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The Nintendo DS Platform has a number of great games out and just in time for the holidays!  By the end of the year, there will have been more than 400 games released for the DS, which can make shopping for the DS a little difficult.  If you are shopping for a DS gamer and need some suggestions on what to purchase, here are some of the top games you might want to consider!

Some of the classic games, which are those that were released as far back as November 2004 (when the DS was launched) but still offer loads of entertainment for those who might have missed getting any of them, include NEW Super Mario Bros., Pokemon: Diamond Version and Animal Crossing Wild World.

Here are some options for DS games that are targeted specifically for children who own the DS.  These include Chibbi Robo: Park Patrol, Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck (featuring Daffy Duck), and the adventure game Touch Detective 2 ½.

Meanwhile, when shopping for individuals that are specifically interested in adventure or role playing games, gift-buyers might want to consider Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, Luminous Arc or Rune Factory.  Some of the most likely RPG games to drawn gamers in, each of these has a different and separate type of RPG world to display.

And since DS games are not just appreciated by younger audiences, Dementium: The Ward, Ultimate Mortal Kombat and LifeSigns: Surgical Unit are some great options for mature players who are interested in adventure, fighting or simulation games, respectively.

For some more in depth information regarding the games mentioned above check out our sister site Gamertell.

As the PSP gaming console is determined to be a big hit this year, it will be equally important to provide the gamers on your holiday gift list with games that are just as exciting as the Sony console.

When it comes to strategy and RPG games, Jeanne D’Arc is a top contender.  Prior to the release of this game, there was a notable lack of strategy games for the PSP.  With a unique fantasy twist, Jeanne D’Arc is based loosely on the heroine of the past, Joan of Arc.  Another great strategy RPG game to consider would be Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.

If the gamer on your list is more into horror or thriller games, Silent Hill: Origins may be just what you are after.  The first Silent Hill game made for the PSP, it is a comfort to know that all the characteristics which made the Silent Hill franchise such a success on other consoles are still present and accounted for in the PSP version.  Manhunt 2 is another action game that may interest PSP owners and gamers.

For those players focused on Action, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters is a can’t-miss.  Loaded with fun and wild weapons, Ratchet and Clank travel around the galaxy, mini-games and solid mechanics help to ensure that this game will appeal to virtually any PSP player.  Sid Meier’s Pirates is another Action themed PSP game that may be a great selection for the Action obsessed on your holiday list.

With such diverse options for the selection of PSP games this holiday season, it is possible - and enjoyable - to find the ideal PSP game choice for any PSP owner.

For some more in depth information regarding the games mentioned above check out our sister site Gamertell.

Shopping for gamers can always be a bit difficult if the shopper is not familiar with the available platform games and the specific tastes of the individual.  However, with this helpful guide, shoppers can manage to wrangle up a great holiday gift for any Xbox 360 gamer on their list, getting by knowing only the basics about the types of games the individual gift recipient enjoys.

When shopping for Xbox 360 players, it is important to look at what has happened this year (2007) with Microsoft, since this will help to determine what games are available, how sought after specific games are or have been, and what games are exclusive to the Xbox 360.

After 2 years, Microsoft has made a number of strides with the Xbox 360 console.  Not only outselling PS3 games in Japan, but also managing to make a profit for the first time, gamers of the Xbox 360 platform are likely to love game gifts this season.

Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV are some great action games that are doing well with the Xbox 360.  Not only that, but Microsoft has managed to nab exclusive rights to the latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto series.  If your gift recipient is one who appreciates tactical maneuvers or car chases and action, these are going to be some potential gifts to consider.

Other games that left Sony to partner up with the Xbox team include Ace Combat 6, Final Fantasy XI and the to-be-released games Resident Evil 5 and Devil May Cry 4.  If you are looking to purchase any of these games, it is important to be aware that the only platform they will be available on is the Xbox 360.

For some more in depth information regarding the games mentioned above check out our sister site Gamertell.

Best Buy currently has a nice offer for those looking for a video game, you can save $10 on purchases of $30 or more. This is very nice deal from Best Buy and I’m sure many will use this coupon. All you have to do is print out the online coupon and bring it with you when you go to the store. This deal is good up until November 28, so you better hurry. Also, there does not appear to be any restrictions as to what games you can buy, unfortunately it is not valid for consoles, special order, or clearance items.

Read [Best Buy] Via [Gizmodo]

The first work day after Thanksgiving has become known as Cyber Monday, (the online equivalent of Black Friday) and online retailers are ready. This year they’ll offer one day sales and special offers to rival the ones traditionally found in stores. Last year Cyber Monday web sales reached $608 million. With the price of gas skyrocketing and more and more people turning to the convenience of online shopping, retailers hope to break that mark this holiday season. According to a survey of 116 online merchants, 72% plan to offer Cyber Monday specials. For example. Timberland Co. will offer a discount code good for $25 off and free shipping, and Ebags.com will offer a 20% rebate on all purchases made via Paypal.

