So I got a letter from my friendly omnipresently local Amazon e-tailer informing me that the Nintendo Wii was now available at a new low low price of 199.99 . Gamespot has also commented this as well, since it was apparently announced at the Tokyo Game Show.

Now, this is excellent news and all, however I am a little curious about what this means, and how this is even happening.

Point #1:

Analysts all over it seems, including many that Gamespot have posted, have cited that the Wii will not be dropping in price any time soon. Signs point to Nintendo's continually high profit margins in the hardware sales sector and increasing profits from even lower than before hardware costs. Signs did not point to any huge slackening of Nintendo's sales, so the question again remains, with a veritable mountain of evidence towards why they didn't need nor want to drop the price, why do it now?

Point #2:

What does the decreasing of the Wii say about Nintendo and their current market confidence? I have felt for some time now that the Wii fever had been subsiding and Nintendo was indeed going to have trouble using that stout install-base of systems to sell as much software as the other two competitors could. Could this apparent unexpected price drop spell certain issues within Nintendo's longer term sales goals? With the current generation of consoles now well on their way to a more mature stage, Nintendo needs it's sales to continue strong more than ever (although I feel Software more than Hardware should now be the focus), so it does make sense that this price drop is indicative a long expected (but not yet seen) reduction in the Wii sales blitz that has gone on for so long.

In conclusion, while I disdain at this point people trying to declare any kind of winner or loser to the console war, and find that the Wii's sales success not exactly a marker for a winning product, it is interesting to see these unexpected developments, and will be keeping a closer eye on Nintendo to see where else this may go.

I forgot to post about this earlier but for those that were not aware, Imax theatres playing I Am Legend also had packaged with it a special 10 minute sneak peak of the next Batman movie, specially formatted, apparently, for an Imax screen (a couple shots showed that this was possibly true).

All i got to say was it was sweet, not since the uncensored Batman Beyond Joker Returns movie has anyone shown so wellthe Joker as the maniacal and intelligent (but of course quite mad) villain that he truly is. Probably is tool late to go check it out now on the big Imax screen but the actual movie will be here before you know it.

It isn't really hard to guess as this point what the latest several editorial blog posts (and pretty much everyone else's) are about, or for that matter everywhere else people can post something as well.

In what I have decided to dub the great Kane & Lynch fiasco of 2007, we have a bit of a controversy on our hands. Now, one thing I'm reading in almost all of the many posts about it is the key word, "rumor." Now at this point the evidence is pretty damning, what with the video review being pulled, and Jeff apparently, at least for whatever reason, has signed his walking papers.

What I want to say then is not necessarily something I personally believe, but is more of an attempt at devil's advocate (since almost no one else is saying it and instead stoking the flames). Could this all possibly be a very poorly timed set of decisions, leading to a misunderstanding? Could Jeff have maybe chosen to just leave, or gotten let go for some other reason?

I only pose the question because we have all too often gotten upset over something only to get the full story later. Unfortunately we may never hear the full story, but at this point, I'veseen many people, even volunteer support members, posting blogs riddled with denouements and even swears directed at Gamespot. As much as this may actually be an appropriate response if this has all happened as the initial reports ordained, I'm wondering how much we may be jumping the gun on our judgments of all parties involved.

Jeff is no stranger to review controversy either, if anything you'd think some of the other games he's shunned in the past would land him in more hot water than an Eidos game.

In short, for those who so far have completely misread the purpose of this post, the theme is "withholding judgement", at least until a suitable time when such judgement can be fairly passed. If at that point in time the judgement is a rage-gasm in the form of anangry mob with pitchforks and torches though, then so be it.

With all this jumble of hesitant thinking I leave you with a departing thought: maybe Kane and Lynch, even with its score not being the most terrible ever, but rather due to its enduring negative stigmata, willbe the new "Big Rigs" game that all new GS members must play....an ironic twist appropriate of such a trial by fire don't you think?

