EA's chief operating officer says that packaged goods are going to be part of the games business for a while to come.

EA may see its future in free-to-play PC games but it doesn’t foresee the end of physical games in the immediate future. In fact, despite years of decline in video game retail, EA expects that the impending release of the Xbox 720, PlayStation 4, and even Wii U will revitalize the ailing business of selling games in a store.

The company’s digital revenues grew to $1 billion last fiscal year and it expects that to increase to nearly $2 billion before this year ends. Physical disc sales are still going to pull in the bulk of its revenue though.

“The tipping point will come,” EA chief operating officer Peter Moore told MCV, “But it’s not that packaged is going away, it’s that digital is going up. Let’s not misunderstand this. Our forecast the year is to also do $2.6 billion in packaged goods. So there will be a £40 console game (the UK equivalent of a $60 game in the US), but there will be an iPhone experience and a PC experience too. There is always an opportunity for a Battlefield or a FIFA.”

He’s right. After all, people are actually still buying music CDs and DVDs. The all-digital future is coming, but it won’t be here even in the next five years. What Moore doesn’t address though is how there will be fewer and fewer retail games. Battlefield and FIFA, games that will sell millions of copies, will be available as discs, but will Persona 4 Arena, something that will only sell in the hundred of thousands? Not a chance.

Charles Cecil's much-loved 2D mystery series Broken Sword is back with The Serpent's Curse.

Back in June, we reported that Britain’s Revolution Software and adventure gaming auteur Charles Cecil were gearing up to make a new game in their Broken Sword series. Turns out those rumors were true: Revolution opened a Kickstarter campaign on Thursday raising funds for the development of Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse, the first entry in the series since 2006’s Broken Sword: The Angel of Death.

Unlike Angel of Death, Broken Sword 5 will return to the rich 2D animation of the earlier games in the series. Artists that have worked with Nickelodeon, Disney, Dreamworks, Sony and others are going to provide the visuals for Broken Sword’s first original HD outing. Veteran voice actors, including Rolf Saxon who voices lead George, will return for the new game.

Speaking of George, he and his constant companion Nico are once again caught up in a Parisian mystery in Serpent’s Curse. It all starts with a stolen painting but the adventure becomes a “race against time as dark forces from Europe’s turbulent past are woken from their slumber.” Sounds like Templar trouble to me.

Like Brian Fargo’s InXile Entertainment and its new RPG Wasteland 2, Revolution turned to Kickstarter due to trouble finding adequate funding in the traditional video game publishing world. Unlike InXile though, the issue hasn’t been finding publishers willing to pay for the game, but finding publishers willing to share the profits. “Revolution adventures have had considerable success—but the traditional publishing model has prevented us receiving the required royalties to fund future games. With limited financial reserves we have been unable to fund our own titles and so we have not benefitted from their success.”

Revolution is aiming to raise $400,000. As of this writing, the campaign hasn’t been open for 24 hours and it’s already raised nearly $110,000.

Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse is just the latest point-and-click adventure success story on Kickstarter. Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit Larry rebirth raised $650,000 in April. Gabriel Knight creator Jane Jensen raised $435,000 in May, funding three games including Moebius in the process.

It’s great to see Broken Sword back in action, especially hand animated rather than as a polygonal game like Angel of Death. Something from Revolution’s world is lost when rendered in the third-dimension.

Pandora brings a much-needed update to its Android app. We go hands on to take a look at what has changed in the streaming music service's redesign.

The folks at Pandora have always been rather fond of their Android audience. As they should be. Since releasing its first mobile apps in 2009, Pandora has seen a 1,585 percent increase in its mobile audience. Despite this huge increase in on-the-go audience, the Pandora Android app has gone relatively unchanged. Today, Pandora makes amends with an update that brings a complete redesign.

While the mobile market has been good to Pandora in terms of users — it has 50-100 million Android users alone —  the streaming radio service’s apps have left a lot to be desired. Because the Android user base is so fragmented, it’s hard to create an app that works on every device. The revamped version of Pandora adheres to the new style guidelines for Android apps set by Google, which ideally will optimize its functionality and accessibility across the Android market.

The app sports a new blue and white skin that makes it far more aesthetically pleasing. One thing that is oddly unchanged is the widget, which still uses the same black and white color scheme as the old app. The button layout also remains the same on the widget. It could have just been passed over in the process, but considering the actual function of the widget didn’t change, it’s kind of surprising Pandora didn’t slap a new coat of paint on it. Nonetheless, it functions how you’d expect and looks just fine as it is.

