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Next Generation reports that Sales and Marketing Director for Nintendo of Europe Jim Merrick has officially moved on from the company. Meanwhile, Greg Koler has been cemented as the CEO for Infinium Labs, the "maker" of the Phantom console. Koler has been serving as interim CEO of the company since Bachus quit last November. From the Koler article: "The Phantom Game Service has an unparalleled legacy of boldness, innovation and great opportunities for the online video games market sector ... Together we look forward to joining our strengths in engineering and technology with a sales and marketing driven presence to deliver the most advanced online video game service and devices for consumers."

Next Generation reports that Sales and Marketing Director for Nintendo of Europe Jim Merrick has officially moved on from the company. Meanwhile, Greg Koler has been cemented as the CEO for Infinium Labs, the "maker" of the Phantom console. Koler has been serving as interim CEO of the company since Bachus quit last November. From the Koler article: "The Phantom Game Service has an unparalleled legacy of boldness, innovation and great opportunities for the online video games market sector ... Together we look forward to joining our strengths in engineering and technology with a sales and marketing driven presence to deliver the most advanced online video game service and devices for consumers."

The transition from the previous generation to Next-Gen consoles is hitting game publishers right in the intellectual property. Existing franchises are going to struggle to keep their publishers afloat, because of the immense costs and problems involved in adapting to the new console market. From the article: "The strong possibility of a new Medal of Honor game from EA could also affect Activision's numbers. The analyst estimates Gun sold 980K since launch, and that any sequel will struggle to match this, probably hitting no more than 780K. Another declining franchise is X-Men. The 2004 game X-Men Legends sold 1.2 million with last year's X-Men Legends II probably hitting around 750K. A third game this year is estimated to manage only 550K."

Uwe Boll's latest attempt to kill the future of gaming movies is officially terrible, reports Next Generation. From the article: "Filmjerk: 'In his mind, [Boll] is Steven Spielberg; arranging danger and adventure on the screen with clarity and a roaring sense of excitement. However, the tragic reality is that Boll has all the artistic ability of the average 4th grade finger-painter.'" Update: 01/09 21:33 GMT by Z : 1up has a short and telling interview with Mr. Boll from this past weekend.

Next Generation has an excellent piece, looking back on the history of game controllers, leading up to the Revolution's fascinating controller. They look at controller design, as well as the usage that some games wrest from the controllers. From the article: "There are ways to mess with the system; in Shadow of the Colossus, the player stabs a beast not by pressing the attack button but rather by letting go of it, making the violence a release, a consequence of the player's action. Still, there's not a lot of room for subtlety or nuance. The most subtlety you can get comes from analog control and state-shifting, and both of those are just jury-rigs to the system."

Next Generation is reporting that Microsoft has, reluctantly, admitted they won't hit their 90 day sales target for the Xbox 360. From the article: "In a report in today's Financial Times, the company shifted its attention to the longer-term target outlined at CES last week. The firm now says it will hit sales of 4 million to 5.5 million by the end of its financial year, in June. Analysts believe sales of the console had hit around 1.3 million by the end of the Holiday sales period. But as January moves along, retailers have yet to see evidence of shortages easing."

It's Christmas Eve, and you need something to read while you're avoiding your relatives. We understand. Howabout several looks at the year in Gaming? The big sites have actual awards, with Gamespot and IGN both offering up decisions that are sure to spark dinner table discussion. Next Generation doesn't hand out awards, but it does have an exhaustive set of lists covering all aspects of the year. We've previously discussed their Top 30 Games of the Year, but today they have over half a dozen articles dedicated to the year in gaming. The Guardian Gamesblog has staff pics for best of the year. World of Warcraft certainly is on a lot of 2005 lists for a game released in 2004. Finally, 1up.com staffer Jared Rea probably has the most interesting take on the year. His traditional list headlines Guitar Hero, but he also has a special list, with ermm...special awards. That might make you angry. From that list: "The Sin and Punishment Award - Named after the hideous and boring N64 shooter from Treasure, the Sin and Punishment award is reserved for the the title which claimed the hearts of 'hardcore' fanboys around the world, despite the game in fact, being garbage or quite frankly, nothing special. Previous winners of this award include Ikaruga and Katamari Damacy." That award goes to Shadow of the Colossus. Which, sorry Jared, did actually rock.

