Levine, compatriot and family (including in his parents) are actually sitting right next to me. They're all very nice people. Hit up the jump to follow along as Levine wows us.

Here we are again... we being me, preparing to liveblog Electronic Art's press conference. Hit the jump to follow along.

Welcome to our E3 Microsoft Liveblog ,hit the jump to follow along and Kotaku comments to talk along and for a chance at winning some of our prizes.

Hit the jump to follow along and make sure to ask questions in comments.

Satchell is talking about the XNA Arcade. The question is how will games get to Live.

Who decides that it goes to the public Live?

Once it goes into review it goes into escrow, when enough people agree to the ratings that's when it gets pushed through to Live.

Will it just be for E rated games?

Actually the games will be unrated so if you enable parental settings you won't be able to see them, that's the responsible thing to do. We are talking with the rating boards around the world to ask for their suggestions. They won't be doing the ratings, but they do have a lot of experience.

In terms of payment will creators be able to set a price?

Right now we are not discussing the business model. We have a beta in Spring. Once we see the usage we will see how that can work.

Will all members be able to download the games on Live?

Yes

How will it be displayed on Live?

There will be a twist at the top. We will also provide you with a rich environment where you can do searches.

Do you plan on increasing the file size?

We really want to listen to the community. So as people start submitting in the beta, are we constraining things with that file size. That's our stake in the ground.

What are your expectations, do you expect indie developers to use it or the unknowns?

I hope it's both, we get established creators. I also hope we discover great ideas out there. There are great ideas out there in the community and if the only way to find those is to go through the ten years of study.

When we see students from computer science or game students out there, it will be really cool if big companies can see your reputation before you leave.

Greenberg: You also can't underestimate that community. We have 10 million active Live users.

Satchell: Aaron makes a good point, it is a very active community.

Why can't the 360 create Unreal Tournament mods?

Satchell: I can't comment on what Sony is doing. How are they protecting gamers from obscene content, infringing content and harmful content. What stops mods from harming your system? XNA is very secure.

Maybe they don't care about security as much as we do.

Is there a worry that if this channel does well, that some Live sales will be hurt?

Schappert: I think that could be a worry, but I think that empowering gamers... is a good thing. A lot of people could have said the same when they launched Xbox Live Arcade.

How will XNA games work on the Zune?

This year you will be able to download XNA Game studio and get your Zune and do game development on there like you can with Live.

We want to get that step done first.

I think it's really about giving people who use XNA Studios the widest platform.

Will you be restricting content by region at all?

That's something we are looking very hard at. I thought at the moment is that what you will need to do is have your game and submit it in different regions. If you get multiple region reviewed to have it available there. Conceptionally yes.

Where there be a way to design iteratively?

People will sometimes put up the source code, the game and the art and someone else will improve it.

The reviewers can give you feedback.

Who will retain those rights?

The creators will retain those rights when submitting those games.

What if creators want to create a new form of Desert Strike? Will EA get annoyed?

One of those things is the IP check, you can do parodies and inspirations of other work but if you rip off the graphics of a game it probably won't make it through the pipeline.

Will we see more Live games experiences crossing over to major triple-A titles like what was announced with Fable 2?

We keep pushing the boundaries of Live. You are seeing a natural progression of those things. If it works well in Fable. Personally I want to get my wife addicted to the mini-games and she can make all of the gold and then I can spend it in Fable 2.

You get a lot of professional game developers that are in big teams and they have a cool idea. I have a great idea and build this and be this auteur for once.

Will web publishers be able to access the stats from their game, like the number of downloads?

I'd love to make them public APIs so you could use them, that would be cool. It's not in the plan yet, but it's something we are talking about.

What's up with the Xbox 360 hardware shortages?

Schappert: This was news to me too. When we realize that we might have shortages around Christmas and we push that start button the first product doesn't show up till March. It's a complex system.

Larry Hryb implied that the Live outages were caused by the increase in users, what happened?

Schappert: Larry's podcast was spot on, the take away is right before Christmas we saw users grow exponentially and our servers were having trouble meeting that demand. We had people working well over the holidays. We are in good shape now. The hours before the Super Bowl we had 1 million concurrent users after the Super Bowl started it went down. It was the game before the game.

Anyway to add achievements to XNA community games?

There's no way to add achievements to XNA community games. How long do you think it would be until we had a game that was a "press this button to get 1,000 points?"

(From a blogger): We already have that it's called Avatar.

When will we have a blu-ray player for the 360?

We are not talking about a blu-ray player. People are buying our system to play games.

What happens to the movies that disappear?

It's not related to storage it's related to license windows.

How long until we start to see IPTV?

It depends on when a provider want to offer that service.

Would you rather see developers working on triple-A titles or on episodic content?

We would like to see both, look at Rock Band. We pioneered downloadable content with Xbox Live and I think people are clambering for it. We are going to have the best box retail games and the best downloadable content.

Will the 360 support Emotiv?

If there was enough of a demand for it, yes, in theory.

What about restoring DRM right for content downloads for repaired or replaced machines?

That's something we are still working through, that's something very top of mind. We are working on that yes.

In the interim what we are doing is giving points to those folks who bought those games and can't download them, so they can redownload those titles. We realize it is unacceptable.

Any thought of using non-proprietary harddrives for the 360?

Probably not. We take security much more seriously than maybe our friends down south do.

Do you feel an obligation to bring games that maybe aren't just about entertainment to the community, like games for younger children or education?

I think you will definitely see that from the community. There were some games that almost became finalists for the contest that were educational.

I think educational games, social commentary games are going to come. I think that's cool, for a medium of gaming that's super cool. Education is a big deal for us as well. We work

Schappert: I was talking to Cliff about this the other day, how do I break into this. I'm going to point them directly here. Everyone has computers and everyone has the software.

Annnnnd that's the big show.

"On any system you will have a range of quality. Publishers are working extremely hard to take advantage of the Wii and it's unique abilities. Those publishers who do a great job enjoy fantastic sales. As publishers understand how to take advantage of the unique aspects of the remote you will see better and better games. We already have a certification program and publishers need to conform with a number of key aspects to get certified. What we don't do is have some sort of filter for quality, because quality is so subjective. Nintendo is working hand in glove with publishers to share with them our level of expertise with the technology."

My suggestion? Take that big ol' glove and use it to smack down anyone who tries to release another Ninjabread Man. The extent of Nintendo's guidance is anybody's guess at this point, though I am envisioning "Make Wii Games Like Nintendo" seminars popping up around the world.

OK, the call with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime is set to start any second now. I'll be trying to liveblog what he has to say and the questions and answers as it happens on the jump.

The invitation said that Fils-Aime would be discussing the "overwhelming demand for the Wii" and Wii supplies through the holidays and beyond. I suspect he will also be talking about the increase in production and distribution we mentioned earlier today.

Alrighty, I've dropped into the call. Waiting for it to start.

And it's started with Fils-Aime starting off the talk.

"The purpose of this call is to add some perspective to what continues to be an overwhelming demand for Wii."

He's outlining the effort they've put into meeting demand including a new rain check program. If a consumer goes into a Gamestop on Dec. 20 or Dec. 21 and make a full payment they will receive a Wii rain check certificate (while supplies last) which guarantees a Wii by the end of January.

Fils-Aime has also confirmed that six national retailers, including Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart, will be releasing large supplies of Wii this weekend.

