Gaming peripheral maker Nyko today announced an adapter that promises to cut the cord on your existing wired Wii Nunchuks (metaphorically, of course). Not to be confused with the standalone wireless Nunchuk Nyko announced last month, the new adapter will connect to an existing wired Nunchuk, allowing it to communicate with a Wii remote up to 15 feet away (handy for people with a 15-foot wingspan!).

Don't worry about the Nunchuk cord drooping limply across your leg either -- according to the release, the adapter comes with a "self-standing Nunchuk sleeve" that has "a convenient compact cord management system keeping the existing Nunchuk cord organized and out of site [sic]."

The adapter, including two required AAA batteries, will retail for $19.99, making it $10 less than Nyko's standalone wireless Nunchuk (though the whole package is $10 more when combined with a $20 wired Nunchuk). Wire-hating gamers who already own four Nunchuks might want to look for it in February.

The whole point of backward compatibility for most PS3 owners is being able to get rid of that PS2 in the old entertainment center. Yet many PS3 owners have had to keep their PS2 units hooked up for a few reasons, namely:

1. Support for our old memory card saves.
2. Support for rumbling controllers.
3. Support for the Guitar Hero controller.
   

The first problem is solved by an official Sony adapter which you can buy for $15, use once, and then throw away, we suppose. The second problem is solved by the recent firmware update 1.7, which added rumble support for old controllers hooked up via any number of USB to PlayStation controller adapters. Yet the third and most important problem remained -- if you want to play Guitar Hero, you need to keep a PS2 handy. Pelican's new controller adapter promises to fix this final problem, but the execution is less than perfect.

Our BFF, Engadget, got a tip about an upcoming component to HDMI cable for the non-elite 360, and we're left shrugging our shoulders. Such adapters already exist at a steep cost; you plug component and audio cables in one end, and a single HDMI cable feeds out the other.

That's cool if you're down with OCD, but for the rest of us, why bother? One feature of HDMI is to run a digital signal for audio and video over a single cable. Connecting each audio and component feed into an analog-to-digital converter negates that one-cable, digital-only benefit.

Another "feature" of HDMI is its support for HDCP, and these adapters can't handle that copy-protected signal. What that means is someday, when a studio executive pushes a red button to turn on an Image Constraint Token for new movies, an HD-DVD enabled 360 will down-scale HD movies to DVD-quality; full quality in that future scenario will require a direct HDCP connection between a device and a TV. And some of our fancy HDTVs don't even support HDCP. Thank you, piracy panic.

Maybe Microsoft is preparing an HDMI cable to interface with the original 360's video-output port. Even then, the interface change won't impact games; it's only a convenience and movie issue.

Note that pictured adapter includes component to VGA cable.

Our lovably biased cousins at Xbox 360 Fanboy tried the XFPS keyboard-and-mouse adapter in a few Xbox 360 games. The verdict: the $80 device works well as a PS2 gamepad adapter, but its keyboard-and-mouse input played worse than a standard Xbox controller. The review reminds us that Xbox games were designed for the Xbox controller -- simple enough, but something we began to forget while hoping for a PC-like experience -- so a game like Gears of War just doesn't map properly.

For other games, like Halo 2, apparently the adapter is glitchy; key presses lag, and the mouse control isn't as good as a PC. Games that offer many analog sensitivity options work best, but the XFPS is far from a universal solution.

At least we'll always be able to use the XFPS as an excuse. Even with this mediocre review, we can claim that opponents with mouse control are the cause of our frequent Xbox Live losses.

Today's most-watched YouTube game video showcases the XFPS adapter on the Xbox 360. This dongle lets you use USB or PS/2 mice and keyboards to control Xbox 360 games. (It also works with a PS2 controller, but we don't see the draw to use that gamepad over the standard Xbox 360 controller.) Many of us never made the jump to first-person shooters with a gamepad; console controls feel so clunky compared to gaming on a PC. So we play most of our FPS titles on computers, but maybe this will give us better control in Xbox exclusives.

The XFPS is scheduled to be released in January for about $80. See the video after the break.

See also: XFPS lets you use keyboard/mouse on the Xbox 360

At $79.99, TeamXtender's XFPS 360, a keyboard and mouse adapter that also sports a PlayStation 2 device port, is no impulse buy. But, aside from being an obvious investment for PC-trained gamers, XFPS 360 promises some bizarre possibilities by way of its PS2 port. Never mind that wielding your Dual Shock 2 to rip apart the Locust is so inappropriately rad, dude, try pluggin' in your (Guitar Hero) guitar and thrashing RAAM to death!

The XFPS 360 is scheduled to ship in early January via Video Game Advantage (official retailer of TeamXtender products).

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Purists may find solace with RetroZone's forthcoming NES and SNES controller adapters for Wii's Virtual Console, but others will do just fine with the all-purpose Classic Controller. Before you go digging around for your old gamepads, consider that each adapter costs $19 (plus $6 S&H per order), roughly equaling the cost of Nintendo's Classic Controller, which offers greater compatibility and semi-wireless freedom.

RetroZone will begin shipping the NES adapter in January, followed by the SNES adapter shortly thereafter. Both devices connect via Wii's GameCube controller ports.

[Via Engadget]

Wired's Game|Life scored a rare PlayStation 3 memory card adapter (for PS1 and PS2 game saves) and found the subsequent transfer process to be "kludgy" -- the adapter gets the job done, but clumsily.

Game|Life faults the device for its rather steep price ($14.99), given that the adapter could very well be used only once (if you possess just a single memory card). But even if you've amassed a collection of cards, you'll be frustrated by the adapter's insistence upon creating a new "Virtual Memory Card" directory on the PS3's hard drive for each card. That is, the system is not intuitive enough to combine and separate your PS1 and PS2 saves into two, easy to navigate categories. In addition, the entire contents of a card must first be copied to the HDD, and then users can single out specific game saves for permanent storage or deletion. Sounds like there's a new PS3 annoyance to add to the list...

Despite the popularity of online-enabled console FPSs like Halo 2, some people have never been able to effectively make the jump from keyboard and mouse to gamepad; whatever 1337 skillz they once had are rendered inert in the smooth, ergonomic grips of a gamepad. 360 modders, XCM, recently unveiled the XFPS 360 adapter to connect either a USB or PS/2 mouse and keyboard to the Xbox 360 console. Just to make things confusing, the device also supports a PS2 (as in PlayStation 2) gamepad although we're not sure why anyone would want to substitute one gamepad for another. We'll just consider that a value-add. The device isn't available yet, so interested parties should keep an eye on XCM's site. But before you go plunking down your paycheck, we'd be wary that Microsoft will try to detect -- and disable -- devices like the XFPS in an effort to maintain a balanced playing field.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]