But even with plenty of hours worth of '07 AAA gaming left to play, I can already feel a postpartumesque depression on the way. I remember when Assassin's Creed was just an E3 demo hidden in the confines of insta-offices, and Mass Effect just a pile of screenshots saved in one of my "special time" folders.

So before I tear up over a mental montage of these games growing from infants to fine young men, I'm killing the sentimentality and returning to the lust/infatuation phase of gaming. What are you most looking forward to playing in 2008? (One answer apiece in the comments please...let's keep this interesting. Oh, and if you are a Kotaku reader, consider this assignment mandatory.)

Me? Fallout 3. You?

[image]

So from the entire Kotaku staff, happy holidays and merry whatever you celebrate. And to Valve, thank-you...and we're very, very sorry.

Voices in order of butchery: Michael Fahey, Mark Wilson, Brian Crecente, Brian Crecente, Luke Plunkett.
Lyrics by Fahey, Crecente and Wilson
Video by Mark Wilson

Of everything that's happened this year, Kotaku has been probably the most surprising and made me feel like a fish out of water most frequently. Me? I'm not a pro journalist. Well, I guess I technically am now in some small way - but I've not been to journalism school. I've never had any real desire to do the work of a journalist (give me an archive and books and I'm happy). Writing lit reviews comes more naturally than dealing with breaking news. I've spent the past couple of years aggressively pursuing academia, not breaking into video game journalism. I certainly never thought I'd wind up writing for one of the bigger gaming blogs out there. It was a pretty giant leap from the little site I wrote for to Kotaku Tower, and - just like when I got an email from one of my future advisors saying 'Congratulations, you're in!' - I find myself wondering with some frequency 'How in the hell did I manage that?'.

We get a lot of queries about breaking into the biz, which I always feel totally unequipped to answer. I haphazardly blundered into writing about video games (thanks to a post on Kotaku, of all things), and I found myself writing for Kotaku in much the same manner. How do you break into the business? Good question - let me know if you figure it out.

But despite feeling like the odd one out half the time, I really do love it. Weekends with Flynn are frequently the non-seminar related highlights of the week. While I have plenty of Saturdays where I just want to sit in front of the TV and veg out before plowing through another several hundred pages of whatever I'm supposed to be reading, spending a few hours a week wading through gaming related news and writing about it has been enjoyable. It also dovetails with my academic life in weird and satisfying ways - as I prepare to launch into studying Korean and Japanese, my immediate thought after 'I must be crazy' was 'Oh good, this really opens up my options for games! Wonder if I can squeeze some good feature articles from research trips to Asia?'.

I'm still getting used to explaining the dual halves of my life to people - 'You do what? And why?' is a question I'm used to answering when explaining exactly what it is I study, but explaining life in the video game blogosphere to most academics is a job in and of itself. One of my bookshelves is a good little microcosm of my life: it houses my copies of classic works of the field, the Shiji, Song dynasty lyric poetry, Lu Xun's short stories and ... the smallest members of my KOS-MOS figurine collection? Half-naked video game heroines and high-brow academia do go together!

As 2007 comes to a close, I'm thankful for a lot of things - mostly the fact that '07 was the year I landed a coveted spot at a great program in my field and all the stuff I have to look forward to as part of the Kotaku team. It's a real treat to be part of a great group of people, writing about stuff I love, and hopefully giving a little more exposure to some topics that are usually confined to niche blogs and news sites. Flynn may be living out of a suitcase, I may be busier than ever, and we may be in the middle of a holiday news drought - but 2008 is looking pretty bright indeed. Just keep your fingers crossed for Flynn that the new year brings him permanent digs - and soon!

I see 2007 as generally positive. The Massive game industry is still in its infancy, in many ways, and these failures are hard growing-up type lessons. I've tried to keep that in mind when constructing a list of the Top Five MMO Trends of 2007 ....

Let's hope looking back on 2008 will be more about sugarplums and less about coal.

I'm dreadful at putting together 'best of' lists, but I've been mulling what I'd put on my top stories of '07 list. What about the faithful Kotakuites out there in the audience?

Gamasutra's Best Of 2007: Top 5 Most Significant Moments In MMOs [Gamasutra]

In that particular mindset, we'd like to know your worst gaming moment of 2007—when a bad glitch that had no right to be in a sold copy of a game ruined the experience for you (funny glitches are also acceptable, but frowned upon by our emo side). My personal worst glitch was during Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (PSP). Some sort of bug occurred about 2/3 through the game while saving, corrupting my progress file. It translated to several lost hours, especially since I'm a gun upgrade whore, and was a big enough blow that I put down the game for good. I tried once to rekindle the magic, but alas, it was gone. And I loved that game.

