shotfeel writes "First, news of Warden -a bit of code from Blizzard's WoW to trounce game cheats. Then, a Sony rootkit to make your computer safe for music. Now, news that you can use the Sony rootkit to make your game cheats safe from the Warden."

EGSonikku writes "According to Merrill Lynch, after doing a breakdown of hardware and manufacturing costs., the XBox 360 may end up as little as half the cost as Sony's PlayStation 3 by 2006. Citing Sony's financial woe's and Microsoft's deep pockets, they predict '...Microsoft's Xbox 360 should emerge as the early winner in the next round of the game console wars.'"

Shockeye writes "Over at f13.net we have posted an on-site report on the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies overhaul. SOE and LucasArts are changing the entire core of the game in order to make things more fun and make you feel like you really are a part of the Star Wars Universe." Indeed, F13 has the goods, and a lot of analysis in their forums. Available elsewhere is the community letter that unveiled the changes, commentary from Aggro Me, and a breakdown of what exactly is happening. From F13: "I don't know how else to explain it other than SOE has done the right thing. They've revitalized combat in an MMOG. It's a huge step in the right direction. Do I think they'll perfect it here? No. But it's by far the most interesting thing a studio has done. They've taken a gamble, and from what I've seen it's paid off. In other words, they've added the 'Wars' back to Star Wars. It's been in the works for over a year now. In fact, the expansions could probably be called smokescreens for the launch of the real game. It'll shake things up."

deadtroll writes "Gamespot is reporting that Bioware is teaming up with Pandemic and Elevation to create a mighty tri-continental juggernaut of supercoolness." From the article: "Now it has become clear the Elevation isn't done with games--not by a long shot. On Thursday, the company will announce it is backing the alliance of two major independent developers, Pandemic Studios and BioWare, into a new super-developer. Canada-based BioWare is a celebrated developer of role-playing games stretching from 1997's Baldur's Gate to the forthcoming Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. Pandemic is a much newer shop, but has enjoyed success with a string of hit action titles, including Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries, and Destroy All Humans!"

An anonymous reader writes "To ensure an immediate "sellout" of the Xbox 360 on launch day (therefore getting lots of media buzz about their new console), Microsoft will simply restrict the supply down to a trickle. My favorite part of the article: "In addition to limiting the per-store stock of consoles and having the retailers prepare to prominently note the unit's "sold out" status, Microsoft has allegedly asked Norwegian retailers to sign an agreement that they'll sell out of the consoles on the launch date." Looks like it's not a rumour.

revco_38 asks: "My wife and I are looking into purchasing a game based learning console for our 4 year old boy this Christmas. The two front runners are the VSmile from VTech and the Leapster from Leapfrog. Does the Slashdot community have any experience with either of these products? Are there any other products similar that should be considered? We also have a 2 year old boy so something that lasts would be nice."

tlhIngan writes "According to a Norwegian retailer (as reported by Gizmodo), Microsoft's making some peculiar demands during the XBox 360 launch. In particular, each retailer is to get 20 XBox 360 consoles (6 core editions, and 14 premium editions). However, to get the full allocation, they have to ensure they will sell out on the day of release (December 2nd over there)! Plus, each console must leave the store with at *least* two games each. Is Microsoft marketing like the beanie babies again - using 'Sold Out!' as a way to hype the popularity of their machine? It may appear to be, since Microsoft recently slowed down production of the XBox 360 as well."

Saige writes "Online gaming fans are going to have to look past the PS3 to get their fix - Sony has announced that they are not doing a central service for PS3 online gaming. Instead, it will be done in the same manner as the PS2, where each company decides what effort to put into it. Considering how weak the online support has been for the PS2, this may not bode well for Sony, especially with more and more rumours that they won't be launching until at least the 2006 holidays." With the Live service such a success and Nintendo rolling out its WiFi network, it seems odd that Sony isn't going to try for something similar.

sm4kxd writes "Eurogamer is reporting that Infinium Labs is being investigated by the SEC. Apparently the SEC is particularly interested in the dealings of the company under previous CEO Tim Roberts, and are going so far as to file charges against Tim himself. The exact charges have not been revealed; Infinium believes it has to do with a 'recent SEC enquiry into phony fax scams, where penny stocks were illegally advertised to investors. The SEC also claims that Infinium did not keep accurate payroll and tax records during Roberts' reign, and owes fines and interest payments to the tune of USD 1.2 million.' It seems the more that is spoken of the Phantom, the more evidence there is that it is the most appropriately titled console in history."

It's that time of year again: The World-wide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day is this Saturday, November the 5th. Gaming stores across the globe are ramping up for events showcasing the game that in many ways helped the gaming industry get off the ground. 1up has some background on the event. From the article: "D&D mechanics have indeed been a core component of many electronic games, even those that do not share the same aesthetics or mythology. Japanese RPGs, including long-running series Dragon Quest, were heavily influenced by early D&D. The influence is much more obvious in many North American RPGs, some of which actually take up and expand on the D&D license, like Neverwinter Nights and DragonShard."

For some end of the day eye candy, eToyChest has a photo spread of the new 360 lounge in Tokyo. From the article: "This setup reeks of the kind of spread Microsoft had going on in their back-room party at the Shrine at E3, only with more game playing and less milling around wondering what was going on. The lounge has numerous Xbox 360 kiosks, two sofa areas set aside with 42-inch HD televisions for players to test drive titles such as Ridge Racer 6 and Ninty-Nine Nights, and one gigantic 200-inch big screen TV where players can weep knowing that they will never be able to have this kind of setup in their own home."

