Fact: There are differences between Western and Japanese games. Intrinsic differences that sometimes make it hard to bring Western games to Japan. The words, the phrases, the idioms — they're familiar to you. It's English, and chances are if you are reading this, the language is either your mother tongue or a second tongue or neither and you've happened on this page by accident. But for a segment of Japanese gamers, Western games are just not playable no thanks to the language barrier. But some of those differences arise from the background of developers.

The vast majority of Japanese devs have an arcade background, and if an arcade game is going to be a hit, it needs to work, it needs to be tight and snap. If you put in a coin in a buggy game that locks up or freaks out, you'll complain to the arcade manager, who will then complain to his boss, who will then complain to his boss, who will complain to that game's publisher. Shit's gotta work. While the arcade scene is very much alive in Japan, it's not in the States, and most developers are coming in with a strong PC gaming background. If shit's broken, patch, patch, patch! "Japanese games have very few collision problems — hands, arms going through walls, etc," says Capcom producer and former localization head Ben Judd. "When western gamers see in-game collision issues, they don't care as long as they're having a good time. That's just not acceptable for the Japanese." Things like A.I. and programming is where Western devs really shine, while Japan picks up the slack on things like textures.

Other things that separate Western and Japanese games, points out Judd, include such seemingly small things like "Japanese player typically don't like controlling two thumbsticks are once — they get sick" and "Japanese players like a strong tutorial." Japanese players, says Judd, prefer that characters are skewed slightly younger and have more anime-style qualities, while Western gamers favor 30 year-old bald men. "RPGs are popular," says Judd. "Players don't typically like the first person point of view and want to see their character. It makes it easier for them to support that character." No wonder Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto has found a welcome audience in Japan.

We talk about innovation in a number of ways in the game industry, some of which are very far off in the grand scheme of things: erudite discussions of game play, biomechanics, tailoring an experience to each individual. We have the less esoteric, more realistic discussions of what can be done with games now, and that sort of 'innovation,' I think, is really more a discussion of games 'growing up' and heading into more mature territory. Perhaps some of these debates are being cast in the wrong terms, or at least, there are multiple avenues of discussion to be explored.

What defines 'maturity'? I think the entertainment industry is somewhat hampered by defining works that include sex or violence or rough language as having 'mature themes': clearly there is an age component ('Should 10 year olds be watching this stuff?'), but it's overly simplistic at best. In my media collections, I have works I consider thematically "mature" in the ratings game sort of way, and the works that are mature in a different way. The ones that play with preconceived notions of the way things are or should be; the ones that deconstruct the traditional, reconstitute it as something new; most importantly, the ones that can be read on a number of levels.

Rumors have abounded regarding an upcoming motion control device for the Xbox 360, purportedly codenamed "Newton" — first, a loquacious anonymous source told MTV that such a controller is in development with support from developer Rare, and next 8bitjoystick pegged patents from Gyration, the same company responsible for Nintendo's Wii remote technology, as the likely tech behind Microsoft's top-secret project.

Gyration, however, unequivocally denied yesterday that it has any such project in development with Microsoft. However, talking to Rare, Microsoft and a company called Motus revealed more items of interest regarding the "Newton" — the picture seen above is Motus' "Darwin" controller.

When it comes to Electronic Arts' takeover bid for Take-Two, we've heard nothing but silence for the past few weeks. In fact, it looks like business as usual for both companies; while EA's been utterly quiet on the topic, Take-Two has announced an executive hire and an Asian expansion as if nothing were going on.

But tomorrow, Take-Two is set to hold its regularly-scheduled annual meeting for its shareholders, where they can hear from the executives and vote on internal matters. And although this may look like just another routine affair, it might become clear on Thursday night whether EA's bid is likely to succeed— or whether it will end up dead in the water.

Not so clear on what's going on? Hit the jump for the whole story, including the anatomy of a takeover, possible outcomes, the reasons behind Take-Two's resistance, and more.

How long do you play a game before you decide if you like it?

An hour, two, a day? Try 15 minutes.

The first fifteen is all the time a developer gets to convince a gamer that what they're playing is worth the price of admission, or so believes NetDevil's Scott Brown.

Following in the footsteps of the masters of the MMO, Blizzard, NetDevil is breaking away from the norm of game development for their latest pet project, Jumpgate: Evolution. Instead of trying to sketch out a complete world and then going back and filling in the details, giving the game its luster and heart in a soul-killing, deadline-pushing crunch, NetDevil is crafting their space flight massively multiplayer game one gleaming section at a time.

The team, which recently topped ten people, recently wrapped up their initial goal: Building out and polishing the game's first 15 minutes of play.

It may not sound like much, but in a year's time the team had to create the user interface, settle on the look of the game, and work out the games network and artificial intelligence.

They also had to give gamers a way to create their character, ships to fly, enemies to fight and places to go.

I'm sitting in the back of a Yellow Cab cutting through Manhattan at a crawl. The cabbie lets loose with a torrent of vulgarities directed at the truck in front of us.

