Dave Long writes "My column at GamerDad features some musing on how unimportant graphics are becoming to enjoyment of games. Everything looks great today which removes the excitement of that bullet point on a game box. There's some historical context and speculation on next-gen consoles and graphics' effect on consumers." From the article: "I guess we're getting closer to photo-realism, but I just don't care. The games shown don't look markedly better than anything from this generation. I guess they're impressive in a 'that's close to the movies now' kind of way but the graphics aren't changing gameplay in any way that I can see. It just makes old types of gameplay look prettier. For the people who absolutely adore technology and this incessant need to replicate the real world, there will certainly be things to cheer in the next generation. I'm sure I'll eventually buy the new consoles myself and be at least modestly excited at the graphics, but I've just grown so accustomed to things looking nice on current machines that there's no 'wow' factor anymore."

ByteWoopy writes "Hello World!' That's the traditional phrase that programmers display when they create their first piece of software for an unfamiliar operating system. Owners of Sony's handheld PSP game system were delighted to hear May 5 that a hacker had managed to write a small program that displayed those words on a PSP. They wondered what would be next. As it turned out, it only took hackers five days to go from 'Hello World' to Mario World. On May 10, sites like PSP Hacker reported that a Japanese hacker known only by the name Mr. Mirakichi had developed a program called RIN that let the PSP play software written for the original black-and-white Nintendo Game Boy system.'"

Nintendo has announced that they will impliment up to 1000 DS wireless hotspots by the end of the year in Japan. No word yet on international wireless initiatives, though the article states there are many countries interested in the project. Iwata also repeats an earlier belief that online gaming has yet to really take off. From the article: "Iwata said online gaming had yet to take off and spread to a wide audience of users because of various drawbacks, including a laborious process to get connected to a network and consumers' unwillingness to pay a monthly fee for access."

The Screen Actor's Guild and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists will vote today on whether or not to strike against publishers in the video game industry. The actors claim they are not getting a fair piece of the pie in the ever increasingly lucrative industry. From the article: "Voice actors say they are not sharing in the riches of the $10-billion-a-year industry. But game publishers say voice actors are just part of a increasingly costly and complex development process in which a typical game costs $5 million or more and several times that for blockbusters."

Academia Blog Grand Text Auto has up a long set of notes from last week's first AI and Interactive Entertainment conference, which includes keynote talks from Doug Church, Will Wright, Chris Crawford and Damian Isla of Halo 2. From the Doug Church talk: "none of the AI detail gets attention in a 30 second ad or magazine blurb...also, if a character in battle only lives a minute, there's not much fidelity players can even perceive...industry has been promising good characters for a long time, not delivered... players are cynical, don't want to hear it anymore...hard to back out of the fakery"

Dark Paladin writes "There's an interesting article over at Advanced Media Network regarding discussing how the upcoming Nintendo Revolution's ability to let players play old games and more independent developers gain access to mainstream gamers could take advantage of the Long tail approach of Internet business." From the article: "Imagine how many would-be developers that are now working on independent games, games that sell maybe only a few thousand copies online, unable to break into the console market. But if Nintendo is right, and offers maybe an inexpensive (or free, which would be better) development system for would be game makers, the field could shift. Now, they don't need to rely on that one Legend of Zelda game to sell 5,000,000 copies to be a success - they could have 1,000 developers all making microbudget games that only sell 5,000 copies each (a pittance in the game development world) and still be considered successful."

Garthilk writes "In the last two weeks since E3 I've read at least three gushing reviews about an upcoming game by Simutronics, called Hero's Journey. MMORPG.com gave it their E3 best of show award. CorpNews said it blew their pants off. IGN even had a good interview with the CEO of Simutronics. Warcry even goes so far as to say that it will turn gaming world upside down. The question still lingers though, can a company who has focused on text based roleplaying games cut it in the graphical world?" From the MMORPG.com article: "In a year full of big budget, big company titles, Hero's Journey offered graphics on par with all the major players and an extremely exciting look at their game play. E3 2005 marked a show where several high profile games were touting very similar features (state based combat), and in swept Hero's Journey with their innovative group combat, highly cinematic missions, interactive environments and hands down the best character creation ever put into an MMORPG."

An anonymous reader writes "Although the official European launch isn't until September, Europeans have already been able to buy imported PSPs. Sony has sent out a batch of cease and desist letters, claiming that selling the PSP without permission violates their trademarks. The Register reports on the legal fight between Sony and online retailler ElectricBirdLand." From the article: "The Japanese manufacturer is claiming infringement of Trade Mark. But one reseller at the receiving end of the legal nastygrams, ElectricBirdLand, claims that key technologies, trademarks and software utilised in Sony's new portable gaming platform have not even been registered by Sony in the UK. For example, the PSP trademark has apparently been registered by a small Bristol-based IT and design firm, called Owtanet."

Nick Weidner writes "Indie music website Pitchforkmedia.com asks, 'What if John Cage had owned an XBox?'. The article compares today's game soundtrack composers to ambient artists such as Brian Eno, and discusses experimental soundtrack techniques with Jesper Kyd (the Hitman series), Peter McConnell (Psychonauts) and Russell Shaw (Black & White, Fable)." Meanwhile over at Wired News they are reporting on the suppression of musical creativity the designers had to build into Star Wars Galaxies, for fear that copyrighted works would be played in the galaxy far, far away. From the article: "If we allowed someone to play anything they want, they could play a song by Madonna and then we'd have licensing issues...We don't want to give them the option to try, because the bottom line is, if we open that gate, they will go through it".

