mrneutron2003 writes "This guy just doesn't know when to stop. Johnny Chung Lee graces us with yet another one of his inventive Wiimote projects. This time it involves using the Wiimote and a pair of inexpensive LED safety goggles (with the standard LED's replaced with InfraRed ones) to allow positional head tracking , achieving an effect similar to what is experienced with three dimensional displays and CAVE systems. The video dramatically illustrates the effect. Game developers take note. This simple little variation on infrared tracking could allow for some seriously immersive gameplay in the future." This guy deserves a medal.

C0rinthian writes "ArsTechnica reports that the games retailer Slackers has been keeping their stock of the Nintendo Wii off their store shelves, and is instead selling the system on eBay for $400-500. (A $150-$250 markup)" This follows their look at the other side of the coin: why some retailers insist on Wii Bundles.

It's that time of year again. Last year's response to our Game of the Year post was so enthusiastic that I thought it would be worthwhile to give it another go. So, once again, some of the Slashdot folks have come together to offer up our 'games of the year'. Scuttlemonkey, Scott Collins, Chris Brown, CmdrTaco, and myself have all put together quick blurbs about the games we couldn't get enough of this year. When you're through reading those, it's your turn to speak up. What was the game you couldn't put down? The next-gen consoles really came into their own this year; was it one of those games, or something for the PC? In your opinion, what was the best game of the year?

Along with the news that more than half of the US is playing games, the November NPD numbers offer an interesting insight into the games industry. The ongoing console war was white hot, with record hardware sales. The Wii outsold the PS3 by half a million systems last month, and is quickly gaining on the Xbox 360's total sales figures. The big winners last month were software publishers, though, with a record $1.3 billion in sales. "Obviously Call of Duty 4 performed well on both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. It is now second only to Halo 3 for first-month sales numbers on the Xbox 360. On the PlayStation 3 no other game has launched as well as Call of Duty 4 in November. Super Mario Galaxy performed extremely well for its first month. Two new properties - Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect - sold well enough to make the top 10. Across both platforms, Assassin's Creed was actually the second best selling game of the month. It is amusing to note that despite the unprecedented Nintendo DS and PSP sales, no game for either system sold well enough to make the top 10 software list for November."

A New York Times article from this past Friday highlights the 'problem' that Nintendo is facing: more people want to give them money than they can handle. Analysts quoted in the story discussing Nintendo's unique Wii shortage problem indicate that the company could be selling twice the 1.8 million consoles a month it ships. All told, these same individuals believe the company could be leaving as much as $1 billion on the table this holiday season. "'We don't feel like we've made any mistakes,' said George Harrison, senior vice president for marketing at Nintendo of America. He said there was a shortage because the company must plan its production schedule five months ahead, and projecting future demand is difficult. He added that there had been a worldwide shortage of disk drives that had hurt Nintendo as well as makers of many other devices. 'It's a good problem to have,' Mr. Harrison said of the demand, but he acknowledged that there could be a downside. 'We do worry about not satisfying consumers and that they will drift to a competitor's system.'"

samzenpus writes "I've seen a lot of clever uses for the Wii but this is one of my favorites. Now I just need a rocking horse about ten times stronger."

Next Generation has one of those end of the year 'top 10' lists we all love so much, with plenty of room for discussion on this one. They claim to have picked out the top 10 game design innovations of 2007. It's hard to argue with elements like Portal's portals or Mass Effect's conversation wheel, but was Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii really as good as a mouse-and-keyboard PC FPS? "When people ask 'How do we make a good shooter on a console' what they really mean is 'how do we make a shooter that feels as quick and responsive as a PC shooter on the console?' Apparently the answer is the Wii mote. I was blown away by this fact. Nintendo had always been the 'family friendly' console to me so I didn't consider the FPS ramifications of the Wiimote but clearly it's the best tool for the job. With some tweaking and some refinement down the line I could see the Wii (or a console with Wii like controls) becoming the platform of choice for hardcore FPSers, even over the PC. If this does become the case it will owe it all to Metroid Prime 3."