Next Generation continues its end-of-year celebration with a treatise on the 30 finest games of the year. From the article: "Some may remember 2005 as a year of financial shortfalls, rising game production costs, depleted Xbox 360 stock, political soap-boxing, or over-exertion in Korean Internet cafes. Forget all that stuff for now. 2005 wasn't a year to be remembered for one great gaming breakthrough or innovation, but it did produce some remarkable products. It was a year marked with some of the best games of the fading generation. "

Next Generation has an exerpt from the book Smartbomb, discussing how it was that Microsoft came to enter the console market. From the article: "Two years before the Xbox's launch, Bill Gates and his top executives retreated to Puget Sound to discuss Microsoft's business model. A seismic shift was under way. The late nineties was a time of a burgeoning new consensus among media pundits and high-tech industry folks that the consumer world would turn its eye from desktop computers toward 'information appliances.'"

Next Generation is running a piece looking into the five biggest mistakes made in the gaming industry this year. On the other side of the coin, via GameSetWatch, an MTV News look at the finest moments in gaming in 2005. From the NextGen article: "And what did it turn out to be, this so-called Revolution? A GameCube in overdrive with a controller than can tell where you are and what you're doing with your hands. That was worth it, wasn't it? Not only that, but Nintendo has stated up front that they will not be competing with the likes of Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Rather, they'll focus on gameplay. Graphics won't matter if you just focus on gameplay. If you believe in Nintendo, clap your hands! C'mon everybody! Clap louder!" I link to em'. I don't say I agree with them.

Next Generation has an article breaking down the 10 best games released in Japan this year. From the article: "This game will debut next year in America as "Steambot Chronicles," which is kind of a cool name. It is an action-adventure about a girl, a young boy with amnesia, and his giant robot. Now, that sentence might describe a hundred thousand animes -- though please, stick around for a minute. There's more: your giant robot looks like a car with legs, the girl is the lead singer in a jazz-blues-rock band whose guitarist might be trying to kill her so he can raise the backup singer to the lead position, and the only possession found on the young boy with amnesia was a harmonica with his name engraved in it. Exciting, huh?"

Next Generation is running an article looking at the year in Gaming Politics, written by Mr. McCauley of the GamePolitics blog. From the article: "The silliest politicians of 2005 include North Carolina State Senator Austin Allran who proposed a bill to remove Solitaire from every state-owned PC; Illinois State Senator Deanna Demuzio, sponsor of the state's videogame legislation, who claimed games were neither art nor media; Pennsylvania State Rep. James Casorio who wrote there was no evidence that games are constructive forms of either recreation or learning; and Oklahoma State Rep. Fred Morgan, whose editorial recommending a videogame law for his state based on the Illinois model appeared three days after a federal judge ruled the Illinois law unconstitutional."

We've reported once or twice on stories declaring the end of or salvation for PC Gaming. Today, Next Generation weights in on the latter, declaring PC Gaming is Not Dead Yet. From the article: "Relying on NPD's number blinds one to the ongoing evolution of PC game distribution. The key insight, as summarized in a new report from IM Consulting (the market-intelligence unit at Ignited Minds), is that 'the PC game software market is much more robust than a cursory glance at the data suggests...(our analysis) becomes a call to publishers to recognize that the PC market can be a very lucrative and profitable place to publish, if the games are done properly in the right genres.'" Ie: Make the right casual game or a hit MMOG and you can print money.

Next Generation has a piece discussing the problems facing independent videogame retailers, with commentary from a gent who just recently had to close down his store. From the article: "In our desire to maintain our own idealistic goal we overlooked a key element to any capitalist venture: Capital. Sales are everything and as base and pedestrian as that sounds, it is not so easy to pull off. There is no room in this industry for empathy. You certainly don't get anywhere steering people away from product that you've overstocked, since you know it sucks."

Omkar writes "According to Kotaku, the Xbox 360's price has been cut to a mere $150 by several Japanese retailers. Apparently they can't send unsold inventory back to Microsoft, so they're desperate to free up space." Indeed, Next Generation reports that something like 60% of all Japanese stock goes unsold. However, 1up has found that the price cuts aren't the whole story. The price cuts aren't because of consumer interest, but a result of specially priced bundles. From that article: "... this is simple another example of Japan's hardware bundling practices. So, although the 360 isn't selling as quickly as it did in North America (about 28% of the units shipped have been sold so far, according to a Bloomberg report), the photo doesn't indicate that prices were slashed after launch day as some sort of desperate measure - it means that Japan has bundled offers that are just as annoying as the ones we have in North America."

