This gamepro magazine here repeats what I consider to be a completely useless sales metric…http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=93388 (Link Dead)The PS2 is outselling the Xbox360. It’s useless, because it is comparing a previous generation, now casual game system to a modern game system for more hardcore gamers. It’s also comparing a system that costs nearly half what the other one costs. Of course the casual, 3rd-gen game system which costs $129 will sell more units than a 1st to early 2nd generation game system that costs $299-399.

They’ve finally revived the Sam and Max franchise, in episodic form. One of the people in the gametap company has done an article in Gamasutra about episodic content. It’s been a long time and I’m sure all the Sam and Max fans are happy with the revival of their favorite series.http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070103/sanchez_01.shtmlTo me, one of the most interesting parts was at the end.For two years we have been listening to Nintendo talk about broadening the games market.

Well, the PS3 is a big hit with my brother, who has come over 4 times already to play multi-player games with me. He never did this when I had the PS1/2… Not once.We played all the way through Resistance in Co-op mode, and then went half-way through again. Also went through some chapters in Untold Legends.I tried to rope him into a death-match of Ratchet and Clank 3… He says the graphics suck too much… I suppose I shouldn’t bother getting a Wii then if I want to use it multi-player.

The Tales of * series has had many releases over the years. Tales of Phantasia for the SNES and GBA was the first in the series, and there’s been several releases for the Gamecube, PS1, PS2, and other systems. I’m done with the series. I just hate the combat system they use. I first tried Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube, and most recently Tales of Phantasia for the GBA. I’m almost to this point with the Star Ocean series as well.

Pennies now cost 1.73 cents to make and the government is getting so panicked about people melting them down for their raw materials that they’re issuing laws against it.Like the companies who release printers at a loss to make money on their printer cartridges, the government needs to stop using a business model where they are forced to circumvent freedom in order to make it work. It’s bad when the government allows the printer manufacturers to use copyright law against its consumers this way, its atrocious when the government themselves pass laws to do this.

This article has a quote (Dead link) from some gulf cooperation council member about how the US not calling for sanctions on israel, while calling for sanctions on Iraq, North Korea, and Iran was a double standard. He’s at least somewhat mistaken about this…Israel is one of 3 countries that I know of that did not sign the non-proliferation treaty. The other two both have nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan. It would be a double-standard to hold Israel to a standard that we’re not holding the other two non-signers to.

For those of you who don’t yet have a copy of Disgaea, Nippon Ichi Software has purchased the rights to the game back from Atlus who was the former publisher in the US, and they’re pressing new copies of the game. If you want a copy, check out their online store Here , click Disgaea, then goto the second page. (dead link) $30 for a classic tactical/strategic RPG game. Should be released next week.

Now that Microsoft’s puppet attack using SCO against linux has failed, now microsoft is trying a direct attack on linux using the exact same tactics. Ballmer making veiled threats… (Dead Link)I wonder how long they’ll keep at the FUD phase of the project before they move on to the direct attacking phase.

I was talking to my parent on Friday about the PS3. Offered to bring it over and watch some High Def movies with him. He started pressuring me to sell it on ebay, saying that it was going for thousands. I gave him a number of reasons, including the fact that it was already opened, and that the model I had was going for $1500 and lower. I also mentioned to him, though, that the people selling on ebay were going to get screwed and the price was going to drop through the floor within a week as Sony started shipping more consoles to the states.

Speaking of my prior off the wall predictions, the one I had about Wii and Property damage appears to have come true in a way…Borken TellyLooks like an awfully big, expensive (though perhaps a bit old) television too.