The last thing the world needs is another set of plastic musical instruments cluttering our collective living room. Nintendo knows this, and their answer to music hungry fans is Wii Music, a game all about jamming and enjoying playing with your friends. There's no competition, no rhythm, and no timing.

"This game is one of the titles we started designing around Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit" said Miyamoto, who had appeared on stage during the game's introduction, playing the sax. "We designed Wii Music to allow everyone the joy of performing music."

Details are still forthcoming, but we know that around 50 different instruments will be playable, from traditional Japanese drums with balance board support for drum kits, standing bass, violins...a virtual symphony. The game even features drum lessons for the rhythmically challneged.

The game supports four players, and can not only evaluate your performance, but also record videos of your performance to share with your friends.

Nice! all the fun of a Rock Band game without making you look like too much of a tool for failing.

Konami Sues Viacom Over `Rock Band' Music Video Game [Bloomberg] [Pic]

That's what a Boston-area Craigslister claimed when he was contacted to ask why he was giving away a Ms. Pac Man cabinet for free.

Someone on ArcadeControls.com contacted the cabinet owner for the explanation, which involves poltergeist, a crying 3-year-old and a "dark figure."

I sent a message to see if anyone had claimed it and if they had any pics. I got a response back saying that it was available but no pictures. I emailed back asking why they where getting rid of it for free. Here is the response I got.

"When I bought this machine the previous owner told me it was haunted. I laughed, didn't believe him, because I didn't believe in that sort of thing.

Got a bad feeling the day it was delivered. Game started on its own in the middle of the night several times, had a tech service the machine three times (very pricy housecalls), but he couldn't find the problem.

Three-year old daughter started talking about the "man in the video machine", didn't think much of it, then my wife saw a dark figure move across the basement and into the machine. She ran out of the house, would not return until the machine was out of the house. I moved it to my business garage (two miles away), and several times I have opened the garage to find tools missing or scattered, things tipped over.

This is why I am giving away a $1000 machine for free."

Other forum goers who emailed the man were told that he was giving it away because he's a lucky man. So either he's changing his story, or has decided ditching a haunted cabinet would be easier if people didn't know the back story.

The Craigslist posting was still up when I checked this morning, so I emailed the owner, but haven't heard back. Maybe he's been sucked into the Ms. Pac Man.

Interesting Craigslist find [Arcade Controls, thanks Wesley]

Let's just say we had mixed results. So hit the jump to vote for your favorite of our best picks. Then laugh to your heart's content at everyone else.

Genuinely Great Ideas

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

Now for more entries...

People Who Just Swapped Analog Sticks/Added More

The Chick Who's Not So Hot But Wears A Lot Of Make-up So We'd Probably Hit It

Haha, Very Funny

The Penis Guys

WTF

Thanks to everyone for entering! There's nothing like offering no prize and barely any recognition to bring out the best (and worst) in people.

[lead image]

Today, with the aid of countless charts tracking the exponential growth of technology over the past 150 years, Kurzweil explained gaming in the year 2029. And no, we're not "drinking the Kool-Aid." Instead we've opted to siphon gallons of the stuff intravenously into our bloodstream.

According to Kurzweil's estimates, in 2029 a $1,000 computer will be 1,000 times more powerful than the human brain. But instead of these systems mocking us autonomously, they will be miniaturized (via nanotechnology) and fused directly to the neural connections in your brain. We will no longer be limited by polygons or advanced lighting techniques because the resolution you see will be the maximum resolution your brain is capable of seeing. Think of it less as "SkyNet is coming to get you" than "you are SkyNet."

But if 2029 is a few years too far away, try 2010 on for size. At this time, Kurzweil explains, "computers disappear." Where did they go? Into things like clothing and glasses. Images won't be viewed from screens, but written directly onto our retinas for full A/V immersion "early" in the next decade. The boundaries between reality and "virtual" reality will blur as we're always connected to the internet at high speeds. And until we develop clear system to designate each level of interaction, "real reality's going to continue to be a little irksome."

Damn that irksome reality.

Mind-control, it turns out, isn't as easy as it looks.

After spending half-an-hour watching an Emotive guy levitate rocks, pull down trees and make object vanish with little more than the power of his mind, it was my turn to check out Emotiv's Epoc neural detector.

The headpiece, its stiff fingers slipping through my hair to find my scalp as it was placed on my head, felt like something alien settling onto my skull to roost, perhaps before enjoying a light snack.

A nearby monitor showed the color-coded diagram of a brain, my brain. Each of the 14 or so fingers of the Epoc were indicated with dots that changed colors to show if they were detecting the movement of electricity from neuron to neuron inside my brain.

But one stubbornly refused to light up at all.

"Maybe my front lobes don't work," I suggested helpfully, as a tech jimmied the headpiece around on my head, pushing here and there, as he tried to get that last button to light up.

Finally that last button turned green and the Emotiv folks asked me what I'd like to do first.

"I think I'd like to levitate something," I said.

"Sure."

To start you need to quickly synch your brain, teaching the computer to recognize the thought you use to perform the specific action. In my case I imagined the box in the center of the monitor drifting away.

After doing this for a second or two, while the program "recorded" they asked me to give it a try.. and it worked. Imagining the box floating up off the top of the screen, I was surprised to see it waver and then slowly move upwards until it disappeared.

I laughed in surprise and the box immediately dropped back down again.

After a second, failed, attempt and another quick synching session, I was able to make the box float up and down by simply thinking about it.

The sensation was quite strange. You don't really feel anything, but you can sort of tell that a particular thought or visualization seems to have a direct effect on the game.

I found myself inadvertently tightening my stomach muscles, or raising an eyebrow when I tried to make the box float, or later disappear, by thinking about it.