Next Generation is running an examination of the 2005 hardware announcements from the big three console companies. They look at details and benchmarks released so far for the next-gen consoles. From the article: "The wraps were taken off the PlayStation 3 at Sony's pre-E3 press conference. Non-playable demos and canned footage games in development (over which arguments still rage over what was 'real' and what were renders made to be 'representative') wowed the media and stole a good bit of thunder from the somewhat underwhelming Microsoft presentation that followed."

Next Generation is reflecting on the thoroughly eventful year that Take-Two Entertainment has had. From the article: "Possibly the biggest deal of the year was the pick-up of exclusive third-party publishing rights to MLB, pushing rivals like EA out to lesser licenses. The seven-year deal does not exclude hardware manufacturers from the market. Take-Two ended its association with ESPN following EA's deal with the broadcast label."

rAiNsT0rm writes "The BBC has a great story covering the looming Xbox 360 launch in Japan tomorrow." Next Generation is reporting that, while there are no firm numbers yet, the 360 likely sold about 320,000 units in its first week on the retail shelf. From the BBC article: "Pre-orders on the internet look solid, but I don't think the retail stores will sell out of Xbox 360s in the first day ... Serious game fans will likely rush to buy them, but I think most people are going to wait and see."

Next Generation reports on another study that finds a link between videogames and violent tendencies. From the article: "The men were also invited to play simple games against opponents in other rooms. Winners were allowed to send an unpleasant, loud blast to their defeated opponents. Game players were more likely to make their foes suffer than non-game players. It may be worth noting that very similar studies have produced the opposite conclusion. In one such study, violent-game players and non-gamers each issued noise blasts at people. In that study, the gamers administered the lowest intensity noise blasts."

Matt writes "In a recent interview Steve Ballmer has been quoted as saying that the shortages everyone is experiencing are simply down to lack of chips because of low yields - they even considered delaying the launch because of it. In the end they decided to push on and just try and get as many consoles out there as possible." From the article: "Repeating the company's official line on the shortage crisis, which is now threatening to entirely undo Microsoft's attempts to win the next generation war, Ballmer said, 'We are making more. All stores are getting new units each week. Can we make as many as people want? The answer is no, but not because we don't want to.'"

Next Generation reports on the Mobile gaming market, and the reality that so far small publishers are beating out large companies in releasing titles and growing the market. From the article: "During 2005, the Western markets of Europe and in particular the US have seen rapid growth - now accounting for 52 percent of mobile games revenues. The report argues that console and PC game publishers are being eclipsed in the market by companies dedicated to mobile games. Jamdat of the U.S. and Gameloft of France accounted for almost 30% of games download revenues in the U.S. and Europe during 2004."

Next Generation has a piece up today examining recent events on the gaming scene in Japan. From the article: "Ninety-Nine Nights - April 1 Arrival. This week's short interview of Mr. Maruyama reveals -- in addition to his outright declaration that Blue Dragon will sell a million -- that 'The launch period will last through until March.' Why's that? What happens in March? I check my schedule: well, Final Fantasy XI (pre-loaded onto every [Japanese] Xbox 360 sold at launch) snaps out of its beta phase? Ninety-Nine Nights releases on April 1st, and let's hope the joke is that the little witch girl's face isn't as creepy in the actual game as it's been in every piece of press. If they're banking on Japanese guys wasting more than half their disposable income on plastic figurines of that witch girl, they've got some rethinking to do." Relatedly, Forbes is running an article positing that the 360 has its work cut out for it on the Japanese market.

MBCook writes "A Joystiq post says that certain 'highly anticipated' Xbox 360 titles will fill four discs-worth of content. From the post: 'From the high-res textures fit for an HDTV to the higher polygon counts befitting a next-gen console, the space available on standard DVDs is suddenly in increasingly short supply. [...] According to Game Informer, nearly every developer they talked to at X05 expressed difficulties fitting their launch titles onto a single disc. One unnamed yet highly anticipated game in particular is said to currently occupy a full four 9Gb DVDs.'" Relatedly, Microsoft has announced that mainland Asia should expect a March 2006 launch date for the 360 console.

