theodp writes "Newsweek reports the inventor of Pong and founder of Chuck E. Cheese is getting back into the restaurant game. Adults welcome. At age 62, perpetual kid Nolan Bushnell wants to get gamers out of the house. This week, he will announce a new venture, the uWink Media Bistro restaurantchain. With screens at every table and bar stool, each piping videogames, media content and interactive menus, Bushnell's convinced a young-adult crowd will use the shared-gaming experience as a chance to compete, relax and mingle."

SirBruce, of MMOGChart, took a good hard look at what the massive games of tomorrow will look like at E3. He has impressions of every game due to be released in the next year or so, with commentary on most. From the article, about Vanguard: "This title is highly anticipated by some of the MMOG hardcore, as it comes from ex-EverQuest developers Brad McQuaid and Jeff Butler, but aside from the graphics and the promise of in-game voice chat it does not seem to be very innovative over the original EQ1 design. The game is designed to be group-focused and highly challenging, which may mean it's too much of a time investment for the more casual MMOG player. If the game were coming out this year, I would have higher hopes for it, but I feel it may get lost behind the mass of other fantasy-themed MMORPG titles."

Jay writes "The word has been getting out apparently. No longer just a word for gamers, 'woot' now appears as #3 in Merriam-Webster's What's Your Favorite Word (That's Not in the Dictionary)? contest. It was beaten out by ginormous and confuzzled."

Tim Grube writes "Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a model at E3? The process is long and very tiring. Just think, what if you had to prepare to be a character from a videogame on stage that involves a sword fight. Professional stuntman and actor Ilram Choi has been in multiple commercials for Nike and Mountain Dew. At this year's E3 Ilram was cast as Soul Calibur III's Mitsurugi. Ilram wrote a diary on the days leading up to E3."

blueZhift writes "The Northwestern NewsCenter reports that a team of Northwestern University music students used Internet2 with Access Grid video software to collaborate with students from eight universities in four nations and five states in the creation of a video game designed to teach youngsters about myth and mythical narrative. The game, Descent to the Underworld, recreates a myth common to many cultures. In it, an individual must retrieve a loved one who has been captured and removed to the underworld. The payoff for the player is a narrative film whose construction is based on the actions of the player. Supporters of the project include Apple Computer, EB Games, MAGPI, Argonne National Labs and the Internet2 Consortium. It is being promoted through UNESCO's Digital Media Arts sector."

Team Xbox is covering a Worldwide Halo 2 tournament with contestants from around the globe. The tourney is nearing completion, and the contestants for the global championship are being finalized. The event is to take place on June 10th via Xbox live, with participants from all 24 time zones. From the article: "The United States and Japan regional contests are currently underway, with the winners being determined by the end of May. The winners from each locality will vie for the honor of being crowned Xbox Live Halo 2 World Champion, playing entirely online via Xbox Live."

HunterD writes "PCGen, the premier Open Source D20 RPG character generation application has released it's new 5.8 version. The 5.8 release of PCGen comes from over a year of hard work adding new features such as the ability to preview characters, a new plugin system, and the ability to use pcgen to run games over the internet via the new networking plugin. Eleven new datasets in this release mean that there are now almost 100 free data sets for Pcgen, which represents a substantial percentage of the available D20 books on the market. Usability has increased dramatically, as countless bugs have been fixed to increase stability and application speed."

frikazoyd writes "According to Gamespot, Microsoft corporate vice president J Allard discusses potential pricing and release targets for the XBox 360 in a TheStreet.com interview. From the article: '"It's going to be in the neighborhood [of $300]," he said, apparently dispelling fears of a $399 or even $499 machine, although $350 could still be possible.'"

didde writes "The people over at Tom's Hardware are running a story on Gigabytes experiments with quadruple GPU's on one motherboard. Perhaps we'll need something cooler than liquid metal to keep this beast from running hot?" From the article: "About half a year ago, we learned that Gigabyte was working on a graphics card that integrates two GeForce 6600GT graphics chips. While we were impressed with the out-of-the-box approach from Gigabyte, there was of course the question, whether two of those cards could be combined for a total of four graphics chips."

GameDaily.biz has up a discussion they had earlier in the week with Frank Gibeau, EA's Senior Vice President of Marketing, North America. Mr. Gibeau holds forth on where EA is going (and therefore, where the industry is going) as regards next-generation platforms, the prices of future game titles, and the cost of making games. He also comments on Nintendo's position in the market right now. From the article: "I think the Nintendo customer is so entrenched and loyal that the company knows that they have a base of customers that they are building off of. Is it the same size that it was on 8-bit? Certainly not. They definitely have seen their market position erode in the face of market introductions by Sony and Microsoft."

