Jonathan writes "Former associate producer for Nintendo of America Jeffrey Kalles granted an interview with n37radio. The interview covers a wide range of topics from his time spent at Nintendo to the upcoming Nintendo Revolution release. The interview is available in both text and audio format for those who are interested."

GameSetWatch is reporting that ChronicLogic (developer of goo-game Gish) is holding a Bridge Construction Set contest to see who can come up with an original 'cool-looking' bridge. Winners will be treated to a full copies of the company's games. The client to participate is free to download and futz with, so if you've an interest there is no excuse not to participate.

Gamespot has part one of an extensive interview with SOE CEO John Smedley about the recent and controversial changes made to Star Wars Galaxies. From the article: "Star Wars never hit that excitement level around here. It never got--there never was a critical mass of people here that wanted to play it. So we knew we could do way better. And I guess as much out of a love for making these kinds of games, even though that sounds corny, though it's true, we wanted to make this game better." We had our own talk with Mr. Smedley not too long ago.

Via Joystiq, a look at MCV into the increasing frustration publishers have with second-hand game sales. From the article: "As pressure has increased this year on sell-through and pricing of new releases, so games publishers have become more sensitive about the size of the pre-owned market - which is believed to be worth as much as £50m a year to leading chain GAME and possibly £100m across the market as a whole. Publishers have agreed to discuss privately what action may be possible to stop the trend, either under the auspices of trade body ELSPA or simply via legal protection." We've already reported on Epic VP Mark Rein's opinion on reselling games.

A young man has been charged after reportedly threatening Jack Thompson with torture and death, reports Gamespot. Thompson claims the boy is already in custody for his crime. From the article: "The Sheriff's Office public information officer, Lt. John Martin, could not confirm for GameSpot that the child had been arrested because the detective and sergeant assigned to the case had both left for the day. However, he did confirm that the boy had been charged with harassing communication, a misdemeanor offense."

Gamespot reports that the 360 sold out ... at the Shibuya 'official' launch location. Sales from the rest of the country still have to come in, but given launch day experiences, I imagine the customer reaction wasn't as fierce as it was here. From the Kotaku on-hand piece: "A customer! I see a customer! It's a few minutes after seven, and somebody else has come to wait for the Xbox. I feel like a sailor who's been lost at sea and finally spots land. He stands in front of Sofmap for a moment, awkwardly, and he looks around. Nobody but him and me and the vending machine. I make a quick inventory: tall, painfully thin, wearing a brown coat, black and grey backpack, looks like Ichabod Crane."

rtt writes "When Valve recently added support for HDR technology into their 'Source' engine, they quickly discovered that in games such as Day of Defeat, a WW2 based game, the rendering quality far surpassed the video quality that would have been possible in the time that the game was set. In a new round of updates, VALVe have researched and developed cinematic effects commonly used by the film industry - motion blur, color correction, and depth of field amongst others - to aid realism for the set period of the game. bit-tech has up an article detailing each of the technologies, along with video clips to showcase the effects at work in the Day of Defeat mod."

NotFamousYet writes "After having previously shut down the development of King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining, Vivendi Universal made a press announcement saying: 'After extensive evaluation, Vivendi Universal Games is pleased to announce that the fan developed trilogy project 'The Silver Lining' (previously known as King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining), based on characters from Sierra Entertainment's 'Kings Quest' series, has been given approval to continue development. We look forward to seeing the first of its three upcoming chapters, 'Shadows', completed soon.' Check out this very promising fan made sequel!" Commentary and more linkage at GameSetWatch.

Gamasutra's ever-interesting question of the week queried individuals in the games industry for their opinions on the launch of the Xbox 360. There were opinions from both sides of the issue, with folks in between as well. From the article: "In my opinion, Microsoft did a superb job of establishing Xbox 360 as the premier next-gen gaming platform. However, it suffered a huge setback when it failed to get enough machines to the market for the Christmas holiday. While coordinating a console launch across multiple continents is truly a massive undertaking, a company as massive as Microsoft has no excuse for being so grossly unprepared. -Coray Seifert, Large Animal Games"

An anonymous reader writes "This step-by-step guide shows you have to find the perfect gift for your gamer, even if you don't know anything about gaming yourself." From the article: "Trying to figure out which games are sure-fire hits and safe bets for the gamer in your life is never an easy task. Tastes range from the light and fluffy to the dark and deadly, and there are games for almost every type, style, and preference. There's no better way to come across as being on top of the game than to give just the right title, just as there's no faster way to cast yourself as clueless by dispensing copies of the GameCube's Charlie's Angles."

GameOgre writes "Despite a few lackluster attempts at a major MMOFPS like PlanetSide and now (in some ways) Star Wars Galaxies, could the MMOFPS genre one day rival MMORPGs in popularity and become the next big thing in MMO gaming?" From the article: "Imagine the possibilities of the MMOFPS genre for a second. Instead of going through the tired old tread mill of generic missions and level grinding, blast through a combination of other players and intelligent bots on a massive scale. There would be no rooms or lobbies that you have to scan through to find a vacancy, but one persistent world. The game would be as simple as an FPS but would have enough depth to keep you coming back. You would also not be able to camp a certain monster for treasure, because their would be no monster or treasure." The big issue I see here is pricing. The monthly fee for Planetside is just too high for what they offer.