Next Generation reports has an article examining how, in some ways, Roger Ebert was right when he criticised the artistic merits of gaming. From the article: "But Ebert cannot be discounted, because, while he may not be the foremost authority on videogames, he knows a great deal about storytelling. He's not even completely ignorant on the subject of gaming; in fact, Roger Ebert is credited with at least one game review, a piece on the obscure Cosmology of Kyoto published in Wired in 1995. He reviewed it positively - he said it was wonderful."

The Xbox 360 has launched in Europe, to similarly high demand as in the U.S. The BBC has details on the long lines and consumer reaction, and Next Generation has some information from Microsoft on how the launch is going. From the BBC article: "The technology giant has been forced to defend itself against accusations it has failed to provide enough consoles ahead of Christmas. Some 300,000 Xbox 360s are likely to be available for Friday's European launch, though demand is expected to far exceed this."

Next Generation has up the first in a two-part article talking in-depth with members of the gaming industry about the importance of fresh ideas. Also discussed are the challenges of next-gen development costs and the impact of Hollywood/Intellectual Property on future titles. From the article: "Q: What role will original game concepts play in next generation development? A: (Todd Hollenshead) Technology is a gating factor to the experience of playing games. Whether it's visual quality or character interactions, you have to have the processing power to make more sophisticated and interesting entertainment. Certainly the next generation of consoles in the Xbox 360 and PS3 are far more powerful than their predecessors and that gives game developers broad options to do things we haven't been able to do before and provide experiences for players they haven't had before. For example, for our next generation Wolfenstein game, which uses the Xbox 360 as it's primary development platform, we are developing technology that will change the way people play First Person games by doing away with the whole concept of 'levels', which has been the primary progression mechanic every first person game has used."

Next Generation is reporting an estimate of 400,000 units sold for the Xbox 360 in its first week on the retail shelves. Microsoft is planning on having more stock available as of this weekend. From the article: "It seems even the biggest retailers are in the dark. Speaking to USA Today, Circuit City's Jim Babb said, 'We knew demand would outstrip supply for some time. I have been told we'll get additional supplies, so I can only advise customers keep checking back with stores and on the website.' Microsoft is gearing up for its European launch this weekend, but many believe the shortages could be even worse over there. Retail supplies are said to be tiny, and many customers who have pre-ordered have been told that they may not receive their machines this side of the New Year."

MBCook writes "Forbes has posted their thoughts on the launch of the Xbox 360. They start out with 'Has there ever been as confused a launch as the Xbox 360?' and it continues from there. Citing multiple confusing variations, unoriginal games, expensive bundles, and complexity of controls (among other things) it concludes: 'If anything, the Xbox 360 is aptly named: Microsoft is trying to give gamers the spin.'" Next Generation's not-so-next-gen impressions are similar. From the article: "The games you can buy today for Xbox 360 at your local retailer are not the future. As evidenced by the litany of solid but not outstanding reviews, and, my own hands-on experiences, they are but a whisper of what this machine (or the next generation of hardware as a whole) will ultimately be capable of."

Next Generation reports that the constant trend towards game sequels is lowering interest among game consumers. From the article: "A weak consumer environment leaves us questioning whether sales will rebound sufficiently to drive growth for the full year. In particular, consumers appear to be indifferent to the proliferation of sequels, indicating a slow start to holiday sales and risk of continuing weakness." That, right there, is the problem with the PSP's library at the moment.

In yet another piece of news confirming that Infinium is snake-oil in console form, Kevin Bachus has left his position as CEO of the company. Next Generation reports: "The company continues to promise the launch of the aptly named Phantom e-distribution console in 2006. To be honest though, the company has been promising its launch every year since the launch of the Xbox when they first started talking about the unit and rightfully about the promise of e-distribution."

News for nerds writes "Next Generation magazine runs a quick report for the Xbox 360 Zero Hour launch event. According to avid Xbox fans joining the party in Mojave Desert, while games to be released in mid 2006 such as Gears of War and Ninety Nine Nights got positive reviews, the initial offers on 360 couldn't impress them as much." Kotaku has a pair of photo essays from the event.

