GameDaily has a look at what we can expect from the big names at E3 this year. From the article: "It's do or die time for Nintendo as far as the company's future consoles are concerned. The Revolution will be a key portion of Nintendo's pre-E3 press event. We expect to see at least three titles up and running on the show floor, as well as a handful of titles in video form from Nintendo and a few third party developers. Nintendo will also be hyping up its retro downloads service for the Revolution, and will likely have several classics playable using the Revolution controller."

Via Kotaku, a Wall Street Journal article looking at ways the Massively Multiplayer genre are opening up to new players. Besides new game genres, the article discusses changes in revenue collection schemes. From the article: "The industry's traditional business model is to charge about $50 for the game software and a monthly subscription fee of about $15 for online play. That model has proved risky: When a game is highly popular, the monthly fees yield steady revenue streams for many years. Some of the industry's earliest hits, such as EverQuest, released in 1999, still have many users. But monthly fees have been "a significant barrier" to growing the market, said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, based in San Diego."

The Guardian Gamesblog discusses the announcement that a Metal Gear Solid digital comic is in the works for the PSP. There's also going to be a title called 'The Silent Hill Experience', which will be a sort of guide to the series. From the post: "Designed to offer a comprehensive guide to all things Silent Hill, The Silent Hill Experience combines a number of media formats to give a compelling overview of the horror series. Using an intuitive 3D interface, users can view all-new Silent Hill digital interactive comics, listen to music from the four games in the series, and watch exclusive video content. The Silent Hill Experience also features an interview with Christophe Gans, the Director of the highly anticipated Silent Hill movie, starring Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean." Nice that they're finally doing something defining with the console.

Gamecloud wonders out loud, in the wake of increased fines for 'inappropriate attire', if Booth Babes even matter in the grand scheme of E3. From the article: "By far the most vocal complaint about E3 from some quarters is the attention paid to the paid models that exhibitors bring to the show. Of course, most trade shows do have "booth models" or "booth babes" but at E3 the nature of the video and PC game industry and the fact that its being held in Los Angeles causes exhibitors to bring in tons of models and have them wear costumes and clothing that in some cases can be very sexually provocative. Despite the complaints these models are a distraction from the games and can even be offensive to some, web sites (including Gamecloud) do post galleries of booth model pictures at every E3 and they tend to be some of the most popular features of any web site's E3 coverage."

BStorm writes "There was a horrific crash in Toronto yesterday. It involved two 18 year olds, each racing their parent's Mercedes. One of racers hit a taxi turning left killing the taxi driver. The other left the scene. EA's Need for Speed was found on the passenger seat of one of the racers. Police are investigating the possibility that the racing and subsequent crash was connected with the game." Update: 01/26 20:53 GMT by Z : GamePolitics points out a more thorough article on the subject which quotes the officers involved as being against the jist of the Globe and Mail article. From that article: "Det. Lobsinger was careful not to blame the video game for Tuesday's accident. 'There is a small percentage who have difficulty separating reality and simulation, fantasy. It's a very, very small percentage,' he said. 'This was not the game's fault. There are millions who play this game and don't go out and do this.' The way to prevent these tragedies is to teach young drivers to have respect for the road, he said." Title changed to reflect more accurate article.

eldavojohn wrote to mention that, via Joystiq, he read an article over at BusinessWeek that indicates Microsoft may be working on a portable media device. The article states that, if they are, they're not just going after the iPod. The plan would include a way to leverage a powerful part of the Microsoft empire: games. From the article: "Microsoft would probably use the Xbox brand to market the gadget. 'I think the brand is an opportunity,' Moore says. True, perhaps, but also risky. If the new device comes with the Xbox brand, most consumers will view it as a game player, like Sony's PlayStation Portable. That might limit its appeal, since the portable gaming market is much smaller than the one for digital media." A funny comment, considering the success of the DS.

