News

News Snips 10/13

<div>New Nintendo Bundles&hellip; Future Play kicks off&hellip; Last chance for ESA auctions&hellip; THQ upgraded to &quot;neutral&quot;&hellip;</div><br /><br />

New Nintendo Bundles… Future Play kicks off… Last chance for ESA auctions… THQ upgraded to "neutral"…

Nintendo is pushing a new Gamecube bundle with Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness for $99. This bundle follows last week's announcement of  the Mario Party 7 bundle that will arrive November 7th.  The Mario Kart DS bundle will come with a new red DS, some racing decals and a checkered wrist strap for $149. The DS bundle is slated to hit retail on November 28.
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According to a report at tgdaily.com, Intel is readying 5 new Pentium-D 900s for launch in January 2006. Allegedly these chips will have the 65nm "Presler" cores. The highest end of the bunch will supposedly run at 3.46Ghz and bear the Extreme Edition 955 moniker.
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Being held at Michigan State University, the Future Play conference brings academics and developers together to discus the future of the industry. The conference runs until this Saturday. For more information, see the conference web site.
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Tomorrow, October 14th will be the last day of the ESA charity auction.  Have a look at what's still up for sale. We've still got our eyes on the Star Wars lightsaber signed by George Lucas.
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Analyst Jeffrey Thomison of Hillard Lyons has upgraded THQ from "underperform" to "neutral". The upgrade comes due to the recent depression in THQ's share price, though Thomison believes that the company will post a loss for the September quarter and will have a weak December quarter due to "industry weakness".