OpenHouseNYC's™ show Floorplan™ has covered practical topics from remodeling your kitchen , or buying a condo, to child proofing your home. This week’s segment, however, appeals to the kid in all of us as they outline how anyone, in any home or apartment, can build a game room and arcade around their living space.

Our friend Mitch Gerson of Retroblast (R.I.P.) and GameRoom Magazine™ fame shows off his apartment arcade. Why does that purple controller on his cocktail cabinet look look so familiar? You may recall last month we mentioned his article on the movie The King of Kong™ which we are happy to report can now be downloaded for FREE in pdf format!

Watch Floorplan's™ Home Arcade Feature

Emus On Your iPhone™

With emulators such as MAME™ for arcade games and others for classic console games ported to just about every platform under the sun—Dreamcast™, Amiga™, PocketPCs™, digital cameras, cell phones—it was only a matter of time until someone ported the emulator to the iPhone™.

Even more tempting after the IPhone drops a dramatic $200 only months after it's release!

MAME™ on Your iPhone™

IPhone™ NES

Naruto™ Mini

If you loved the Naruto™ fighting games on the Nintendo GameCube™, we have a treat for you. Naruto™ Mini is a flash fighting game made by independent developers in France, and it's FREE and can be played right in your web browser!.

Oh, and the developer has an X-Arcade of his own, so X-Arcade™ support is a given!

Play Naruto™ Mini for FREE Now!

ThreadSpace: Hyperbol

ThreadSpace: Hyperbol is a futuristic action-strategy Projectile-Based Tactical game with many arcade-esque elements and other adjectives.

Players control a tank-like ship capable of firing a large variety of weapons and defenses in online battles with up to 16 players. It is one of those deceptively deep games (easy-to-learn, hard-to-master) capable of sponging up your spare time. It has a free demo, give it a shot!

Try ThreadSpace: Hyperbol Now!

How Badly Do You Want 360 Support?

We at Xgaming™ have received tons of emails asking when we plan to have Xbox 360™ support, and the answer unfortunately comes from Microsoft®, not us.

Microsoft® has uncharacteristically created a legal protection of third-party development with only 4 companies legally permitted to make controllers for their system. As such, this allows Microsoft® to control the pricing and supply of all controller types for the 360 (and prevent a multitude of options for customers).

However, many 360 customers have complained about the lack of availability of controllers such as ours for certain types of games and we have been working hard to sway the company to allow our firm (and others) to meet customer demand.

It serves no benefit to us to delay the release of our adapter for a popular new system, and we cannot do so without Microsoft's® explicit permission; something they are currently still withholding.

The way it seems to work is that the Xbox 360™ console looks for a certain code on hardware peripherals to make sure they are allowed. This code is patented, so it is not as simple as simply hacking it and putting that code on our controllers. But it is not impossible to use the X-Arcade™, just a bit costly and takes some finagling.

There is a new adapter on the market called the "XFPS" that lets you use a Playstation™ 2 controller or USB keyboard/mouse on your 360. Before you ask how they were able to make 360 support before us, they haven't actually. You simply plug a wired 360 controller into the XFPS's passthrough so that the 360 thinks a normal 360 gamepad is attached. Sneaky!

The XFPS has has been confirmed working with the X-Arcade™ with our Playstation™ 2 adapter (and the USB connection with some revisions of our USB controllers). It is expensive at about $80 and also requires a wired 360 controller to work. Obviously we can not use this same trick since nobody wishes to pay $80 for an X-Arcade™ 360 adapter. Keep in mind, we do not make nor support the XFPS, we can only confirm that it has been tested and it does work.

Oh, and as a bonus the XFPS lets you play FPS games with a keyboard and mouse!

Check Out The XFPS Adapter

Retroblast R.I.P.

One of our favorite classic gaming news sites is closing it's doors. RetroBlast has been shut down indefinitely. Kevin (the owner) is going to focus his energies on GameRoom Magazine.

Not to worry though, Kevin's not going to allow all the wonderful content that was RetroBlast to be lost. You will soon see the content available at another location, and if nothing else pans out Kevin and our other favorite arcade news site ArcadeControls.com have discussed hosting a mirror of the last version of the site there. Stay tuned, and good luck Kevin with the magazine!

Farewell To Retroblast!

X-Arcade™ Tankstick 4U

4U is a Premium Technology Life Style News Magazine and Shopping Guide. They also have some really hot babes to help dress up their hardware! So when they got to review the X-Arcade Tankstick, did it satisfy their classic gaming lust?

Here's the verdict - "If you are a hardcore MAME gamer, there is simply no better controller on the market than the X-Arcade Tankstick. If you are a console gamer into fighting games, the X-Arcade Tankstick is for you too. This heavy-duty arcade controller is built to last a lifetime and could well be the last joystick you need to buy. The X-Arcade Tankstick is easily the best arcade controller around."

We're blushing...

I4U News™ Reviews The Tankstick

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