More important than the color pallet (unless you’re worried about having your music app make your eyes or something) is the in-app navigation, which also got touched upon in the redesign. While the standard playback buttons are in the same place, the controls for other options like buying or bookmarking a  track have been moved to a drop down menu. This is an improvement over hiding them on the Menu button, though tapping the Menu button will reveal their new location as well.

If you’re looking to learn more about the song that is currently playing, you’ll no longer have to aim to hit the tiny information button. Instead, a sizable button that shrinks and expands the album art reveals details about the artist and the song. Both are presented as snippets and you can choose what you’d like to read more about. Track information details why Pandora selected songs for your station as well as similar songs. When available, song lyrics also appear. Artist information includes a full biography, discography, and similar artists.

The Pandora for Android app revamp doesn’t feel so much like a total renovation as much as it does slight remodel. It’s not a new house for Android users, but it’s a new coat of paint and some shifted furniture. It’s noticeable enough and it improves the overall functionality of the product, but don’t expect a lot of new functionality. There are already millions of Pandora users that are listening to streaming music on their commutes or in their cubicles. Odds are, this isn’t going to scare any of them away. You can download the update from the Google Play store and give it a shot yourself.

We chat with Ron Gilbert on the pre-Maniac Mansion beginnings of Sega and Double Fine's The Cave.

Early next year, Sega will release The Cave from Double Fine, a unique adventure game cooked up by none other than Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert. When I sat down to take my first look at the game for Digital Trends a couple of months ago, I was surprised to learn from producer Matt Hickman that Gilbert’s original concept for The Cave predates even Maniac Mansion.

Intrigued, I put out a call to Sega via carrier pigeon (or possibly email) begging for a few minutes of Gilbert’s time on the phone. The request was accepted and Gilbert graciously took some time out of his schedule last week to chat about the birth of The Cave, all the way back in the days of hair metal and slap bracelets.

“Essentially, the idea that I had was these three characters that go in and explore this odd, sentient cave,” Gilbert said. “It was an idea that I was playing around with probably about a year before I got the job at Lucasfilm [in 1984]. I had done a bunch of a design and I had drawn all of these big maps and whatnot, and then it kind of went away.”

It’s impossible to really trace what the original inspiration behind The Cave was, but Gilbert admits to being heavily influenced by the text adventure game Adventure and the more rudimentary game that it was spawned from, Colossal Cave Adventure. A title that is typically pegged as the very first adventure game.

“There’s a lot of influence from Adventure,” Gilbert admitted. “Adventure, for me, was the first adventure game I ever played. I played it on the college mainframe computer with all of my friends. So that was a huge influence, and Colossal Cave also. Those were huge influences for me in adventure games. So I think when I was putting together The Cave just recently, going back and looking at Colossal Cave Adventure, I always liked the purity of that. You were just going into this cave.”

The original idea for The Cave was eventually backburnered for one reason or another, becoming one of those pet projects that continued to percolate in Gilbert’s mind. The appeal of telling this story about three characters exploring a sentient cave never went away. The character count is now seven under the Double Fine/Sega banner, but players will still be locked at choosing three to explore with when the game opens.

The character selection feels like a direct echo of Gilbert’s work on creating Maniac Mansion‘s beloved cast of player-selected characters — three are chosen at the start of that game as well — and that’s very much the intention. The original plan called for three, but Gilbert cites the classic Lucasfilm Games (later, LucasArts) adventure as a factor in helping to shape the current vision of The Cave.

“That was something I really liked about Maniac Mansion, that you started out the game and you got to choose from this group of people. I always like that when I talk to people who really played and liked Maniac Mansion, it seems that everybody always has their favorites. They have their dream team that they like to go into Maniac Mansion with,” Gilbert said.

“It was an unintended consequence, but it was something I liked. So when it came to really fleshing out The Cave, I really wanted to do that again rather than having these three set characters go into it, like it was originally planned 25 years ago.”

As much as the character selection is an essential part of the game, the star character is meant to be that titular cave. It’s the only speaking role in the entire game, and as a result it’s the character that players will form the closest bond with as they play. This facet of the game is actually formed by one of Gilbert’s core attitudes toward adventure games.

“Adventure games for me have always worked well when they take place in constrained environments,” he explained. “When adventure games allow you to roam the world, they kind of start to fall apart a little bit, but [it works best] when you can get them into these constrained environments. The main character of an adventure game, to me, is the world. For Maniac Mansion, the main character in that game is that house. For The Cave, the main character really is that cave.”