Due to the lack of product on store shelves and overwhelming demand, Nintendo is considering plans to pull marketing campaigns for the Wii during the holiday season. "The company recently dismissed suggestions that it intentionally engineered shortages to build up hype for the Wii. It claims to be producing 1.8 million of the consoles each month at full capacity. 'The issue of supply management has to be questioned, not least because 2008 is going to be the crunch year for the Wii. It's then that we'll discover whether it's a fad or something with legs,' Screen Digest analyst Piers Harding-Rolls told The Times."

WirePosted writes "Santa is in trouble, it looks like supplying the Christmas need for a Nintendo Wii game console is in jeopardy as stocks wither under constant and heavy demand. Conspiracy believers suggest this is an orchestrated move on behalf of Nintendo." Since this happens to be what I want for Christmas, I hope they work it out, or my loving wife has already found one.

Chris Kohler, editor over at Game|Life, has up a great interview with Super Mario Galaxy director Yoshiaki Koizumi. They discuss the development of the Mario and Zelda games, clarifying Shigeru Miyamoto's tense relationship with stories (and sentences), and discussing the lineage of the Mario titles: "In terms of spiritual successors, I've never found that to be the case. Whereas with the Zelda series, each game seems to follow pretty closely from the last with a few stylistic deviations. But Galaxy really feels like it went back to earlier roots with Super Mario Bros., in terms of trying to find that same tempo, that same feel. But for me, it's a matter of thinking what to do with each next step. There's nothing you really throw away. You think about these ideas and refine them constantly with every iteration of a game series. So for all the camera problems that you may have found in Mario 64 and Sunshine, even though we didn't realize how to fix those problems then, those solutions presented themselves over time and found their way into this game. I feel like you really can't have Galaxy without all of the things we learned from Sunshine."

Via GamesRadar, a Reuters report noting that the 'next generation' consoles are now more-or-less broken in. Sales for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii have transitioned to the point where software sales are going to be well worth the effort for development houses. "'[Black] Friday marked one of those points where you can say something's changed," [EA CEO Riccitiello] said. 'Around the world, based on the data I've got, it was pretty clear that the transition is now over. Key to that was Sony Corp's recent price cut for its PlayStation 3, which should ensure the struggling console hits the company's fiscal-year sales target of 11 million units.'"

Gamasutra has up an analysis by Matt Matthews looking at the distribution of ESRB ratings across several generations of consoles. He makes particular note of Nintendo's efforts with the GameCube and Wii: "On the GameCube over 51% of the games were rated E and 6.1% were rated E10+. This makes the GameCube appear to be more friendly for younger gamers ... From the beginning Nintendo has wanted to attract non-traditional gamers with its Wii hardware and software. Perhaps as a result of the manufacturer's strategy, many Wii games have been designed to appeal to -- and therefore are rated for -- a general audience. Over 82% of the Wii catalog is either rated E or E10+. Only 3.2% are rated M, less than half the rate on Nintendo's previous console, GameCube. Still, that 3.2% is significantly higher than the rates on either the Nintendo DS or the Game Boy Advance." Matthews makes a few offhand comments about the analysis on the Curmudgeon Gamer site, as well.

Nintendo is making Wii consoles at a record pace, some 1.8 million a month. Last week they sold 350,000 units. Yes, just last week. And yet, still, it's going to be almost impossible to find a Wii in a store this Christmas. Wired reports that the problem actually began back in August. Summer being the traditional 'dry' season in gaming usually leads to hardware surpluses, but not with Nintendo's console. The result is a holiday season that Nintendo essentially couldn't prepare for. "Demand for Wii is so high, says analyst Michael Pachter, because of all the different types of consumers competing for the units ... it's not just kids who crave Wii. [It's] an especially big hit at retirement homes ... Hard-core gamers, who initially spurned the Wii's lower graphic power compared to the Xbox and PlayStation 3, have changed their tune on the console, thanks to brilliant software like the first-person shooter Metroid Prime 3. And eBay scalpers? They really want Wii." In fact, the only reliable way to get your hands on a Wii is to go that most dubious of routes. Ebay Wii sales are very brisk indeed this week.