I didnt even realize I had won untilI checkedthe broadcast.It's also a bit fortuitous consideringthe Emmy's are covered inthe backyard of where i went to school, aswell as the fact the subject of thequestion i won on was also one of the shows they quizzed me on for their "what's the scoop" feature, I forgot who ran that programbut I would have been pleasantly pleased ifthey were there to havehad said "wow, that its thatguy and Frasier again.." or somesuch

Anyhow bask in my domination, and re-watch the broadcast if you want to see what i won

Just a small Uno update, i'm now ranked 170th place in the world on the trueskill rankings. The W-L rank is what shows when you join ranked games, but i don't know if i want to play the roughly 8000 games to climb that ladder (i actually ran into No.1 yesterday in a game lobby.....and then quickly ran away ), and i think the Trueskill rank is another pretty good representation instead of just a massive amount of games played.

Anyway here's a picture for your enjoyment, with someone else also on there to show the comparative difference (he's the only person on my friends list that has played Uno).

Ok well, the guy had roughly 2000 wins and 6000 losses, so he's probably lost quite a bit and is more to do with the sheer amount he has played, but I really schooled him/her, so it was something of a rush to clean sweep him in a ranked match! Huzah!

The person I beat has the XBL The Great 55 for those that want to check the leaderboard.

Well it finally happened, itwas kind of unexpected. I was sitting on the computer,I probably had asked a whole slew of questions leading up to it and then suddenly i hear my name over the air preceded by "boy, they must be getting tired to ask this"

For those watching my question, near the tail end of the marathonwas "If you were a madden game, what year would you be?" haha

Jeff opted to sidestep my question and proclaim that he would be Joe Montana sports talk football, real slick Jeff

I had a rather chilling thought today as I drove into downtown Minneapolis to pick up a friend for his birthday. If things were a little different, i could have ended up crossing the 35W bridge just around when it had collapsed.

Now, there are some rather stretched ifs in the equation, but not quite enough to stop me from feeling a bit shaken.

Basically if i had either been coming from the northinstead of thewest, or had my friend lived further up along 35W from the I94 junction, I would have likely ended up on the bridge roughly when it fell. It was a big bridge and all but it is truly an unlucky coincidence to be caught on it just as it happens to fall, and it was much too close a call for me to think about, all things considered.

*For those not familiar with the 35W bridge collapse incident it's currently being covered on most major news outlets

I haven't written an editorial in a while, and part of that is because I haven't had any big ideas to talk about, but i had little ones, so i figured, why not grab a few of those "B-movie" editorial snippets and make my own little Soapbox version of the grindhouse cinema we have all seen affectionately revived as of late.

First on the chopping block:

Goats, gods and and naked women brought to you by Sony! You'd think a vangelist such as Jack Thompson, riding strong after pinning everything from Counterstrike to cooking mama on the Virginia Tech shootings would be simply salivating at Sony holding some massive debacherous party with decapitated animals and naked women. I mean, this is what Jack had always claimed to have feared most, video games transitioning into reality! Yet so far he is no where to be seen on his usual haunts (any news channel willing to give him air time, although Fox News in particular). Could it be that it simply lacks the exposure that Jack desires to get out of his soapboxing? Or could it be that in his infinite repertoire of generalities that he just figured since it didn't take place in America that it doesn't affect his crusade against all that is evil as well as fun to most people not him? Maybe he feels the same way about Europe that he does of video games in general, but let us hope that he doesnt go there, because unlike a video game character, a whole continent of people would very much be able to fight back.

Bernie Stolar:

You can thank Ken Kutaragi's recent "retirement"for your sudden return to my brain. Maybe it was Kens deteriorating mental condition near the end of his tenure that made me think of the first head of SCEA, Bernie Stolar. Like Ken, the man did alot for his cause, but he also had a real evil streak. It is said that the RPG draught early in the Playstations career (and Beyond the Beyond) was primarily his doing, as Bernie had a rather strict no RPG policy, since most RPG's at that time were 2d and he didn't felt it gelled well with the System. He's also the man attributed with slowly suffocating and eventually killing off the Saturn early in favor of the Dreamcast, a project he left in the lurch shortly after (or possibly before) it debuted. It is on this day that i choose to remember these two great men, both with their attributable strengths and accomplishments, but both with some hilariously poor shortcomings springing up before they initiated their fall from the face of the planet.

It seems as if I have run the gauntlet and come out the other end a finalist and winner in Developer For a Day (3rd runner up).

I'm very pleased to have won a piece of this contest and am very happy with the results...so, hurrah for that!

