Last year was touted as the best year for gaming. There was an unusually high amount highly anticipated games such as Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Bioshock, just to name a few. The idea was that after Halo 3, the would be a steady flow of triple-A titles that would keep gamers occupied for the rest of the year, and then some. So what happened? The article will examine several reasons why 2007 didn’t quite live up to the hype and why 2008 will take the title as best year ever for gaming.

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Earlier today a report came out suggesting that US game sales had actually surpassed DVD sales.  Results of the Entertainment Merchants Association annual report showed that games brought in more sales than movie theaters last year, and for the first time, DVD sales. 

Unfortunately, they initially neglected to tell us that game sales included not only games, but also software, hardware, and even accessories.  That’s a bit like telling me traffic to your blackhat forum is at 30k visitors per day, but that 75% of it is the same few people clicking over and over and responding to threads.  It’s deceptive and doesn’t paint the whole picture.  In the report, DVD sales included only the sale of DVDs, not all the additional hardware and accessories you need to watch them, so it was a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The report cited DVD sales at $16 billion for 2007, box offices at $9.6 billion, and games at $18.85 billion.  Subtracting all the accessories and hardware, and ONLY counting games sold, game sales amounts to just $8.64 billion. 

Video games may one day outsell movies, but that day isn’t yet, and doesn’t look like it will be happening anytime soon.

Many of you might not know Pixeloo, but he’s a talented Photoshop artist who does “real life” renditions of animated characters. While his rendition of Mario was a little creepy, what with his huge eyes and pervertish grin, but his latest work is a masterpiece.

Pixeloo’s “real” version of Niko Bellic - antihero from GTA 4 and all around lovable guy - depicts a stone-cold killer who could kill just by staring at you. This artwork will appear in the latest issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine, but it’s posted online for your viewing pleasure.

Be sure to check his site out for more.

If you thought surveys could not be interesting, you were wrong. Dead wrong, in fact, as a new Experian Consumer Research survey comparing PS3 and Xbox 360 owners has offered up some insightful and frankly quite comedic results.

The survey reveals that Xbox 360 users are more likely to love books that their PS3 counterparts, but that the latter is unable to live without newspapers. According to the survey, those in the 18-24 age bracket love their Wii, while those above 44 are more likely to have a PS3… almost twice in fact!

Meanwhile, both PS3 and Xbox 360 gamers agree that “real men don’t cry.” Xbox 360 gamers are also more “interested in nature,” among other things.

Ever have that friend who couldn’t stop talking back to their parents? You know, the one who dug a hole to China every time he opened his mouth? That boy grew up to be Jack Thompson. In addition to walking out of the courtroom when Judge Moreno was to give her recommendation on the punishment for his multiple counts of professional misconduct, he also sent a letter bewailing the fact that nobody’s ruling in his favor. He claimed that enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay receive ‘more due process’ than he himself. He went on to state that his ‘mistake’ was ‘not killing 3000 people to make my point’.

 After hand delivering this letter whose legalese is punctuated with the sort of angry, spiteful and insulting rhetoric that he’s well known for, Jack Thompson received a visit from US Marshals, likely due to the casual comment about murdering mass numbers of people in a letter to a judge. Mr. Thompson is of course handling this as well as he always does; he claims he is being harrassed by the Justice Department and has requested a meeting in Washington to complain.

In today’s bit of weird news, a new study published in the journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior found that red teams win over blue teams more than half of the time in multiplayer matches.

This comes from studying 1,347 matches in Unreal Tournament 2004 in which players were allowed to choose between joining the red or blue team. The study found that the red team won 55% of the time.

What causes red to win? Neuroscientist Mihai Moldovan suggests that a possible explanation could be the color red’s role as a psychological distracter for men.

“While this is really an interesting analysis, the notion of red team versus blue team has been ingrained in the Unreal Tournament series for years,” said Epic Games president Mark Rein. “We don’t anticipate any immediate changes to team colors.”

So, the next time you play multiplayer, go for red!

Men have always customized and upgraded things. Go back past the colorful history of the automobile and you’ll see blacksmiths engraving swords with crests and family mottos, primitive warriors painting fierce symbols on their hide shields and the like. Many enterprising individuals have turned various electronics apparatus into interesting and unusual creations. A working PC inside a Nintendo shell? Done. Zapper Bong? Seen it.

Here’s one thing that although the overall idea isn’t that new (I saw a book in Barnes and Noble on various Roomba hacks), it’s certainly got points for creativity.