Fils-Aime says that with the rain check program GameStop has "many tens of thousands of rain checks available across their roughly 3,000 points of distribution." And calls it a great way for consumers to put something under the tree that guarantees they will have a Wii in January.

Reggie says that there is no hard date for when or if they will cut back or increase the current, and recently increased, production rate for the Wii.

MTV's Stephen Totilo asked Reggie if there is any thought about manufacturing Wii in the United States to cut down on the delay caused by the need to ship the finished product from Asia to the States. The short answer? No.

Rain check program is exclusive to GameStop because, Reggie says, the tools they've created for their pre-sale programs allow them to track specific sales trends and where consumers shop. "Only this retailer has the ability to handle this complicated a program."

On the quality of third-party games for the Wii:
"On any system you will have a range of quality. Publishers are working extremely hard to take advantage of the Wii and it's unique abilities. Those publishers who do a great job enjoy fantastic sales. As publishers understand how to take advantage of the unique aspects of the remote you will see better and better games. We already have a certification program and publishers need to conform with a number of key aspects to get certified. What we don't do is have some sort of filter for quality, because quality is so subjective.
Nintendo is working hand in glove with publishers to share with them our level of expertise with the technology."

On possible DS shortages:
"We do not have reported shortages of DS. As we get to the 24 of December inventory will be quite tight, there may be spot shortages at some retailers, but consumers should be able to find them."

On voice chat and VC online play:
"We do not anticipate making online gameplay for Virtual Console games. In terms of voice chat... certainly our system has the capability for online voice chat, what it comes down to is finalizing the peripheral... I would not be surprised to see that capability come to this system."

Finally someone asked if Nintendo is airfreighting Wii from the far east to the U.S. Reggis said they are "doing some unique things that are proprietary. We are expediting product to the Americas."

And that wraps up the call.

11:20 AM: Who's hindering us in the marketplace? Not Sony, not Microsoft - not other publishers. Non-consumption is our problem: The people who aren't playing games today.
11:25 AM: He's going to be covering three topics - state of industry from Nintendo perspective, the immediate prospects for the holiday season, and finally a longer-term look at video games and entertainment business changing
11:30 AM: Only 1 in 5 people describe themselves as regular video game players. Twice as many have no interest in playing at all. 40% say I'm interested and I've played games in the past, but there are other things that keep me from really getting into them.

More Reggie goodness after the jump...

11:33 AM - The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass sold 250,000 units in just one week. Impressive!
11:34 AM - Talking a lot about the DS now...it's very important to the industry. DS is the primary growth driver for the industry sales. He expects more than 6 M DS units to be sold in the US this year.
11:36 AM - What's the biggest request on bridal registries? According to Reggie: The Wii!
11:37 AM - Big jump in male usage of the Wii this year. 15-29 year-old males. Wii is about the mainstream but also the hardcore!
11:41 AM - How was the Wii impacted by Halo 3 sales? It was our best showing so far this year: Half a million in hardware sales. "For the time being, the man seems bulletproof." Our only problem? Availability!
11:42 AM- We are making 1.8 Million Wii units a month. We are taking consumer scarcity very seriously.
11:44 AM- Pro-tip: The system that has won after the second holiday season in market has already won the console war!
11:45 AM - Super Smash Bros Brawl comes on February 10th. The industry's first blockbuster title of 2008! 4 player Wifi multiplayer. Mario Kart will is coming next year too, including optional steering wheel controller. And Wii Fit/Wii Balance Board coming next year to US.
11:50 AM - Hey Reggie, are you going to give us any details on that September surprise?
11:51 AM - The keys to the future of videogames according to Reggie. 1.) Immersion! The Wii Fit Board, the Wii Zapper, and of course the Wii Remote. 2.) Inclusion/Social Cohesion. It's a dynamic we've seen with Wii Bowling. If Mario and Sonic can share top-billing in a game, anyone can play together! 3.) Innovation. "Our record on this one speaks for itself."

That's it. No big news there — well, besides the fact that the Wii is #1 on Bridal registries! Choice quote from the talk, in reference to the Wii sales in the face of Halo 3: "For the time being, the man seems bulletproof."

I'll be, if I can get the equipment working, liveblogging a bit of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction gameplay in a few minutes. The area I will be playing is from Level Six. As always I will try to avoid all spoilers, well at least plot ones.

Hop to the jump and comment away, I'll be reading the Kotaku comments to try and answer questions as I play.

OK, that's it, show's over. You can always hit up the Justin TV archives if you want to watch me playing.

A conference call about the buy-out is kicking off in just minutes. I'll be liveblogging it here on the jump. Stay tuned.

OK, it's now underway.

EA says they've had their eye on these companies for a number of years and that the two companies will help fill a void in EA's RPG, action and adventure games. They also will get to dip their toe into the MMO world.

Now the deal specifics:

They are paying $860 million in consideration, as we reported earlier, and they expect the deal to close by early 2008.

EA expects to break even on the deal by 2009 and start raking it in by 2010.

John Riccitiello's on the line now. He says he has a "residual interest" in Elevation Partners but that the decision to go ahead with the purchase was confirmed by an independent team.

Frank Gibeau, president of the games label, said EA expects games to be created in "10 plus" franchises as well as the MMO that Bioware's Austin office is working on.

Of the ten plus franchises there are many titles that have not yet been announced but will be in the near future. They do include Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Mercenaries, Saboteur, Neverwinter Knights and several others.

EA said Bioware and Pandemic have several titles that have been targeted for the DS and the Wii.

The dialog engine in Mass Effect which could be used for other games in the future.

EA brings a lot to the table in the deal, Riccitiello says. They can "offer them the leverage of the world's best publisher", much more in the way of online and much more in the way of mobile.

"We are not in the open world action adventure business, these guys are leaders. Strong intellectual properties and talent."

Of the ten titles that the EA folks referenced earlier, the games are expected to be spread out from now to 2011.

EA is already publishing a bulk of Bioware and Pandemic titles, so the effect of the titles hitting this holiday probably won't be that pronounced.

Riccitiello compares today's news with EA's aquisition of Maxis or Westwood, though he points out both were smaller developers than BioWare or Pandemic.

Maxis has since become a much bigger, bigger business. In the case of Westwood, EA was less successful there but they were able to take the C&C franchise and build it significantly.

And that's it. I'll be posting the full transcript of this call down here once it hits the EA webpage. I'd expect it to be within the next hour.

OK, I'm going to get started now. Hit the jump to comment and ask questions, I'll try to keep an eye on the site and the comments to see what questions you might be asking. As always, don't watch if you don't want spoilers. This is my first time playing this part of the game, so I have no idea if there will be plot spoilers.

All done, but you can go back to Justin TV and watch the recording of my gameplay.

Alright, on to Lair. I actually have to review this game for a magazine, so I thought why not let you guys come along for a bit of the ride. Hit the jump to comment along as I play through the beginning of the game. I'd love to hear what you think. I'm still on the line about the game.

That's it. Sorry you missed it if you did, but you can always hit up the archives to watch.

Ouch. I just got called out on the liveblogging think be Dean and the Merc.

Harrison is talking about the unveiling of both Home and LittleBigPlanet.

The thing lost, I think, during the original keynote, is that Sony is hoping to spur a wider conversation about something they call Game 3.0.

The idea is that it would create a set of terms and ideas by which gamers and developers could judge new and future games.