Read [Wall Street Journal]

It should not be any secret that Vizio makes some great TV’s with great pricing year round, now they have upped the value just a little bit with some Black Friday savings. A few of these will be Friday only sales and some are for Saturday only, either way there are some great savings.

Friday deals:

• 50-inch Vizio Plasma VP50: $999 at Costco (a $200 savings)


• 37-inch Vizio VX37L HDTV: $599 at BJ’s Wholesale (a $200 savings)


• 52-inch Vizio GV52LF 1080p LCD HDTV: $1,889 at Sam’s Club (a $300 savings)


• 42-inch Vizio GV42LF 1080p LCD HDTV: $999 at Sears (a $200 savings)

• 20-inch Vizio VX20L wide LCD HDTV: $199 at Circuit City (a $200 savings)

Circuit City has also released a bunch of information as to what they have planned for us come Black Friday regarding GPS units. We have already seen a lot of stores release their Black Friday information, so take a good look at the other stores and prepare to plan out your Friday morning shopping.

Unfortunately, Circuit City won’t be selling any uber cheap GPS units, but they will be selling two models from Garmin. The first being the Garmin StreetPilot c340 for $200, which is about $28 bucks lower than the normal retail.

The StreetPilot c340 leads the portable, affordable c300 series with text to speech capability and optional traffic alerts. Whether you choose the c340 or c330 with preloaded maps or the c320 or c310 with SD card, their intuitive touch screen operation and big displays make them easy to use.

The second model is the Garmin Nuvi 350, which is selling for $300, down from a normal retail of around $340.

Menus are well laid out and plotting a route is simple. Just enter a postcode or street name and house number, press Navigate and you’re off. Picking up satellites takes about two minutes, route calculation a few seconds and unlike similar satnavs, a text-to-speech function calls out street names.

Maps are clear in 2D and 3D, although having to go back into the menu to switch between the two is a pain. As well as the 700MB of space for MP3s, Points of Interest and the like, there’s also an SD card slot for adding extra memory.

Circuit City may not be offering the best deals on GPS’, but overall they still have some pretty nice Black Friday savings.

Via [NaviGadget]

Best Buy has released what they have in store for us in terms of their GPS deals come Black Friday. Already, there are many stores that will be having nice deals on GPS’, so it will probably be hard deciding where to go. Check out some of these articles and find out which stores you think have the best deals. Best Buy has sales on four nice GPS units.

I will begin with the Garmin Nuvi 200. It will retail for $170 as opposed to the $212 price that you can normally find it on Amazon for.

Nuvi 200 comes preloaded with City Navigator NT map data for the continental U.S., Hawaii and Puerto Rico (no Alaska or Canada detail). Simply touch the color sunlight-readable screen to enter a destination, and Nuvi takes you there with 2D or 3D maps and turn-by-turn voice directions. In addition, Nuvi 200 accepts custom points of interest (POIs) such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs.

Next up is the Garmin Nuvi 660, which will be selling for $400 big ones as opposed to normal $512. This looks to be a pretty nice deal considering its $112 lower than the normal price.

The marketing point of the new 660 is its 4.3-inch wide screen giving you lots more screen space than the older 360. You also get hands free calling that integrate Bluetooth with a microphone and a speaker to let you make hands-free calls. You can dial the number with the Nuvi’s touch screen keypad to make a call on a compatible Bluetooth phone. To answer calls, just tap Nuvi’s screen and speak directly into its built in microphone. FM TMC traffic receiver comes standard on the Nuvi 660 by which you can receive alerts about traffic jams and constructions. Nuvi 660 will detour you around the congested area. You may also find the wireless FM Audio Transmission to be useful through which you can transmit audio, voice prompts, MP3s and audio books.

This next deal, isn’t really a that much of a saving because the price of the Garmin StreetPilot C550 is $330, which is what it normally sells for on Amazon.

StreetPilot c550 comes with preloaded City Navigator NT street maps, including POI database with hotels, restaurants, fuel, ATMs and more. It even announces the name of exits and streets so you never have to take your eyes off the road. In addition, the c550 accepts custom POIs, such as school zones and safety cameras and lets you set proximity alerts to warn you of upcoming POIs. The c550 integrates Bluetooth with a built-in microphone and speaker, so you can pair it with your Bluetooth phone and talk hands-free. c550’s integrated traffic receiver notifies you of upcoming traffic delays too.

Finally, Best Buy will be selling the TomTom One LE for the very cheap price of $120.