Now, after nearly 30 years of living and transforming inside Gilbert’s brain, The Cave will finally be dug out for players to enjoy. Thank his relationship with Tim Schafer and Double Fine, a studio known for delivering some of the most inventive interpretations of the adventure game genre that there are.

“A year and a half ago I was hanging out with Tim and we were talking about games and stuff, and I mentioned this idea that I had had for this cave,” Gilbert said. “He was really intrigued by it and wanted to know if I just wanted to come to Double Fine and let Double Fine make the game. I thought that sounded like a great idea, so here we are.”

It's a mark of a good game when its rules translate from a modern epic like Borderlands 2 to a 16-bit style throwback like The Border Lands.

Gears of War sucks. Not as a game, those games are great, but as a cultural force. Cover has ruined video game shooting. Who wants to hide behind a corner and trade shots with someone crouched behind rubble like they’re in reality or something? Video game shooting used to be about playing the angles. In Quake and Unreal, it was about circling opponents in erratic orbits, lining up perfect aim. Even further back, with your Contra and your Smash TV, it was even more rigid, locking your shots into eight directions only. Modern shooters could learn a lot from ye olde school.

Good on Gearbox then! In hyping up September’s Borderlands 2, Gearbox has taken a page out of the Dark Void playbook and made a “lost” 1989 prequel, The Border Lands. Axton, Maya, Zero, and Salvador aren’t new characters at all! They’re just the stars of the old game, brought back for 2012.

The Border Lands isn’t as taut a game of angles as Smash TV, but the principal is the same. Each stage is a contained square with obstacles dotted about. Enemies slowly pour in dropping new gear as you fell them, and you gain levels upping your health. Sounds familiar, yes? The secret to success is placing the obstacles between you and the enemies to slow their approach.

Wait a minute.

Damnation! Even as Borderlands is brought back to the 16-bit era of game design, cover-based shooting rears its ugly, conveniently placed blocks in our path!

Joking aside, it’s an interesting exercise to see Borderlands rules boiled down to their most basic and find that they are, for the most part, just as fun on the small scale as the are writ large. The Border Lands is illuminating—Shooting bad guys and receiving a rare reward is as interesting as having a massive inventory of superpowers and guns. Being in a cramped little box instead of a living, diverse planet like Pandora doesn’t diminish the good time.

So what do all the modern amenities in proper Borderlands 2 really give the player? Is the environment its own reward? Does the OCD-inducing loot collection make the shooting and strategy richer?

Not really. Borderlands 2 does have co-op though. There’s the kicker.

On September 5^th Nokia and Microsoft will unveil two new Windows Phone 8 devices at a special event. The working names for the two phones are the “Arrow” and the “Phi”.

What all do we know about them so far? Not a whole lot, other than they are part of Nokia’s Lumia range. The Phi is expected to hit AT&T, while the Arrow will be a mid-range device for both AT&T and T-Mobile.

A third handset that is essentially the exact same thing as the Arrow is also said to exist, under the name Atlas . What makes this one different? It’s being rebranded for Verizon, or so the rumors claim. This is good new for MS fans that have Verizon as a carrier, since the carrier hasn’t had a Windows Phone device supported for over a year now.

What can we expect with Windows Phone 8? For one thing, the newest version is shedding the old Mobile core and becoming more like Windows 7 and 8 with a NT core. This means better cross-compatibility between Windows 8 apps and Windows Phone 8 apps for starter. Other improvements include better Skype integration, and a heck of a lot more.

Nokia represents some of the best Windows phones out there, and their WP8 offerings are likely to be no different. Are you looking forward to Windows Phone 8 and the newest WP8 Nokia devices?

Wondering who shipped the most handsets in the second quarter of 2012? ABI research reveals the top 11 players.

There aren’t many surprises when it comes to analyzing the top 11 manufacturers in the worldwide mobile handset industry in the second quarter of 2012. All the top brands you would expect to see are present and correct. The top three will surprise no one – Samsung, Nokia, and Apple (in that order). Of course, this analysis from ABI Research analyst, Michael Morgan, covers every handset shipped, not just smartphones.

Samsung accounted for 26 percent, Nokia shipped 23.1 percent, Apple 7.2 percent, ZTE 5.4 percent, and LG 3.6 percent. You can see the full run down on Fierce Wireless, which has detailed sales figures. Keep in mind, these are shipments rather than sales, but it still gives you a good idea of the top players.