I just asked if it's possible for that arcade, the one showing eight or so games inside the public space of Home, could be used as a form of premium advertising inside the PS3 space for indie games.

"Yes, that's a good idea," Harrison said. "We are already working with some external developers to create those games inside Home anyway."

"We initially intended to make the arcade games java based, but we've gotten away from that. It's not trivial to be able to create those games."

Home, Harrison said, will have a system in place to manage users with both a soft and hard cap, to prevent an overflow of people in one place that could hurt performance.

Money will be made in home three ways:
Object sales, item sales.
Advertising
B2B, like partner brands being embedded into the network.

The free stuff will include your avatar, public spaces, your home, there will be furniture and some items you can unlock by purchasing PS3 games.

"Exactly what the list is I don't know."

We're quizzing Harrison on how Sony will make Home work, live.

It sounds like he doesn't think it's going to be a big issue. It isn't really like Second Life, he points out when asked and despite it's detail thinks it will be accessible to a broad audience.

Home will require a registration to the network and a free ID, and right now about half of the million or so PS3 owners have their consoles registered for online use.

The existing user agreement will be used to deal with griefers in Home, and those who "get in your face" can be set to just disappear.

More after the jump. Brian Crecente

Harrison is talking about customizing your view in Home now:

You can buy a better view you can download a better sunset.

Speculative, we had a discussion about. Lets say you have a great view out the back of your apartment... all your friends come around and see thats great you have this view. Maybe as a premium item you can get that V of ducks or a boat floating in the water.

While the big view is the same of your friends, you might be able to customize your view.

We're getting into the whole Sony image thing now.

Robert Summa just pointed out that people see Sony as being arrogant. The constant foot in the mouth statements, any little thing, people latch on to.

Now we're into a discussion about whether the console is doing well, why some people think it isn't doing well. Harrison points out that he thinks that Sony is doing quite well.

Now we're on to corporate blogging and why Sony doesn't have their own Major Nelson.

"We don't have a Major Nelson, but we have a Dave Karraker. You can get tremendous access to people inside Sony."

We got into this whole thing about ThreeSpeech, but it ended with most of us, or at least me, not quite sure who they are still. According to the UK PR guy, it was set up by Sony to be an independent voice and specifically in the UK.

Harrison is saying again that he considers the PS3, when compared to the PS2 and PSOne, a success.

He also says he doesn't think that exclusives are as important.

"I' m not sure that's as big a deal as everyone points out," he said.

Talking about E3. Lets look at what the old E3 was becoming, there was a huge number of stakeholders, who were not decision makers who were not valuable to the industry.

Harrison: Our investment to support the booth was going up and up and up. It was like an arms race.

Karraker: They are limiting it pretty much to US only. Will it provide enough glitz and glamour to attract the mainstream media.

Harrison: My prediction we have just reset the clock.

Music and games, we're talking about how the two compare, thanks to an intelligent question by Stephen Totilo.

And we're off into a ranging philosophical discussion about the nature of gaming, music, human nature, tribal culture. Essentially, it sounds like Harrison believes that all forms of pop culture is suffering from this issue that people now fall into so many more niches then they once did.

On to the Playstation Portable.

Harrison said he didn't talk PSP during the keynote simply because he didn't have the space.

PS3Fanboy asks about the unrealized potential of the PSP.

The Sony guy here for the PSP group, sorry I didn't get his name, tackles this issue:

"It's a matter of how best to distribute on the PSP. Downloading movies need to be secure. We've been working on a way to do that."

"The promise is there. We ran some research. They say they would rather watch movie on a PSP than an iPod."

"It's something we need to address. We are well aware of the market."

So, still working on, going do it, just don't know when. The design, he added, will stay the same.

Back to Home.

Harrison: They will be mining the database of PSN members, but the exact numbers haven't been announced yet.

He adds that potentially you can use the avatars from Home in games, but their our some technical issues, so it won't work in every game. It is something we hope to do.

And now other stuff:

Richard Marx (SCEA interface guy): We are working on a new camera. We've shown Eye of Judgment and things. It will have much better specs. We are working very heavily on microphone input. We have research for longer-range products. I don't think the end goal for an interface is brain control. My personal opinion is we want to widen that as much as possible.

On Warhawk
Dylan Jobe, Warhawk game director for Incognito, was asked how much Warhawk would be as a downloadable.
"I'm not the person to make that decision. We were concerned about the changes we were going to make to Warhawk. I truly feel you have to take a gamer centric view when you make a game. I would love to see the game price more appropriately, I don't want to see it priced full-priced."

Then I asked him if he though t there is a stigma attached to downloadable games.

"I don't think the success of iTunes have lead music producers to sit in a studio and lower their bar. Crap product will sell crap whether it is digital or on a store shelf. I think there is a stigma that download titles is shovel ware. I personally think it's BS."

"I think it's a stigma, it's there, it's something we have to deal with. That is something Sony has to deal with. We are not going to try and cram some game into 10 megs or 20 megs. There is definitely a stigma. When we announced it into the team, one of our team members didn't like that."

"Sony's commitment to their Playstation network transcends an arcade port. Proof is in the pudding. We have to put our product where our mouth is."

We're at the Nintendo Shigeru Miyamoto keynote. It's starting any minute now.

I just spoke with Reggie and asked him if there were going to be any fireworks during the keynote. He said "a couple." He's the second one to tell me that today's keynote isn't going to be quite as bland as people initially expected. Hit the jump to follow along. Brian Crecente

Niero from Destructoid just stopped by and starting bowing to us. Mike M pretended to unzip his pants. Not an auspicious start to the event.

That and Chobot is dancing around. Odd.

The music's quite nice. We're now 15 minutes past when it was supposed to start. No announcements, though I see movement behind the curtain up there.

I just ran over and talked to Phil Harrison, after reading in our comments that he's here in the front row. I asked how he got the choice seat. "Membership has its privileges," he said.

"I hear something might happen here today, what do you think? Are you looking forward to it?"

I'm just happy that I'm able to sit here and don't have to be up there."

I like Phil, he seems like a nice guy.

They just told us to quiet it down. Ah, here comes Jamil Moledina.

He's introducing Shigeru Miyamoto, pointing out that while he's called the Steven Spielberg of gaming it probably doesn't do him justice. It should be the other way around.

Moledina says its time to present a different kind of keynote a personal experience with Miyamoto.

The lights when down and Mii Creator came up on the screen and here comes the real thing, standing on the stage with Bill Trinen and Moledina like he is on the Wii.

"I can't believe its been eight years since I've had a chance to talk to you, you haven't aged a bit, just like me."

Miyamoto is going to use the Wii and the photo channel to do his presentation. Screw power point.

He's going back to the beginning to Donkey Kong. He's showing pictures of kids playing games, of him playing Super Mario World wearing one of those skinny black ties.

Now he's talking about the top games of 1998. Top of the list was Goldeneye 007.

"Within a few years, something changed."

He shows the top games in 2004, topped by GTA.

He said the questions asked of him changed too. People started asking what sort of effect games were having on people.

"Even as sales went up, our reputation went down."

This was a period when Nintendo and myself personally found ourselves at a crossroads.

All of this leads me to my topic today, the essence of any game designer. The creative vision, as well as Nintendo's vision.

He's talking about the Nintendo difference now.

First is the Expanded Audience.