PacMan Roomba

Superstars and artists bring out clothing lines left and right, but what about video games? Inno-Wear today announced that it has been granted a license to product clothing based on mature MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.

While details weren’t offered, the company did note that they expect to push out garments later this year, adding that it will receive the “official marketing support of the publisher.” The company is established in Europe where it sells a variety of “urban streetwear” for a number of gaming franchises, including Gears of War and Devil May Cry. Their licensing agreement only extends to European territories, leaving the question of North American distribution unanswered.

First, the movie does not get the wide release Boll was anticipating… then people start walking out of the theatre during “free” screenings. This just isn’t Boll’s year.

The Jersey Journal reports that three-quarters of the 200 people who were attending the screening walked away before the closing credits, with many finding the movie to be in bad taste. Apparently, it was the 9/11-attack scene that offended most people, including the Mayor of the city who refused to attend the screening based on that scene alone.

Meanwhile, Boll is being usual douche bag-self, stating that the movie is meant to “provoke” and that he meant to “make people start thinking about their own boundaries and rules.”

“I feel it is time now to make a really wild movie, something over the top,” said Boll. “We don’t spare any group. We don’t want to hurt anybody but we want to break the rules.”

According to this statement issued to 1UP, fashionable ninja Itagaki will step down from his post at Tecmo’s Team Ninja on July 1, 2008. He is filing a suit against the company for unpaid bonuses and against Tecmo’s president, Yoshimi Yasuda, for “disingenuous statements” made towards him. He is claiming a total of 148 million yen in damages (approximately $1.5 million).

According to his statement, Itagaki was offered a completion bonus on the development of Dead or Alive 4. However, when the game was completed, he wasn’t given the payment, but was rather insulted by the company president, who told him to “either quit the company, or sue it.” Additionally, Yasuda also made demeaning remarks about him, causing much emotional distress as well as worsening his personal relationships and work environment.

This surprising move comes mere hours after the release of Ninja Gaiden 2, which reviewers are calling a true sequel to the Xbox classic. Itagaki has also issued a statement for his fans, which can be read just after the jump.

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In what is to be the oddest news you will read this week, or maybe ever, Funcom community manager Glen Swan has revealed that the breast size of Age of Conan’s characters has been decreased.

“Funcom can confirm that some of the female models in the game have had the size of their breasts changed,” Swan wrote. “This is due to an unintended change in data that was introduced in an earlier patch, data which controls the so-called morph values associated with character models and the size of their respective body parts.”

A fix is apparently in the works to restore breast sizes, with Swan noting that “the plastic surgeons of Hyboria” are sorry for messing with such an important thing.

While this may go unnoticed by many, some of the game’s players have expressed their grievances, with one specifically going on to say that (most probably) he will unsubscribe from the game if the fix is not applied soon.

Besides the fat kid who got called fat by Wii Fit, the whole world is going crazy for the balance board peripheral for the console. This, apparently, brought back memories for GamePro editors who have cooked up a list of seven failed foot-based controllers, some of which are truly atrocious, to say the least. Here’s a snippet:

7. Fragpedal Gaming Footpedal
At first glance this contraption appears to be some sort of foot massager, but it’s actually a keyboard that you can control with your toes. There’s nothing more appealing than a pair of sweaty feet fumbling over two slab pads pressed against two protruding rubber buttons. You can look forward to some serious foot cramps if you plan on using this pedal for driving games, and don’t expect to get many frags or any respect if you decide to take this expensive piece of equipment to your next LAN party. Come to think of it, anyone taking their shoes off at a LAN party is a bad plan.

Yes, there are worse ideas that hardware makers tried, including the venerable Sega. What do you guys think are some of the worst controllers out there, foot-based or not?

Terrorists can’t get enough of videogames, it seems, as a piece of concept art of a decimated Washington DC from Fallout 3 has been circulated through mainstream publications, reported as terrorist propaganda after an intelligence contractor said that the image was used in Al Qaeda videos.

“This is the apocalyptic scene terrorists hope to create if they ever get their hands on a nuclear bomb… posted on an Islamic extremists’ website yesterday,” reads Daily Mail’s article.

The artwork in question was released as part of Bethesda’s early marketing for the apocalyptic action-RPG, which takes place in the city decades after a nuclear catastrophe.

Ever wondered what it would feel like to relive moments from a certain little testosterone driven game called Gears of War? Well, you can now, except for those damn Locusts, that is. It was announced today that TriForce Sales has acquired the license from Epic Games to create 1:1 scale armor and weapon replicas from the game.

