Stadium Events strikes again!

Some of you may be aware that an auction on eBay several weeks ago saw an old NES bundled with some random games sell for a staggering $13,105 USD (approx. £8,744 GBP). That's because one of the games was a copy of Stadium Events; a track and field sports title from Bandai. What's so special about Stadium Events, you may ask? Released across Japan, North America, and Europe between 1986 and 1988 it was one of the first titles that utilised The Family Fun Fitness mat as the primary control method. Production copies were limited before Nintendo stepped in and bought the American rights, renaming it World Class Track Meet and bundling it with the Power Pad, which makes the pre-rebranded game one of the rarest across all platforms. A few days ago, a new listing has sold for over three times the amount compared to the previous auction. Yep, it was Stadium Events again. The auction only lasted 10 days but that was more than enough to gather the attention of collectors. The seller had listed the item with a start price of $0.99 USD but amazingly, it took just twenty three minutes for the bids to reach four-figure numbers. Eight hours into the auction and the bids had reached five-figure numbers. When the auction ended last week, the bid that won the item was a massive $41,300 USD (approx. £27,545 GBP). What makes this an even bigger seller than the console bundle has undoubtedly got to be the fact that it's still factory-sealed and relatively "new".

Source: http://retro.nintendolife.com/news/2010/03/rare_nes_game_sells_for_usd41300_on_ebay

Sony warns PS3 console users of ‘bug’

Sony on Monday warned millions of PlayStation 3 owners not to use their consoles as it struggled to fix a major software bug. The electronics group said owners of the latest “slim” versions of the PS3 did not appear to be affected by the problem, which has crashed and frozen older consoles. It remained unclear how many consoles were affected but Sony, which has sold more than 25m units of the older consoles, said it hoped to resolve the problem within 24 hours. “If you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data,” it said in a blog note. The bug is the most serious reported for the PS3, which has had a good reliability record compared to the rival Xbox 360 made by Microsoft. The PlayStation 3 is at the forefront of Sony’s online consumer electronics strategy, helping to drive sales of films and games from its PlayStation Store. The console is also central to promoting its Blu-ray standard, the successor to the DVD.

Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7af39246-2562-11df-9cdb-00144feab49a.html