Shigeru says he has his own way of determining how good a game will be. He calls it the Wife-o-meter. It measures the interest level of his wife.

He's talking about how as games became more casual, his wife became more interested in gaming.

Now he's talking up Nintendogs and talking about the fact that why his wife loves cats, he loves dogs.

Now he's talking about his dog Pick.

"Getting back to my point today, this relates to moving up the wife-o-meter. I was watching our dog friends and my wife. Maybe if we could get these people and turn them into game players we could expand the user base. When I eventually showed (Nintendogs) to my wife, she finally started to look at video games in a different way. And then came Brain Age, this is the game that turned her into a true gamer."

Shiggy says that on Valentine's Day he returned home and heard the sounds of the Wii. Initially thought she had waited up for him, but in fact was just casting votes on the Everybody Votes Channel. It meant she had decided to use the Wii on her own.

"This is a big event in my house, It would have been more expected for me to come home and find Donkey Kong eating at our table."

Now his wife brags about being able to beat him on the second Brain Age and she's always playing Wii Sports and making Miis.

"I think this is something that is very lucky for me. She is learning to create things. I think this is her first step to game design."

The second key element to Nintendo's vision is the company's devotion to the game industry. They don't have to worry about diversification or expanding beyond this market.

The entire company, both on the hardware and software side, only think about game design and game hardware design, he says.

Shigeru points out he's had a hand in designing every controller for Nintendo since they got in the business. Which means it was easier for him to work with the team. Those creations, he says, were all group cooperations.

With the creation of the Wii they had different teams working on different elements of both the design and the ideas behind the new console.

Now he is showing off a bunch of different controller prototypes. Finally, they decided on the tv remote-like controller. That final version, he said, was the result of a lot of collaboration between many different teams.

At one point we even wondered with the recent advances in portable gaming, did we even need to have a device that connected to a TV at all.

As a controller the Wii remote does a lot of what I have always dreamed of as a designer.

Nintendo definition of technical progress often focuses on new interfaces.

He's showing off the museum that Ashcraft visited for us awhile back for ancient playing cards in Japan. Ash did a great feature on it and the technology for us awhile back.

Shigeru said he was put in charge of producing http://kotaku.com/gaming/nintendo/shigureden-poetry-readings-151079.php">the interface.

Now he's talking us through the museum, something Ash did quite well. Here's Ash's original story with tons of pictures. Essentially you use a DS to move through the museum and interact with it.

This bring us to the third element: Risk.

None of our risks have ever rivaled the design of the Wii.

:"Frankly the Gamecube was just a half step toward working with a wider audience."

He says that while they were fairly secure about taking the risk, they weren't sure if it was worth taking until E3 and the reaction they got there.

But corporations don't make video games, people do.

My primary focus in development are not the individual pieces, he says, instead he concentrates on the core element of the game. He does that by thinking about the face of the gamers, what they will look while they play his games.

Now he's taking us to MyFirstTouchDS, which shows people's first experience with the Nintendo DS. He's showing us one of a little girl giggling manically as she plays. Now an older person laughing away as he plays.

"Not only is the person playing the game being happy, but the person around them are getting excited and that's what I've always wanted as a designer."

"In my personal case the feeling I strive for is positive. So I keep this image of the person playing the game in my mind until the game is finished. If I think that we have lost our way in a game design, then I'm going to take that risk and, as people say, up-end the tea table."

"When we are creating a game, we have to force ourselves to make the game purely from the viewpoint of the gameplayer. If I feel this so strongly that I think we need to drastically change a spec, I will up end a tea-table."

"I think my vision of a happy gamer's face is a good match for Nintendo's vision."

He's talking about the success of Wii Play now.

Oh, now he's saying that reviewers maybe need to add a new way to score games, something that reflects how fun it is to play a game for people who don't normally game.

Now he's talking about Communication. I hope to god they announce they're getting rid of Friend Codes. Please get rid of Friend Codes. We like names, thank you very much.

Right now he's talking about single player versus multiplayer gaming.

Zelda was confusing to those in Japan, he said. They told him to make one way through the dungeon, no multiple paths. "But I ignored them."

He said he took their sword away from the beginning of the game because then they would know what they wanted to do. And in turn they would start to talk and think about the game, share their ideas about how to beat the game.

It was a new form of game communication.

"In this sense Zelda became the inspiration for something very different: Animal Crossing. This was a game based solely on communication."

He's talking about prioritization now. People are always complaining about not having enough, he says. Not enough graphics, not enough gameplay, but as a developer he needs to prioritize.

:He's talking about applying prioritization to Wii Sports baseball.

The game, he points out, only has one stadium, has no real teams and the characters themselves are very simplistic.

"We had these concerns in Nintendo, but we agreed that our time could be better spent making the game feel more realistic."

They spent all of their time working on pitching and hitting.

It was only by applying this strict priortization that we were able to deliver this game on time.

Being a baseball fan myself I'm really hoping I will be able to play a more realistic baseball game on the Wii.

The final aspect of his personal mission is about tenacity.

He's talking about a indoor pitching machine, a sort of real world toy Nintendo once made that never took off. Shigeru never forgot about that and finally was able to work that into Wii Sports with Baseball.

Next he's talking about the disc drive on the Famicon. He showing how you can draw your own face on the old Famicon.

"So this was coupled with something called the Scenario disc which would animate the face. I thought this would be a great idea, but there weren't many people who agreed with me."

"It awoke from hibernation after several years."

When the released the Nintendo 64 they sold a similar game to members of their service in Japan.

The key features of this program were the wide variety of clothing and the editor.

Then came the e-Reader in the GameBoy advance and the GameBoy Camera.

Again they tried a similar approach. He's got some super freaky avatars up on the screen James Browning it up. The audience is all clapping.

I'm a little scared.

Shigeru said it was obvious that it would be a huge hit, but the Nintendo folks said it's funny, but how's it a game?

When Wii planning begin, again he returned to the same idea.

He said Iwata told him one day that the DS team was working on a similar game and making good progress.

"I said this is exactly what I was thinking of. I went back to my team and said you guys are useless. I then left them for awhile and worked with this other team for awhile."

Shigeru says that while it was always a good idea there were questions they could never answer, like how is it a game or how could it be used. The Wii answered those questions.
Over the years his idea became less of a game and more of a utility because of the increases in technology. They were actually reducing the number of people would play with it. But once they limited it, it became accessible to a wider audience.

"My tenacity finally paid off, but only when I was willing to take the risk of looking at the problem from a different angle."

Today people are so taken with the Miis around the world. Im working on a new Mii channel.

With this channel we are going to let people compare the Miis they created in a popularity contest.

And you will be allowed to do this with people from around the world.

Now he's talking Mario. What happened to Mario 128?

When people ask me what happened to Mario 128, I'm already at a loss of how to answer. Most of you have already played it, but you played it in Pikmin.

You will be experiencing a new element of Mario 128 soon in Super Mario Galaxy.

He's showing a video of Super Mario Galaxy.

The video shows Mario soaring through the air, running around globes, rotating surfaces and shooting from vines with gravity shifting on him.

Wow, some really amazing stuff here and the video just ended.

"You'll be able to play Super Mario Galaxy this year."

My main message is that creative vision isn't just one element of game design it is the most important element."

"We much reach out to those to not only those who don't understand video games, but those who fear it. Wouldn't it be great if we could get them to play games too?"

"We are humans, and our job is to entertain humans and to do that we must always remember the human touch."