 Even though getting certain avatars successfully submitted werent as impotrant to many in the thread, i wanted to be responsoble for the Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy 6 avatars at least, just as i was for their gaemspace banners, unfortuantely they didnt accept any of my Secret of Mana stuff (yet, they seem to still be progressively adding stuff) but i'm proud of what did get accepted, especially since they are from all classicly awesome series:

 FF6 (my favorites):

Castlevania:

Chrono Trigger: 

-so use my avatars (best to go through the preferences to use them) and when people tell you how awesome that GS avatar you have is make sure you let them know who made it

So, the show was a good time! The man can really put on a show, in particular standing on top of his partners upright base and ripping out a rockabilly style face-melter, which of course drove the crowd crazy.

I was able to negotiate my way through the mosh pit up to the front, where i pretty much stayed since of course getting a stagefront view was great.....oh yeah and i caught a drumstick! and it was autographed! ROCK! I was more wishing to catch his guitar pick when he threw it (which i almost did) but the guy next to me caught that.

For those arent savy with his music, he has a track from Guitar Hero II (which he played) and it's actually one of the songs played on their myspace page, he kind of merged it with another song when he played it (Marijuana)......which actually made it even more awesome.

I've actually never seen them play before so i'm looking for to hearing their much lauded "rockabilly" style. In other news ticket master almost charged me the price of the ticket in added fees, you'd think both a processing fee and a convenience charge that are sprung up at the very end smell a bit of "what the? why?".

In other news i'm pondering doing one of those free PS3 referall things (or a PSP since i may never actually purchase one on my own), considering my popularity here i'd be remiss to think there wouldn't be enough people that would give me enough referalls to nab one of these things (especially if it's free and you just need to sign up and complete an offer, assumably a free one). Anyhow i was just curious how many people would be willing to help me out with that before i take the plunge and try and post one here, since the big challenge is just knowing enough unique people that would care to take the time to sign up under me.

so, I made an editorial back in October in relation to "therapy" games and their feasibility in the market, after all, gamers can lead stressful or socially complicated lives that can lead to them and their hobby being blamed for all sorts of things by lawyers and parents alike.

So why not have a game that nobody can say will damage the young (or older) psyche, and if anything attempt to sooth and heal it through therapy and understanding. At least, that was my idea at the time, looks as if Nintendo picked up on it though.....where's my royalties Nintendo?!

The industry seems ripe for ideas involving fresh concepts and change, since with the 3d medium clearly being saturated despite marked improvement in graphics is a clear sign for the need for innovation, and in this case and considering the times we live in, the "therapy" genre seems to be a perfect supplement for the already popular educational segment (and i'm reffering to the new hot edutainment segment of the likes of brain age, not the god aweful sesame street games from the days of yore).

So i was able to get really good seats to see Jerry Seinfeld last night. I had been wanting to see him do standup for a long time, and he was always somewhere i was going to be or was leaving or something in that regard, so i was excited to finally be in the same place and time as a performance.

Not only that, but he was, as expected, very good. This was the same theatre i beleive i saw George Carlin in (Orpheum, MN) and he wasn't quite up to snuff, but Jerry was doing very well, and his opener Tom Pappas (i remember is rather cornball failed sitcom pilot "Pappa knows best") was also very good.

All in all they each told 1 or 2 jokes i remember hearing before (which is especially bizzare for Pappas because i dont recall ever seeing his standup on tv yet i remember his "you think your pet loves you? open the door" joke. Then there was Jerrys joke about Tuxedos, weddings and the "do you take "this man"" jokes he told all in succession, which was actually i beleive from a clip out of Seinfeld, which i thought he oddly enough retired in his "for the last time" tour he did a while ago) but otherwise it felt pretty fresh and it was good and funny and as usual, personally poignant feeling, and interestingly not very if at all political, which was kind of a releif for once.

Anyhow, it was unfortunately also the kind of act that is hard to implictly remember, alot of constant train of thought kind of things that are hard to recreat, but as i said before, i do remember laughing alot, and after all that's what is important.

I was delighted to play "What's The Scoop" on tv.com. It was a fun time and Daniel was able to trip me up at least once, and considering he was asking me trivia from shows i listed and felt i had an extensive knowledge of, it was indeed an accomplishment (there's even some shows not on my favorites to avoid clutter that i would have also enjoyed to test my skills against).