The Emotiv guy used his hands to try and cue himself to think the same way every time, performing what suspiciously looked like something out of Star Wars to get things to float or vanish. But they said that wasn't really necessary. In fact, they are playing around with a game mode that would punish any physical movements you make while trying to perform the mental magic.

The team also showed me, but wouldn't let me play, the game that will ship with the Epoc when it goes on sale later this year.

In the game you play as a student of a form of mental martial-arts. You wander around a mountain learning how to use your mind to do things like push and pull objects with thought, scare away spirits with a grimace and turn items invisible.

The game also senses the players mood and changes the in-game environment around them to suit it. For instance, if you're bored or unhappy the game's sky turns a greenish tint and the music softens, but as you become excited the sky turns a nasty shade of red and the music grows louder.

The game was created by Demiure Studios and is meant to be a showcase piece for the hardware, something that proves that the $300 device it's not just a bit of cool gadgetry, but something that could have serious implications in the world of video games.

From what I saw it did look a little light on content, but the ability to control items with your mind in the game, will likely still make it a hit among certain set of gamers.

I was a little concerned with the underlying technology, though. From the demonstrations I saw and participated in, the device seemed mostly to detect whether you were or weren't doing one thing. In other words, it could tell when I was trying to float a rock or not trying. But it was hard to tell just how sophisticated that detection was. Could it, for instance, differentiate between my trying to levitate a rock and make one disappear? The Emotiv people said it absolutely could, but they didn't demonstrate that.

Also, it was hard to really tell just how sensitive it was. From what I saw, the thing either detected none of the proper thought, or 100 percent of it, it seemed like there was no middle ground, something that could create serious problems for developers wanting to use the device for more precise controls.

While I think the technology is fascinating, even stunning at times, it's hard to tell at this point whether it has real world practical video game applications. Of everything I saw the one thing that most interested me was the concept of wearing this device to track your emotions, relaying that to a game and then allowing the game to use it to tweak your experience.

Imagine, for instance, a Silent Hill that knows what scares you most and how scared you are at any particular moment in the game. The implications are frightening.

Mind-controlled video games comes to the masses this Christmas for $300 a pop. Emotiv's Epoc "high-fidelity nero system" will begin shipping later this year with a Bluetooth dongle for synching with a computer and come packed with a PC game that will allow gamers to levitate virtual rocks, pull digital trees and scare of in-game spirits, all with their minds.

"At Emotiv our vision for the future is that controls won't be limited to conscious controls," said Tan Le, co-founder of the company behind the mind-reading device. "This will allow machines to understand your emotions and expressions."

The wireless device slips onto a gamers head, its 14 or so slender metal branches sliding through hair to rest against the scalp. The metal arms, which are coated with a proprietary material, detect the electrical current conducted by the brain and transmits the data to an in-board chip that deciphers the information and translates it into data that can be used by the program to control games.

The device, which will come in black or white, will sell for $300 through Emotiv retailers and "select" retailers. Up to four devices can be synced on a single computer, Le said.

The device, which was first shown last year at GDC, has evolved to be able to detect a range of brain activity, Le said, using the data to detect facial expression, mood and, to some degree, simple thought.

"That's really mankind's longest living fantasy," she said. "To be able to effect our world with just the power of our thoughts. This is the realm of science fiction."

Le said the technology was still in alpha last year, but has since progressed significantly.

"We've improved all of the detections to make it far better, far more responsive," she said.

Now to play the game, which comes packed with the device, players simply have to slip on the headset and synch their brain with the device, a process which can take as little as six seconds.

The device will also include a web portal which will allow users to browse the internet using the power of their minds, she said. There will also be a piece of keyboard mapping software that will allow owners to map thoughts to different keystrokes, potentially making it possible to play current games with your mind.

Emotiv also plans to release an software development kit to the game development community.

Make sure to check back in the morning for my preview of the game, heads-on impressions of the device and how it felt for me to make stuff float... and stuff.

NVIDIA today confirmed rumblings that they were looking to buy physics-centric AGEIA Technologies. NVIDIA said today that an agreement to acquire the industry leaders in gaming physics, though the acquisition still remains subject to some closing conditions.

More details about the deal will shake out during NVIDIA's upcoming quarterly conference call, set for Feb. 13.

While AGEIA appears to continue to struggle breaking into the mainstream PC market, they've made significant in-roads into the console market with 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. The company has more than 10,000 registered and active users of their PhysX software development kit as well.

"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Full release on the jump. I wonder if NVIDIA would try to come up with a way to incorporate the PhysX engine into a graphics card, instead of requiring two pieces of hardware? Maybe that's not possible, actually.

SANTA CLARA, CA — FEBRUARY 4, 2008—NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

"The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are—creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences," stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce®-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."

"NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience," said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Like graphics, physics processing is made up of millions of parallel computations. The NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GT GPU, with its 128 processors, can process parallel applications up to two orders of magnitude faster than a dual or quad-core CPU.

"The computer industry is moving towards a heterogeneous computing model, combining a flexible CPU and a massively parallel processor like the GPU to perform computationally intensive applications like real-time computer graphics," continued Mr. Huang. "NVIDIA's CUDA™ technology, which is rapidly becoming the most pervasive parallel programming environment in history, broadens the parallel processing world to hundreds of applications desperate for a giant step in computational performance. Applications such as physics, computer vision, and video/image processing are enabled through CUDA and heterogeneous computing."

AGEIA was founded in 2002 and has offices in Santa Clara, CA; St. Louis, MO; Zurich, Switzerland; and Beijing, China.

The acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.