So what about your worst glitch of 2007? Hit the comments and let us hear it. Then we'll cry together, trash our distant relatives and feel better about ourselves, as is tradition during the holidays.

In the latest post, Seth Schiesel manages to neatly sum up my main criticism of this Gaming Club concept.

This has been great, but my, haven't we been serious! All of us have been so busy weighing industry trendlets and esoteric points of game design that I almost fear we have come to resemble the chin-stroking, self-styled sophisticates that made the arts writer such a lampoonable stereotype in the first place.

What Slate's Gaming Club lacks is a layman. I think it would be much more interesting if every fifth post was from a less-erudite fellow, who instead of responding with countless paragraphs of exhaustive analysis and intellectual musings simply responded with, "Um, what?"

The Gaming Club [Slate Magazine]

A three day conference to be held in the UK starting April 19th, Women in Games is having a conference to discuss new platforms, players, and opinions the future in gaming.

Women in Games is an annual conference with the distinct aim of highlighting the most recent, groundbreaking work in computer game research and development to both academic and industrial worlds. It has consistently addressed the empowerment and professional development for women working in, and researching into, games and the games industry."

Rounding out the speaker list is Sharon Knight (EA's Europe Online VP), Raina Lee (publisher and editor of 1-Up), Kotaku (and the Beeb's) Alice Taylor and a very interesting doctor named Mary Flanagan who researches systems to educate women and minorities in particular.

Men invited, communal hair-braiding optional. Kim Phu

Women in Games Conference 2007 [Women in Games International]

Looks like that video was legit after all. As was the QWERTY keyboard.

Microsoft tonight unveiled the details of this spring's Xbox 360 update, set to hit on May 7.

While the update has a plethora of new features, the biggest by far is that Microsoft is bringing instant messaging and a new snap-on controller keyboard to the console.

The new feature will allow Xbox 360 and PC users to text chat with on another using Windows Live Messenger.

"The big news we are integrating instant messaging to live," said John Rodman, Senior Product Manager for Xbox LIVE and Xbox 360. "You can instant messenger to the Xbox from anywhere in the messenger family."

Rodman said the new feature, free to Silver and Gold users, will allow users to have six instant message conversations going at once, each with multiple contacts. The message boxes will pop-up in an opaque box much like standard game messaging is already treated on the console.

Your current contacts from Live Messenger will also be added to your 360, which will let you know if your friends are on a PC or the console.

While the instant messaging will support the virtual keyboard and USB keyboards, Microsoft plans to release a cool-looking new keyboard attachment for the 360 in the future.

The QWERTY keyboard, expected to be officially announced this summer with a price and date, will fit neatly between the "horns" of the controller and allow you to play and type without having to switch devices.

When asked if this was a step toward the Live Anywhere feature first announced last year, Rodman said he couldn't talk directly about how that was coming.

"I can't speak to the progress of the overall program, but I can say this is one of the building blocks come to life," he said.

While instant messaging is certainly the biggest change coming with this next update, it's not the only one.

Other new features include:

A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list.
Enhanced family settings features for Xbox Live communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
A new Xbox Live Marketplace blade lets Xbox Live members access the content they seek—whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States)—from one place on Xbox Live.
Updates to Xbox Live Arcade allow owners to quickly see which Xbox Live Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox Live members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox Live Arcade games.
New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace.
Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.

The update will also tweak the look of the console with some minor changes in the way the dashboard looks, including:
The name of game in tray is now displayed in the dashboard.
When the tray icon is highlighted, a list of achievements, game icon and gamerscore for that game is displayed.
Video trick modes are enabled for content that is being progressively downloaded from Video Marketplace.
Playback progress bar indicates download completion.
Improved skip forward, skip back functionality during video playback.
Switchable aspect ratio now available during video playback (Auto to Letterbox, Zoom, Stretch, Native).
Background downloads can occur after the console has been turned off—the console will automatically power down when background downloads complete (not enabled by default).
Earned Achievement notifications now show Achievement and Gamerscore details over the game without having to bring up the guide or leave the game.
Player and friends lists now quickly show session presence information for quick identification of users that are joinable.
Marketplace has now been raised to its own Dashboard blade to improve navigation.
Added Windows Live ID management functionality to Account Management.