The company will offer full-size and wearable COG armor, helmet and the Lancer Assault Rifle. The replica armor and weapons were created in a partnership with sculptor Sid Garrand of Nightmare Armor Studios.

“In my spare time I sculpted a full set of armor for myself, which I enjoyed showing off at conventions,” Garrand said. “When the fans saw it they all asked me how they could get it. I was thrilled when the team from Epic saw it, and liked it, which allowed us to move to the point to where we are today. It all truly began as a labor of love.”

No pricing details were given, though the company notes that fans with money will most certainly be entertained through advance orders online starting July 8. Grab yourself an armor and star crashing into walls for cover.

Shacknews reports that more than $2 million in grants will be awarded to 12 research teams across the United States to research the benefits of gaming.

This comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s health games research program. The grants are aimed at strengthening the evidence that gaming improves player’s health and outcomes. In fact, studies have shown that motion-based gaming can improve the condition of stroke patients, as well as substance abuse patients who can practice skills and behaviors in virtual worlds to prevent real-world lapses.

Recipients of the grants will be announced later this week.

Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto has been voted Time Magazine’s most influential person of the year through a reader poll. He garnered almost two million votes from the readers of the magazine, thus topping the list. Miyamoto is famed for creating the legendary characters Mario and Zelda, as well as countless games based on them and more.

Miyamoto was followed by Korean pop singer Rain in second place, with comedian Stephen Colbert coming in at the third spot. The fourth and fifth places are taken up by Heidi Klum and Tyra Banks, respectively.

People are proud of eating, and it shows. Mastiff proudly notes that “ingestion history” has been made on April 11, when professional eater, Tim ‘Eater X’ Janus, set the world sushi eating record with 141 pieces of sushi eaten in six minutes at a San Fransisco press event to preview the upcoming WiIWare game Major League Eating: The Game.

Yes, disgusting as it may sound, there is indeed a competitive eating circuit, and yes, there’s a game coming out, too. It will make its debut on the downloadable game service for the Wii which launches May 12 in North America. The game will have gamers play as any one of 10 MLE “athletes” and duke it out against the CPU or another friend. As expected, it will have multiplayer support and over 12 different foods.

I cannot write more about the game, though, if you are interested, check out its official website.

P.S. I feel sorry for those who had to witness such an atrocity at the press event.

Food addicts listen up! Publisher Mastiff has awarded 16 lucky gamers each a $15 certificate for pizza during the first two weeks of its Major League Eating: The Game “Food of the Week” contest. Additionally, this week the company will be handing out eight more $15 gift certificates for burgers to gamers who have registered for it on the game’s official website. They point out that a “damn good burger” can be had for the amount. Below are the winners, who will be adding much fat to their bodies thanks to Mastiff.

Week One
Lily P. - San Jose, Calif.
Marcos S. - Dix Hills, N.Y.
Caesar M. - Sylmar, Calif.
Michael B. - Cheektowaga, N.Y.
Jeremy M. - Pensacola, Fla.
Max H. - San Diego, Calif.
Brandy S. - Muncie, Ind.
Cody B. - Dorr, Mich.

Week Two
Cristian B. - Winter Haven, Fla.
Jason V. - Newport, Ore.
Hallie L. - Woodland Park, Colo.
Alexander M. - San Diego, Calif.
Gesnele P. - Roxbury, Mass.
Paul D. - Long Beach, Calif.
Rob M. - Marysville, Wash.
Hillary M. - Northbrook, Ill.

The MLE game is being built for WiiWare, having gamers fight to eat more… and disgust the opponent by burping, biting and belching, among other things.

Upper Deck has announced that they will be making a card game based on the first person shooter title Call of Duty. The object of the game is to frag as much enemy infantry as possible within a time limit. There is also no turn-based waiting, it’s all “real-time”, so you can just interrupt your opponent’s game plan at any time. The game is based on the World War eras instead of what we have seen in the fourth game of the series. There was also a mention of Call of Duty 5, which is hinted at that the new installment will be taking a step back to the era that the card game is based on.

This isn’t the first video game to trading card game adaptation. Upper Deck has also made a World of Warcraft trading card game. A player even won $100,000 for winning a tournament, so it’s not like these cards are for nothing. Times have changed since I’ve traded my Blastoise for a Charizard.

Read (OXM)

*‘The Babysitters,’ in theaters May 9th*

*Red 3K Scarlet Camcorder Announced at NAB 2008*

*Alltel Wireless Launches PhotoCopier Service Fro Cell Phones*

*Meridian D-ILA MF10 Digital Projector and DVP2351 Digital Video Introduced*