Oh and i got this snazzy emblem out of it (in my tv.com profile)

Anyhow, it was fun calling in and i hope they have me back soon (even though the trivia portion is only once per person)

It would have been kind of sad if a USC graduate could not answer trivia on his own favorite television and entertainment programs, so i'm glad to have not shamed myself

It isn't quite as popular as On The Spot, but The Scoop is bringing back its trivia and i'm a willing contestant for this thursdays episode!

I'm a little hesitant to post this now since if i make a fool of myself or loose i will bring shame upon my person, but oh well.

-Wish me luck

Since the dawn of time…..or at least, video games, there has been the video game cover. The critique surrounding the cover of a video game is more often than not an afterthought by the gamer, but how much work does the maker actually put into it? Is it a lot of time and thought put in by the games artist, the marketing team, or do they just whip something up and throw it in there?

All the above are seemingly true from my view, and it’s created some of the most eye catching game covers, as well as some of the most horrid ones, so bad in fact, that it may deter you from buying the game itself.

One very interesting example of the decisions that go into cover art is the Contra series. For those that do not know, or are not from Europe, Contra is very much the same there, but with one very key difference……ROBOTS!! I was surprised myself when I first noticed the very different European covers, I thought, “no wait, that cant be right”, but sure enough all Contra games ported to Europe up until Shattered Soldier for PS2 have been called “Probotector” and have featured Patlabor-like robots on the covers.

(The Jazzier Japanese version added on the right for good measure)

Many theorize this could have been due to the high sensitivities of the European community to violence at the time, most notably Germany. Others think that it may have had something to do with Konami not feeling all too comfortable associating itself with the Nicaraguan Contra’s at that time, but like with many explanations attempted too often up for odd cover choices, “who knows.”

Then there are just the downright ugly covers, for instance:

A photograph of a geriatric mega man or a hillbilly get your gamer blood flowing? Once again, no one knows what influence really went through peoples heads when deciding to slap together these covers, we can just hope they took their work a little more seriously next time, if there ever was a next time.

(in this case this is the European cover but most of the time this has been the Japanese style)

So while it may not be one man who takes the charge of making good covers, I can only hope that the continued combined effort of the marketing departments and artist teams improve their work, make less zingers like Mega Man 1, and try to maybe take more cues from the Japanese.

As I was sitting at the Spike VGA’s waiting for it to start the person sitting next to me leaned over and said “we’re really on the ground floor, I bet this will be huge 20 years from now.” Perhaps this will be true I thought to myself, then the show was about to start:

“5….4…..3…..2…..1…..  …….   *FLASHBANG!* “ahhh I’m blind!”, I say out loud. As it had been dark for a spell and I had no idea of the pyrotechnics hooked up I of course was surprised as Tenacious D’s initial number started, “The Metal”, which they played during the end credits of their move as well. It was definitely the best part of the show for me and was a pretty good song. Even later during the show they had to pause as the announcer said “Jack Black and “The Metal” rocked so hard that we have to fix the video stage.”

Sam Jackson’s remarks were rather poignant and most of his jokes connected. The Reno 911 people were their in their cop outfits and personas and they were pretty popular as well. Someone who was NOT popular was Sarah Silverman, but unlike most of the rather boorish audience, I know her game, and I ate it up, not to mention a lot of her haranguing had plenty of truth to them, but considering the audience was not a very mature and appropriate representation of what a matured and seasoned award show should be, I enjoyed seeing a comedian give some harsh comedy, one which I found particularly hilarious. I’d divulge further but since they clearly weren’t worried about being censored the stuff was pretty edgy, and I’d be interested to see how it airs.

Video Game award shows are still in their infancy of course, and Spike is only one of few that give any kind of organized award show. There’s the mildly less popular Gphoria, sponsored by G4, and MTV offers up some awards for video game music at their shows. All in all I think the award shows have a long way to go to rivaling the pomp and circumstances of the film industry, and they should do a better job of screening who they use to fill seats (as they got a whole lot nicely dressed but poorly behaved people from somewhere to mainly fill seats).

All in all though I think what the person sitting next to me originally said rings rather true, with any hope 20 years down the line, there will be a honed maturity to video game awards……and of course it wouldn’t hurt to have close to a fully fleshed out tier of generational gamers so it distances itself even more from a juvenile setting.