"After all if we can convert my wife, we can convert anyone."

And the show's over.

The award presentations seem kinda cool, the skits... not so much.

They're showing random audience shots and Seth Green is there, tie and all. He so kicks ass.

I think the problem with the skits are, they're just not funny. You can't force this stuff. Maybe Spike needs to just concentrate on the awards. Perhaps they should cut it down to an hour and have it be more like the Oscars, a coupe of jokes from the emcee and that's all she wrote.

Hmm, show's back and they just introduced Yellow Card to present the studio of the year. These guys are idiots. Id-E-Ots.

OK, for the record I not only voted for Clover Studios, but I nominated them. They really should have won, nothing against Epic.

Cliffy looks so happy. I just heard him say "that things huge". Lol, he just shouted "What's up bitches". I think four people clapped. Bitches is right.

Rogan, he's even cracking himself up. Man, they need to get better writers, or actors, or something.

Showing the world premier of GRAW 2 now. That's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for the three of you who've never played the game.

Hahahaha, El Paso, Texas. That's just perfect. Actually, it does sort of remind me of junior high school.

Now that's what I'm talking about. They just brought two of the guys from Reno 911. Let's see if they can do live.

They can. First, they're cussing like nobody's business. Ahhhahaha: They just said Fuck you pig. Oh, man they rock.

What the... awards round-up.

Hit the jump for more of my babbling.

Game Head commercial. What do you guys think of that show, it seems pretty respectable they've done some pretty impressive things this year.

I think Samuel L is actually changing clothes during every commercial break.

Oh hell no. Samuel L. Jackson pwned. Lol.

Hotness just walked onto th estage. She's got a name, but it's just been wiped clean from my brain.

Best Cast nominees coming up. And the winner is, as you all know, Family Guy. Holy Seth Green Batman. Nice, they have some of the cast up on stage, I mean besides Seth Green. Yes, he said Gigity, gigity goo.

Oh shit, Michael Irving is plaing Wii Golf. Lame, he threw it and broke the camera. La-Ame.

Tony Hawk just won an award. Wasn't he just a presenter.

Samuel L is introducing a Spike TV show now. This is starting to feel like a big circle jerk.

Holy... The King is in the audience.

AFI is on the stage performing. They should never be allowed to perform live again... never!

It sounds like the mixing is all screwed up, or maybe the singer always sounds that way Man, I feel old.

Some TNA Impact guy just threatened to kick the Gamehead guy's ass. Nice.

More Reno guys on stage now. Sorry, girl and guyish. They are awesome. I love them.

There seem to be an awful lot of commercials with this show, both during and around it. Zing!

OK, the VGA drinking game: Everytime Samuel L cusses take a drink.

SLJ in yet another outfit annnnnnd. waiting for it, waiting for it, waiting for it... and drink.

How in the hell did the Loco Roco song (my vote and nomination) not win the Best Song award. How? Frggin Yellow Card, I'm disgusted.

Wait, the Spike TV VGA award is a monkey? A Monkey. OK CliffyB, I want a picture like now.

Heroes hottie just took to the stage. She's blathering on about video game addiction and mocking young gamers knowledge of books. I bet she couldn't name three books by Hemingway.

Whats with all of the sorta off camera COS players. Very odd.

OK, some painful comedian is on stage now. She's actually getting booed. Not only is she insulting everyone, she's not even funny.

Wow, that was really, really bad.

Heroes guy took the stage: the Japanese guy who was recently nominated as one of the sexiest geeks around by Wired.

He's doing the best team sports nominees, that's a little tangential don't you think?

Hmm, he just busted out with a "Save the cheerleader, save the world." Thanks for the commercial buddy.

Superman is yapping about World of Warcraft now. He, apparently loves Blizzard. How very trendy.

They're showing the trailer for World of Warcraft Burning Crusade, But instead of just showing it the cameras keep cutting back to the live choir. We don't care about the people in robes singing god dammit, just show the trailer. Ahhh, my brain is going to explode.

Oh man, the finally got some good jokes. The Game of the Year nominees lead-up is hilarious.

Oblivion wins, despite all the people shouting Gears of War.

It just ended with things exploding and Samuel L cussing. DRINK!

OK, one post show wrap-up question and observation.

Was the Tenacious D performance worth sitting through the whole show?

I think the problem is that Spike TV is trying to make a show that is both attractive to gamers and non-gamers. Don't. There's plenty of gamers around to support the show, just shoot for appealing to them. Brian Crecente

Major Nelson was able to find some WiFi and is crouched backstage of X06. He promises to attempt a liveblog of the event, so I'll be following his comments and posting them here with my own thought(less)ful prose. Keep it here for live stuff.

From the Major:

Chris Lewis has just taken the stage, and is talking about past X0 events.

Banjo and Kazooie coming to Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 is driving overall console sales in Europe.

As of today, based on third-party data Xbox sales represent nearly 60% of home console revenue in Europe - a five-fold increase over last year.

We launched the original Xbox in 16 European markets. Today we're bringing even more gamers in the region into the Xbox community, including South Africa, where Xbox makes its debut this weekend, to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, where Xbox 360 will be available in time for Christmas.

Doom was just confirmed for Live Arcade.

Oh, oh, it looks like the embargo just exploded. Someone leaked the pre-presser press release onto several sites. I'll be putting our stuff up now.

Jump to the main page for everything.

Brian Crecente

X06 Liveblogging [Major Nelson]

Makuhari Messe. International Conference Room. At a little before 10am. AND NO ONE IS HERE.

Well, no. That is not true. No one is in front of us. Not yet. The foreign press has been shoved to the back of the bus, leaving the front of the hall wide open to more important people. Mike just ran off to "fix the hairdo" before the keynote kicks off.

Oh. Wow. The section in front of us filled right up, right quick. Mike is back. They are limiting the press to only show 15 SECONDS of the keynote. That is it. You can film the whole thing, but only run 15 secs.

Mike here. I'm back from fixing my hair — another few hours and it'll be perfect. Now the struggle to use a Japanese Mac goes into full force. More Japanese press is streaming in. Not sure if that body odor is European or not, but it's super strong.

Brian is on his knees, snapping pics of the Weekly Famitsu hearthrob editor in chief and president of Enterbrain. We're in the same row. Maybe our seats aren't so ghetto after all.

It's now 10:03 AM. Kutaragi is now officially late.

Okay, this is bordering on rude. Maybe Sony is going to come out and announce that the keynote has been delayed until Spring 2007. They obviously don't realize we have a schedule; developers to interview, campaign girls to ogle, crappy food to eat.

There go the lights! It's on.

Kenny takes the stage. Good morning, Ken! He's thanking the CESA and talking about the PlayStation 3 launch, which will "open the eyes of the new generation of gamers".

They've brought 200 PS3's to the show.

He's inviting us to "feel" the PlayStation 3 while we're here. Eww. Brian just grabbed by bicep. Trailers are kicking in.

Ridge Racer 7. Looks hot. Looks 1080p, but don't quote me on that. Ships 11/11.

Now Sega's Virtua Fighter 5 gets the trailer treatment. Mobile Suit Gundam: Target In Sight is up next. Lots of bullets, lots of mecha, lots of building smashing.

The E3 trailer for Final Fantasy XIII kicks off. Still looks unbelievably (keyword: unbelievable) amazing.