Rodman said that Microsoft has decided to stick to major updates twice a year to because it "gives us a chance to collect our breath, listen to customers and concentrate on the things that people are asking for."

"We've been hearing feeback about how cool IM integration would," he said. Brian Crecente

Someone just posted this video on YouTube, supposedly showing off what the Xbox 360's Spring 07 Dashboard update will include. Legit or not, what do you think? Brian Crecente

[Thanks Tom]

Site Next Generation has a good list of upcoming 2007 titles. Games we'll be all going gaga over or be sorely disappointed by. Stand-out titles include:

• Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
• Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors
• Sonic and the Secret Rings
• Super Mario Galaxy
• The Sadness
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

That's actually my shopping list. Yours? Brian Ashcraft

Wii Games of 2007 [Next Generation]

Here's his list and my take:

Ozy: The original PSP (with memory stick) will be discontinued, and replaced by a new model with an integrated hard drive. The new model will enable connectivity to the Playstation store via internet connection, and allow you to purchase and download both emulated PS1 and native PSP games directly. Over time (meaning not in 2007), it will also allow you to purchase music and movies from the Sony store.
Me: A new PSP is coming, it has to be, but I suspect the purchase of music and movies from the Sony store will come first. When I talked to Sony about this last year, they denied that any new PSP model was in the works but said they were full speed ahead on getting music and movie download support. The new model will likely be a bit smaller, have a longer battery life and while I'd love for a harddrive to pop up, I don't see Sony abandoning their pig-headed support of the Memory Stick.

Ozy: The Playstation 3 will have an effective price drop of at least $100 by Thanksgiving 2007. By effective, I mean that it's also possible that the price will remain the same, but at least $100 of value will be added to the bundle.
Me: Not in a year. What I can see happening is retailers doing their own bundles, much like what occurred with the Xbox 360 this year.

Ozy: Nintendo will release their own Live Arcade service for the Wii. Specifically, this means Nintendo will enable third-party developers to create, distribute, and sell casual games for the Wii and DS through a new Wii channel.
Me: Nintendo has already announced that they will be enabling third-party game development for their store channel so this is sort of a no brainer. They haven't announced the sale of downloadable DS games through the service. While I think this is a great idea, they'd need to come up with a way to save that content to the DS. Currently turning the system off erases downloaded data.

Ozy: The Nintendo DS will continue to outsell the PSP in 2007. It will also enable DS<->Wii wireless connectivity, enabling cross-platform gaming scenarios and the purchase of Nintendo DS casual games. It will not enable the download and purchase of full retail games for the DS, however.
Me: Totally agree on all parts. Further more, I'd predict that Wii to DS gaming would hit around Thanksgiving.

Ozy: Apple will expand their gaming efforts significantly. The most likely scenario is investment in iPod and the (soon to be announced) iPhone devices to enable a common game development platform for developers to target. This platform will include WiFi wireless connectivity, user accounts and presence, and the ability to trial and buy content from a games channel in the iTunes store. Apple will not enter the gaming market with a home console of their own.
Me: I agree, though their phone probably can't be called the iPhone and I also see them trying to expand their home computer gaming market too.

Ozy: HD-DVD will begin to pull ahead of Blu-Ray in the high-definition DVD format war. This will be measurable by number of DVDs available for either format on Amazon, and total player sales (including the Xbox 360's HD-DVD add-on and the Playstation 3's internal Blu-Ray drive).
Me: This is a hard one. Much of the Blu-ray format's success hinges on the success of the Playstation 3 and I'm certainly not ready to count-out Sony's new console. If the console has the sort of epic sales that the PS2 has, Blu-ray will absolutely crush HD-DVD.

Ozy: By the end of 2007, total lifetime unit sell-through of home consoles will be led by the Xbox 360, followed by Nintendo's Wii, with the Playstation 3 third. This order will also be true of units sold-through solely in 2007 (ie, not lifetime sales).
Me: Not in a million years. Either the Wii will be first or it will be a very distant third. No second place for this console. If the innovation concept takes off and more games come out for the system that manage to cross the line from gimmick to innovation, than it will continue to be a run away hit. If that doesn't happen, it will become a glorified toy. While I understand Ozy's reasoning on the Xbox 360, I think it's still too early to tell if the PS3 is going to do the sort of sales the PS2 did, but I suspect it's going to end up being neck-and-neck between Microsoft and Sony.