More details about the acquisition will be provided during NVIDIA's quarterly conference call, to be held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company's prepared remarks will be followed by a question and answer period, which will be limited to questions from financial analysts and institutional investors. To listen to the conference call, please dial 212-231-2901; no password is required. The conference call will also be webcast live (listen-only mode) at the following Web sites: www.nvidia.com and www.streetevents.com.

Replay of the conference call will be available via telephone by calling 800-633-8284 (or 402-977-9140), passcode 21354792, until February 20, 2008. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay until the company's conference call to discuss its financial results for its first quarter, fiscal 2009.

About AGEIA

Today's Playstation Portable firmware update came with a little touch of Skype (except if you live in China, go figure). Once patched, the Skype option shows up under Network. I was able to pretty quickly register for a new account using the PSP and get it working in less then five minutes.

It's a pretty cool build of the software and while I'm not sure how often I'd use it around the house, I definitely plan on bringing it with me when I travel for some free calls. Also plan on abusing the hell out of it to harass Ash since it only cost me $10 to buy seven hours worth of worldwide Skype to phone service. (Skype to Skype is free) That's right seven hours of me rambling to Ash... can't wait!

5. Lego Digital Designer

Not so much a game as it was the updating of Lego to the digital age, allowing you to use your Mac or PC online to create your own Lego design and then order the blocks online, bringing your virtual creation to life. For those of us who can't afford the millions of Lego bricks it would take to build their own Lego home, this is as good as it gets.

4. Lego Racers (PC)

Number four would have to be sublime mixture of racing and building that was Lego Racers. While some reviewers thought it rather average, for me it was a lovely combination of two of my favorite pastimes, allowing me to build my own car and driver and then run them through a rather impressive series of tracks. Simple, sure, but I was pretty simple back in 1999 too.

3. Lego Chess (PC)

Oh sure, it's pretty much just Battlechess with Legos, but I'm a big fan of any game that mixes my deep love of strategic thinking with the torturing of tiny Lego beings.

2. Lego Island (PC)

The closest you're ever likely to get to my dream game, Grand Theft Lego, Lego Island was an open-ended PC game that allowed you to customize an entire island to your liking and explore using any number of vehicles you found or created to explore what your inventive mind had wrought. While it didn't let you stab prostitutes, you could always imagine it...Lego is all about using your imagination.

1. Lego Star Wars: The Video Game

You knew this was coming, didn't you? I wouldn't be the geek I am today if not for both Lego and Star Wars, so the combination of the two is almost like merging my parents together into one amazing, half-dead parental unit, which while creepy really is the essence of the Lego brand. Putting things together using your imagination. I choose the first game because it was the success of it that led not only to the sequel and repack, but Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones, and - if I had my way - Grand Theft Lego.

A short list you might not all agree with, but that's the beauty of lists now, isn't it? Honestly the franchise has had a rather rocky start in the video games industry, but with Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones, and the upcoming MMO Lego Universe on the way, things are looking brighter every day for those little clickable building blocks. Happy 50th, Lego!

With a license to seemingly print money, Nintendo took 2007 by storm, establishing console and handheld dominance with its two casual friendly game devices. Nintendo DS and Wii dominated software and hardware charts, seeing a steady flow of week to week sales for both platforms, appearing to only weaken when supply was constrained.

Sony's offerings, the PSP, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2, had a solid (if not spectacular) year. The PS3 didn't make any waves, but the PSP did. The PS2, now seven years long in the tooth, still had a bit of life in it.

The Xbox 360? Well, we don't have nice things to say about its Japanese performance, so we'll just let the charts do the talking.

When units of each platform are presented side by side, the stranglehold the Nintendo DS has on the Japanese market becomes apparent. Its weekly sales outpaced every other console's and handheld's performance for nearly the entirety of the year. The only platform to outperform the DS at any point was Sony's PlayStation Portable, aided by a pair of marquee releases (plus a hardware redesign) in the first and third quarters of 2007.

The Nintendo DS saw its largest weekly period sales alongside a few high-profile software releases and in time with holidays, but was less dependent on individual software releases to pull in big numbers. Media Create software sales charts were regularly heavy on DS software, and it wasn't uncommon to see weekly charts feature nothing but DS and Wii software in the top ten—see Dragon Quest Swords and Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings launch weeks and this past week for examples.

In general, however, Nintendo DS sales trends tended not to spike as severely as other platforms did, with sales of older titles such as New Super Mario Bros. and Animal Crossing Wild World still doing solid business for Nintendo, many months after their respective release dates.

When we look at year-to-date sales in handy bar graph form, we get a much better perspective on the share of the Japanese market that Nintendo carved out for itself in 2007. This was the year that Nintendo DS hardware sales surpassed those of the PlayStation 2, with each at about 21 million consoles sold in the nation, lifetime to date. It's an impressive feat for the handheld, as it surpassed that figure in almost exactly 3 years, compared to a 7 year shelf life for Sony's console.

The DS pushed some 7 million-plus units into the hands of Japanese consumers, a third of its total sales. Not a bad year for the platform widely considered a gimmick before its launch.

On Sony's side, 2007 saw the PlayStation 3 outsell the PlayStation 2 in its first full year on the market, with the PSP achieving just shy of one-half of the DS's sales, a similarly impressive feat for a non-Nintendo portable device.

The Xbox 360, despite seeing a handful of video game releases that sold admirably over the year, continued to be a non-factor in the console war overseas. Its annual sales were about a quarter-million, something the Nintendo DS accomplished on a weekly basis multiple times in 2007. Sure, it's a bit apples to oranges, considering the price differences in hardware and software, but its illustrative of consumer tastes in Japan. Microsoft's efforts to appeal to Eastern gaming tastes with a pair of Mistwalker games, hardware bundles and a few exclusives from Namco Bandai were met with flat sales in the nation.