The lights come up and Ken asks "How did you like that?". Not bad, Ken. Not bad.

Ken's talking about the history of the PlayStation and how computing power, memory capacity, and graphics capabilities have improved. He's quite pleased with himself. He's going on about the controller, the advances in controller interfaces, real time response with games and how that requires fast calculations.

He's making a big push on the capabilities of PC's. "There's a breakthrough that is almost upon us", he says. He's seriously namedropping Oracle and talking about networking and databases. C'mon, Ken! Show more video game trailers! He won't stop. Viruses, cell phones, blah blah blah. We want to see Devil May Cry 4!

What he's finally getting to is that we can use all of this data across a network to do things like pull real map and building data and use a controller to fly through them. He actually just said "if you look at the building permit data... the capabilities are enormous". He's talking about how that data could (is?) used in Ridge Racer 7. Instead of actually rebuilding maps based on real locations, he implies that developers will be able to use real map data to build tracks.

He says that that software is now available, that it will help developers eliminate costs for creating art and assets. Hypothetically, using a global mapping system, users can upload data to a world map. He says that pictures from a handycam can be uploaded to this system. "This is not a pipe dream. Not a pie in the sky."

Now he's going back to search engine functions, foresees personalized shopping, 120% accurate search results for individuals.

Gran Turismo is up for discussion. He's going on about, you guessed it, using real world map and landscape data to create locations like the Grand Canyon and Nurbering. Plus, information about cars themselves must also be collected and then transformed into something the PlayStation can understand. The GT slide says "After four long years in the making does the latest instalment [sic] of the Real Driving Simulator bring us one step closer to driving heaven? Try several hundred steps..." Okay.

He talks about opening up the PlayStation platform for developers. Not sure exactly what this means.

Now Ken moves on to the internet. Users will be able to upload, classify, share massive amounts of content. We now have the potential for massive digital distrubution of music, movies, and more.

Now we're going back in time, 12 years, to the original PlayStation. He talks about the manufacturing problems and cheap cost of using CD-ROM technology to store game data. Touches on the "long-tail" business model potential for the 15,000 original PS1 titles.

He just won't shut up about the network! Let's hope that Sony has their act together on the online gaming front, because if it doesn't live up to Live, it sounds like the business could shatter from within.

We're almost an hour in and Ken isn't slowing down.

Sounds like Ken is saying that users will be able to play PS1 and PS2 titles via emulation over the network, no physical optical media required. The translation is sketchy, but I swear they just said PC Engine games would be playable over the network. Again, don't quote me on that. Hopefully, Ken will get to the PowerPoint presentation soon.

Okay, he's going on more about the network in the form of the Folding@Home project.

Ken is about to wrap it up but is going to show us a video. Rhino Studios Afrika comes up. A grassy plain, followed by gorgeously rendered elephant herds, wildebeasts by the thousands, giraffes walking against the sunset. Hyenas! Zebras! Hippos! I am unnecessarily excited to be looking at digital wildlife. A rhino just charged the camera.

Holy crap. That cheetah looks photorealistic. It just took down some poor gazelle. Owned.

And... that's it. That's it? Huh.

Well, there's a Q&A session coming up, but we're off to interview developers. We'll have footage and reactions up later (a whole 15 seconds worth, but they'll be thrilling I'm sure). Bye!

Ooh, they're throwing around a Mario ball. I just caught it from Robert Summa, who's sitting like three rows back. I threw it behind me, fire and forget style, sure hope I didn't break anyone's laptop.

We're sitting ina studio filled with tall-backed white chairs facing a faux brickwall and a huge digital screen showing a window's view of downtown NYC and the World Trade Center site. There are two Wii sitting on what looks like black pedestals on the stage. There's also a big long white couch and other fake living room furniture. The word Wii is being projected onto the wall above a smaller flat panel.

There's a huge area to the right of the stage filled with a bunch of Wii and flat panels, used for gameplay.

Ah Perrin is on the stage introducing the event. She just mentioned the Tokyo announcment, which she said went very well.

"Today we are going to share many of the exciting details of the Wii."

She said the NYT story was just the "tip of the iceberg" Presentation is expected to be about an hour, followed by an afternoon of gaming.

Reggie just took the stage.

"Welcome to a significant day. Not only for Nintendo and the Wii but the future of the video gaming industry."

"We will reveal all of the information about the Wii: Day, price, titles."

"Our strategy is based on one core belief, the next step in gaming is bring gaming back to the masses."

"Appealing to core gamers as well as broadening the audience for gaming."

Hit the jump for more. Brian Crecente

Reggie is walking through Nintendo's history of innovation.

First, he says, was the DS. Next was the Touch Generation of games.

He says Touch Generation games are different than most, rather than taking you away from your life it looks to connect you more to it.

"DS supplements your life."

Now he's talking about New Super Mario Bros. That game represents about 35 percent of all first part games sold. Touch Generation games, combined, make up 39 percent of all DS sales.

"Third important moment in our list of new products came with the debut of the Nintendo WiFi Connection."

"Fourth, about this time last year, the unveiling of the Wii."

"The fifth step is today."

On to the hard news.

Wii goes on sale Nov. 19, that means worldwide debut happens right here in the U.S.

That day, it will be available at more than 25,000 retails stores for $249.99.

"One price, one configuration, one color."

OOOh, that's a dig at Msoft and Sony, I believe.

He says the shipment goal worldwide is 4 million by the end of the year.

The "Americas will receive the largest share of that number."

He says the flow will be even, to minimize shortages.

Inside the box, you will get the console hardware, cables, the sensor bar, all of the accoutrements to get started, one Wii remote and one nunchuk controller. No mention of any included games.

Ah, he's just announced that Wii Bowling will be part of Wii Sports.

Eric is showing off Wii Sports Bowling.

You hold the Wii close to your chest, swing your arm back and then forward, just like real bowling.

By twisting the control in the swing down you can put a spin on the ball.

The game supports up to four players in a game.

Wii sports will also have boxing. So that's Wii Tennis, Golf, Baseball, Bowling and Boxing.

Bummer, no Duck Hunt.

Ahhh, now Reggie is saying that the game disc will be included in the console pack.

This is the first console pack since the SNES, he says.

OK, now he's talking about the launch titles.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Excite Truck and Wii Sports are the first party titles, he says, all available on launch day.

Reggie's singing the praises of the Zelda game, he says it's the "best gotta have it title since the days of the NES and Super NES." Wow, high praise.

At the event in Tokyo there were 104 titles showcased. Wow.

Activision will have five here. Atari, Atlus, Electronic Arts, Konami, Midway, Sega, SNK, THQ, Ubisoft and Vivendi all have games here today. Sounds like I'm in for some fun.

Publishers and developers are on hand to talk to the media as well. Reggie is showing off some choice quotes about the Wii from people like Larry Probst from EA and Robert Kotick from Activision.

About 30 Wii games will be available this year, with about half of them available at launch. Wii games will be $49.99, for first party stuff.

Fifth bit of innovation is called Wii Channels.That's the official name for the Virtual Console and he's about to dish the details.

Reggie says they needed to come up with a sort of Touch Generations for the Wii.

They're showing the GUI now. Looks kinda cool. It shows the weather in a box, a box with a ton of little avatar faces,

Initially there will be 12 Wii channels.

The first channel lets you play a Wii game or one of 530 GameCube discs. Next is the Wii shopping channel where you can buy old games to play on the console.

