Late Night Consoling

RealNetworks, the company behind everybody's favorite media software RealPlayer as well as the Rhapsody music service and a suite of downloadable casual games, announced today that its antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft has been settled. The suit, which lasted almost two years, was resolved with a $761M settlement. What's pertinent to gamers is $301M of that sum, which Microsoft will pay to Real as part of an 18-month agreement to fund Real's game development and music endeavors. In return, Real's collection of casual games will be offered through Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service for Xbox 360. Specific games were not named. Recently, Microsoft announced the first 360 Live Arcade game, GarageGame's Marble Hunt Ultra.

A few tidbits of news regarding portable systems popped up recently, so here you go:

You may remember recent reports of a PSP trojan making its way around the internet, terrorizing the homebrew community and rendering consoles useless paperweights. Well, now DS owners can get in on that action too. Whereas the PSP trojan masqueraded as an update from the "PSP Team", the DS virus apparently attempts to make its way onto your system with promises of anime porn. Of course, it must be deliberately loaded onto the machine using homebrew hardware, so chances are it won't blossom into some kind of epidemic. If you do happen to be a DS homebrew enthusiast and you're jonesin' for that particular kind of fix, bear in mind it may result in hacked firmware and irreversable damage.

Q Entertainment's Lumines (PSP), designed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi and thought by many to be the system's strongest game, recently hit a sales milestone with over half a million units sold worldwide. The game has shipped 300,000 units in North America, 180,000 in Europe, and 70,000 in Japan. Mizuguchi and his studio seem to be unwilling to align themselves with any one console manufacturer: Meteos (DS), a collaboration between Mizuguchi and Smash Bros. designer Masahiro Sakurai, was released to similarly rave reviews, while the studio is currently developing Ninety-Nine Nights for Xbox 360 and Every Extend Extra for PSP.

Datel, best known in the video game world for its Action Replay line of console cheat systems, is currently developing a 4GB hard drive for the PSP. The device slides into a memory stick slot on the console. It will be sold in a bundle also containing Datel's X2 battery, which on its own can up to double the device's memory life. It was not mentioned if that was taking into accounts any additional power needs of the hard drive, since it presumably will have to actually spin a disk. Various sites speculate the unit will go for $249.99, and importers are currently taking preorders for that price. No release date is available but Datel hopes to ship the unit this year.

Japanese games industry magazine Famitsu reported that Nintendo has already sold over 200,000 units of its new Game Boy Micro in Japan. Meanwhile, Nintendo announced a new color scheme option for the portable console: a red metallic body with a black faceplate featuring a white Pikachu silhouette in the upper right. The design is very attractive, though if you ask me I'd pass on the Pikachu. Nintendo has not announced any plans to bring this model, or the phenominally popular Famicom model, out of Japan.

Unsurprisingly, the new union of GameStop and EBGames, known GameStop Corp., has some layoffs to go with the new deal. The company laid off about 700 employees in the greater Philadelphia area, with more to follow in other areas of Pennsylvania over the next year. The company is closing many of its stores in that state, and retaining only a minor presence in the area.

Rob Fahey at GamesIndustry.biz discusses the challenges and advantages Microsoft will see with its Xbox 360 launch and first year of existence.

1UP gives its final verdict on X05 in video form.