Who had the biggest slice of the pie in 2007? Nintendo, of course, with over two-thirds of the entire console market dedicated to Nintendo DS and Wii sales. That's not including sales of legacy platforms like the GameCube, Game Boy Advance SP and Game Boy Advance micro, whose total sales were in the 60,000 range and not factored into the above charts.

While DS and Wii sales were slightly down at the end of the year, coming off of a strong Wii launch and solid sales of Dragon Quest Monsters Joker and multiple "Training" games at the end of 2006, strong sales of Wii Fit, Mario Party DS, Dragon Quest IV, Final Fantasy IV and others indicate that 2008 will still be a good year for the company.

Nintendo DS sales against the PSP show that there is still a broad gap between weekly sales of the two platforms. However, the PSP's ability to unseat the DS for a handful of weeks shouldn't be overlooked and close sales numbers for both around holiday periods show that the PSP deserves credit for chipping away at Nintendo's near monopoly on the portable gaming space. Sony has Capcom and Square-Enix largely to thank for that, as Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy titles were responsible for the biggest sales spikes.

In the home console war, nothing can touch the Wii. The PlayStation 3 flirted with console dominance along with the help of a few big name, Japanese friendly titles like the Musou series and a hardware revision, but Wii sales saw fewer sales spikes as households picked up the console with older titles like Wii Sports and Wii Play.

The Xbox 360 peaked on sales of Ace Combat 6, Eternal Sonata (nee Trusty Bell) and Lost Odyssey, but it was regularly outsold by its more expensive rival the PS3.

The Nintendo DS was less prone to peaks and valleys, save for the release of Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings, largely responsible for a biweekly crush of a half-million units shifted. Big name releases like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass still got gamers into stores, but non-gaming software, remakes and older titles like New Super Mario Bros. and Animal Crossing helped to push the Nintendo DS into record territory.

Like the Nintendo DS, Wii sales were less bumpy, as heavily marketed and franchise releases seemed to have less of an impact than the desire to play Wii Sports. One interesting trend that seemed to affect Wii sales were strong post-release weeks, with Mario games (Super Paper Mario, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Party 8) doing more good in their second week of release. The same may be true for Wii Fit, but with end-of-year sales up across the board, it's difficult to determine its impact.

There's little doubt that the PSP outperformed in its third year on the market on the release of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII which coincided with the release of the PSP-2000 (aka Slim & Light). No other platform saw such a remarkable increase, as sales jumped from 15,000 to 278,000 over the course of two weeks after Crisis Core's come to market. The year's other key release, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd continues to show up in weekly software sales charts.

The PlayStation 3 also benefited from a handful of big releases, most notably Gundam Musou and Shin Sangoku Musou 5, which we'll call Dynasty Warriors 6 when the West get it. Sony's push to release the cheaper 40GB version of the PS3 alongside another Musou game, just weeks prior to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue made for a respectable end-of-year for the lagging console.

PlayStation 2 sales were generally unremarkable during its seventh year. That may be arguable, of course, as a seven year shelf life with over 800,000 sold in 2007 may still impress some. But it would appear that many are ready to move on to the next generation (finally), as it underperformed in relation to its big brother the PlayStation 3. PS2 sales saw less intense highs and lows, as hardcore targeted games like Super Robot Wars, World Soccer Winning Eleven 2008 and Musou Orochi introduced Japanese gamers to invest (or re-invest) in last-gen hardware.

Like the PlayStation 3, momentous releases move Xbox 360 hardware. Eternal Sonata, Ace Combat 6 and Halo 3, along with their respective hardware bundles, were the biggest reasons for Japanese gamers to "Jump In" to the Western platform. Outside of a few surprises—Halo 3's performance, for example—there weren't many unexpected strong performers on Microsoft's box.

Final Thoughts & Predictions
With a slew of attention grabbing releases for the Wii and Nintendo DS due throughout 2008, we expect that Nintendo will continue to reign supreme in hardware sales. Dragon Quest IX, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Monster Hunter Wii should serve the company well in keeping Japanese consumers interested in buying Nintendo hardware.

Now that Capcom has decided to bring its Monster Hunter series to Wii, that could be a big blow to the PSP. With Crisis Core finally arriving and Square-Enix focusing on more stable franchise remakes for the DS, 2007 may have been the PSP's peak year. Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep should still keep units moving, but we suspect that Sony may look to a future hardware revision or proper follow up to the PSP to generate more interest.

2008 may be much better for the PlayStation 3, as games like Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4, Level 5's White Knight Chronicles, Sega's Yakuza 3 and Sony's own Gran Turismo 5 see release and should push hardware. If Capcom can get Resident Evil 5 and Square-Enix at least one of the Final Fantasy XIII titles out this year, the PS3 may be able to carve out a much larger slice of the console market pie in Japan.

It's obviously still extremely early to see how the 2008 sales landscape will look and there will be plenty of time to see how the chips fall in the new year, but it looks like things can only go up for Nintendo's dual platforms and Sony's PS3.

I've had a pet project I've been working on for years, three of them if my memory is right. It started as a simple idea: You can judge a lot from a person's desk. I bet you could judge just as much from their home entertainment system. So I decided it would be fun to try and track down some pictures from the work desks and home gaming set-ups of the people who work in and cover the video game industry. Simple right? Not so much.

Turns out that many of the people are either too busy or too private to want to participate in such a project. To make matters worse, there's always fear that something sitting on someone's desk, that ends up in a photo, could actually be news worthy. Like a secret project or the next big thing. But I didn't give up and about once a year I'd harass a bunch of game developers for photos. Finally, this year, the harassment paid off.