An anonymous reader writes "CNETTV.co.uk has up a video interview with Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario. Charles talks about flying out to Japan to record five games, including Super Mario Galaxy, and about his gaming experiences pre-Mario, which were made up of Pong, Pac-Man and Tank. The most interesting part of the video has to be when Charles discusses how he came up with the voice of Mario, which didn't exactly start off sounding like the Mario we know and love today."

The October NPD numbers are out, and (now that we know we'll keep getting the information) it's time once again for analysis and reaction from media and businesses alike. GameDaily has a one year later look at the fight that began last holiday season. As for the numbers themselves, with Halo 3 now a known quantity in the market the 360 is down to 366,000 from 527,800 in September. Microsoft is still quite happy with software sales, though. The PS3 only saw 121,000 units sold last month, but early news from November has Sony very excited. And all the while, somehow, the Wii manages to sell even more units. The system is up to 519,000 from 501,000 in September, with the DS slight down to 458,000 from 495,800. As the GameDaily analysis article concludes: "the race for console dominance is still anyone's to win. The 2007 holiday buying season will be crucial to setting all three players' market positions going into next year. Which is all nice to know, of course, but not that important to actually enjoying your system of choice well into the future."

owlgorithm writes to mention that Gizmodo has a neat hack for the multitouch Holy Grail — multitouch without the touch. This hack turns the Wiimote into a receiver for IR light reflected from an emitter off of your fingers using reflective tape.

In an era where games are increasingly complex, sometimes it's important get back to your roots. For the Wii and the PlayStation 3, just closing out their first year of launch life, this holiday season is a time to set down standards and 'classic' titles for the system. This week sees the release of Mario Galaxy for the Wii, and a few weeks back Sony's own platforming mascot made his next-gen debut in Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. For better or worse, the PS3 launched without a Ratchet and Clank title last year. It was well worth the wait. Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction is pure, uncomplicated fun. It's easily the best game I've played yet on the PlayStation 3 and is essentially a new classic for anyone with Sony's next-gen console. Read on for my impressions of a back-to-basics title that looks better than every other platformer you've ever played.

If you've been looking forward to a game's release, odds are that it's coming out this week. Gamasutra has the full list of titles hitting stores in the next few days, and it's a tsunami of gaming goodness. Assassin's Creed, Mario Galaxy, and Crysis are probably the three headlining titles, but no console is spared the deluge. PC Highlights: EverQuest: Secrets of Faydwer, EverQuest II: Rise of Kunark, Kane and Lynch, SimCity Societies. PS3 Highlights: Assassin's Creed, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Kane and Lynch, Beowulf. 360 Highlights: America's Army: True Soldiers, Assassin's Creed, Beowulf, BlackSite: Area 51, Kane & Lynch. Wii Highlights: Mario Galaxy, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Geometry Wars: Galaxies.

A recent Gamasutra story noted something interesting in Electronic Arts' financials filing. The company is extremely reliant on brick and mortar retailers like Wal-mart (which made up 12% of its net revenue) and Gamestop (about 15%). Simon Carless, writing at the GameSetWatch blog, takes that analysis one step further and postulates some of the horrible things that could happen to the software giant if the conditions were right. It's all meant tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it's an interesting discussion of how even large companies can be vulnerable to simple issues: "5. Wrong System, Wrong Time! 'Our business is highly dependent on the success and availability of video game hardware systems manufactured by third parties, as well as our ability to develop commercially successful products for these systems.' More specifically, as EA explains, this is the Wii/DS effect in action: 'A platform for which we are developing products may not succeed or may have a shorter life cycle than anticipated.'"

In the fourth volume of the ongoing series of interviews between Nintendo's Iwata and the Mario Galaxy team, design legend Shigeru Miyamoto puts forth the opinion that he thinks he's nailed two-player Mario. That opinion is bolstered by Japanese sales figures, which shows the plumber doing quite well for his umpteenth outing. "Miyamoto: 'For every game I worked on, there were always times when I would keep discussing the issue of two-player simultaneous gameplay, and the staff also became conscious of the challenge, so every development team kept trying hard to solve it too. Though I think that might also have been because they thought if they didn't deal with it first, I'd come in and ask how it was coming along for sure! (laughs).'" Via Kotaku.