Next Generation reports on the risky choices Rare made with Perfect Dark Zero. They actually began stamping the discs before the game was certified so that they could make the Nov. 22nd launch date. From the article: "The certification process is the final stage a game goes through before manufacture. Microsoft's team picks through the game making sure there are no bugs, that menus all work correctly, and that there are no compatibility issues. Games that fail, even in the smallest detail, are sent back to publishers and developers for changes. The process can take days, or even weeks."

0110011001110101 writes "Next Generation reports on the risks involved in game publishing and development. A report has been released suggesting that, in the next generation, as few as 80 games a year will turn a profit. Development costs in the next generation are set to rise from $3 -$6 million per title to $6-$10 million, with some cases surpassing $20 million." From the article: "Screen Digest's analysis shows that in the U.S. in 2004, titles based on licensed IP, such as Madden NFL 2005, sold 23% more units than titles based on original content. However, the short term revenue gains of licensed IP, does not necessarily translate into greater profits. Licensing costs are rising as IP owners become increasingly aware of the growing importance of the games medium."

Next Generation has a look at the increasingly crowded business of running an MMOG. They talk with Jeffery Anderson, CEO of Turbine, Robert Garriott, CEO of NCSoft, and John Needham, SVP and CFO of Sony Online Entertainment about the business of worldcrafting. From the article: "MMOG companies are in the midst of a bitter fight to carve out market share, each trying new weapons ranging from classical retail, to neo-shareware, to straight-up digital distribution."

Matt writes "Next-Gen.biz has published the second set of prototype designs that were considered, but ultimately rejected, for the Xbox 360. Note the distinct similarities to the final design actually chosen." I wonder if I'm alone in just wishing that consoles looked like stereo components and fit in my rack without scary balancing acts and lopsided aesthetics. A Gamecube, PS2, and X-Box can not be stacked nicely.

Next Generation has a talk with Telltale, the maker of interactive stories such as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. In their opinion, story adventure titles are on their way back. From the article: "We're not trying recapture the LucasArts [adventure game] glory as much as trying to build off of it. We're trying to do something different with episodic content and smaller games ... The big reason most of us went to Lucas in the first place is that we loved games based on story with interesting characters that are presented in artistically interesting ways. So when LucasArts stopped doing that and we'd done our share of Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, we wanted to get back to that. There's only so many Star Wars games you can make."

Well known designer Warren Spector let his opinions fly in a keynote at the Montreal Game Summit, reports Edge Online. From the article: "While admitting that the largest part of the criticism stemmed from general ignorance and misunderstanding of videogaming by the 'cultural gate-keepers,' he noted that simply staying the course and waiting for mainstream acceptance to catch up could lead not only to political intervention, but a 'coarsening of our culture,' and 'eventual cultural irrelevance.' Instead, he joined a growing chorus in the development community by strongly advocating the diversification of games to be more inclusive of women, older gamers, and traditionally excluded ethnicities." Next Generation is covering a similar statement by ESA President Doug Lowenstein about his views on the gaming industry's image. Unfortunately, societal parasite Jack Thompson took Spector's remarks to be validation of his viewpoint. GamePolitics has that story.

Next Generation has commentary on an article penned by David Jaffe, creator of God of War. In the article Jaffe charges folks in the game journalism business with being uninteresting hangers-on. He implores journalists to consider themselves journalists first and "part of the games industry" a distant second. The Next-Gen article has some interesting insights on the topic. From the article: "... intimacy with the game industry is a positive, rather than a negative, so long as the line that divides the journalist's function from the game-maker's is understood. The game-maker, in turn, relies heavily on journalism, en masse, on which to base creative decisions. Did every game maker play the last Tomb Raider game? Doubtful. But they all know they don't want to make a game like it. The press feeds the imagination of the creator through a system of warnings and prompts, which are then interpreted and transformed into progress."

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.'"

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."

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.

Besides the Burning Crusade announcement, there's lots of interesting stuff going on out in California. Gamespot reports from the scene and has a first look at the Blood Elf starting area. Meanwhile, Next Generation has the lay of the land from the first day of Blizzard's games get-together. From the Gamespot article: "As for the scene, Morhaime announced that slightly fewer than 8,000 attendees would be at Blizzcon, and there seemed to be about that many people crowding in Hall A of the Anaheim Convention Center. The line for showgoers to pick up their free goody bags seemed to snake as long as a line for a ride at nearby Disneyland, looking to be easily more than an hour's wait. Though there were dozens of computer stations, lines for Blizzcon attendees looking to play the new expansion pack were also quite long. Two GameSpot editors stood in line for about an hour to get 30 minutes of play time with the content."