What started as a trickle of photos turned quickly into the collection of galleries you'll find on the jump: More than 40 different photo galleries from 17 studios, seven publications, two industry movers and shakers and a couple of fun surprises.

You'll get to see the desk of such greats as Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux and Tetsuya Mizuguchi along with plenty of others. Remember you can comment both on the next page and on each individual photo if you click on them.

If I find there is interest, I will try to periodically update this gallery of galleries with more developers, journalists and industry movers and shakers. Have fun.

DEVELOPERS
2K Games

ASTRO Gaming

Buzz Monkey Software

Capcom

Eat, Sleep, Play

Electronic Arts

Firaxis Games

Flying Lab Software

Gearbox Software

Harmonix Music

Incognito Entertainment

Insomniac Games

Kojima Productions

Lionhead Studios

NanaOn-Sha

Naughty Dog

NCSoft

NetDevil

Neversoft Entertainment

Ninja Theory

Pandemic Studios

Petroglyph Games

THQ

Q Entertainment

JOURNALISTS

Blue's News

BoingBoing

EGM

The Escapist

GameLife

Joystiq

Kotaku

MTV

Slashdot Games

VE3D

VH1

INDUSTRY FOLK

MISCELLANIES
I AM 8-BIT

Penny Arcade

Whorecraft

Video Games Live

In addition to those short-session downloadable games, plans for more legacy PSP titles are planned. Koller said the company will be re-releasing older PlayStation Portable titles as downloads, ones that "retailers aren't interested in carrying at this stage, games that we hear a lot of demand from PSP owners—titles like Wipeout, Twisted Metal—gamers who say 'I want to play this' but can't find it at retail anymore."

Speaking of retail, Koller confirmed that SCEA will be publishing more UMD movies and at a reduced price point. "We definitely understand that releasing a '70s era romantic comedy at $29.99 didn't appeal to most of the demographic," he said, telling us that retailers were "bullish" on carrying the UMD movie format at a more sensible price point.

He said that the company wasn't particularly concerned about the recently confirmed option to copy Blu-ray movie content to a PSP biting into the UMD video market, saying that "Any way we can help get that multimedia content onto the PSP, we're going to take it."

We'll have more from our Q&A with John Koller throughout the week.

The continued problems were a result of not simply too many people trying to connect and play on Live, but also that too few Xbox Live team members were in the office to react. "It's easy when we're all the office in November, but on December 25th, it's harder to get a hold of everybody," Penello said, later adding "I hope people feel like [giving away a free Live Arcade game] is a fair make good for the inconvenience."

Penello also came to the Live team's defense, noting that "I'd also say in seven years, this has happened maybe zero other times, but I can't remember a time when, other than the slow downloads we had when we launched Video Marketplace, we have had a service outage that wasn't planned."

While Microsoft's Penello and Jeff Bell gave us the impression that the problem is largely addressed when we asked at CES, some of us at Kotaku are still having connection issues, specifically gamertag recovery unresponsiveness. Unfortunately, I'm away from my Xbox 360 and can't report on my own successes or failures with the service. We've heard fewer complaints from readers over the past few days, but still want to hear from you if you're having troubles.

The PSP interface for Skype was fairly straightforward, with a Skype icon appearing under Network in the portable's XMB. The expected menu items were there—My Profile, Contacts, History, Dial—with other personalization features making appearances so other Skype buddies can know your "mood" or see your chosen photo icon. Skype for PSP makes international calling easy, with a list of selectable country dialing codes right at the dialing screen for those who travel often.

The headset, shown above and on display at the convention was supposedly not final. That's a good thing, as I found it to lean toward clunky, but we're not holding out hope for a massive redesign as the thing launches in February.

Yes, Skype for PSP is only for those who have the PSP-2000 model (aka the PSP Slim & Light). While many will probably wonder why they'd consider giving up their cell phones for calling on the go, those who make international calls often will probably be interested in picking up Skype for the cost savings.

More like the year before Christmas, actually. An entire year where not a day went by that hundreds of electronic and gaming retail employees didn't have to negatively answer the same nagging question. "Do you have any Wiis in stock?" Even though the console sold relatively briskly in the year following its launch, getting your hands on one meant you either won a contest, knew someone who worked for a retailer, shadowed UPS trucks or were just plain lucky.

As the holidays season started heating up, things looked bleak for parents and gamers looking to get their hands on Nintendo's tiny, motion-controlled console. Rumors of chip shortages ran rampant, and I personally was certain that the eBay grey market price for the hot gift item would far meet if not surpass the highest numbers seen during the initial late 2006 release window.

Miraculously that never happened. At the very last moment, in a series of moves that gained them criticism from fans, Nintendo managed to pull together enough supply to curb the often ridiculously inflated eBay demand before it was too late.

Rising...Slowly

As you can see from the chart, back in early November the Wii was selling for a relatively modest price on the world's largest online auction house. While $350 is still $100 than the retail price of the system, the markup isn't quite as painful as it could be. Then the Christmas panic sets in.

By November 21st the price had spiked to $459...nearly double the retail cost of the system, and with a few fluctuations the price stays solidly about the $400 mark. Perhaps consumers hoping to avoid the Black Friday rush 2 days later were trying to get a leg up on things, causing the price to reach this high of a point. Either way, things were looking pretty grim for parents and fans hoping to get their hands on a Wii without getting fleeced by eBay resellers - until one day.

Reggie Spreads The Word.

On December 14th, Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime held a conference call to address the growing problem of Wii shortages, detailing the companies plans to get customers matched up with systems by any means necessary. First came the raincheck system, which allowed customers a chance to pre-purchase the machine at GameStop stores across the country, with the understanding that they would be guaranteed a system by the end of January.