Morgan runs through an analysis for each manufacturer on the list. We’ll give you the condensed highlights. Samsung is doing very well, with over 50 million smartphones shipped. Nokia shipped a roughly even split of Symbian and Windows Phone devices, but WP8 is liable to have a detrimental impact on sales of those WP7 devices. Apple’s iPhone sales slowed, but with the iPhone 5 just around the corner, we can expect a major spike for them soon.

ZTE made it into the top five for the first time ever. Huawei is another rising star from China, along with TCL (Alcatel). Things don’t look so great for LG, RIM, or Motorola, as they all showed a decline from the first quarter of 2012. Sony Mobile and HTC showed a slight improvement over their first quarter results.

With plenty of new releases on the horizon, we can expect the rest of the year to be an interesting battle. Can Apple catch Samsung? Probably not. Can Motorola turn things around with a new line-up? Maybe. Will Nokia’s new WP8 line make up for the WP7 smartphones already shipped? We’ll have to wait and see.

(Image via Fierce Wireless)

Black Isle Studios, creator of Fallout and Planescape: Torment, is back according to Interplay. What do key creatives from that studio say?

Sometimes a reunion tour is magic. Post-punk band Mission of Burma started playing shows 20 years after its dissolution in the early-‘80s last decade and turned out to be better songwriters than they used to be. Amazing. Then there’s the Smashing Pumpkins, a grisly, hollow imitation of the band fronted by a flailing Billy Corgan and staffed by college kids.

Interplay says it’s reuniting the legendary RPG studio Black Isle Studios. Which reunion will it be?

Interplay is the saddest zombie in the video game business. Nearly 30 years ago, founded by InXile Entertainment’s Brian Fargo, it was a standard bearer for creative video game production. It transformed electronic role-playing and action games alike with early BioWare works like MDK and Baldur’s Gate, it pushed comedy in unexpected genres with brawlers like Clayfighter and Earthworm Jim. A decade back though, Interplay started to disintegrate. It was delisted from the NASDAQ exchange.

Its only presence in the industry was as a corporate interest trying to hold onto lucrative IP. Its unofficial death came in 2003 with the closure of Black Isle Studios, its core development house behind Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, and Fallout. A version of Interplay exists today, but it’s a groaning automaton, belching back out digital re-releases and failing to fund new projects.

On Wednesday, Interplay suddenly opened a website as well as Facebook and Twitter pages for Black Isle Studios. “Our goal has always been to make the world’s best RPGs. Black Isle Studios is back,” reads the site.

Don’t start getting too pumped up, Planescape fans. This is no Mission of Burma reunion. Brian Fargo said via Twitter, “I just read that Interplay is bringing back Black Isle. Hmmm… Not enough info for me to comment.”

Fargo’s a busy man though, working hard on his own reunion show with Wasteland 2. It’s understandable if he’s not in the loop. What about Obsidian Entertainment though, the studio behind RPGs like Fallout: New Vegas staffed by Black Isle Studios icons like Chris Avellone?

“Doesn’t involve Obsidian at all,” Avellone told Eurogamer, “No idea what it’s about. I wasn’t aware anything beyond the name was left at Interplay.”

This new Black Isle Studios seems about as substantial as the supposed Fallout MMO Interplay was making last decade as it fought to keep the rights to the series out of Bethesda’s hands.

As the driving force behind Resident Evil 6, Eiichiro Sasaki has had a hand in everything from the unusually rigorous, Alien-inspired game scripting to how it relates to the franchise movies.

The director behind Capcom’s epic new Resident Evil 6 game was at Gamescom 2012 to discuss the huge sequel. The game offers players four unique interactive stories, three of which will allow cooperative gameplay. With a new Resident Evil: Retribution movie opening just before Capcom releases the game, and a straight-to-home video computer-generated sequel, Resident Evil: Damnation, coming out as well, this fall will be dominated by all variations of Capcom’s zombie franchise. Resident Evil 6 director Eiichiro Sasaki talks about the virtual and linear sequels in this exclusive interview.

What were some of the cinematic influences for Resident Evil 6?

