Exclusive distributor of Nintendo in South Africa, The Core Group says that the Nintendo DSi XL portable gaming console will be available locally by the end of April.

The DSi XL has two 4.2″ screens that are 93% bigger than the screen on the Nintendo DS Lite. It also has a larger pen-like stylus whereas most of the DS Lite left you feeling fat-fingered as it was clearly developed with 5-year-olds in mind.

Core says it will launch the DSi XL in two colours – wine red and dark brown, with a glossy sheen on top and matt finish on the underside for gripping onto tables and other surfaces.

The new console also comes pre-loaded with two Nintendo DSiWare software titles – Dr Kawashima’s: Little Bit of Brain Training: Arts Edition and Dictionary 6 in 1, as well as the Nintendo DSi Browser.

The DSi XL also has a camera that can be used for video chatting and putting your mug into games, amongst other things.

Core has not confirmed pricing yet.

The Playstation Move is a new motion controller for the PS3 that Sony has developed to rival the Nintendo Wii controller and Microsoft’s controller-less Project Natal system for the Xbox 360. The Move has been ridiculed by some for the way it looks, but Sony’s first ad for the product turns the silly onto Nintendo and Microsoft with subtle mockery of Sony’s rivals. That said, the gameplay demonstrations in the ad look awesome – although I really prefer to be flat on my back on the couch when playing console games, so they whole… movement… is lost on me.

It’s official – video game company Valve announced today that its Steam gaming service is coming to the Mac, along with a native version of gaming engine Source that will bring with it popular titles such as the Half Life series, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2.

Most important is the fact that Valve is not using emulation to make this all happen, as some suspected it would. Emulation would see the original versions of the games being played on the Mac in a spoofed Windows environment. Instead the developer has created a native version of its gaming engine – built for OS X. (more…)

iBurst has made many gamers’ dreams come true with its introduction of a service that provides uncapped ADSL bandwidth for gaming traffic, levied at R99 per month. There is a catch, however – you have to play on iBurst’s servers.

The service is called iGame Unlimited and is being offered as part of iBurst’s iDSL service that is being launched this month and offers ADSL bandwidth from R49 per gigabyte. If you have an iDSL account with iGame Unlimited bolted on then any gaming traffic isolated to the iBurst network and servers will not be deducted from your quota.

iBurst says it already has servers running for Left 4 Dead 2, Call of Duty 4 and a range of other games and will take its lead from subscribers when deciding on what servers to add. A list of servers currently online can be found over here. iBurst also claims to be in talks with Activision and Blizzard to get a local World of Warcraft server on the network.

It is uncertain as to whether the service will be extended to console gamers – iGame Unlimited is currently limited to PC games.

iBurst has also launched a community site called iGame Online where its community of subscribers can interact.