"Yeah, just stay there, because you're not going anywhere and now I'm not fucking going anywhere. Park right there."

He lays on the horn.

A map pops up on the video screen showing our exact location, easy to pinpoint because now we're not moving at all.

Outside the passenger window people walk by, each, seemingly, in their own world. The level of detail is amazing, the buildings, piled almost on top of one another, are all alive with activity. Wind whips down the street tossing scraps of paper in the air, it almost looks like the real thing, like Grand Theft Auto IV.

But it's just Manhattan on a crisp weekday morning, me trapped in a cab, staring at the taxi's video screen built into the seat in front of me, headed to see and play around with Rockstar's latest.

I had a chance to sit down with Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi, producer of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, in New York earlier this week, where he had flown to help launch the portable title in the U.S.

Hayashi spent much of the day sitting at a table near the front doors of the Nintendo World Store quietly talking to patiently waiting fans through a translator, posing for pictures and signing autographs.

It was, he said, the first chance he had to talk to the public about the game, a game he feels people were waiting to come out.

"The fact that people lined up at the store today to purchase the game, that feels good," he said.

Hayashi said the project started out not as a way to get Ninja Gaiden onto the DS, but as a way to create an innovative action game for the portable.

I'm hanging out at Volition in a cozy darkened side room, waiting for their presentation on Saint's Row 2 to begin. Producer Greg Donovan (right) is with me and we sit there a bit awkwardly, waiting for the game's Lead Designer, James Tsai (left), to join us.

It's not Donovan's fault that things are weird. Someone has painstakingly setup a small table filled with various drinks and snacks that, as Donovan explains, "aren't there everyday."

Things are weird because I have an absurd headache on top of an even more absurd head cold making me a complete bitch to talk to. Donovan breaks the silence again.

By: N. Evan Van Zelfden

What if you could go back, start from scratch, and remake E3 in your own image? With EIEIO in Austin, Texas, that's what developer-centric games publisher Gamecock Media is trying to do: Developer demos for the press, live bands and demos for the public, and drinks for all. The event was loosely associated with South by Southwest this year, and both festivals hope to have stronger ties with each other next year.

It started on a Wednesday evening, at the Alamo Drafthouse—a movie theater that serves dinner and a selection of fine beers. 140 developers, partners, press, and Gamecock staff watched a screening of documentary film The King of Kong—which met with great enthusiasm from the audience.

Gamecock's chief executive, Mike Wilson, took the stage beforehand to give a one-and-a-half minute speech, in which he thanked everyone for being there. "It's really awesome to have everyone in Texas for once," he said in reference to the developers who had traveled from Germany, England, California, Chicago, Houston, and other points on the compass. "God knows we've come to all of your homes enough."

"I need all of you in top form for tomorrow," Wilson continued. "There are bulls to be ridden, there are Rollergirls to be boxed, and somewhere in there, we're going to fit in some videogames."

Let's get this out of the way: Wii Fit does work. Why wouldn't it? It's based on time-trued exercises. Stuff like doing sit-ups, push-ups and jogging. Well, jogging in place. But, to what extend does it work? For the past month, I've used Wii Fit on nearly a daily basis. Wii Fit isn't something you can review in 8 hours of play. You need weeks, months even! My Wii Fit workout was interrupted by two breaks: One for when my wife was sick (and I then got sick) and another when my wife was sick again (Nintendo, please make Wii Healthy, kthanxbai). Like with most things, results do vary from person to person. For me, some of it worked brilliantly. And some of it not.

Sex, sexuality, and gender in gaming are hot button issues: even people who like to complain about the topics coming up can't resist weighing in. Gender history is one area I'm usually working on in some capacity or another, in addition to topics that are heavier on blood, guts, and political intrigue, so I always read discussions on sexuality and gender in one of my other pet subjects with interest. Beyond that, there is an expectation that - being one of those girl gamer types - I will write about gender issues, at least occasionally.

The recent kerfuffle over Leigh Alexander's article on mature versus juvenile sexuality in games reinforced some observations I've been making for the past few years, and highlighted a few more problems I have with the way the discussion tends to turn. Sometimes, I think it just highlights how immature the gaming community can be that we can't discuss the issue of cleavage without resorting to name-calling. Still, sex and visual culture has been on my mind recently thanks to my current research - and if being submersed in films and film culture will do anything, it will dredge up plenty of examples of good depictions of sex, bad depictions of sex, and everything in between. And to be honest, I think the gaming industry by and large has a lot to learn from the older medium of film: from the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Monday's feature took a broad, anecdotal look at ten different analysts, explaining a little about who the analysts are and what they do. For your enjoyment and discussion, we present to you today all of the predictions made by the analysts and our verdict on each of them.

There's been some changes to these results since the original article was released on Monday, due to the availability of new information. While this does change some of the numbers, it also indicates how fluid many of these predictions are, and the challenge of pin-pointing exact answers for many of them, both for journalists, traders who rely on the analysts for smart business choices, and gamers who want to know how well the industry is doing.

Here's the proof that being correct the most often doesn't always mean you're the best analyst.