At least three games will be online on launch day. By the end of the year there will be at least 30 legacy titles. Beginning in January that will grow 10 a month through the year. Price will be 500 Wii Points (or $5) for NES, 800 for SNES and 1,000 for N64.

You can buy a 2,000 Wii Points card at a store for $20. They will also be selling a Wii classic controller for playing the games.

Once a game is downloaded it shows up as a channel in the menu.

Bill Trinen is taking the stage to showing a weird Touch Generationish channel.

One is called the Mii channel. A Mii is a digital 3D avatar of whoever, including yourself.

You can create a Mii by finding a look-a-like or start from scratch. Bill is showing us how to do this, by creating a Mii Samuel L. Jackson. Oooooh, maybe he's in the mother-fucking building.

First you pick a head, then eyebrows, then the eyes, then the nose, the mouth and accessories. You basically scroll through pages of choices which can be tweaked.

Save and quit and enter the name and you're done. He just pops up on the screen. The Mii's sorta roam around on the screen.

Next you can transfer your Mii's to your Wii Remote and take them with you.

You can take them to a friend's house and let them populate your friend's Wii. You can also let them populate your Wii games. So you can put the little Mii's in your game like Wii Tennis. Kinda cool.

Now they're showing us the photo channel. The menu shows eight images at a time, in two rows of four images. You can scroll through them like a slot machine. The front of the Wii has a SD reader and once you pop in the card it quickly pulls up the images.

You can also zoom out to see all of the images in a bunch of super tiny thumbnails.

Now they're showing us a bunch of images from working at Nintendo. Very silly.

You can also view movies and alter them instantly with little fun games. Like turning it into a moving puzzle.

Reggie is back on the stage to talk about some other Wii Channels that will launch with the Wii.

There will be a news channel and the weather channel, as I mentioned earlier.

There's also a message board where users can send messages or photos to other Wii owners or to a PC or Cell phone. You can also send messages to other members of the family on a calendar like feature.

Now he's talking about Always-On 24 and how you can get updates while you sleep.

Oh, there's also an Internet channel. You will have to buy the Opera Browser separately, though he didn't mention a price.

Wii Channel system is available instantly, since the console remains on all of the time, so no boot-up.

The concept is that people will get used to using the console daily and often and begin to become gamers because it's so accessible.

"We our intent on changing the way players connect to their games and the way any TV owner can connect to their system."

To summarize:
Revolutionary Play
Best of the past
Biggest Launch library in history
Wii Channels
Affordable Price.

Now into Q&A time.

Q: How much are additional remotes.
A: Wii Remote is $39.99. Nunchuck attachment is $19.99.

Q: Can the Wii hold the images or does it stay on the SD.
A: The majority is for SD.

Q: What's up with Zelda for GameCube.
A: It launches Dec 11

Q: When are you specifying which are launch day and which are launch window.
A: We are going to leave that for third-party, but about half will be launch day.

Q: Cost of connecting to the Internet?
A: There is no cost through our system. You need an Internet Connection at your home. If you have a wireless router you are set to go. Or you can connect through a wire.

Q: Why charge Wii Points.
A: We think Wii Points is the most straight forward way for consumers.

Q: What about third Party game prices.
A: We encourage our third-party partners to price their games at a competitive price.

Q: 4 million world wide.
A: by Dec. 31

Q: How many will support wide-screen and how would you compare graphical power.
A: Most if not all are wide screen. In terms of graphical power, we have a different paradigm for what turns on the consumer.

Q: Integration between DS and the Wii
A: We are not announcing any details, but in the future you will hear much more details.

Q: There were rumblings about Metroid Prime as a launch title, any more details.
A: Metroid Prime is going to be a 2007 title.

Q: How will Wii points be converted for other countries?
A: 2000 Wii points will be about $24 Canadian. Similar strategy in Mexico and other markets.

Q: In-Gaming advertising and branded channels.
A: In terms of in-game advertising in terms of first-party it is something we are looking at. But our strategy is different. We see in game branding as a way of making the game more real, as opposed to a revenue stream.

Right now we don't have plans for branded channels, but that's right now. Who's to say what the future will bring.

And that's it for the Q&A. Time to play some games.

I'm back at the main theater. I'm sitting up front waiting for Mike and Jerry to take the stage to start creating a strip for onlookers, and answer questions. They've reserved the very front of the center section for their friends and family.

As usual, I'll do my best to live blog this, but I'm relying on willy nilly WiFi connections and a cellphone that like to lock up ever few seconds. Hit the jump for photos and updates from the panel. Brian Crecente

Jerry is writing the scropt in Notepad. Make that Wordpad.

Right now it says: Frame 1:, Frame 2: Frame 3:

(This comic is about what we think the game reviewers might be thinking when they heard about our new game coming out.)

Frame 1:

Gabe: Should we even be getting into games: We've been pretty ciscious to IGN and Gamespy.

They will be unkind.

Tycho: Gabriel, these people are professionals! I'm sure that (This line is cut off by the next panel)

Frame: 2

This panel open on a scene of INTENSE revelry. This reverly is taking place at the IGN office.

Drinks are being drunk.

A man *may* be dacing on a table.

And it goes on from there. They wrote it so quickly I couldn't keep up. They're already onto the art.

Mike says he already drew rough sketches last night. Now he's coloring it in on photoshop.

Jerry just busted out a rhyme. Now he's answering questions.

Mike just finished the first stage on the first panel, onto the second.

Jerry: When I was typing the script into my phone it has helpful suggestions for spelling. When I typed in IGN it suggested: Ignorant?

Question: Would you like some gummy frogs?

Jerry: Sure?

Mike: Um, you're not suppose to eat things people bring onto the stage.

Jerry: Shut up! Gummy frogs.

Mike: Don't eat that!

Jerry pops them into his mouth.

Jerry: Are they supposed to be salty?

Mike: And taste like Almonds?

OK, they just decided to throw a still beating human heart into the hand of one of the IGN partiers in the second panel of their strip to please a fan. I think I caught most of it on video.

Jerry: This is what I used to have to do to get him to do a strip. I'd microwave a hotdog, cut it up into little bits and put it by the computer.

Mike: You told me that was the hot dog fairy.

Coloring is just about done now.

Question: Who would you imagine being the voice actors for Gabe and Tycho.

Answer: Sean Connery and Edware Norton.... Samuel Jackson as Tycho?

OK, Mike just called out on not including a lampshade on any of the IGN folken. He's erasing the party hat to replace it with the lampshade... and now the crowd want's a PAX blue ball in the strip.

Now Mike is adding acne to the strip, a missing took and a crab claw. Huh... Yeah, that's no good.

Things just wrapped up and they're kicking us out to prep for the next event. Check out this post for the final strip and the alt version.

Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train going aannnnnnnnnywhere. Yes, I'm singing along.

I'm using my cell phone to do this, so expect it to crap out when it matters.

Islands in the stream that is what we are, nothing in between sail away with me to another world and we will rely on each other uh huh.

Oh, yeah. I can feel the love. Heck, I can smell it. I think they're going to start soon, but just keep the groove on.

And like rockstars the Penny Arcade duo take to the stage.

"Was that dramatic enough? Ya!"

OOOOOH, looks like a live wedding proposal.

Sean: I'm glad you can here with me. I know you don't understand the culture...I knew you might understand the culture and understand me... will you marry me?

