J. Dzhugashvili writes "Processors are typically compared by their performance alone. However, the folks at The Tech Report have put together an article that attempts to quantify the value propositions of AMD's and Intel's latest processors. The article takes 16 processors through an extensive battery of tests that range from gaming and video encoding to Folding@Home and energy efficiency, and examines the value they offer in each. The results may surprise you."

At the Hollywood and Games Summit this week Jesse Alexander, the executive producer for TV shows like Heroes and Lost, spoke on a panel dedicated to the connection between television and games. "The conversation started by looking at how Lost ... has really used websites and online [Alternate Reality Game (ARG)]-like structures to draw people into the show - Moledina suggested that the TV show has deep problem-solving skills like in games. Alexander noted in response: 'Yeah, that was part of what we wanted to make. Alias came out in 2001, the same time that Neil Young was doing [early subscription-based ARG] Majestic. That was very inspiring to us. His keynote at GDC where he talked about that, was similar to us with Alias, in terms of serialized narrative.'" For full notes from the event, Alice and the Wonderland blog have you covered.

Next Generation reports on a panel from the Hollywood and Games summit, where several influential names in Massively Multiplayer games discussed ways to connect virtual worlds with other media. Interesting stuff, but the piece points out something that you probably didn't know: Blizzard still wants StarCraft:Ghost to get made. Ghost was the much-delayed, and then cancelled, shooter title set in the StarCraft world. Rob Pardo speaks to its possible future while making a point about commitment to quality: "[Blizzard is] just willing to cancel the products that fail. That's important to our brand. We're willing to bite the bullet and write off those expenses. Sometimes six months into development, the idea doesn't flow ... Our most recent one was Starcraft Ghost. With that game we were very stubborn. I still believe in that game and the characters but we were not able to execute at the level we wanted to...Rather than work on that we had to focus on our other games. We're hoping one day to return to it."

Matt Barton writes "I thought folks might be interested in my History of Zork feature on Gamasutra. I interviewed three of the original 'imps' for the piece (you can read the full interviews online) as well as Nick Montfort (author of Twisty Little Passages) and Howard Sherman (president of Malinche Entertainment). The article covers the original trilogy, as well as Enchanter and the later Activision games such as Zork: Grand Inquisitor."

Steve Kerrison writes "The Radeon 'R600' HD 2900 XT was late coming, and so by extension are the lower cost parts derived from it. The Radeon HD 2400 and 2600s are now available, just the same, with pricing aimed at knocking mid-range GeForce 8 series cards off people's shopping lists. There's more to a graphics card than price; performance and driver functionality are key too. HEXUS had some fun and games testing the new Radeons: 'The hardware designers may now be sitting back, content that their DX10-supporting midrange SKUs are at least as compelling as the competition's. But, and it's a big, big but, the current drivers aren't realizing the kind of performance we'd expect from a knowledge of the Radeon HD 2600 XT's setup.'" A very useful article ... unfortunately spread across a dozen pages with no 'print view' available.

1up is carrying the sad story of Justin Lowe. Just your average gamer, wanting to partake of the current generation of consoles. He's got a PSP, DS, PS3, and a 360. He really likes his 360 ... which is probably a good thing, since he's sent 11 of them back to Microsoft. He's now on his twelfth. The piece covers Justin's ongoing plight, and discusses Microsoft's claims of hardware failures being a 'vocal minority'. "Justin has not had a working system for longer than a month or two. The list of problems is almost comically large: three red lights of death, two with disc read errors, two dead on arrival, several with random audio and video-related issues and one that actually exploded. Looking at the situation through Moore's own standards, how has Microsoft performed? 'On a scale of one to ten, I'd rate them an 8... at first,' says Lowe. His [first] 360 broke in early January, just a few weeks after purchase."

GameDaily is reporting that Take-Two will be publishing a new Civilization title in Spring of 2008, with a twist. Instead of the traditional strategy gameplay Civilizations Revolution will be an 'action-packed' console game, streamlining the experience for different generation of gamers. They also mention they'll be aiming this game at handheld gamers. "The title will include 16 civilizations, numerous historical leaders to play as or compete against, online play with integrated video and voice chat, more accessible maps, a streamlined time scale for quicker games, and more ... 'Civilization is one of the world's top selling PC game series with more than 8 million units sold, and continues to be recognized as one of the greatest franchises ever created,' added Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. 'We are excited to have Sid Meier getting back to his roots as the game's Lead Designer to carry on its legacy with Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution.'" This seems somewhat similar to EA's decision to offer up a streamlined version of SimCity in their next iteration of the series.