The yearly Austin Games Conference, the largest MMOG-focused industry event in the country, is taking place this weekend and a variety of places have coverage of the first day. For specific events, we have Gamasutra on MMOG economics and The Game Writer's Conference, a sister event to the AGC. Both Raph Koster (who has a blog now) and Next Generation have pieces on Damion Schubert's "What Vegas Can Teach the MMO" talk. For general color, Greg Costikyan has a feel for what it is like on the ground, and MMORPG.com has a Thursday wrapup. From the MMORPG.com piece: "The Austin Game Conference (AGC) looks and feels like a high school reunion. Dominated by the MMORPG industry, it allows developers to get together and compare their ideological toys. Unlike E3, this is not a commercial event. For example, EA's booth here is actually a booth, rather than some kind of football stadium. This allows for more of a community feel and serious discussion of issues facing the game industry without the need for marketing individual products to any great degree."

Next Generation has a piece up examining Sun's claim that they develop the worlds largest Massive game: the stock market. They also go into some detail about Sun's actual MMOG middleware, Sun Gaming Server. From the article: "I argue that we've been the principle architect of the largest massively multiplayer online game in the world. It's Wall Street. If you took a look at all of the mechanics that go in to building an online trading system, they're almost one-for-one, the same functions needed to build an MMOG. Except we've done it with more redundancy, reliability and scalability than pretty much anyone else."

Though its release date is still a ways off Next Generation is reporting that UK politicians are already calling for careful consideration, and possible banning, of the Rockstar title Bully. From the article: "Do you share my concern at the decision of Rockstar to publish a new game called Bully in which players use their on-screen persona to kick and punch other schoolchildren? Will you ask the prime minister to refer this video to the British Board of Film Classification? If they don't make any changes will the government use its powers to ban this video[game]?"

Next Generation is reporting on possible graphical improvements for Halo 1 and 2 on the 360. The source? The folks at Bungie mentioned some surprises in their most recent update. From the article: "Some better anti-aliasing would be a nice touch, though more computationally intensive. While we're asking for pie in the sky things, some up-rezzed textures for use in the now higher resolutions might also be a great addition, though this would require content resources (e.g. real money spent on games that aren't likely to continue selling to 360 owners) so this is even less probable than the previously mentioned upgrades. Also, those textures would either have to ship on the hard drives (very unlikely) or be downloaded via Live (more possible but still unlikely)."

vladcole writes "Xbox 360 kiosks are getting shut down by some Wal-Mart employees sick of having their handheld inventory devices and printers malfunction, according to this compilation of Joystiq reader reports." From the article: "There's no reason to get worried about the Xbox 360 launch date (there, we recognized the elephant in the room), but the breadth and frequency of these reports point to a compatibility issue between the Xbox 360 and Wal-Mart, at least." Next Generation confirms that Wal-Mart is having issues with the 360 pods.

Next Generation has a piece wondering if the ESRB should step down in favour of an independent board, to restore the faith of consumers in the game ratings system. They talk with a company that proposes just that, wanting to substitute a new system for the current model. From the article: "Profanity Sex Violence (PSV) Ratings differ from the ESRB in that they describe levels of sex, violence and profanity in games (using a traffic light system) instead of judging a game to be appropriate for a certain age."

Next Generation is reporting on the use of games in educational situations. From the article: "Age of Empires III deals with the conquest and colonization of the Americas; fertile ground for imaginative students. Taking on the role of a European power - desperate to grab land and resources - helps students understand the motivation and planning behind invasion. It also paves the way for learning about its consequences. That, at least, is the theory."

Gamasutra is reporting on Microsoft's loud exclamations on the advantage their November launch will afford them, compared to the expected 2006 launch of the PS3. In fact: "UK Xbox boss Neil Thompson has boasted that Microsoft expects to have a even more significant lead on the PlayStation 3 than previously supposed, suggesting that, in his opinion, the PlayStation 3 might launch in Europe as late as spring 2007 ..." More on this FUD from Next Generation.