gbaemufan writes "Desktopman released a Tetris clone for the Nintendo DS, at the moment the only way to play it is via a passthrough device until a homebrew DS cart is released."

Keldog writes "CarnageStats.com is a web based service that takes the RSS feeds that Bungie so lovingly gave to Halo 2 gamers and does advanced aggregation and storing of this data so gamers can find their strong points, weak points, or just have a centralized place for their bragging rights. The site offers detailed breakdowns of stats by map, game category and game type. Filters allow you to see your performance by ranked, unranked and clan games. There is even a leader board for several different stats (Win %, Kill/Death Ratio, Total Kills, etc.)"

Sammy writes "According to GamerCentric, Nintendo has licensed Palm OS software although there intentions are not clear. "Well there seems to be some clues about this. "Nintendo had recently licensed Palm OS based PDA software without any details on why they had done it. Now Nintendo sources have revealed that V-Pocket trademark concerns this licensing. E3 will be the first witness of Nintendo's complete line of personal organizer tools for its Nintendo DS." So there is a possibility that we could see a Nintendo device with Palm OS organizer capabilities."

Gamespot's weekly rumour control tackles several issues this week, the most intriguing being the possibility that the Starcraft: Ghost title may be coming out on next-gen consoles. From the article: "However, according to Blizzard, the listing is erroneous. 'It is not coming to next-generation consoles,' said a spokesperson. 'It is currently slated for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2.'" They also state that the rumoured Xbox 360 name is likely a non-starter. Which is probably a good thing.

RosethornKB writes "John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, wrote a letter about SOE's look to the future. In it, Smedley asks some questions about virtual children, skill based combat and player created content. KillerBetties.com posts a response to his questions. From the article: "What if you could have families in MMO's? Virtual Children... What if your characters could have children and pass on the family name...This is a very vague idea and I'm not sure if he words it that way on purpose or not. The concept of Virtual Children and passing on the family name isn't new. For example, upcoming Limitless Horizons MMO Mourning has had it in their design since the game first was announced. Their system is actually very interesting in theory."" Grimwell.com has commentary on SOE's recent activities.

An article being run by GamesIndustry.biz discusses a pair of recent Nintendo Trademarks. These trademarks would seem to indicate new product lines for the Big N, but exactly what the products would be remains up in the air. From the article: "On 7th December 2004, Nintendo registered 'Nintendo V-Pocket' by itself, while Nintendo and Pokémon series developer Game Freak jointly registered "PCGP" on the same day, according to reports."

Dutch Dopey writes "In an interview with Lars Gustavsson of DICE, it was mentioned that Battlefield 2's modding tools are going to be delivered with the game, and that the tools are the same ones used to develop the game. The modding language in use is Python, and will support all aspects of the language.

It's dragged on for quite a while, but GamesIndustry.biz has the word that the Ion Storm offices in Austin have closed. Originally founded by John Romero, Tom Hall, and Todd Porter, Ion Storm Austin has been responsible for the release of Deus Ex, Thief: Deadly Shadows, and Daikatana. From the article: "This is part of [Eidos's] move to consolidate and strengthen its technical and management capabilities into a smaller number of studios which are capable of scaling up in order to meet the competitive challenges that lie ahead, particularly in anticipation of next-generation technologies and platforms"

Mikkel Tscherning writes "Blizzard has released World of Warcraft into the European market. The game was not long ago released for the Northern American and Korean audiences, and has recently hit more than 1.4 million characters."

Despite recent claims from EA that their intentions were benign, Reuters has the story today that EA may expand their investment in Ubisoft and could seek a seat on the board. From the article: "EA is now Ubisoft's largest shareholder and has 20.88 percent of its voting rights. But the Guillemot brothers, the French company's founders who together own 17.5 percent, still control 22.8 percent of the voting rights."