There were a lot of cinematic influences in Resident Evil 6, but the most specific one I can point to is for Chris’ campaign. The real influence for that comes from the movie Aliens. If you think about that movie, you have this group of people who trained really hard and they start from a position of confidence and security, but as they get more and more involved in the situation it gets worse and worse and members of their team get picked off one by one. Well, the same thing happens to Chris. And as the situation progresses for him, things get worse and worse, until in the end it’s just him and Piers that are left to fight the menace that faces them. I think this type of experience, this kind of terror that you feel from seeing teammates fall one by one, is something that you can only feel from playing Chris’ campaign.

What are the challenges of developing four unique storylines within the overarching Resident Evil 6?

The biggest challenge for us is trying to make them all feel unique. We want to make sure that they all felt like a different campaign when you’re playing them. We have Leon’s campaign, which has more of that classic Resident Evil gothic horror feel; Chris’ campaign, which I already spoke of; Jake’s campaign, where you’re going to feel this tension because you’re always being chased by this creature that won’t stop stalking you; and the fourth campaign is Ada’s campaign, which you can play after you complete the other three campaigns. Hers is a little different because it’s a single-player experience that is more reminiscent of the original Resident Evil games. Because she’s a spy, you’re going to have to use some stealth moves to get in and infiltrate certain areas. She’s a woman of mystery and there’s just a different atmosphere that surrounds her campaign compared to what is in the other three.

Have there been any influences on you from what they’ve done with the Resident Evil movies that have impacted Resident Evil 6?

They’re great movies and Paul Anderson has done a great job as director of those films. It really shows that he’s a big fan of the series. I think more than us taking cues from him, he’s done a lot to actually incorporate a lot of elements from the games themselves into the movies. He’s taking more from us than vice versa.

Have you been able to go to any of his sets for the films and if so what’s that been like?

I really want to go so badly, but unfortunately I just have not been able to get there. But the executive producer of RE6, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, has been able to attend and he has been impressed with what they’re doing.

What’s it like having your Resident Evil characters like Ada Wong and Chris Redfield starring in Resident Evil: Retribution?

It speaks to the power of the franchise that what we’ve created in the games that they can be exploited in so many different ways. We’re trying to tell our own unique stories with Resident Evil 6 and Hollywood is trying to tell its own Resident Evil stories. I mean Resident Evil can be done in books, movies, games, whatever. It really is a multi-purpose franchise. It’s interesting to see how they overlap in many ways, but I would prefer that each medium does something unique to that medium. I want the Hollywood movies to take where they think Resident Evil should go in their direction. And I want the games to do with Resident Evil what they do best and make sure that they’re offering the best gaming Resident Evil experience out there. It’s really great that you can see Resident Evil take shape in so many forms.

With so many characters to deal with in Resident Evil 6, what role did the voice actors play in bringing these characters to life?

They really brought the characters to life. One of the ways we were able to do this was through full performance capture. This wasn’t the case for all of the actors, but many of the motion-capture actors and the voice actors were the same person, so they really brought the character to life. They really became that character during the course of the creation of the game. Another thing we did differently is that usually with games you write a script and pass it to the actors and they read it and perform it. It’s normally a very quick process. But we wanted the actors to be more involved, so from the very beginning when we selected the actors for this project we had meetings with them. The game’s scriptwriter and I sat down with the actors and really tried to come up with a direction for these characters to take. We tried to really create realistic, three-dimensional characters. I really think that’s the way we want to do it in the future to get the most out of these performances. Voice acting is a critical part of the game’s production and you can’t just treat it as an afterthought.

For the first time in 25 years, Microsoft has updated its corporate logo. If you hadn't guessed, it now looks a lot like Windows 8.

Microsoft has been inventing new products for decades, but today marks the first time it’s changed its corporate logo in 25 years. As a nod to the new style of Windows 8, and an admission that tiles really are everything to Microsoft right now, the company’s new logo has a completely square version of the classic Windows symbol included on it, complete with the red, green, blue, and  yellow squares. In addition to the Windows symbol, the Microsoft wording is now in a simpler, more Windows 8-style font as well and is now colored gray instead of black. If you take a trip to Microsoft.com, you’ll already see the new logo in use. 

Though the Windows operating system has always had a symbol similar to this, albeit not as modern, this is the first time Microsoft has put the Windows symbol on its corporate logo. The change shows how deeply Microsoft is committed to its new strategy. Nearly every product, from Azure to Zune, has been reworked and altered to fit in with Windows 8. Even the Xbox, once a completely separate brand, now has an interface with Live Tiles (or should we call them window panes?) covering it.