VirtualUK writes "The BBC News website is running a story about a team of engineers headed by Andrew David Cheok over at the Mixed Reality Lab, University of Singapore. They've developed a Human Pacman game which is played out on the streets of Singapore. The screenshots of what the players see is pretty interesting with users of both the mixed reality version and the virtual reality version being able to interact. The system comprises of a bunch of wearable computers that use GPS and wireless network connections to relay information regarding position. People in the US can see it showcased at the Wired NextFest in Chicago, June 24-26."

1up.com has a feature up including side-by-side interviews with Anti-Gaming Muckraker Jack Thompson and Prof. Henry Jenkins. The site manages to ask both proponents some tough questions, and they get some realistic answers in response. From the article's Jenkins interview: "Education is the key, not legislation. If you heavily regulate the industry it will narrow what games are in the market, and retailers will only carry content that is suitable for the youngest of players. Retailers won't carry a Mature-rated game if you move to an enforceable system. We saw this with the comic industry in the '50s. The other way to approach this problem is to put the burden on the consumer. We have to educate."

anaesthetica writes "The Christian Science Monitor is carrying a story on new directions in game design. The article notes that big gaming companies are not pushing innovation beyond taking advantage of newer hardware. New areas of innovation are coming from education, training, and online communities." From the article: "Online games have the potential to transform entertainment into a global-community exercise, breaking down borders, cultural and language barriers, and even political prejudices...I doubt any other form of entertainment holds out that promise...We have only scratched the surface of what [interactive entertainment] can be."

CodeBuster writes "The programmers, artists, and other creative professions that work in the games industry have taken a rather dim view on paying royalties to Hollywood voice-over actors, according to the article 'Coders Want Fatter Paychecks Too' written by Wired News. From the article: 'The video-game industry's geek workforce has something to say to Hollywood actors: Get in line for your share of the industry's profits.'"

jasoncart writes "Glitches in videogames are always a bad thing, right? Wrong, argues columnist Rob Wilson - citing developer oversights in titles like Halo, Pro Evolution Soccer, Vice City and Quake as adding welcome 'character' to our gameplaying experiences." From the article: "Then, in the distance, something astonishing happened. The car I was chasing sunk into the road as if it were careering off a cliff. The car vanished and a welcoming sight flashed up on the screen. 'Mission Passed - $1000'."

lecreuset writes "Clickable Culture has an article discussing the imminent wedding of Firefox and Second Life. From the article: 'The virtual world of Second Life will leverage an embedded version of Mozilla Firefox in a future release, supporting in-world web browsing and the display of web pages on the surfaces of 3D objects, according to developers at Linden Lab.'"

Gamasutra's reoccuring feature "Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie" covers the subject of crates and barrels in games, (ala Old Man Murray) courtesy of designer Ernest Adams. From the article: "If there are crates in a place, there had better be pallets under them and at least one forklift as well. In fact, somebody wrote to me (unfortunately I lost his name in an E-mail crash) and pointed out that wooden crates are completely passé now anyway. Modern shipping is done in piles of cardboard boxes all held together with industrial-strength plastic wrap. Wood is heavy and expensive, cardboard is light, cheap, and recyclable. But our FPSes are still displaying 40-year-old shipping technology, even in futuristic science fiction games." He also touches on Rumble implimentation, Easy Mode, Split Screen, and Camera Angles.

Gamespot's weekly rumour control column discusses the rumor from back in April on Grimwell detailing a mass defection from Blizzard to NCSoft. From the article: "However, seeing how internal NCsoft studio ArenaNet was founded by a group of former Blizzard-ians--the creators of Battle.net, no less--it would come as little surprise if more WOW developers had signed up with the rising publisher." Their final verdict: "Some Blizzard developers have joined NCsoft? Not bogus. But droves? That's not so certain." This week's rumor control also discusses the raise in prices for Xbox 360 Games and the possibility of a no-frills PSP pack.

CNN Money's Game On column has an interview with legendary designer Miyamoto in which the respected Mario-maker says that today's games are just too long to capture his interest. From the article: "There's not a lot I want to play now...A lot of the games out there are just too long. Of course, there are games, such as 'Halo' or 'Grand Theft Auto,' that are big and expansive. But if you're not interested in spending that time with them, you're not going to play." Commentary on the column at Press the Buttons.

bigwayne writes "A continuing source of internal discussion, among the organizers of Zion LAN, is the topic of how strict we are to be concerning software piracy. It just seems common sense that a LAN party would be a perfect place to share music, software, movies, and do other reprehensible acts. However there isn't much, outside discouraging the act itself, that we can do to actually stop these things. One strong argument is that the legitimately obtained software we provide shares the same distribution method that the illegally obtained software does, and I wonder if this creates a double-standard far outside of any legal situation it creates. Another part of this also concerns our particular situation (our LAN is being hosted by a non-profit charitable organization), in that we'd be ethically remiss if we sat idly by and let such things happen, unmitigated. So, where do we stop passively caring about piracy, and when do we start cracking down? Are the circumstances of a LAN party such that trying to stop it is overambitious?"

The Guardian Gamesblog has an editorial up discussing the pitiful state that sexuality is in when it comes to games. Titles like "Singles: Flirt up your Life" and "The Guy Game" are not sexy...they're just embarrassing. From the article: "Historically, you can understand the reasons behind the industry's adolescent handling of adult themes: a younger audience, a male-dominated development environment and, of course, basic pixilated visuals which only ever really allowed a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, 'Confessions of a Bitmapped Bikini Lady' approach to portraying sex."