Next Generation is reporting on an ESA study indicating that something like 35% of parents play games. Most of them play with their kids, and a large percentage say that gaming together knits their family closer together. From the article: "'The data provides further evidence dispelling the myth that game playing is dominated by teens and single twenty-somethings,' said Doug Lowenstein, ESA president. 'It tells us that parents see games both as an enjoyable activity on their own, and one that allows them to engage with their children as well.'"

Via Kotaku, the news that the Game Librarian's trial last year ended in sucess. From the article: "Seventy-seven PlayStation 2 titles have been added to the collection so far with at least a dozen still awaiting processing. Sadly, Culdcept, one of the games purchased in the initial batch of games at the end of 2004, is still on that list. It's a little short of the 100 game target I had thought was reasonable back when I started, but 77 seems like a pretty respectable number." We've previously discussed this gent's work to get videogames into his library.

Conradq writes "Via Joystiq: 'Nintendo President Satoru Iwata today announced Nintendo DS Lite, a slimmer version of the best-selling Nintendo DS. Also featuring brighter screens, Nintendo DS Lite will launch in Japan on the 2nd of March. Nintendo DS Lite will be less than two-thirds the size of the original Nintendo DS and more than 20 percent lighter. Nintendo will announce more information about the availability of Nintendo DS Lite in North America and other territories in the future.'" Additional: by Z : Commentary available via Gamasutra, Next Generation, and The Game Chair. A good move, right on the heels of the news that Nintendo's profits more than doubled in Q3 as a result of the DS's sales success, and that they've hit 3 million online connections via their online component. Also, for the record, they snowed us earlier this month.

cyrus_zuo writes "As a last cry out to 2005, Game Tunnel has just published its monthly list of the top games of December. This feature articles takes a hard look at the Indie games released in (or around) the month of December with four different voices reviewing and rating each game, providing a variety of insights into what was and wasn't great in Indie gaming in December."

GameDailyBiz reports that there is new anti-videogame legislation brewing in both Iowa and Utah. Utah's law is more poorly thought out than most, essentially classifying violent games as porn. From the article: "Meanwhile in Utah, State Rep. David Hogue (R-Riverton) is taking a different approach. Hogue's HB 0257 would seek to amend an existing Utah statute by adding an 'inappropriate violence' clause--such as violence exhibited in some of today's popular video games. Under the existing Utah statute the distribution or showing of pornography and explicit nudity to minors is a felony. Hogue is certainly not the first politician to compare violent video games to pornography. CA Assemblyman Leland Yee and countless others have put playing violent games in the same category as porn or smoking cigarettes."

Earth Wind and Metal writes "In response to a recent article from the Guardian about the lack of original games, Siliconera selected ten brand new titles set for release in 2006 to keep your eyes on. Five of the games are new to the USA and the other five are making their world debut. The list includes the robot house sim Chibi Robo, sandbox mecha RPG Steambot Chronicles, Taito's DS cooking game Cooking Mama and of course Okami." I am *really* looking forward to Okami.

Business Week Online looks at the increasing appeal of videogames to advertisers. Specifically, as has been noted in the past, the ease with which product placement can slip into a game. From the article: "The Sims 2 Open for Business, the expansion pack in the popular Sims franchise that hits stores in March, allows players to launch virtual restaurants, stores, and other entrepreneurial ventures. But, oddly enough, they won't be able to interact with true-to-life financial services companies, or see any on-screen versions of objects, food, or clothing representing recognizable brands. Although the game's publisher, Electronic Arts, considered product placements and even wrote some into early storylines, the game's ad and design staffs decided against it."

Cryptic Studios' City of Heroes is a success in the world of Massively Multiplayer titles. Not everyone involved with its creation has enjoyed that success, though. Gamasutra has an interview with Rick Dakan, one of the founders of Cryptic Studios. From the article: "It was a fairly complicated situation. We had grown from our original handful to about seventeen at that point, which seems tiny now, but it was overwhelming at the time. I certainly didn't have a lot of management experience, and no one else did either. So we were making good progress, but we were off track in a lot of ways too, just kind of stuck in the mud. So Mike [Lewis] stepped in at that point and started looking at things. There were problems with the CEO position, and with my position. In programming there were three big people who left right in that same week. There was me, who got basically asked to leave, but I asked to become a consultant in the same breath. So I stepped down as a designer, from the sort of working in the office aspect of my job. Our producer got flat-out fired."