We won’t know whether or not Windows 8 is a smart move for Microsoft for some time, but it is interesting to see how boldly the software giant is pushing its new design style. Microsoft claims that the new logo will be used “prominently,” going forward. Expect to see old Microsoft logos disappearing around the world as the great purging and re-invention of the Microsoft logo begins. If you get nostalgic though, you can always search Google  Bing for old Microsoft logos!

Yes, it’s true that T-Mobile already has a $50 plan that gives you unlimited talk and text, but the “ unlimited data” part of that equation downgrades from high-speed to 2G after you hit the 2GB cap. Given our need for high-speed wireless data all the time, that just won’t do and T-Mobile is finally changing its tune.

Starting on September 5, T-Mobile USA will offer a truly unlimited data option where you get to stick with the company’s 4G speeds regardless of how much data you consume. Go ahead and stream that Internet radio and watch YouTube clips to your heart’s desire. This truly unlimited data option rivals what MetroPCS announced just yesterday. Keep in mind that both Verizon and AT&T cap their data, so that leaves Sprint as the only other major carrier to have unlimited data.

To get unthrottled unlimited data with T-Mobile, you’ll need to tack on an additional $20 fee on top of the existing $49.99 unlimited plan. That brings you up to $69.99, which is still cheaper than the totally unlimited plan from Sprint. Now if only T-Mobile could figure out a way to get the iPhone 5 as part of its lineup…

Qualcomm has announced an upcoming partnership with LG involving the use of the Snapdragon S4 quad-core processor. At the moment, LG is keeping quite about its part in the the development, but rumors already have leaked about a phone that more than likely is going to be the fruits of this partnership.

While most of LG’s Optimus line is low-to-mid range quality devices, the Optimus G is a bit of a powerhouse and looks to be LG’s attempts at going after the high-end market in a big way. What all is aboard the Optimus G, if we believe the rumors? Besides a quad-core processor, the phone is said to have 2GB of RAM, a 13MP camera and a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display. The G is also said to utilize 4G LTE technology.

As you can see, it looks to be a monster, especially compared with many of LG’s other devices. LG is know for quality products, but generally has targeted more modest specs on its devices. Could this be the beginning of a bigger shift for the company’s handsets? I personally am quite curious to see how this one turns out, what about you?

Bitcoin is about to enter the physical real world now that startup BitInstant aims to create a debit card system based on the BTC currency.

You may remember hearing about the P2P puesdo-currency Bitcoin: a virtual monetary system that allows users to pay anonymously, bypass bank regulations, and avoid transfer and withdrawal fees. Last year, Bitcoin experienced quite a crash and security breach that made the currency nearly worthless – dropping from the exchange rate of $17 to merely a few pennies. Bitcoin has surprisingly got itself back together in the past months, and now a New York City-based startup wants to normalize its use again by introducing a Bitcoin debit card system.

Known as BitInstant, this Bitcoin debit card would act like your average prepaid card that you can use to make every day purchases, withdraw money, or transfer amounts to friends and merchants. The card hold a maximum of $1,000 in Bitcoin credit (BTC) limit, and would contain QR codes in the front that are scannable by a BitInstant app to link users directly to their accounts. 

“You’re at dinner with a friend? Forget PayPal, just scan his or your card with your Bitcoin app,” BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem explains to Ars Technica. This process bypasses transfer fees if friends do not bank with the same company though users are allowed to keep each money transfer as BTU or convert them into US dollars, in which case a conversion fee would be charged.

So why would anyone use a Bitcoin debit card in place of actual prepaid cards in the first place? For one, BitInstant would attract those who’ve actually had successes at mining Bitcoin. Since the e-currency is in its own entire realm, advanced Bitcoiners can run complex softwares to generate BTC and BitInstant would allow these users to spend their hard-earned Bitcoins in real life, anywhere they want. The transfer would also be as instant as handing someone cash, meaning transactions can take place between any two users in the world without waiting for third-party middlemen to process the transfer.

Still, the entire concept of BitInstant cards seem ironic, to say the least. The point of Bitcoin is to provide anonymity and leave banks out of the money transfer equation, yet introducing a bank-issued Bitcoin card would bring both issues back to the forefront. We can’t imagine that a bank would issue a BitInstant card without so much as providing a trackable feature on the card, ruining the whole anonymous transaction feature Bitcoin had going for it. Even if BitInstant and the banks that issued the cards cannot publicly release transfer history made on the card, we’re pretty sure one can get a hold of that information if a user can acquire a police warrant to make banks give them that data.

