombie apocalypse might be the result of an outbreak of an infectious disease, passed on from carrier to victim via bodily fluids transmitted during an attack or after being bitten. This zombie malady is often portrayed in the media as a mutated virus.

The CDC plan isn't the only guide available to help residents prepare for a potential zombie attack. Max Brooks' " The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead " was published in 2003, and has been a top-seller for online retailer Amazon.com ever since.

Unlike Brooks' book, though, the CDC report actually has some valuable information that could apply should a more probable disaster strike. While the world isn't likely to experience a zombie apocalypse during our lifetimes, it's wise to be prepared for other disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or other natural disasters.

The plan details how to prepare an emergency supplies kit for use during a disaster and outlines how the CDC responds in such situations.

For more information about prepare for either real or fictitious natural disasters, visit: http://emergency.cdc.gov/ . For more information about CDC response, check out: http://emergency.cdc.gov/cdc/orgs_progs.asp .

Whether zombies attack or not, this CDC post undoubtedly injected humor into an essential topic: disaster preparedness.

Zombies are not limited to just walking around and biting. Although limited in their brainpower, zombies can plan attacks; albeit to a minor extent. Some have been encountered "playing dead" until within a certain range of their prey.

• Bite: The "bite" is the signature move shown by zombies. When close to a survivor, a zombie will lunge straight for them and rip into their flesh with their teeth. The saliva in the zombie's mouth will make contact with the wound and spread the t-virus.

• Scratch: Like their V-ACT successors, zombies use their sharp fingernails to cut open skin. This can be used to injure potential victims before eating them.

• Bile: Most zombies share a habit for random vomiting. Some appear to vomit at the same time as they are attacking an enemy. The bile tends to inflict damage due to an unknown acidic trait.

• "Playing Dead": Some zombies may lie on the floor in a motionless state; mimicking death. When prey have moved too close, they will attack them by grabbing and biting into the leg. Zombies "playing dead" can be found if their head is seen moving with the prey; watching it. They can be confirmed as dead when a pool of blood starts to form around the zombies body.

WTF

Today I purchased Dead Rising 2.

Nuff said.

Zombie computers arise when spammers seize on bugs in Microsoft Windows--or from naive users who click on attachments--to take over PCs and transform them into spambots.

Comcast users send out about 800 million messages a day, but a mere 100 million flow through the company's official servers. No hard numbers exist, but some estimates say that about one-third of spam comes from zombie computers with broadband connections. The owners of the zombie PCs typically don't even notice what's happening.

Because home computers are more likely to be infected than business PCs, and because Comcast has about 6 million high-speed customers, it may have been inevitable that the cable provider became a haven for remote-controlled zombies that churn out junk e-mail.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2010-1034-5218178.html#ixzz0yb5TVAoD

By Chester MacArthur | June 14, 2007 | 60,916 views | 105 Moans for this post

Sure, killin' zombies with a shotgun just seems natural. I mean, we've all seen zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead, read zombie comics or zombie books like The Zombie Survival Guide. We know how to kill zombies with tough-guy weapons. You've got to separate the head from the body of the zombie, or destroy the zombie brain.

But in a true zombie outbreak, a widespread pandemic of flesh-eating zombies, that inevitable zombie plague, chances are that you won't be ready. When zombies arrive, you'll probably be sitting around at home, doing whatever it is you usually do when you're sitting around at home. Not thinking about zombies, that's for sure. To that end I've done the legwork. Consult the list, grab a weapon and start killing zombies!

10.The Towel/Curtain Rod9.The Spatula.8.The Candlestick.7.The Butcher Knife.6.The Rolling Pin.5.The Hatchet.4.The Hammer.3.The Pipe Wrench.2.The Baseball Bat.1.The Shovel.

The zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic fiction that customarily has a science fiction/horror rationale. In a zombie apocalypse, a widespread rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. In some mythologies, victims of zombies may become zombies themselves if they are bitten by zombies; in others, everyone who dies, whatever the cause, becomes one of the undead. In either scenario, this causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading "zombie plague" swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilian society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness. The day that the zombie apocalypse begins is sometimes known, by analogy with military operations such as D-Day, as Z-Day.[1]

0.5 per cent "failure?"

According to Ars Technica, the number of PlayStation 3 consoles that have experienced failure is well within the normal failure rates in the consumer electronics industry.[153]

However, in September 2009, the BBC television programme Watchdog aired a report investigating the purported "yellow light of death" issue, which affects around 0.5%[154] of PlayStation 3s. The yellow light indicates a non-specific hardware failure which renders the system unusable.

The program also noted that the PlayStation 3 has a one-year warranty (typical of most consumer electronics products). Out-of-warranty PlayStation 3 owners can pay Sony a set fee for a refurbished console.[155]

In response to the tone of the program, senior vice president and managing director, Ray Maguire issued a document criticizing the program and citing potential attempt to harm Sony and PlayStation brand and stating that the three PlayStation 3 systems the program tested is not evidence of a manufacturing defect.[156][157]

Editor's note: The yellow light of death is most likely a pro-Microsoft, anti-Sony "story' thought up by douchebags who work for Gamespot, Kotaku etc.