Then he announced that seven retail outlets - Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, Kmart, Toys R Us and Circuit City - would have the coveted consoles in stock that weekend, revealing that stores had been stockpiling the systems for a massive, last-minute flood.

While the rainchecks met with varying success due to limited ability, the flood of systems that weekend had a huge effect on the eBay market.

Bursting The Bubble

On December 17th, according to my data seen on the chart above, 11,016 Nintendo Wii consoles were sold on eBay, for an average price of $368 - the first time the price had dropped below $400 in a month. As Crecente noted in a previous post, eBay was positively slammed with Wiis, bringing the average price down and significantly lowering the normally high auction success rates on the console. Folks looking for a huge payoff still made a little dough of course, but nothing like the windfall they were expecting when they rushed out over the weekend to snag the systems for profiteering purposes. By the time Christmas Eve hits, the consoles are dollars away from the lowest price since November started.

Conclusion

As of this writing I cannot say if this was a calculated move by Nintendo to thwart the profit-hungry eBay grey market or simply a happy side-effect of a last-ditch effort to save face in the eyes of consumers worrying about where the product they wanted to purchase was, but Reggie's press conference and the subsequent console flood neatly nipped in the bud what could have been a terribly expensive Christmas for families looking for a little motion-controlled joy. Whatever the case may be, the end result is a small victory for the hardworking folks out there more worried about the smiles on their children's face than the thickness of their wallet.

Nicely done Nintendo.

While Nintendo declined to comment for this story, back during Fils-Aime's December press call he did address the issue of Wii gouging.

"We are always very disappointed if we see retailers that are pricing the Wii or any of our products above the MSRP price."

How I collected the graph data:
To track eBay sales for the Wii I once again used a website called Terapeak, which is of of the most trusted eBay market research tools available. I looked at data for the US eBay site each day utilizing the keyword "Nintendo Wii" in the Video Games/Systems category. I set the price range for $200 through $10,000 to weed out any artificially inflated auctions as well as any fake buying guide auctions. Keep in mind that the results are still in part tainted by systems including games and extra controllers, but I believe the method I used obtained the most accurate results, all things considered.

As for the numbers sold chart, I used the same data, taking note of the "Items Sold" statistic for each day in the period.

Blizzard seems to be getting into bed with everyone these days. First comes news that they have mind-melded with Activision to be come Blizzivision or Actizard, and now comes news of this pretty spanky new World of Warcraft-themed Dell laptop.

And this isn't just any laptop with WoW images slapped on it, this is a hulking XPS M1730 Dell Laptop with WoW images on it. Hit the jump for all the details on the $4,500 laptop released just seconds ago. The laptop officially launches on Dec. 11.

The XPS M1730 World of Warcraft edition laptop will come in either Horde or Alliance packs featuring original artwork on the desktop backgrounds, screen savers and the case itself.

Each system will come with a World of Warcraft backpack packed with all kinds of WoW goodies including:
WoW & Burning Crusade in retail boxes
Strategy Guides
Behind the Scenes, "The Making of WoW" DVD
WoW & Burning Crusade Paperback Novels
WoW Audio Soundtrack
Customers will also receive a Quest Envelope which includes surprise items from Dell & Blizzard (ships separate from system). Items include:
Blizzard beta key card w/ five keys used to access future WoW games
An upgrade certificate which allows customers to upgrade their accounts to a "Collectors Edition Account" enabling them to get a special in-game pet
Golden Ticket which allows customers to get a pre-paid special custom action figure based on their own in-game WoW character.

Besides the fancy backpack of goodies and the neato WoW art, the laptop is still an M1730 on the inside, which is a very good thing. Here's just a taste of the slick laptop's specs:

o DX10 SLI graphics
o World's first & only notebook available w/ an Ageia mobile PhysX processor
o Over-clockable Extreme Edition Core 2 Duo processors
o Dual RAID 0 7200 RPM HDDs - or 64GB Solid State Drive options
o 7ms display response time
o Full-size illuminated keyboard w/ separate numeric keypad
o 16-color user-customizable lighting areas including the backlit touchpad
o Wireless connectivity w/ built-in Mobile Broadband, Wireless-N, Bluetooth and Dell's Wi-Fi catcher
o Blu-ray optional
o Built-in camera & digital array microphones
o Built-in Logitech GamePanel above keyboard (first in the industry on a notebook)

I've actually been playing around with a loaner M1730 for a month now and while it's heavy as hell, it's also the most robust gaming laptop I've ever seen.

Some good, scratch that, great news for Rock Band fans from Harmonix today. They wrote to tell us that gamers who are experiencing problems with their guitars (or any of the Rock Band instruments) should contact EA's customer support website and they will send out a replacement immediately.

As sometimes happens when new products first go into manufacturing, we discovered an imperfection with the strum bar in an early production run of guitars that were shipped at launch. We've since identified and fixed the issue in all subsequent production runs of the guitars. If users are experiencing a problem with their guitars or any of the Rock Band instruments, they can visit the customer support website ( http://support.ea.com/rockband) and we will send a replacement immediately. Harmonix is dedicated to creating 100% customer satisfaction and to the users who have encountered any hardware issues, we are sorry for the hassle.

Harmonix also took the time to address some of the concerns about the Playstation 3 guitars.

We've seen all the message board posts, discussions and stories regarding the PS3 edition of Rock Band—from issues with guitar compatibility to frustration that stand-alone guitars and drums for Rock Band have not yet hit stores. We want people to know that these issues have our full attention. We are listening and we read everything that is posted on our forums and we're committed to providing the best play experience possible. We're working hard to ensure that we solve these problems as soon as possible. We promise to keep the community updated and, in the meantime, we thank them for their patience.

