The new face of the handheld market will be showing itself much earlier than expected. At a… The new face of the handheld market will be showing itself much earlier than expected. At a press conference held Monday in Redmond, Wash., Nintendo announced that its new dual-screen system, the Nintendo DS, will hit American stores Nov. 21 with a $149 price tag.

It’s interesting to note that the Japanese release date for the same system is Dec. 3, making the DS the first system in Nintendo’s history to debut on this side of the Pacific. The system will come bundled with a demo copy of “Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt,” while the “PictoChat” wireless instant-messaging system will be built into the system’s hardware.

Remember the PSone, the redesigned PlayStation that was smaller, lighter and just as functional as the original model? Well, Sony’s at it again, this time unveiling a PlayStation 2 remake that’s 75 percent smaller and weighs half as much as the standard PS2 console.

The largest change in the machine’s architecture is the integration of an Ethernet port, thus eliminating the need for that bulky network adapter. The slimmer system will be in American stores by Nov. 1, and will go for $149.

Also from Sony are statements that the PlayStation 3 will utilize Blu-ray Disc ROM technology, which will allow for up to 54 gigabytes of storage on a single disc — a drastic leap ahead of DVDs, which can only hold 8.5 gigabytes. However, rather than jumping straight into the new system, Sony is concentrating its efforts on developing a CD/DVD/BD pickup that would allow the PS3 to maintain its standard of backward compatibility.

Typically, gamers don’t have to worry about rain getting in the way of their enjoyment. Hurricanes, however, are a completely different matter. The remains of Hurricane Ivan produced a tornado Friday night in Ashburn, Va., that tore the roof off of a data center and damaged several servers running the “World of Warcraft” online beta. Service was restored Monday night.

Finally, in “Friends in High Places” news, California Assembly Bill 1793 — which would have placed video games rated “Mature Only” in the same category as pornography — was passed into law with radical changes.

The original draft of the bill, as sponsored by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, would have separated M-rated games from the general inventory and placed them where minors could not see them. Retailers caught selling such games to minors could be charged a $2,000 fine and sentenced to a year in jail.

Fortunately, by the time the bill was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, it had been watered down. It now merely requires retailers to display signs and pamphlets informing customers of the video game ratings system — a practice that is already a de facto standard among video game stores.