Next Generation has an interview with ESRB president Patricia Vance, who is not taking the criticism of the Board lying down. From the article: "There are people who just don't believe in self regulation. They don't believe that an industry can regulate itself, even though there are plenty of examples of successful regulatory bodies out there, including the film business."

The ever interesting Escapist has an entire issue concentrating on women in gaming this week. Particularly informative is a Chris Crawford penned piece on the subject. From the article: "I have long since given up participating in discussions on women in gaming. The games industry is so out of touch, such discussions are a waste of perfectly good electrons. When Microsoft wanted to publicize an event for women at a Game Developers' Conference a few years back, they splashed around banners showing a woman in a low-cut dress. Some people just don't get it."

The annual Serious Games Summit is taking place in Washington D.C. this week, and Gamasutra has several articles exploring the events that have taken place so far. Write-ups include How Games will improve CS education, Wargaming Science, and What's So Serious about Game Design? From the Games for CS article: "So, how do games fit into this? Well, Barnett pointed out to the audience, which included a number of university professors: 'We all know of [computer science] students, particularly young men, who get started gaming.' In fact, the majority of students have experience of being able to change parameters or other attributes in games. Thus, it's believed that game-related learning may be a way to stave off the precipitous decline in entry to computer science departments - overall enrolments are now down near a level last seen in the 1970s, and the amount of women attracted to the discipline is "less than dismal," according to Barnett. Worse than this, there is also a high attrition level, with 10 to 20 percent of students dropping out each year."

Gamespot reports that the much anticipated (by me, at least) Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is delayed until 2006. From the article: "In a conference call with analysts today, Take-Two Interactive announced that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is being delayed until the second quarter of its next fiscal year, which runs from February to April 2006. While this is still technically within Microsoft's 14-week "launch window" for the Xbox 360, it means that the game will not be on sale when the console arrives in stores on November 22."

Sergey writes "Ars Technica has an inside look at the next-gen console wars, with a focus on what we know about the hardware in the PS3, Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Revolution. In particular, the coverage of the Nintendo's Broadway processor is the most thorough and best-compiled available right now, and I think it shows that the Revolution won't be nearly as weak as its opponents suggest." An interesting sidenote from a Eurogamer article: the Revolution's specs may never be fully revealed by Nintendo. They consider the information irrelevant.

Anonymous Cowpat writes "The BBC is running a story about the Blizzard title World of Warcraft. Specifically an article about, 'The Warden', Blizzard's highly-invasive anti-cheating software, which some, including The EFF have labelled as spyware. Most of the people around here have probably heard of it by now, but it's interesting to see the story in the mainstream press and (at time of writing) on the front page of the BBC's technology news section, no less." From the article: "The watchdog program, called The Warden by Blizzard, has been known about among players for some time. It makes sure that players are not using cheat software which can, for example, automatically play the game and build up a character's qualities. However, knowledge of it crossed to the mainstream thanks to software engineer Greg Hoglund who disassembled the code of The Warden and watched it in action to get a better idea of what it did."

The genre of the first person shooter was born with simple elements in mind: shoot, strafe, win. Since then it has moved on to loftier frontiers, better stories, bigger things. Despite this it's an lot of fun to go back to the basics once in a while. 2001's Serious Sam was the kind of mindless fun that a PC gamer needs every once in a while. No long cut-scenes, no intricate plot, just the opportunity to turn some harpies into feathered confetti. The sequel, Serious Sam II, has a lot of potential but manages to miss out on the essentials that made Croteam's first encounter a success. Read on for my impressions of Serious Sam II.

John Callaham writes "Gamecloud has a new feature this Halloween asking game developers from id, Epic, Gearbox (among others) about what games scared them and why." From the article: "Todd Hollenshead - id Software: 'DOOM 3! Of course.' John Romero - former id and Ion Storm designer: 'My personal second scariest game was probably the Ravenholm section of Half Life 2. Man, when those screaming, galloping zombies are tearing around on top of a building and coming at you or clawing their way up a drainpipe - it's INSANE!'"

Thursday events were interesting enough, but now that everyone's had a chance to get home and relax there's news aplenty from this past weekend's MMOG industry event. For general first-hand impressions, we can turn to Greg Costikyan, Raph Koster, Lum, and Mirjam Eladhari, whose site is well worth looking at as it has liveblogging notes from many of the events. Speaking of events, the most popular session at the event seemed to be the MMOG industry Rant, a panel of big brains and angry thinkers. Reflections on the rant are available from Gamasutra, Psychochild, F13, and Next Generation. From the F13 write-up: "Jeff Hickman: Lum gave me ranting lessons. My rant is basically about (fist closed), as game developers - the fact we often make games - core pieces - it's a critical error in the things we do. As a player, it's effecting me in the game I play right now, damnit. As a developer, I've done this and made core changes and probably didn't achieve the goals I wanted to achieve. As I make these games, we attract a certain type of player. It's because of the things we put in - the gameplay - for whatever reason, we see another game that's cool, doing something better, or we want to change the billing process. For whatever reason, we make a change and it alienates people." There were other things to see and hear at the event. Zen of Design has notes on some panels, including Sex in Games, the aforementioned Casino Talk, Platformania, and Bleeding Customers is the Future. Gamasutra had two more postcards from Austin: East Meets West in MMOs, and Why the EFF is helping NCSoft. Finally, game impressions are available over at MMORPG.com, on Conan, Auto Assault, Dark Age of Camelot, and Pirates of the Burning Sea.