JamesO writes "Microsoft's J Allard has said that the Xbox 360 will be released in differing versions over the next five years. "It's something we're not ready to announce yet," he said. "I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all [approach] over the next five-year horizon." Relatedly JamesO writes "Microsoft is saying that anywhere up to 40 games could be released for the Xbox 360 during its launch period, but which of those will make or break the console's launch? Pro-G choose their ten most important Xbox 360 launch games. Not the ten best launch games, but the most important for the success of the Xbox 360."

You may have already heard of Blizzard's most recent title. World of Warcraft was released in November of last year to high critical praise and a favourable player reaction. While technical issues were a problem for the first few months of retail service, prompt patching and additional world servers have left the game in excellent shape. World of Warcraft has since gone on to become not only the largest MMORPG in the United States, but also the world, with 3.5 million subscribers as of July 21st. Given all this, the likelihood that Slashdot readers would be interested in asking the development team some questions seemed pretty high. The team has kindly offered to take some time out of their extremely busy schedules to answer questions. So, feel free to ask whatever question is burning in your heart. Please stick to World of Warcraft related topics, and only ask one question per comment. We'll take the best of the lot and pass them on to the Team. Their answers will be posted when we've gotten them back.

1up.com has an article up examining the current state of PSP sales and interest. Frustrations are mounting regarding the lackluster monetary outlook and poor game selection. From the article: "The PSP has traveled the spectrum of being hailed as the greatest piece of hardware since the introduction of the original PlayStation to being treated like a Goodwill store where developers drop off bare-bones ports and shoddy, old games. Since the release of the PSP on March 24, 2005, to the time of this writing, there have been approximately 30 games released, 17 of which were released during the launch window. Around 10 or so of the games available could be considered ports of PlayStation 2 games, which is about one-third of the entire PSP library. And if you work out the math with the number of games released since the launch period, it comes out to less than one PSP game release per week--.76 games to be exact."

JavaTHut writes "Numerous ideas have emerged lately for how video games might be integrated into the classroom and why they are well suited to learning. Still, many challenges remain as most educators are skeptical of their value, previous failures at 'edutainment' have made the industry weary of such a market and a renewed focus on standardized testing has made it difficult to introduce new curriculum. In an effort to identify what possibilities exist for video games in education, MIT recently hosted a conference [video recording torrents available] bringing together teachers, game designers, industry execs, policy makers and academics - with case studies of classroom uses of Civilization, Neverwinter Nights, The Sims 2 and others."

Via Joystiq, N-Philes has an article delving deep into the secrets of Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Gamecube. A Developer Mode is accessible within the game which allows for battle tweaking, setting changes, and access to dozens of otherwise inaccessible battle maps. From the article: "Notice the stage is completely horizontal. Not only that, it's easily the longest fighting arena in Super Smash Bros. history (with the exception of the Home-Run Contest stage). Along the stage lie several moving platforms and multicolored grounds with different amounts of traction when walked across. It's clear that HAL used this area as a virtual playground to experiment with several different aspects of gameplay. Did you take note of the background? Confused? So is everyone else. The background is a giant picture of a pub. If you look closely you can spot several people enjoying tall glasses of beer atop the bar and tables. Despite the fact that it seems a little strange, it somehow adds to the illustrious prestige of Super Smash Bros. We wouldn't have it any other way."

An anonymous reader writes "On ebay people are paying real money to buy WoW gold... while some guy in Korea murdered another guy over a rare sword that existed only in an MMORPG. This essay looks at the way more and more people are failing to draw a distinction between their real and online lives and takes it to its logical, yet utterly insane, conclusion." Amusing, and with more than a few ounces of truth.

Dan writes "The bochs x86 emulator has been ported to the psp, and allows for x86 disk images to be run.linux and dos images have been confirmed to work."

fwice writes "QuakeCon has just kicked off and at the end of the keynote speech, John Carmack made an announcement saying that the Quake 3 sourcecode will be released shortly. "

Jim Hall writes "With all the fervor recently over the 'Hot Coffee' mod and the upcoming 'Bully' game, I found it interesting that no press time seems to have been given to this little gem from the BBC: Parents 'ignore game age ratings'. I think most of us agree that the games are already rated appropriate to their audience - GTA:SA was previously rated "M" (17 and up) in the US, before public outcry forced the ESRB to move it to "AO" (18 and up). However, as this article points out, parents are more concerned about children spending too many hours playing games, rather than about what type of title they were playing."

Device666 writes "In order to lock out both copied games as well as homebrew software, including the GNU/Linux operating system, Microsoft built a chain of trust on the Xbox reaching from the hardware to the execution of game code, in order to avoid the infiltration of code that has not been authorized by Microsoft. The link between hardware and software in this chain of trust is the hidden "MCPX" boot ROM. The principles, the implementations and the security vulnerabilities of this 512 bytes ROM will be discussed in this wikipedia article entitled How to fit three bugs in 512 bytes of security code."