Excellent. We all make mistakes, it's how a company deals with them that matters and this is exactly how it should be done.

Rock Band Support [EA]

WII-KLY UPDATE: THREE NEW CLASSIC GAMES ADDED ON THE WII CONSOLE'S FIRST ANNIVERSARY

Nov. 19, 2007

Wii™ celebrates its first anniversary today, and big stars from past consoles are coming out to help Nintendo celebrate. Luminaries walking the Virtual Console™ red carpet this week include Mario™ and Luigi™, Sonic The Hedgehog and Zonk. So throw on your best tuxedo or finest gown, and get ready to party with these video game A-listers.

Three new classic games go live at 9 a.m. Pacific time. Nintendo adds new games to the Wii™ Shop Channel every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points™ to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week's new games are:

Wrecking Crew™ (NES®, 1-2 players, rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): In the days before Mario and Luigi became sports stars in their downtime between plumbing and saving the Princess, they tried their hands as one-man wrecking crews. With a hammer as their only tool, players take control of the brothers and set out to destroy ladders, rip out pipes, knock down walls and detonate explosive devices. But make sure to plan your path of destruction carefully, as each building is designed as its own clever puzzle—if you're not careful, you can easily trap yourself in a dead end. Adding to the excitement and challenge are fireballs, enemies and an angry foreman roaming the buildings. They're all trying to stop you from moving on to the next stage. With 100 buildings to demolish and the ability to construct your own, it's a wonder Mario and Luigi ever got back to saving the Mushroom Kingdom.

Sonic 3D Blast™ (Sega Genesis, 1 player, rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): The evil Dr. Eggman (aka Dr. Robotnik) stumbles upon an alternate dimension where some odd birds called Flickies have the ability to travel anywhere. In order to get help in his search for the Chaos Emeralds, Dr. Eggman transforms the Flickies into robots that will help him track down his coveted gems. Of course, it's up to our favorite blue hedgehog, Sonic, to step in and save the day. Jump into this 3-D adventure as Sonic or his buddy Tails, and collect the golden rings to help free the Flickies and defeat the doctor.

Super Air Zonk (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 player, rated E for Everyone - Mild Cartoon Violence, 800 Wii Points): Zonk is back in Super Air Zonk, the sequel to the shooting game spin-off of the Bonk series, Air "Zonk." Now moving to a rockabilly beat and able to transform into nine different characters, Zonk lets loose through seven action-packed stages in another battle against his arch nemesis, SandroVitch. Power up Zonk with the classic Meat item, eventually turning him into the champion of justice, Ultra Zonk, or the fearsome Tyrano Zonk in the latter stages of the game. After rescuing his friends from enemies, Zonk can also morph with them to combine powers. Fight enemies with killer tunes belted out from a trusty microphone. Hurl freshly made sushi at them. With its variety of wacky attacks, Super Air Zonk has a sense of humor all its own.

For more information about Wii, please visit wii.com.

Thanks New Open!

GameStop is now ending their replacement plan for new Xbox 360's due to the system's high failure rate. According to a GameStop employee newsletter and information provided to website GamersReports, current replacement plans will be honored until they expire, but no new ones will be offered.

Not too terribly surprising considering the seemingly never ending rash of stories about 360 hardware failure. I can only imagine that something like that would basically be bleeding money from the company right and left. Even though Microsoft has promised that all the new systems will no longer have these issues, it looks like GameStop isn't taking any chances.

An informed UK reader sends word of the Playstation 3's 2.0 firmware release, which he says is supposed to hit on Oct. 30. While the source appears to be genuine, I am a little doubtful of the timing since 1.94 seems to be just hitting now with copies of Ratchet and Clank, so take this, as you should all rumors, with a grain of salt.

Chief among the updates is the inclusion of cross media bar customization, a separate Playstation Network category, music and photo playlists and the ability to turn your PS3 on and off with PSP Remote Play. Hit the jump for the full break down of what we're told will be coming in this rather robust update.

PLAYSTATION 3 System Software update version 2.00

Schedule: 30 October 2007[JST]

Main features of PS3 version 2.00

Turn your PS3 on and off with PSP Remote play
A new PLAYSTATION Network category
A TV Category for those who install PlayTV into their HDD (SCEE only).
Playlist for Music & Photo
Content group for Video & Game
XMB customization (Custom theme & background color setting): This will come with one alternative custome theme. Addition generic themes will be available for download via www.playstation.com with game title themes to follow on Nov 20th, distributed via the Store (PS/PC). The cost of the game themes haven't been decided yet. Guidelines for users to create their own Custom Themes will be distributed via www.playstation.com shortly after the firmware hits.
Information Board: This will be shown in the top right of the screen and include news feeds from Playstation.com as well as store updates. The board came be set to ticker mode, list mode, details mode or disabled.
Trend Micro Web Security for PS3™ internet browser: This is a parental lock for website viewing that will initially be free but that Trend Micro will later charge for.

As you can see, my copy of the card sucks. I printed it out on my little $50 Canon IP1800 photo printer, which I use so rarely that it took me a good half hour to find the USB cable to hook it up. Once I had the printout in hand, I headed over to the game. I thought about cutting the card out of the paper, but in the end it didn't really matter.

Here we see the Biolith Bomber, easily scanning into the game despite the poor quality of the printout. The camera resolution is relatively low, so the symbols on the card need to be easily recognizable. Unfortunately this also makes them easily to duplicate as well.

Just to make sure, I registered the card with my online deck. Worked like a charm.

