The grim, bare-bones PC hit is a perfect fit for the handheld, so the team are justifiably confident of finding somebody. But on the off chance they hit a snag, publishers of the world, know this: this game is a perfect fit for the handheld. Especially if it's released at a budget price and has a decent range of multiplayer options.

If everything goes according to plan - the plan being that Introversion find a publisher for a game that's obviously near-finished - Defcon DS should be out Q3 2009.

By desktop, we don't mean your desktop PC. We mean - courtesy of the wonders of the webcam/custom specs - running literally on your desk. This is naught but a concept at the moment, just the result of Introversion's Leander Hambley messing around. And could well go nowhere. But now that he mentions it, it's one hell of an idea.

Seriousness and Silliness [Introversion, via Offworld]

The other big nominees include the European developers behind Motorstorm, Viva Pinata, DEFCON and Formula One Championship Edition. The full list of nominees for each award are listed at Gamasutra. Michael McWhertor

Crackdown Tops Develop Award Finalists [Gamasutra]

Geoff Keighley recently did a Q&A with Shigeru Miyamoto about the Nintendo visionary's take on things as eclectic as Halo, movies and exercise.

It's a short, though pretty interesting read. My favorite questions for Miyamoto have him talking about social messages in games, how he could have made Halo if he felt like it and why, gasp, Zelda isn't doing well in Japan.

Do you ever think about challenging yourself to design a game that addresses a real-world topic or carries a deeper social message? Maybe if I were to come across a problem in my life that affected me I would think about that. A game like that would be very interesting to make. At the Independent Games Festival at the last GDC [the Game Developer's Conference] I saw a game, Defcon, which is about thermonuclear war — the whole world is destroyed. That's a very powerful message to put in a game.

You mentioned social issues in Japan. But games are a global business — and the youth of America have a host of unique issues in front of them. The reason I mention this is that one criticism of Nintendo's games is that they are very Japanese-centric. American gamers have bought more copies of Halo than they did of Metroid, for instance. Do you ever worry that you're losing touch with what young American players might want to play?
I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play.

Why do you think Zelda isn't doing well in Japan?
Well, I think a lot of people who bought the Wii are not necessarily the types of people who are interested in playing that kind of game. And a lot of the people who would want to play it [due to chronic shortages of the console] can't find a Wii! But mostly, I think it's that there are fewer and fewer people who are interested in playing a big role-playing game like Zelda.

Holy crap, did Shigeru Miyamoto just say that the number of people interested in playing Zelda is dropping? Hey, I think I said something like that back when the game first hit the Wii. I know I'm going to regret asking this, but has Zelda jumped the shark?

The Man Who Made Mario Super [Entertainment Weekly]

Sometimes it's better to give than to annihilate entire nations with thermonuclear bombs. That's the philosophy behind this lovely mod of the PC strategy game DEFCON: Everybody Dies, the WarGames-like Introversion title in which the goal is to destroy your opponent while suffering fewer losses.

From mod author hellcatv, comes this very uplifting description.

Your mission is one of the most important mission that has taken place every year for hundreds of years. This mission requires you to do the impossible: DELIVER PRESENTS TO ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS ALL OVER THE WORLD. You must position your distribution system before Christmas Eve. It's Christmas, and everybody wins. But maybe - just maybe - you can show your generosity the most.

Fun! If all that global destruction is getting you down, why not give the mod a shot and try distributing presents for massive giftage? Michael McWhertor

Christmas: In this game everybody wins. But maybe... [via Siliconera]

Introversion — the British game devs who created Darwinia and Uplink — talked to Firing Squad about their upcoming strategy game about thermonuclear war, Defcon. We particularly liked this bit about the game's Office Mode. We need more games you can play in an office.

We're very excited by Office Mode. The basic idea is that a group of work-mates can start the game up in the morning in Office Mode, playing over their local area network. The game takes place entirely in real-time (you can quite easily end the world with nuclear conflict in 8 hours) and each player controls one territory, e.g. North America or Russia. You can hit the Panic key (press escape twice) which immediately removes the game from the screen and places a discreet icon in your system tray. That icon changes when important things happen - for example if you detect some nuclear launches the icon will flash as a Nuke for a few seconds. Because everything is taking place in real-time you've got at least 30 minutes before those nukes land, so you've got plenty of time to respond without interfering with your real work too much.

A quick personal anecdote about Boss keys after the jump.

When I was 12, subversively playing the Leisure Suit Larry games, I kept my finger hovering millimeters above the "Boss" key. The theory was that to offset the chances of my mother discovering my soft-core adventure porn obsession — looming behind me in that stance of matriarchal contempt that quickly follows those moments when your mother accidentally discovers she gave birth to a leering pervert — I would quickly press it in an emergency.

Unfortunately, at the time I didn't realize that the laughable abstraction of Leisure Suit Larry genitalia (a flesh colored horizontal exclamation point next to a cherry red capital I surrounded in parentheses with a plump w dangling below) would have conjured up no pornographic associations in her mind. On the other hand, her suspicion was immediately aroused when she found her son feverishly scrutinizing a pareto chart of Wall Street Stocks when she came into the room, calling for a much closer inspection. FLORIAN ECKHARDT

Defcon Interview [Firing Squad]