GamesIndustry.biz reports that, despite rumours to the contrary, Microsoft is continuing support for their original console through the end of this year. From the article: "While we do not have other titles to announce at this time, we are committed to providing existing Xbox customers with exciting gaming experiences in 2006. There are 200 Xbox titles expected to ship this year. It is the responsibility of the first party to create genre-defining games for its platform and we are taking that stance with both Xbox and Xbox 360. We feel we have an amazing ecosystem with third parties providing content to Xbox at this time."

Next Generation is running the almost unimaginable news that Infinium Labs has a $5 Million funding commitment from Golden Labs Investors. From the article: "The funding, which comes in the form of a convertible debenture and warrant, and allows for an initial funding payment of $625,000, with an eventual exercising of up to $5M in convertible debt. will allow Infinium to start manufacturing and marketing its PC Lapboard peripheral. The PC peripheral, which is being billed by Infinium as 'the first device to allow gamers to comfortably use a mouse and keyboard from their couch', rotates for left and right-handed users and also inclines on a 90-degree angle, with a hard surface below for the Phantom Mouse."

Alice's Wonderland blog is a daily read, and today she's got a weighty piece of research for us to check out. Gamers in the UK - Digital Play, Digital Lifestyles is research into the gaming habits of 3,442 citizens of the United Kingdom. Results are broken down by age category, with some interesting revelations in nearly every group. From the paper: "At 82%, gamers still form a clear majority of 16-24 year olds. 81% are 'heavy' gamers playing at least once a week, which may explain why the majority placed videogaming second in their preferred entertainment list (watching TV now coming in first). There are also more 'medium' gamers (14%) playing only a few times a month, than the two previous groups. This age group is also the one with the lowest proportion of female gamers at 44% - is this an indication that the choice of games targeted at this group is less appealing to females?"

Gamasutra has an interesting interview with Kristin McDonnell, CEO of LimeLife Inc. The company specifically targets female mobile gamers, and she talks about what steps they're taking to make sure they reach out to a challenging sector of the market. From the article: "But if you look at the female gameplay preferences, they are very consistent across ages. So, women who play games, if they're kids or even in their 40s, they like to have short play sessions, especially in mobile. They like frequent rewards, they like learning modes, they like to be able to interact socially, they like to be able to customize the experience. And so those types of gameplay benchmarks are really consistent across the ages, and it's really kind of the game mechanic that you might put on top of it."

Raph Koster's ever-entertaining blog had a post yesterday about using OGLE to print 3D graphics, and other entertaining but questionable uses of technology. From the post: "OGLE: The OpenGLExtractor is a tool that lets you grab 3d data out of an OpenGL application and output it as models again. What does that mean? It means that someone with a 3d printer can get 3d statuettes of their Second Life character. They can send it off to be manufactured, if they like. It means that you can snag any 3d model you like out of someone else's game data, and insert it into your own 3d scene. So much for stealing textures... ;)"

With many of the high profile 'launch window' titles still coming, the Xbox Live Arcade is one of the most entertaining elements to the Xbox 360. Joystiq posts about a recent Major Nelson podcast in which he interviews the general manager of the Xbox Live Arcade. Big-name publishers are jumping on board, and they plan numerous additions to the service in the coming months. From the post: "Just one important caveat: the Xbox Live Arcade party lasts only so long as Microsoft plays the gatekeeper role well. If the company softens its standards and starts to include mediocre titles for download, gamer trust and interest in the service will decline rapidly. So far, they're on the right path. Geometry Wars--that little $5.00 Xbox Live Arcade title that has surprised and delighted the majority of those who have given it a shot--still reigns as the top Xbox 360 title in our book."