But hey, if the whole futuristic e-currency idea seems fancy to you, by all means, preorder your Bitcoin debit card with BitInstant and its public Google Doc signup sheet.

(Photo mockup of Bitcoin debit card by Ars Technica.)

T-Mobile and MetroPCS have joined Sprint in offering truly unlimited data plans: no data caps in sight. Should AT&T and Verizon customers disgruntled by rate changes make the jump? Maybe, but make sure to read the fine print.

T-Mobile has always offered “unlimited” mobile data service, but it came with an asterisk and a flurry of fine print at the bottom of contract agreements. Users could use all the data they wanted, but once they exceeded a monthly threshold for their plan — usually 2GB or 5GB a month — T-Mobile would throttle performance down to about 128Kbps. That’s enough to check email or post a quick status update, but forget uploading a bunch of photos, watching video, or even streaming music.

Now, T-Mobile has announced it will offer truly unlimited data plans: All the data you can use, no throttling, for a fixed fee of $20 to $30 per month on top of a traditional voice plan. The rates will be available beginning September 5. The move comes one day after regional carrier MetroPCS announced its own unlimited 4G LTE data plan starting at just $40 a month — although that’s just a promotional rate, so there’s no telling how long MetroPCS will keep it on the table.

Are the plans a good deal? And are they enough to keep mobile consumers interested in T-Mobile and MetroPCS as the companies struggle to compete with behemoths like AT&T and Verizon Wireless? After all, T-Mobile and MetroPCS have one thing in common when it comes to attracting (and retaining) customers: neither offers the iPhone.

T-Mobile’s unlimited plan

T-Mobile’s new unlimited data plan will be available starting September 5 as a $20 add-on to a Value voice-and-text plan, or a $30 add-on to a Classic voice-and-text plan. That brings the cost of a single line Value plan with unlimited nationwide data to a total cost of $69.99 per month (excluding taxes and fees), while a single line Classic plan with unlimited data will cost $89.99 a month — again, omitting taxes and fees. The unlimited data plan is not available separately or with any of T-Mobile’s other options, including pre-paid service.

While T-Mobile has made a point to include no throttling, that isn’t to say T-Mobile’s unlimited data plan is now asterisk-free. Although T-Mobile calls the service its Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan, T-Mobile’s variety of 4G is still its souped-up HSPA+ network. To be sure, that network does hop along, routinely offering download speeds of 8 Mbps or more in areas with decent coverage and in theory jumping all the way up to 42 Mbps. But top speeds are available only to phones specifically engineered for T-Mobile’s network. While the company is working hard to transition its network to be more broadly compatible with other 3G phones, they aren’t there yet. Similarly, T-Mobile’s transition to “true” 4G LTE service isn’t scheduled to be available to consumers until sometime in 2013. Bottom line: Customers who want decent performance from a T-Mobile smartphone need to live in an area with reliable service and have a T-Mobile’s phone.

One more caveat: Folks taking advantage of the unlimited data plan won’t be able to use their devices as mobile hotspots to share their mobile broadband connections with other devices, like tablets, gaming devices, or computers. T-Mobile users who want hotspot capabilities will pay at least $94.99 a month — and have a 5GB monthly data cap.

MetroPCS’s unlimited plan

MetroPCS is also rolling out an unlimited data plan, offering unlimited voice, text, and data on a single line for $55 per month. Existing MetroPCS customers can pick up the unlimited service for $50 a month on additional lines. Unlike T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network, MetroPCS’s unlimited data plan is LTE-ready: MetroPCS is already rolling out 4G LTE to its service areas, and customers with LTE phones are eligible to use unlimited data on that LTE network.

There are a couple of catches. The first, of course, is that MetroPCS is a regional carrier. If you don’t live in one of the 17 metropolitan areas it serves (which, admittedly, includes New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, the San Francisco Bay area, and Dallas), customers can’t get their service. Furthermore, even existing MetroPCS customers probably need a new phone to take advantage of the company’s new LTE network. Right now, fewer than 10 percent of MetroPCS’s customers have phones that can use its new high-speed network. MetroPCS’s unlimited data plan offer is a pretty transparent attempt to get its existing customers to upgrade to new LTE-capable devices — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately, the pricing on MetroPCS’s unlimited 4G data plan is a promotion: it’s not a permanent offering. (Not that any mobile plan can really described as “permanent.”) MetroPCS hasn’t said how long it plans to run the promotion, but the Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) it could last three to six months. When the promotion ends, MetroPCS will revert to its current $70 a month price for unlimited data.