...
.
Yes!

And the crowd goes wild!

The Q&A is going nicely. They started by officially announcing their video game and passing out an art sheet for the game to everyone in the crowd.

Now, they're talking about the whole Jack Thompson dance about the attorney's threat against them for donating $10,000 in Thompson's name "in spite."

And the crowd goes wild again.

"He's scraming at us on the phone. And the next thing we know we're cced on a fax to the police department."

The police blew him off and then he escalated to the FBI and they blew it off.

"We haven't talked to him again."

They just announced their $10,000 scholarship.

Question: Alien versus Predator, who takes the cake?

Answer: They're fighting over a cake? Is that a metaphorical cake?

Question: Are you going to implement a better way to search your comics?

Answer" We realize there are a lot of problems with our site. It's mostly your guys' fault. Would you be interested in a tag system? We try to do it with the new ones.

Question: What's your guys view on ful-motion cartoons?

Answer: We thought about doing a cartoon and have been approached about doing one, But I think it makes a lot more sense to tell the story we want in a game.

Question: Do you think there ever will be a scientific forumla to express your awesomeness?

Answer: I don't know how to answer that. Is that all? I love you so much, come back stage.

Question: Hey guys, I broight you some hats, unlike these other ingrates.

Answer: You may approach.

Question: If you could fight anyone in history who would you fight?

Answer: Fight! I would probably fight Teddy Rossevelt. I would fight a giant crab. No, wait, wait, it would be a historical crab... from the past... like really, really long ago.
Question: When the PS3 and Wii come out which are you going to buy?

Answer: There's no question of us buying a PS3 at launch. It is grade-a bullshit.

Oooh, Tycho just got called out to a roll-off.

First roll: Eight and eight.
Second roll: Yeah, you totally won. You run Penny Arcade now.

They just ended the talk by giving away free t-shirts to a bunch of fans. Anyone who found a card taped to the bottom of their seat one. The guy sitting next to me found one stuck to my shoe.

Don't ask.

Best Quote of the talk: It's sort of like an F-14 Tomcat, but it fucks fruit. Brian Crecente

Penny Arcade's keynote is about to start. I'm sitting in the packed main theater watching a bunch of trailers for some hot looking games. I've seen Assassin's Creed, Guitar Hero 2 and an RPG video for Warhammer Online. Man, that looks hot.

Weeeeee. I've got WiFi. For as long as it lasts I promise to update. So far I'm still sitting around waiting for the keynote to start. Hang and I'll update on the fly.

Ooooh, it's starting. Hit the jump for the liveblogging.

Robert Khoo is on the stage, he's just introduced Alex St. John.

ASJ is a happy man. I think St. J just had his two daughters toss a bunch of bigg ass balls into the crowd. Typiing with balls flying at my face, this must be what Paris Hilton feels like.

Ooh man, now he's throwing ping pong balls and frisbees into the crowd. If I break my laptop again, I'm going to be ticked. Oooh I just beaned someone in the back of the head with a Pilates Ball.

Fuck a ping pong ball just bounced off the space bar.

OK, St. J is talking about the birth of the Xbox. This hasn't, however, stopped his daughters and the crowd from pelting each other with balls.

Fun.

St. J is walking us through the history of the Manhattan Project, Microsoft's bid to move PC games to Windows.

Ah, just interupted himself to light up a cigar. I kid you not.

Oooh, cool he's showing off the official Manhatten Project shirt. There's 35 of them out there in the world. It shows a mushroom cloud and says "Shall we play a game?"

St. J met with Richard Garriott, says he tried to convince him to get into multiplayer gaming.

Oh, oh. They just came and took away his cigar.

"I've got another one here," he says smiling.

This is pretty cool, it's basically a sorta stream-of-consciousness speech about St. J's memories of great gaming events.

He's on to the importance of violence video games.

He met with the gaming team and told them to stop "making this shit" that they needed some blood, action, violence.

"They turned down publishing Quake from id. A little too violent can't publish that game, too fun."

At the unveiling of DIrectX, St. J says that the computer blue screened and the crowd started chanting DOS! DOS! DOS!

At another launch party, Judgement Day, on Halloween. During the party they showed a funny video made by Bill Gates.

"I had to get a trench coat and a shotgun for Bill Gates. I said, Bill we're going to blue screen you into Doom."

They had a haunted house on the campus and Msoft asked the different developers to make the different rooms. id invited GWAR. GWAR brought a 8-foot vagina with 100 phalusis hanging from it and OJ's severed head.

We had the haunted house and every Msoft exec went through it and laughing and covered with goo. Just laughing their asses off.

Several days later, St. J asked someone who went through, what happened inside. They said it was dark and it was chaotic... the punchline is they had no idea what was going on or what they were looking at. Nobody saw a damn thing.

Sooo, let's talk about BunnyGate. We decided to have a Roman Orgy.

One of the lions got loose and tore itself off the chain it was one and started roaming around the crowd. The drunk guy is tapping a lion with a turkey stick, but nothing happened.

There was a playmate, she was Ms. April, and she was also the president of Black Dragon Entertainment, which made games.

I said I think it would be cool if she was one of the sponsors.

We decided to have a skit with her as Cleopatra. Caused a huge scandal, there was an incredible amount of press about it.

Bill Gates couldn't make it. So I had some guy who looked like him and everyone thought it was really him.

Nobody realized they did not see Bill Gates that day.

Now he's talking about the "DirectXbox." I hired Kevin Bachus as my successor.

Bachus and Blackley put together the original pitch to build the Xbox.

I caused a bit of a hostage situation. I had ordered a new Hummer because I had enough Microsoft stock.

He was sitting in my purple HumVee planning the next big DIrect X party.

He had planned to have Bill Gates peel off a fake face on national TV and reveal he was an alien.

He was going to kidnapp the entire audience.

They canceled the event. The Union guys said they wouldn't let any of the contractors who are building in the hanger out unti lthey get paid.

St. J called the union rep and is told, tactfully, that he has a hostage situation and needs a check for a quarter of a million dollars before he lets them go.

Three days pass. He's having food brought into the hanger to feed the hostages.

St. J tells his boss that he's work a deal to have the military clear the hostages out for a mere $60,000. They go for it and the press never found out. But he lost his job.

Funny guy.

We need to liven it up some more. Oh oh, He's going to throw shit again. Duck and cover!

St. J is giving away a jacked up computer. It's a brand new Gateway and some other stuff. Nice, he's mailing everyone free games from his company, WIld Games.

He gave the super computer to the guy who was beaned with a white ping pong ball. Clever idea. Damn, I think I had that.

The Gamespot reporter won it and now he's throwing the ping pong bal lback into the crowd. Nice guy! Brian Crecente

Here's the description:

Blogphotopodcasting: New Media in the Game Industry
Join pioneers in the new media industry as they discuss how they're blazing the trail for mainstream news and how the mediums of the past are shaking in their boots. Panelists include Brian Crecente (Editor, Kotaku), Ashley Jenkins (Fragdolls.com), MC Wilson (Broadcast Gamer) and Julianne Greer (Editor, The Escapist).

If you're heading to PAX come by and help fill a seat or two. The panel is Sunday, Aug. 27 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

This is going to be my first PAX and I'm psyched. And yes, I'll be liveblogging the shit out of it. Hmmm, I wonder if I can liveblog my own panel? I could be snarky about myself. NICE! Brian Crecente