Ozy: Google will show significant public interest in the gaming sector for the first time, including interest in acquisitions to bolster their Ad-sense business. The most likely target will be IGA Worldwide (to combat Microsoft's acquisition of Massive). If unsuccessful, Google will seek to acquire one of the larger game publishers on the market to gain a foothold in the in-game advertising market. Likely targets include Electronic Arts (though it would be extremely expensive), Activision, or THQ.
Me: I see Google's interest in gaming being more about information, as in a newsite or blog, and casual games, than in actually creating the games. Sure I can see them wanting to inject ad-sense into gaming, but I don't think they need to buy anyone to do it and Google seems to be more about creation than taking over.

Agree or disagree, Ozymandias' predictions are certainly well thought-out and interesting. What do you think? Brian Crecente

2007 Predictions

1. What will it bring...price drops, new hardware, failure or success of the next gen multimedia downloads?

2. What are you most looking forward to...games, finally affording hardware, flaming Sony?

3. What were you most surprised by in '06...gaming related, please - I don't want to hear about your explorations with puberty (though I couldn't be more proud).

Over on Gizmodo I predicted a substantial PS3 price drop, so what the hell, I'll stick with that. Before I played Gears of War and secured a PS3, I was most looking forward to Halo 3...now I will have to say MGS4 with a hint of Half Life 2 coming to next gen consoles. And my biggest surprise was that Microsoft has made a far better controller than Sony this time around. Mark Wilson

Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you'd like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com

Oh, for fuck's sakes...

According to the Argos website — probably best described as a sort of UK and Irish Wal-Mart where you order everything by catalogue and then sit on your ass for half an hour, waiting for it to emerge from the warehouse — the Wii release date is going to be March, 2007.

Just a few days ago, though, the banner apparently read 'Winter, 2006'.

Before panic commences for us Euro-types, this is really the equivalent of any retailer's random prediction for console or game release dates: highly suspect.

What makes Argos' speculation so troubling is it comes a mere 16 hours before the UK Nintendo presser, when the Wii's Europe launch date and price will be announced. Worse yet, it essentially mirrors the disappointment gamers got earlier this month when it was announced that the PS3 would be delayed in Europe for an additional 4 months.

As soon as we hear one way or another on this rumor, we'll let you know. If true, though, man... Microsoft's just going to own Europe this Sinterklaas. Florian Eckhardt

Well, no one else will be there, but Nintendo's at least committed to making a token appearance with the Wii at E307.

Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo UK PR manager Rob Saunders said, "I can confirm that Nintendo will be involved in the E3 expo next year."

Given that E3 has turned almost overnight into the gamer equivalent of a regional dishwasher salesman's trade conference, the thought of Shigeru Miyamoto leaping around on a smelly Holiday Inn conference table, whisking away with a Wiimote and doing karate kicks is encouraging.

Platform holders give first reaction to new format E3 [Games Industry]

British Gaming Blog is pretty optimistic about the rest of this year in 360 gaming. I mean, why not be? While Live Arcade might expel new games only after months of constipation, the 360 line-up for the rest of the year looks pretty good, and the BGB have posted their full-on geek-out pics of what the best games for the rest of the year are going to be... sight unseen!

It's a pretty good list, including titles such as Just Cause, Dead Reckoning, Assassin's Creed and Gears of War. However, the second you put a fuckin' Sonic game on a top 10 list, you've really just blown your street cred... it's like calling pot 'marijuana cigarettes' during a drug deal while waggling around air quotes.

But I'd never heard of Stranglehold... a video-game sequel to Hard Boiled! I'm sure the level of my expectations when confronted with that concept practically guarantee the game's abysmal quality, but as Kotaku's own J.M. Barrie, I'd like to encourage everyone in the comments to clap their hands three times and shout out: "I believe in you, Stranglehold!" Florian Eckhardt

The 360's Blindingly Bright Future [British Gaming Blog]

45 Xbox 360 games are scheduled for release before the end of the year, but only 31 Xbox titles. Almost half of that 31 will be shipping by the end of June. After that, the 360 titles are listed in a 2-1 ratio for the end of the year... In other words, in about two months, the transition from Xbox to Xbox 360 is essentially over.

There are zero XBox titles slated for a 2007 release. We hope that this news means that Microsoft will continue to improve backwards compatibility on the 360, so we can finally chuck our XBox from the top of a skyscraper. Our entertainment center is only big enough for two fat, ugly Microsoft bricks, thank you very much. - Florian Eckhardt

2006 and Beyond [Dubious Quality]