An editorial posted on The Adrenaline Vault posits that talented gamers are not always the best reviewers because of the necessity for those with elite skills to care as much as they do about their performance. The best reviewers, on the other hand, are generally somewhat detached from the subject material. From the article: "Spending 50 hours playing an offering when you are focused exclusively on trying to win certainly would yield very different insights than spending the same 50 hours trying to evaluate the title's strengths and weaknesses to help inform the general public about purchasing decisions." Kyle Orland's Video Game Ombudsman has further analysis on this subject.

Gamespot has the word that Atari has reported a drop in profits for the third quarter. Earnings were down roughly $30 million compared to the same period last year. As a result, they are closing the company's Santa Monica and Beverly, MA studios. From the article: "In an e-mail sent to employees shortly before today's earnings call with analysts, new Atari CEO and president Jim Capparro outlined his plan to 'move Marketing and the coordination of Product Development and Production to New York, where those functions will be in close proximity to our center of operations.'"

The New York Times (registration required) has a piece on Blizzard's World of Warcraft, discussing the game's popularity and high sales. The article also examines the design processes that go into the game, and the artistic outlook of the WoW live team. From the article: "From around a dark, windowless room, nine young men peered into the unfinished virtual interior of Karazhan, a haunted tower set in a forlorn mountain pass that will open later this year. 'As you can see, the architecture is a little ornate, a little Gothicky,' said Aaron Keller, a 29-year-old designer, gesturing to the 3-D model on the computer screen before him. 'We're thinking about turning these arches into horse heads.'

blueZhift writes "This Reuters report on CNet states that Tecmo has filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act accusing the site owners and perhaps some users of game hacking site www.ninjahacker.net (now offline) of knowingly infringing on their game software. This should be another interesting test of the DMCA and just how far it can be pushed to restrict what end users can do with/to their software purchases. This might ultimately affect the legality of cheat devices like the Game Shark and even the mere sharing of cheats or exploits."

mrseigen writes "CNN is reporting that EA has opened a game program at USC. It is the first official game development education. Yeah, right."

id Software revealed today that early April will see the release of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, and an Xbox port of the original Doom 3 shooter. From the article: "This is DOOM 3 built for the Xbox, including 480p and wide-screen support, full Xbox Live multiplayer, and the Xbox exclusive 2-player co-op campaign. For fans of DOOM 3 on the PC, Resurrection of Evil takes you to the undiscovered depths of the UAC's Mars base and back to Hell itself for a vicious new battle with the forces of evil and the most ferocious demons imaginable."

CodeGeekGuy asks: "I've been thinking of doing the big switcheroo from Windows to Linux. I have, in the past, had various levels of success using Linux, but I generally have to give up as soon as I feel like playing a game. I've done dual booting before, but find it a pain if you're waiting for something to finish and just want a quick game of Half Life 2 or WoW. I'm willing to give this another shot (as I hear that Cedega plays HL2 and WoW quite nicely). I've used Mandrake and Fedora Core and even Redhat, is there another distribution out there that is the best distro to use to get Cedega (and ultimately games) to work well? "

Phoenix-IT writes "How many of you remember the classic strategy game Archon? Curve Software is remaking the original game for DirectX with support for network play. Distribution details are undetermined. There are long term plans to port to Macintosh and UNIX environments, but no details at the moment. The game is not open source because it contains some of the original 8-bit code, which was donated to the project, but a public beta might be on the way!"

When the PSP launches in the states, it will be accompanied by five online enabled titles, according to GamesIndustry.biz. Gamers will be able to challenge friends in short range ad-hoc games, but will also be able to compete against other PSP owners via an 'infrastructure' mode. From the article: "What this means, in effect, is that players will be able to connect to wireless hot spots - either at home or in wi-fi enabled public locations - and play games across the net in this manner."

Ludonauts.com has a short piece where several intelligent observers in the field of game writing give their picks for the best game writing of 2004. The authors offer links to several quality works, including the now infamous EA Spouse blog, and the always quality Game Over column at CNN. They also refer to the trend towards the New Games Journalism, covered previously on Slashdot.