Last week we asked you for questions to pass on to the folks behind the Gamers2Gamers RMT service. The response, from reading the comments, was mixed. The thinking seemed to mostly be that this was a marketing stunt, aimed at getting people to check out their website. There were several good questions, though, and we passed on the hardest ones to Sparter CEO Dan Kelly and CTO Boris Putanec. The response from these executives should lay to rest for you the issue of whether this was a marketing ploy or not. Moreover, some of their answers give insight into the company's grasp of the RMT market as a whole, and their chances of success in the competitive MMOG genre. I encourage you to read on to see how they've responded to our queries. Thanks to the Sparter execs for their timely response.

GamesIndustry.biz, in an interview with PopCap Games chief creative officer Jason Kapalka, reports that the company is apparently a bit miffed at 'imitation games'. Puzzle games being what they are, Kapalka finds the number of Bejewel-like titles on the market frustrating. "Very few games are developed without reference to past games. There's always going to be titles that build on a previous mechanic or game. But there's a fine line between that and very bold-faced rip-offs that aren't adding anything to the game and are just trying to make a quick buck." Over at 1up, editor Ray Barnholt points out that PopCap is a funny company to be making that claim. Several of that group's most popular games are in turn tweaks or imitations of little-known Japanese puzzle titles from the 90s.

Wired discusses the last episode of the Red vs. Blue web series, which ends tonight with its 100th episode. The long-running show has been lauded as highly influential in the world of machinima, and made the folks at Rooster Teeth into household names among gamers. If you enjoyed RvB, their current project is a Machinima set in the Shadowrun FPS entitled 1-800-MAGIC. "'We didn't even know what machinima was,' says Burns. 'We played a ton of Halo at LAN parties because Xbox Live didn't exist yet. The humor of us yelling across the room led to Red vs. Blue.' The videos are recorded directly from three Xbox consoles running a linked game of Halo. Players on two consoles play the red and blue characters, and one player on a third game console records all the action from the first-person viewpoint. Burns ... promises that Wednesday's final episode will 'honor that unique distribution method -- we have the ability to do some things on the internet that you can't do in television or film.'"

HaymarketRiot writes "N'Gai Croal from Newsweek has given us a broad outline of Nintendo's plans for downloadable original content. To be called 'WiiWare', the company will be selling these all-new games via the Wii's Virtual Store for Wii points. Not only are they looking to big-name developers for these titles, but small garage-style shops as well. 'Shorter, original, more creative games from small teams with big ideas; these are the buzzwords that you'll be hearing from Nintendo when its Wednesday announcement goes wide. Fils-Aime told us that while Nintendo, as the retailer, would itself determine the appropriate pricing for each game on a per-title bases, the games themselves would not be vetted by Nintendo. Instead, Nintendo would only check the games for bugs and compatibility, with developers and publishers responsible for securing [a rating lower than AO with the ESRB].' For more, N'Gai has an interview with Reggie Fils-Aime on the subject. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing a finished product until 2008."

Galactic_grub writes "New Scientist Tech has a story about a virtual world that paralyzed patients can explore using their thoughts. The set-up connects a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to virtual reality so that a person can 'walk' through it, simply by thinking of moving their legs or their left or right hand. Electrodes are attached to their scalp and electroencephalogram (EEG) readings are used to navigate, or control an avatar. The story includes a video of the experiment."

Ars Technica reports that, for the first time, spending on videogames is in a position to overtake spending on music worldwide. An analyst report from PricewaterhouseCoopers discussing growth in media shows this being the first year that's a possibility. "The information not only reflects the gaming industry's strong trajectory but also serves as a painful reminder that the music industry continues to suffer. ... The rising penetration of broadband combined with consoles with online capabilities, wireless phones capable of downloading games, and technologically advanced consoles are credited with driving the video game industry's strong growth. PwC says that the gaming industry will see a compound annual growth rate of 9.1 percent between 2007 and 2011, resulting in a $48.9 billion global video game market in 2011, up from $37.5 billion this year."

