There’s a lot going on just now. Too many stories that wouldn’t wait!

• Nintendo Lost an Estimated $975 Million to Piracy in ’07.  Gives you an idea how much is stolen out of the games industry. And it could get a lot worse. The DS is moving over to a free to play, den of thieves business model. And the hackers have just about cracked the Wiis anti piracy protection.
• Analyst predicts new Xbox by 2010. Yep, it’s time to start thinking seriously about the next generation. I have an article in the works on this.
• Xbox failure rate 16%.  Across a 1,000 machine sample. But this will include both 90nm and 65 nm CPU machines. In reality it is possibly closer to 30% on the former and 3% on the latter. One thing is for sure, the term RRoD will live forever in the gaming lexicon. And it will be associated with Microsoft.
• PC gaming in ‘disarray’. According to Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski. We all know why this is, “customers” prefer to download their games for free rather than help to pay for them being made. Even selling PC games far cheaper than console games doesn’t stop the many millions of thieves.
• God botherers do 180 degree turn. Last summer they were slagging Sony off in public for having Manchester Cathederal in Resistance: Fall of Man. Now they are full of praise for the extra visitors it has brought. Religion hypocritical, surely not?
• Xbox sold out in lots of retail. What’s happening here? Are Microsoft gearing up for a price or model change? Did they just screw up predicting demand? Is there a production problem? They need to get this sorted very quickly. GTA IV is imminent and demand for 360s will go through the roof.
• God of War sex scene set to reignite media attacks? Naked female breasts in an adult rated game. This is what we want! The game industry should treat adults like adults. And we should sit back and enjoy the sight of Fox News and the Daily Mail bursting blood vessels.
• EA form strategic alliance with IMG. They will both benefit lots from this, there are lots of exciting possibilities. It is a further example of video gaming becoming a mature industry and integrating into the real world.