Sega's not flapping their yapper so far as we can tell, but German gaming site Gamefront.de is claiming they're going to be re-releasing the frickin' Dreamcast bundled with Radilgy and some limited edition telephone card or something. But our wish come true from the Ghost of Hackable Consoles Past will probably be Japan-only though, distributed through Sega Direct for ¥10,000 (about $83 US) - still, could this be the triumphant return of Sega hardware, even if only just nostalgia-gear? Apparently we'll find out February 16th (or sooner).

Filed under: Gaming, Hacks

Sega's re-releasing the Dreamcast in Japan? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Dec 2005 09:00:08 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you were ever curious as to exactly what was entailed in a PSP-bricking (for the uninitiated, that's when running some code that kills your PSP entirely), famed antivirus company F-Secure (who we hope you should well know by now) plunked down the $250 to do an on-camera bricking, for, um, educational purposes. It's not pretty. In fact, you may want to shield their eyes if you've got children (or gamers) in the room. The lesson to learn here? Always use protection, kids-never run unverified arbitrary code.

Watch [14MB WMV]

Filed under: Gaming, Hacks, Portable, Sony PSP

F-Secure bricks a PSP on camera originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:05:56 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Oh DarkFader, you little scamp. First you whip up that now-famous (well, not that famous) DS bricking trojan of yours, then apparently you get ostracized from the homebrew community for wreaking havoc on your peers' devices, and then you apologize? Ok, fine, we'll assume it's not a disingenuous apology, but seriously, the part where you start talking about how those who only use official Nintendo games have nothing to worry themselves about? Way to be patronizing in your letter of apology dude.

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo DS, Hacks

DS bricker creator sez, "Sorry!" originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2005 04:30:53 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The poor old regular Xbox just doesn't get much love anymore. The daily pressures of being a console are hard enough without the prospect of being supplanted by a faster, slimmer, and whiter version of itself. So show the old guy you still care with an additional four hard drives. That's right, 10GB just doesn't cut it in this media centric world, so why not slap a terabyte of storage in there? You know you want to. The X5 is an expansion kit that doubles the height of your existing box and adds the room for four drives (not included), a couple of fans, and an external knob for selecting which drive to run from. There is a decent amount of work involved to modify your unit with this expansion, but the instructions are fairly clear, and you won't be doing anything crazy like soldering to execute them. Sure four drives are absolute overkill if you're just humming along with a standard issue Xbox, but if you're running some of those mods all the hipsters are sporting these days, then this might be just the ticket for your multiple bootable Linux distro fantasies.

Filed under: Gaming, Hacks, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360

X5 expansion kit adds up to four drives to your Xbox originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2005 01:45:17 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PC Watch has gotten their hands on a Game Boy Micro, which is scheduled to be released in the US on September 19th for $99 (but came out today in Japan). The first thing they did? Blow it up, of course. They've posted their dissection of the device, and while it doesn't offer too many surprises (not that we know what to look for), it features a number of improvements versus the Gameboy Advance SP. They mention that while at first glance the Gameboy Micro appears to just be a new form factor of the SP, it is in fact quite different under the hood. They say how Nintendo has paid attention to detail in many of the aspects of the device's construction, such as its overall solid structure, detailed electrical work, and small touches such as stoppers that prevent  screws from becoming loose. Unfortunately it's too late to add these stoppers to Miyamoto's screws.

Filed under: Gaming, Hacks, Portable

Game Boy Micro revealed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:00:21 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Going out of your way to boast about how hack-proof your next product is going to be is probably the only surefire way to get an army of hackers on your ass, but Xbox engineer Chris Satchell declared in an interview with BBC News that the Xbox 360 is going to have levels of security, "that the hacker community has never seen before." He does concede that "sooner or later someone will work out how to circumvent security," but he also says that even if someone does crack the Xbox 360 that it "doesn't mean that it will work on somebody else's machine" because of the way it's been designed. Fair enough, but do you really want to inspire someone out there to prove you wrong?

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Hacks, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360

Xbox 360: The most hack-proof console ever? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Sep 2005 15:14:43 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.