GamingHobo writes "Bit-Tech has posted an interview with NVIDIA's Roy Taylor, Senior Vice President of Content/Developer Relations, which discusses his team's role in the development of next-gen PC games. He also talks about DirectX 10 performance, Vista drivers and some of the upcoming games he is anticipating the most. From the article: 'Developers wishing to use DX10 have a number of choices to make ... But the biggest is whether to layer over a DX9 title some additional DX10 effects or to decide to design for DX10 from the ground up. Both take work but one is faster to get to market than the other. It's less a question of whether DX10 is working optimally on GeForce 8-series GPUs and more a case of how is DX10 being used. To use it well — and efficiently — requires development time.'"

Flying Lab Software has been keeping its upcoming piratical Massively Multiplayer Game, Pirates of the Burning Sea, somewhat close to the chest. There's a Beta running, but outside of the forums and official website information has been thin on the ground. That changed last week with a flurry of posting to the Flying Lab Software site about a number of topics. This week there is big news: the game finally has a publisher. Flying Labs has partnered with SOE's Platform Publishing brand to put out Pirates of the Burning Sea. To clarify, if you're unfamiliar with Platform Publishing, Sony Online Entertainment will only be publishing the game; they will have nothing to do with development. "We had two other paths to launching this fall: going it alone and working with another independent outfit we've been spending time with. Both of these were good options in general (especially the partnership approach, as we really like those guys). But for either of those approaches to work for a fall launch, everything would have to go right the first time and we'd still need some luck. By working with SOE we know it'll just happen."

In the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Games, guilds live and die like generations of fruit flies. In the time it takes you to read this review, another group of friends will probably have decided to go their separate ways. Due to what is commonly referred to as 'drama', and the nature of the currently most popular online game, the modern MMOG guild tends to be a short-lived affair. A book published about a single guild, then, has to be discussing a singular organization. And indeed, The Syndicate has lasted for over a decade. Well known in both Ultima Online and EverQuest, and going strong into the days of World of Warcraft, they've had numerous public successes and some notorious failures. Their tale is a strange, and utterly personal view of the history of Massive games. It's also highly self-aggrandizing and probably contentious, but that's to be expected. Legend of the Syndicate is a publication worth reading by anyone interested in the history of the Massive genre, or the future of social networks online.

GameSpy has up an interview with Ken Levine of Irrational Games. While Levine has spoken previously about Bioshock's ideology, this piece discusses a number of the elements that went into creating the game. He touches again on objectivism, but expands on the title's connection to its spiritual predecessor System Shock 2 and the process of actual developing the game. "Sterling: Segueing away from storyline a little, what sorts of hardware limits did the team encounter from pre-production leading up to this point of near-completion? Ken Levine: As a credit to my programming team, honestly, I didn't hear much about them. There was some hesitation on the part of some of programming team in pushing a level of physical simulation in the world, in part because they knew how much work that was. To their credit, I'll say, not only did they do it, they knocked it out of the park, because I've never seen this level of simulation ever in a shooter."

Donkey Konga writes "A San Diego man was arrested after a raid turned up over a thousand counterfeit games, modded consoles and mod chips. Frederick Brown 'had allegedly built up a thriving business selling counterfeit games and installing mod chips, having advertised his services on Craigslist and other web sites. He allegedly sold pirated games from his Vista, CA residence as well, including both discs and hard drives preloaded with games that he would install into customers' Xboxes and Xbox 360s.' After the ESA learned of his activities, they contacted San Diego law enforcement and the San Diego Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Unit led the raid on his home. '"CATCH was very receptive to the evidence we brought them and were able to put the investigation together in very short order," ESA VP Ric Hirsch told Ars.' Brown now faces 10 felony counts related to selling pirated games and modding consoles."

Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit. "The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. 'Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,' said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release." Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.

Gamasutra has the news that the ESRB is beginning to enforce rating-related audience restrictions on game trailers. D3 Publisher's trailer for Dark Sector was judged AO by the ESRB, and demanded in correspondence to the company that it be removed from the internet. Take-Two, meanwhile, has been handed a letter saying their trailer for The Darkness needs to be 'age-gated' if it is to be seen online. Update: 06/26 14:20 GMT by Z : The Gamasutra post has been updated to clarify the situation: "ESRB president Patricia Vance has responded to Gamasutra with a prepared statement that claims today's notices are routine ESRB Advertising Review Council procedure followed since 2005. According to Vance, the appearance of both publisher emails today are simply reminders that mature rated trailers must be age-gated, and that if a trailer's content is found to be in violation of the ESRB's trailer requirements, it must be removed or replaced with an edited version."