Spaceman40 wrote to mention a post up on Joystiq about a beautiful next-gen FPS called Project Offset. From the article: "Doom 3 engine? Was nice knowing you. UT? Old news. Source? Over there. We'll call you if we need you. You can all stand back, though. There's a new king on the way to town. Project Offset is a new first person shooter, and the developer is showing off what their new graphics engine can do. The movies are not pre-rendered. The developer says they're all real time...The demo looks amazing! Videos are available at the official site.'"

Next Gen has an article up republishing Raph Koster's seminal laws of Online World Design. The piece is one of the basic texts used to think about the way to put a MMOG together. From the article: "Design Rules - The secrets to a really long-lived, goal-oriented, online game of wide appeal : have multiple paths of advancement (individual features are nice, but making them ladders is better), make it easy to switch between paths of advancement (ideally, without having to start over), make sure the milestones in the path of advancement are clear and visible and significant (having 600 meaningless milestones doesn't help), ideally, make your game not have a sense of running out of significant milestones (try to make your ladder not feel finite) "

Deuce Magnum writes "GamePro's got up a story that was apparently designed by the guys at MAD magazine. It details the lows of video gaming, from big boobs to MMO patches. From the article: "8. Mind-numbingly dull 'cinema sequences' -- as if we really needed to interrupt the game with ten minutes of bad acting and cliche'd dialogue to explain the deep motives and back story of why Ratchet and Clank are running and jumping. 9. Choppy, second-rate video games designed for cell phones. Was text messaging not a useless enough way to drain battery power? "

Steve writes "CNN has posted an article about the emergence of a big business in video game music. According to the author, budgets for one game recently surpassed $300,000, with composers being paid between $700 and $1500 per minute of composition, even more 'if it's produced for an orchestra.' The article points out that the production quality of game music has surpassed that of television, where money is rarely budgeted for high-quality soundscapes."

1up.com has a feature looking into the high stress world of game speed running. Primarily a history of the sport, they start with Doom and Super Mario Bros. and walk us forward to sequence breaking runs through Metroid Prime. From the article: "While there are plenty of real-world time-based challenges, speed running stands apart thanks to its virtual nature. You'll never tune in to a track meet and see competitors taking shortcuts across the grass, but that's essentially the modus operandi of video game speed runners. Similarly, you'll never see athletes exploiting flaws in reality to jump further or to warp themselves ahead in the race. Again, that's something that can only be done via video games. While speed running has been acquiring a serious head of steam over the last few years, its origins can be traced back to one game in particular: id Software's late 1993 bombshell of an FPS, Doom. "

Peter Moore talks to the folks over at Spong.com about what it was like to make the original Xbox, and how those lessons now translate into work on the 360. From the article: "We've built from scratch a brand, I think we've built credibility in the marketplace and I think we've built our ecosystem, be it our relationship with publishers, with retail. We have a hugely positive relationship with developers, something we are extremely proud of here. The DNA of Microsoft is building platforms. Creating something and then inviting everyone to come and play with it and come and make money on this stuff we have. Xbox is no different. You hear us talk a lot about it as a platform and it's this combo of hardware, software and services that all come together to create this platform."

Gamasutra has a piece up examining techniques for character development in games. The article describes these techniques using the movie standards of dialogue and relationships. From the article: "Character development in and of itself isn't going to make your gameplay any better, but it will create a more satisfying experience because you're furnishing a more well-developed context, a more immersive world for the player to explore. You can't read a review of an adventure game or shooter without seeing some kind of reference to the storytelling, the dialogue, the characters. Can you relate to the characters? Are they well-developed? Are they interesting? It's become an expectation, an industry norm. Cliches and stereotypes are unacceptable."

Bluecobra writes "PlanetSide, a FPS-based MMO game published by Sony Entertainment of America (SOE) is now using advertising in-game. PlanetSide already charges a fee of $12.99 a month to play and now users are also treated to Fanta, Coca-Cola, and Deuce Bigalow advertisements." Additionally, Martey writes "A recent patch to SWAT 4 introduces dynamic in-game advertising in the form of randomly generated posters on walls in the game. Provided by Massive, Inc., the game downloads new ads each time the game is loaded. Even more onerously, the game contacts Massive's servers to provide data about the length of time and viewing angles that the player looked at the posters."

An anonymous reader writes "This guy had always wanted a tattoo, but could never decide what to get. A looming 30th birthday fueled a furious design phase which has resulted in an excellent tribute to some of the great gaming classics while he was growing up. As the native people in the pacific northwest used totem poles to tell stories and keep family chronologies, this design was intended to tell a history of some of the important games that influenced him (and a lot of us, too) throughout his life. Images are Coral Cache-ed."

BuddingMonkey wrote to mention a heartening ruling from a judge who saw beyond the anti-gaming hype. CNN is reporting that Devin Moor has been found guilty of murder, in a well publicized case where the defendant stated that video games caused his behavior. From the article: "Prosecutor Lyn Durham said Tuesday that Moore knew what he was doing when he grabbed a patrolman's gun and killed two officers and a radio dispatcher. 'And he knew it was wrong,' she said."