An anonymous reader writes "Pirates of the Burning Sea is a fresh thinking MMORPG that is not based on the typical leveling treadmill like so many others. You can find a podcast interview with designer John 'Rev' Tynes at MMORadio. From the site: 'Britain, Spain, and France are carving up the Caribbean with the thunder of cannon. Fleets lay siege to ports bursting with wealth, eager to claim them for King and Country. The sea burns with the fires of glory. From the haze of battle emerges the Black Flag, and into the chaos plunge pirates, bold and resolute. This is your world now, a world of battle and intrigue, and you will captain your ship through the pages of legend!'" It's great to see one of these more niche games getting out into the wild like this.

1up has a second article in a series on the evolution of online games. This entry wonders aloud about the MMOG player preoccupation with dragon-slaying. From the article: "Are we really that happy to hang out with orcs all the time? Apparently, yes. According to mmogchart.com, an MMO research site run by Bruce Sterling Woodcock, fantasy-based RPGs account for approximately 85 percent of the market share of all current MMO players. Aside from the recent exception of City of Heroes (which lets us swap out our leather elven tights for spandex superhero tights), most games that don't let us brandish +3 battleaxes of dorkdom and slay mightye beastes have fallen over like level 1 rats." We've previously discussed the first article in this series.

Gamespot is reporting that a new update to the 360's backwards compatibility has been issued ... and just as promptly recalled. From the article: "Late last night, Microsoft updated the backwards-compatibility list with eight games from the trio of Tom Clancy-inspired series. Software emulators for Ghost Recon, Ghost Recon 2, Ghost Recon 2 Summit Strike, Rainbow Six 3, Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow, Splinter Cell, Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory all became available for download. However, within hours of the new update's release, reports began to circulate that it was causing problems with Halo 2. "

Despite the launch of the first next-gen console, winter sales figures have been lower than hoped-for. From the article: "The two lowered their projected earnings numbers for Electronic Arts and Activision in both the short and long term today, but said both companies remained attractive in long-term investments. They reduced their Electronic Arts sales projections for the December quarter from $1.52 billion to $1.45 billion, and likewise lowered the associated earnings per-share estimate from $1.29 to $1.20. In the long term, the company reduced its peak earnings per-share estimate from $3.50 to $3.20 in fiscal year 2010."

Next Generation is reflecting on the thoroughly eventful year that Take-Two Entertainment has had. From the article: "Possibly the biggest deal of the year was the pick-up of exclusive third-party publishing rights to MLB, pushing rivals like EA out to lesser licenses. The seven-year deal does not exclude hardware manufacturers from the market. Take-Two ended its association with ESPN following EA's deal with the broadcast label."

Gamasutra reports that a study shows what we all already knew: high game scores do not equate to high sales figures. From the article: "The study ... attempts to find correlations under more specific scenarios, such as with blockbuster games in the Madden, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo series; within the same franchise, and within the most specific example, within sports games concerning the same sport. However, as the authors state in their conclusion: 'After going through multiple scenarios, we believe a game rating, in most cases, is not a reliable tool for predicting game sales.'"

heartless_ writes "The GamerGirl team over at Gamergod.com has an interesting article delving into a male driven industry. This time the subject of discussion is the sometimes overzealous portrayal of women in games." A well-considered piece, with thoughtful references to the works of Camille Paglia and Naomi Wolf. From the article: "He also highlights several games that, instead of focusing on the female form in its big-breasted glory, showcase women who are intelligent, strong, and powerful. He insists, 'The protagonists highlighted above illustrate that plenty of excitement can be provided by female leads who will, in turn, bring in female gamers - not to speak of richer gameplay options. Additionally, as McIntosh says, most women gamers are "confident enough not to feel threatened" by sexist imagery, merely finding it annoying and disappointing.'"

Wired is running an article examining the ups and downs of the Neopet Addiction. The overly cute online 'game' mostly consists of teaching kids to look at ads, but somehow has developed a large following online. From the article: "A generation agrees. Neopets has a staggering 25 million members worldwide. It has been translated into 10 languages and gets more than 2.2 billion pageviews per month. These dedicated Neopians spend an average of 6 hours and 15 minutes per month on the site. That makes Neopets the second-stickiest site on the Internet - ahead of Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and eBay, according to Media Metrix. What's more, its demographics are the stuff of marketers' dreams: Four out of five Neopians are under age 18, and two out of five are under 13." Relatedly, Kotaku has a quick blurb about the Scientology backdrop against which this cuteness is projected. Update: 12/09 19:14 GMT by Z : Fixed broken link. There's a bug there, methinks.

Reuters is reporting that, despite some reservations by analysts, Sony's next-gen console appears to be on-track for a Spring 2006 launch. From the article: " The timing of the release of Sony's updated PlayStation console has become a matter of speculation in the $25 billion video game industry and among the studios, hardware makers and other companies looking to handicap the battle over next-generation DVD technology. A spokesman for Sony, the No. 1 provider of game consoles, said it was still targeting a spring 2006 launch for the PS3, which is key to maintaining its lead in the game console market against Microsoft Corp. which recently launched its competing Xbox 360 console."