Buttonmashing.com has gotten together several intelligent, reasoned folks who regularly opine about video games to form the Carnival of Gamers. The first carnival covers such topics as Guild Wars, GTA, E3, danking, and the Lady Antonica star search. From the post: "Here you will find the best and brightest video game bloggers from around the world! Never before has such a group been assembled to bring to you the latest insights and observations from the gaming blogosphere. We're a diverse group here, as you'll see from the posts but we all have one thing in common -- we are passionate about video games."

Now that we've seen what's in the pipe for the immediate future IGN is running an article hoping for the games of the future, and talking about novels, tv shows, and other properties that they'd like to see be made into games. From the article: "...while we at IGN are all for original, non-franchise titles--reference Katamari, Psychonauts, God of War, Spore--a lot of us have places in our hearts for certain TV shows, films, and books that made us all fuzzy with joy." What would you like to see be made into a game? Microsoft, if you are listening, I have two words for you: Shadowrun MMOG.

1up.com is reporting that Rogue Leader and Rogue Squadron developer Factor 5 has signed an exclusivity deal with Sony and the PlayStation 3 console. From the article: "Factor 5 has already played with Microsoft's Xbox 360, but said the PlayStation 3's 3.2GHz Cell chip offered more processing power over the other hardware options. The added power, allowing for a more realistic gaming experience, fueled the company's decision. Factor 5 made no comment on Nintendo's Revolution in the story."

MTV Games is reporting that the latest live event in the Matrix Online has permenantly changed the topology of The Matrix: Morpheus is dead. From the article: "Morpheus' demise was not without controversy. In the days leading up to it, the developers' live team, who orchestrate the game's big monthly story-advancing moments, carried out a Wachowski-Chadwick plot that had Morpheus, in the words of some users, 'turning terrorist.' According to storyline, Morpheus wanted to reclaim the body of the fallen Neo, which was being held by the Matrix's machine overlords. Morpheus tried to pressure cooperation by planting bombs throughout the Matrix infrastructure."

Will Wright's amazing Spore Presentation on "The Future of Content" has been added to the video selections at GDCTV. The streaming video offers up his vision of procedural driven gaming, sandbox entertainment, and a future where gamers own their entertainment experiences.

Gamespot has coverage of a pair of interviews with Ken Kutaragi in which he states that the PS3 isn't really a gaming console. Instead, it will be an all around device that will allow the owner to experience all sorts of different types of new entertainment. From the article: "The PS3 is the product we have been aiming for since the establishment of SCEI...We haven't been creating our [past] PlayStations for the sake of games. Our belief, and the motivation behind running our company, has been to [explore ways of] applying the power of computers to entertainment and enjoyment. We equipped the original PlayStation with a 3D graphics chip, and we equipped the PS2 with the Emotion engine. The PS3 isn't designed to lean towards games. It's not a computer for children. In the sense that our goal has been [to create] a computer that's meant for entertainment, you could say that the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2 had existed as steps towards the PlayStation 3."

QT writes "Ars Technica has an in-depth look at the Xenon processor that will power the Xbox 360. It's the first technical look at the CPU itself, its design goals, and some of the differences between it and IBM's Cell processor. The Xbox 360's procedural synthesis capabilities look quite impressive, and I'm not as convinced as I was before that the PS3 would spank the Xbox 360."

Thought it wasn't really covered by any of the news sites, there were apparently several protests by voice actors at this year's E3. ShackNews has a piece on the under-reported event. From the article: "To deny working-class performers their fair share of the tremendous profits their labor helps to generate is illogical, unreasonable and unjust...It is simply shortsighted to believe that consumers don't care about the artistic quality of the characters."

An anonymous reader writes "When the Xbox 360 was launched two weeks ago amid much brouhaha over its custom-designed IBM PowerPC-based CPU with 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2GHz each, WindowsForDevices.com wondered aloud, 'What OS runs inside the Xbox 360?' Now, the website thinks it has found the answer to its question. No, it's not Linux or BSD, nor a derivative of Longhorn or Windows CE."

Via the Wonderland Blog, the news that Disney's Virtual Magic Kindgom has launched in a Beta state. The virtual space allows you to game some of the popular Magic Kindom rides, such as Pirates and Jungle Cruise. From the launch site: "For a limited time you can be one of the first Guests to live inside Disney's new online multi-Player game. Create your own adventures, control your Character and interact with Players from around the globe! Share thrilling competitions, exciting adventures and endless interactive Disney magic on the Internet. Help us make this online world a better place to play!"