So what does this mean? Well for me, nothing much. I'm a collector, so I'll be buying cards no matter what. For the general public, however, I predict it is only a matter of time before hi-rez card scans appear for download on the web. Cards still have to follow game rules, however, so it shouldn't affect gameplay at all. The main effect will be seen by Sony and Wizards of the Coast, who make the cards and boosters. What looked like a lucrative endeavor might end up with more money in the pockets of printer cartridge manufacturers than anyone else. Hopefully measures can be taken to enhance the copy protection in the future. For right now, there's nothing special about the ink here whatsoever.

As a final note, don't do this. We sincerely do not recommend that anyone obtain cards this way. It makes you a dick...unless done for demonstration purposes, of course.

The Access controller, as Ben has dubbed it, features an extra layer of accessibility with a series of swappable modules. Owners of the Access can rearrange buttons, analog sticks, shoulder buttons, and the d-pad for the configuration of their choice. Neat!

Ben's new controller isn't available quite yet, nor does he mention a planned ship date. However, if you're interested in scoring one, he has provided contact info for eDimensional to whom you can express your interest. It's perfect for the disabled gamer in your life or for the Rumble Roses XX uber-enthusiast.

Benheck's new single handed "Access" controller revealed [Benheck.com - thanks, Scott!]

After reading of the MTV intern's plight to create a Master Chief costume earlier this week I remembered that some reader had sent me a picture showing a pal of his wearing the helmet from the Legendary version of the game on his head.

I had asked him to email me the details on how it was achieved and then never heard back. So I decided to do it myself... big mistake.

Before I walk you through this let me point out two things: I had to use a glue gun to put my helmet back together. That's because the center black piece that takes up all of the headroom is in fact also the frame that holds the whole thing together. The second reason? I'll leave that no-brainer till the end.

Instead of detailing the 25 steps necessary to do this, I'll sort of summarize. All you really need to do is unscrew all of the pieces. Unfortunately, the thing is put together like a puzzle, or an onion, or a puzzle of an onion. All said, I had to remove about 50 screws just to remove the big black piece of plastic that sheathes the copy of the game when the helmet is on its stand. I also ended up breaking a couple of tabs, though really they aren't necessary to create the finished helmet.

Once you've taken the whole thing apart, what you're left with is a pile of Master Chief colored plastic scraps. Fortunately, with the help of the mighty glue gun, it's not that hard to put them back together again.

While it took me a good hour or two to dismantle the helmet. Gluing it all back together again only took me a half hour or so. And I was quite happy with the end results, with one exception: You can't see out of it.

Now you'd think that I would have thought this through, before spending a big chunk of my time tearing the thing down, but I didn't . No sireee. It crossed my mind, but I figured I'd come up with a solution. As far as I can tell there really isn't a good one. I could cut holes in the visor, but that would ruin the effect. I even thought of covering the wholes with pieces of like-colored sunglasses, but that's just stupid.

I think the best idea might be to not do this, and instead work on building out shoulder and then mounting that on your head, with this helmet on top. That way you'd be about 7-feet tall. But that's a really bad idea too.

For now I guess I'll just amuse myself, roaming blindly around the house, scaring the dogs until i flip over the railing of my second-story loft and plummet to my death.

Live casting starts now. Watch and don't mock! Game starts on the hour best of seven. Guardian, Pit, Isolation, Construct and High Ground. Hit the jump for the live-ish blog!

Crecente just put his son to bed, so we are waiting.... For him to do that. Crecente is back, deleting people on his XBL account to make room for Luke.

BOMBSHELL. Readers we didn't lie: We will be talking on Gizmodo with Crecente, Fahey, Mark Wilson and Luke... Luke Smith. Former Kotaku writer and current Bungie employee. Giz will be bringing on former writer Travis, who doesn't work for Bungie.

And the game is getting under way. Sorta. GET A TRIPOD, CRECENTE. Oh, the camera is strapped to Crecente's head.

First game and Kotaku wins!

Crecente would like to point out that he has the second highest number of kills.

Second game. It's 1-1. Giz wins! Rather, Giz wins.

Third game. Giz wins 49-50. Giz is up 2-1. :/

Fourth game. Giz...

Fifth game. And it looks like Kotaku just might... WIN!!! It's now 3-2.

Last game. "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww fuck."

Tonight Team Kotaku will be taking on Team Gizmodo in a little Halo 3 bloodbath. I say bloodbath because while the Giz folks have been training like Spartan warriors, getting online every night to play as a codified team, I've had trouble getting our team to stay awake long enough to sign in to Live.

Tonight's match-up, which I will be streaming live on Justin.TV, will be a bit more like frat boys rolling a bunch of drunks then an actual fight, with shots being fired from both sides.

Our team will consist of myself, Fahey, Mark and Luke, while Team Giz will be Brian, Jason, Matt and Travis. Feel free to debate here which of our team:

A: Chokes on his own vomit
B: Wets himself
C: Gets an actual kill

Astrophysicist Dr. Gaurav Khanna is using eight linked Playstation 3s to measure what sort of gravity waves would be produced if a super-massive black hole were to swallow a star.

The eight PS3s, donated to the doctor's research by Sony, replace Khanna having to tap into supercomputing sites at $5,000 a pop, Wired reports. He said the "gravity grid" of PS3s, which has been up for about a month now, are equal to about 200 of the supercomputing nodes.

"The interest in the PS3 really was for two main reasons," explains Khanna, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth who specializes in computational astrophysics. "One of those is that Sony did this remarkable thing of making the PS3 an open platform, so you can in fact run Linux on it and it doesn't control what you do."

The other of course is the upcoming release of Eye of Judgment.... better pick up a some velvet robes Dr. Guarav "Gravity Grid" Khanna.

Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStation 3s