Finally, like T-Mobile, MetroPCS’s unlimited 4G data service does not include using a 4G device as a mobile hotspot.

How they stack up

T-Mobile and MetroPCS aren’t the only players in the U.S. mobile market that offer unlimited data. The biggest player in the field is Sprint, which has so far bucked the trend of major mobile operators in either throttling data or instituting data caps. Sprint’s unlimited data service starts at $109.99 per month (plus tax), and for now is limited to 3G service. (That’s a $99.99 plan plus a $10 a month “premium” for using it with a smartphone.) Sprint is still in the process of rolling out equipment for LTE service and had planned to have 12,000 sites up and running by the end of 2012, although there have been some delays as the company works to get fiberoptic backhaul in place. Broad LTE coverage from Sprint isn’t expected until 2013.

Sprint’s unlimited data plan seems to make both T-Mobile’s and MetroPCS’s high-performance offerings seem like a bargin. However, Sprint offers broader coverage than T-Mobile (and especially MetroPCS), and Sprint can also offer customers the iPhone.

Of course, AT&T and Verizon Wireless are fond of telling customers that their capped data plans only impact a small percentage of customers who use mammoth amounts of mobile data: According to the companies, most customers never come close to hitting their monthly data limits. Verizon currently starts capping individual users at 2GB of data per month and charges $15 per GB of overage. AT&T starts off with a 3GB monthly cap and charges $10 per GB of overage.

Pros and cons

Are either T-Mobile or MetroPCS’s unlimited data plans a good deal? The answer most likely depends on whether you’re already a T-Mobile or MetroPCS customer — and how you feel about buying a new phone.

Neither T-Mobile or MetroPCS currently offer the iPhone, so if you’re dead-set on an Apple device, these plans are out.

If you already have a smartphone running Android or another platform on another carrier, you’re in a similar situation. MetroPCS’s LTE network uses 1,900 MHz and AWS frequency bands, so 4G phones from AT&T and Verizon won’t operate on its LTE service. In other words, you’ll need to buy a new device to get high speed service on MetroPCS, even if you have a 4G phone on another network.

If you already have a smartphone from AT&T, T-Mobile’s unlimited data plan might be an option — eventually. Right now T-Mobile’s special flavor of high-speed HSPA+ only works with devices designed for its network; however, T-Mobile is in the process of reconfiguring its network in such a way that some AT&T 3G/4G HSPA+ devices — including the iPhone — will be able to use its services. (T-Mobile already has more than a million customers using iPhones on its network, but they’re currently limited to 2G EDGE service.) As T-Mobile’s redeployment proceeds and it shifts to embrace the same frequency bands as AT&T, some AT&T handsets owners — including iPhone owners — could find T-Mobile’s new unlimited data plans very tempting. But that network redeployment hasn’t extended very far yet, and T-Mobile doesn’t expect to complete it until sometime in 2013.

Bottom line: Both T-Mobile’s and MetroPCS’s new unlimited data plan offers are primarily tempting to existing T-Mobile and MetroPCS customers — particularly customers who are on the edge of buying a new phone. In that sense, they’re sound business moves. T-Mobile has been steadily losing subscribers without the iPhone. Unlimited data plans are a good way to keep existing T-Mobile contract subscribers on board. For MetroPCS, the unlimited data promotion is a good way to convince existing customers to upgrade to new devices that can use its shiny new LTE network. The plans aren’t going to be ground-shaking turning points for either company — but they should help keep some of their most valuable smartphone customers happy.

[Images via Shutterstock / carlosgardel, Shutterstock / Sam72]

We figured that the next iPhone would be released some time in the fall, and then it looked like we narrowed it down to September. Now, there is further evidence that the iPhone 5 release date will be September, thanks to an employee announcement from Verizon Wireless. You see, they blacked out vacation requests for the period covering September 21 to September 30.

Normally, the reason why they would black out vacation requests is that they expect that period of time to be particularly busy. It’s not out of the ordinary to see blackout periods for Black Friday or for during the Christmas shopping season. So, why would they black out a little over a week toward the end of September? It has to be the new iPhone, right?

All staff at all of Verizon’s retail stores have been banned from taking vacation from September 21 to September 30, calling for “all hands on deck” during that time. Naturally, Verizon wants to make sure that their stores are suitably staffed for the onslaught of iFans wanting to get their hands on the newest iPhone. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if AT&T has launched similar efforts for the same time.