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Edge: Portable devices were designed to be taken anywhere, but users’ top location to use these devices is at home, according to new research by NPD Group.

The firm told Edge, “79 percent [of those polled say] they use their portable device in-home, far more than any other location.” A statement from NPD added, “[This] indicates that these devices may be competing with more stationary entertainment devices for a user’s time.”

Overall, the research found that people are using devices such as the smartphone, iPhone, iPod, DS and PSP more today than they were just three months ago.

More findings of the report:

- Gameplay is the feature used by most (84 percent) on the PlayStation Portable. Slightly more than one third of PSP owners are watching movies (35 percent) and listening to music (33 percent) on their device.
- Ninety two percent of Nintendo DS owners are playing games by themselves followed by close to one quarter playing games with friends locally using one game cartridge.
- Listening to music dominates iPod usage (96 percent) followed by playing games (20 percent) at a distant second.

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Eurogamer: Apple marketing exec Greg Joswiak has declared that the iPhone and iPod Touch represent “the future of gameplay” – unlike dusty old antiques the DS and PSP.

Joswiak was speaking in an interview with T3. Referring to the 1500 software titles already available for Apple products, he stated, “The gameplay I think has surprised a lot of people, because it’s not just the casual games… There are already so many games and as we look at it, to us it really seems this is the future of gameplay.

“Whereas a lot of these devices [Nintendo DS and Sony PSP] are more in the past,” Joswiak continued. “And a big part of that is not just the device itself, which is easier to carry, and has the touch display and accelerometer which is great for gameplay, but it’s the electronic distribution of the apps as well.”

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PC World: The Wii system is in a league of its own for a variety of reasons today, chief among them a unique control scheme and incredible sales numbers that dwarf the competition month over month.

Another differentiating factor in the Wii column is also the fact that price cuts will probably never come to the system, as they have with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Chief among the reasoning behind that decision is the fact that price cuts send mixed messages to the customer, said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

“This is my personal thinking, but when the model’s price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it’s better to wait, and I’ve always thought that was a mistake,” said Iwata, in a Nintendo Japan web site interview, translated by Kotaku.

As Wired’s Chris Kohler notes Wednesday, this is the Nintendo strategy today. The company finds a price that it can maintain indefinitely, and then rides insane sales numbers and popular public opinion all the way to the bank.

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Techradar.com: Sports scientists at the University of Derby are researching the effects of playing Wii Fit and other Nintendo titles on primary school pupils to see if playing the Wii can assist pupils in losing weight.

“We hope this research will determine if playing on this equipment could actually have physical benefits for children,” said Exercise Physiology Lecturer Dr Michael Duncan.

Pupils wear a pedometer that monitors the amount of energy they expend playing Wii Fit.

The Telegraph reports that: “Taking part in games like tennis, golf or bowling on consoles such as the Wii can burn four times as many calories as playing more traditional computer games, enough to keep waistlines in check,” according to scientists from the University of Hong Kong.

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Techradar.com: Bad news for fans of ‘homebrew’ on the Nintendo DS (read: illegal file-sharing pirates) with the revelation yesterday that Nintendo’s new DSi console will not run copied games saved on an R4DS cartridge.

The first batch of 200,000 DSis has already sold out in Japan, with 100,000 more on the way into stores this week. Nintendo fans both new and old are sure to lap up this new console when it launches over in the UK later this year.

With its improved screen size, two new cameras for EyeToy style gaming on the go (and Wario: Photograph already announced in Japan) as well as a new music player and (Mario-moustache-addable) photo viewer the DSi cannot arrive soon enough.

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Techradar.com: It seems like those rumours that a Wii-like PS3 motion-sensing controller that breaks apart were on the money, if a recent Sony Computer Entertainment Europe patent is anything to go by.

The patent, filed earlier this summer by Gary Zalewski from SCEA, details a break-apart controller which emits an ultrasonic beam of sound and light, interpreted by the PlayStation Eye to track a player’s movement.

Essentially, such a device would offer a similar experience to Wii’s motion sensing, without the costly infringement of any Nintendo copyrights.

“[The] game interface tracks the position of one or more game controllers in 3-dimensional space using hybrid video capture and [an] ultrasonic tracking system,” reads the patent filing.

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Electricpig: If you asked Santa for an Xbox 360 Slim this Christmas, you’re more likely to be getting a lump of coal under the tree: the UK’s Xbox chief just put a definitive end to speculation over a new console, stating there won’t be any new models for “a long, long time”.

We cornered Stephen McGill, Microsoft’s head of gaming and entertainment, today to pick his brains about the Xbox 360 update coming on November 19, and he let slip that Microsoft’s focus has been on the interface revamp alone, with no new hardware in the pipeline: “I’m looking forward to features the 360 already has today coming to the front [with the Xbox Experience]” he said.

“We’re just beginning to scratch the surface of what it can do. What we’re looking at for the next many years is the Xbox 360.”

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Eurogamer: Sony development bigwig George Bain has said the PlayStation 2 is “effectively an open platform” in Europe.

“You no longer have to submit a game for content approval,” Bain told a throng of Euro developers, according to GameDaily.

The idea behind the move is to encourage regional developers to be able to make “low-development cost titles and release them in their market”, he said, using India and Russia as examples.

And while development kits can be costly, Sony has often been known to loan them for the duration of a project.

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Trusted Reviews: If you spotted Microsoft’s offer of an Xbox storage upgrade for Aracde and core console owners and thought “sure, that’s great, but I need a bit more than 20GB of hard drive space,” then Microsoft has the package for you.

Available in the US only at the moment the bundle comprises a 60GB hard drive, wired headset, Ethernet cable and a three month Live Gold subscription.

Oddly enough, exactly what marks the difference in package between the Arcade and 60GB system bundles.

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MCV: Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed that the company is producing 2.4 million new Wiis every month – a 33 per cent increase on last year’s frequency.

Speaking in an interview with the LA Times, Fils-Aime called the production cycle ‘unprecedented’.

“Nintendo has continually raised the production levels of the Wii hardware,” he revealed. “We’re now producing 2.4 million units a month worldwide. Last year, we made 1.6 million a month. So we’ve made a 33 per cent increase.

“One of our competitors projects they will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year. For us, that’s three months of production. We’re producing an unprecedented level of hardware to try to meet demand.”

Fils-Aime added that Nintendo hadn’t felt “any negative impact” from the current global economic crisis.

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HDTV UK: Sony talking up Blu-ray is not a new concept, but the company’s marketing and public relations manager, Mark Levitan, has said that Blu-ray will be a decisive factor in promoting the PS3 over other games consoles.

“…you have to say to yourself, if you’ve bought an HDTV, 1080p resolution is important to you so maybe you want a Blu-ray player. If that’s something you’re considering, then obviously you’re going to pick a PS3.

You can go to any chain store and pick up a Blu-ray player but for an extra 100 bucks, you can get a PS3,” he said.

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Techradar: Microsoft has been hit with a lawsuit relating to the Xbox 360′s ‘red ring of death’ overheating problem, which claims that over half of the initial batch of Xbox 360s were defective.

The latest Red Ring of Death lawsuit filed against Microsoft claims that the company knew about the infamous RRoD problem as far back as 2005, according to a report on DailyGamesNews, alleging that Microsoft deliberately chose to hide the console’s RRoD failure rates in order to protect sales.

The lawsuit, filed at Sacramento County Superior Court under California’s consumer protection statutes, wants to see the introduction of a refund programme in California. The lawsuit cites numerous reports about the RRoD issue, in particular citing one report that goes as far to claim that over half of the initial batch of 360′s was defective.

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