Navigate your next road trip with this portable GPS receiver that features preloaded base maps of the United States and Canada, and 5 million points of interest that alert you to restaurants, gas stations and other attractions along the way.
Product Features

* 3.5” full-color TFT-LCD touch screen with 320 x 240 resolution displays up to 64,000 colors for easy viewing
* Preloaded base maps of the U.S. and Canada
* 1GB of built-in flash memory; built-in Secure Digital slot lets you connect a Secure Digital media card for additional storage (media not included)

* High-sensitivity 20-channel GPS with 266MHz processor and 32MB RAM for enhanced GPS performance
* Up to 48 user-programmable waypoints for easy navigation
* 5 million points of interest include restaurants, gas stations and other services and attractions along your route
* Built-in Bluetooth connection lets you access TomTom PLUS services (cell phone with Bluetooth capability required, not included)
* Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery provides up to 2 hours of power
* Includes windshield mount, adhesive mounting disk, USB cable and car DC adapter

So far, all these GPS deals for all the many stores out there are looking pretty good. It’s going to be really tough to decide which stores to go to.

Via [NaviGadget]

GPS’ are going to be hot items come Black Friday. Everyone could use a nice GPS and all these name brand GPS’ have been going straight down in pricing. We have already seen Office Max and BJ’s release what they have in store. Basically, Staples will be selling GPS’ made by Navigon, TomTom, Magellan, and Garmin.

The first GPS Staples has in store for us is the Navigon 2100T, they aren’t a very well known GPS company in the U.S. yet, but this model is selling for only a $100, and it’s not too bad either.

Navigon 2100 is built with the same design DNA of Navigon’s award-winning 7100 and 5100 devices — and offers features that aren’t available on systems at twice the price.

* easy-to-read 3.5″ screen
* 3D Reality View
* Text-to-Speech
* Intuitive touch-screen menus and stunning 2D and 3D maps

Next, is the TomTom One 3rd Edition. This is a really good GPS, and is at a very low price, only $125, compared to $130 at BJ’s. Staples will also be giving out a $20 gift certificate to those who buy this! What more could you ask for?

This entry-level GPS device is similar to the TomTom One but adds the Map Share technology and “Help Me” safety feature. Map Share allows you to make adjustments to your maps and then share the information with other drivers. You can make the changes right on your device, save them, and then upload and share them with other users via the TomTom HOME desktop companion. Help Me safety function tells you where you can find the nearest police station, hospital, or car service center, based on your current location. As a basic system, you don’t get text-to-speech functionality, but you do get the standard text- and voice-guided turn-by-turn directions as well as a 3.5-inch touch screen.

Next, is the Magellan Maestro 3100, which will be selling for $140, giving you a savings of $160. It comes with a 3.5-inch touchscreen, lots of POI’s, and Smart Detour.

Finally, Staples is also offering the Garmin Nuvi 260, which is selling for $250.

Garmin just announced a new entry level GPS navigation system called nuvi 260 that is supposed to hit the stores this month and cost only! $500. The 260 differs from the other 200 series buy only adding the text-to-speech functionality. The rest of the specs are standard with a 3.5″ touch screen, maps of North America (United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico) and six million POIs. We don’t have any info on the battery but if it just like the others you’ll be able to get 5 hours of life out of it.

Nuvi 260 also includes a built-in picture viewer, calculator, currency converter, unit converter and world clock. The SD slot for memory expansion is a good idea but this $500 navigation system does not even include a simple MP3 player!!!

All in all, it looks like a lot of these stores will be competing very hard against one another to get your business.

Via [NaviGadget]

With just 2 days until Black Friday, word on the street is the tech sector is going to reap the savings compared to other. The “but” everyone mentions is stock on hand; it is going to be sold out signs everywhere as the winter holiday season approaches. So, with that in mind, we present the deals of the day:

Stewart Bishop over at our sister site Gamertell, posts about two special DS Lites that will make their grand entrance on Black Friday:

“Two flavors will be offered to fans this holiday season, a gold special edition DS Lite with a triforce symbol on its cover and a pink special edition DS lite with a Nintendog’s pawprint on its cover.”

And speaking of games, if a Wii is on your list of “must haves”, get the word out early. Stewart cautions us that Wii supply will indeed be short:

“The popular console retails at an affordable $250 and is the top-requested game system this holiday season with a slot reserved in 32 percent of holiday wish-lists, according to a Weekly Reader Research survey of 1,000 8-to-17-year-olds. Despite the overwhelming consumer demand, however, supplies of Wiis remain scarce even a year after its release.”

Our own Robert Nelson tells us AT&T’s Blackjack II will be released Friday:

>"It now looks like we will be seeing the release this Friday, of course the release will not come with the typical Black Friday savings but its still a nice day to be available.”

Yours truly posted about AT&T droping their drawers on some fresh phones:

“What is interesting is these are not slacker phones that are about to hit the cell phone graveyard. ”

We also found some gadgets at the Shaper Image, looking pretty cheap:

>"Sharper Image shared their “door busters” with me that will be flying off the shelves from 6 am to 12 noon on Black Friday. From MP3 to GPS, there are some good deals to be had. Note the quantities are very limited”.

Natesh uncovered some sweet deals at Amazon that extend Black Friday into Thanksgiving and out to Cyber Monday:

“Amazon has followed suit with nearly every major retailer, whether it be online or brick-and-mortar and have announced what they in store for us come Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.”