It never ceases to amaze me how disorganized Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all look when it comes to releasing games and content on their respective networks. None of them can manage to actually tell us what is going to be released until after it has been. It's like the people in the know don't actually know. So I did some hardcore research that included coercion, threats and good old-fashioned thumps on the back of the skull and disguises to find out what goes on when they select the content for the week.

I was told I should add a disclaimer to this, so here it is. If you really believe this could remotely be any iota of fact, there might be something wrong with you and you might need to go see a doctor about that reality check. But man wouldn't it totally be creepy if some of it WAS true!?

When one thinks of Microsoft they generally think of Resistance is Futile and a Borg-like structure and hive-mind. But in the central processing unit of the Xbox Live section of the collective there is a disjointed juncture and on the other side of that juncture is where the windowless office of three blind Microsoftians is. As they're blind they don't know there are no windows. Since they are cut off from the rest of the hive mind they think they are free. But really it is a completely controlled environment and there are numerous sensors and recording devices throughout the tiny self-contained office. 

This is how Microsoft decides what content will be released every week on XBLA. On Friday, an enormous pile of 4-inch by 4-inch square paper falls from several tubes in the ceiling. The Three-Who-Are-One are tasked with piling the papers into as many piles as they feel necessary to adequately organize the papers and keep them from toppling over. Generally this task takes several days barring any mishaps like one of the Three-Who-Are-One being buried by the papers which happened back in August causing a one day delay of Microsoft knowing what to release. On each piece of paper is the name of one possible piece of content that could be released that week. Each name is on 1,000 sheets and generally the number of sheets released on a Friday comes to about 1 million pieces. When the Three-Who-Are-One are finished piling the papers the recording devices in the room read the top sheet of paper in every pile and that becomes the content that is released that week. Generally there is more than one copy of the same name which accounts for why there are so few things released each week.

Meanwhile over at Nintendo things are done in a completely different way. There is a conference call every Monday and Friday morning. Mr. Iwata secretly assigned a game name to every person in the company. When the directors of all the major markets in the world for Nintendo speak with Mr. Iwata on the conference call there is a bank of computers attached to the call that analyzes every word. When the name of an employee is mentioned the game name attached to that person scores a point. If the first name and surname are mentioned the game scores five points. The conference call is timed so that it takes no less than four hours. If the person who said the name of the employee leaves the conference call before it is scheduled to end all the games that scored points from that person lose two points. If the person then rejoins the conference call before it ends each game receives one point back. If an employee that was not scheduled for the conference call interrupts someone on the conference call in person the game they represent scores 10 points. If their voice is heard on the conference call by the others and the computer the game scores 20 points and if they actually speak to Mr. Iwata directly the game they represent scores 100 points. 

During the conference call Mr. Iwata is in a room that is entirely covered in pressure switches with Mii representations of each employee in Nintendo. As he walks, sits, leans or otherwise depresses a pressure switch with the Mii of that person, the game they represent gets 4 points. Generally Mr. Iwata paces a lot during these calls but he also carries with him a baseball which he bounces off the various walls, ceiling and floor of the room. Each Mii he hits directly with the ball score 14.75 points and each secondary contact score 6.1565426 points. If the ball rests on a Mii for 0.1 to 3.7 seconds that game scores an additional 3 points. If the ball rests 3.7 to 7.6 seconds the game scores 7 points. If the ball spends more than 7.6 seconds but less than 5 minutes that game gets 12 points. Anywhere longer than 5 minutes and the game scores 17.3 points and gets a star. The star does not count toward the points, it's just a Nintendo thing. But in the event of a tie the stars do decide which game gets released. 

Now at the end of the conference call everyone hangs up and Mr. Iwata goes to his office. The computers crunch all the numbers and eventually a sheet is handed to Mr. Iwata with the releases for the Virtual Console for the week. He then balls up that sheet, sticks it into a Pokemon capture ball and launches it through one of those nifty vacuum tube mail systems. With no specific location attached. If it goes to the mail room, then the 3 games with highest odd number of points are released. If it goes to the cafeteria the 3 lowest. If it goes to Marketing the 3 games with the lowest even numbered points are released. If it goes to Public Relations it generally gets lost until after lunch and then shows up in an intern's cubicle around 1pm and the computers randomly assign games to be released that day. But if it ends up back in Mr. Iwata's hands then the three games that scored the median of all points for that day's conference call are published. 

So you can see why Nintendo is never able to tell us what games will be released until the very day of their release. 

Now on to the most mystifying processes of the three, Sony's PlayStation Network Sacred Selection Process. In a top secret Sony installation directly beneath the South Pole every Wednesday Phil Harrison (Sony UK), David Reeves (Sony Europe), Kazuo Hirai (Sony Japan President) and Jack Tretton (Sony North America) come to worship at the PS Temple bowing down at the feet of Ken Kutaragi, the Father of the Playstation. This is known simply as the Communion. They then spend several hours with the four of them sitting in the lotus position at the cardinal points of a circle, north, south, east and west. Kutarugi stands at the center of the circle on a raised platform at the foot of an enormous black monolith. Every week just prior to the Communion the names of every potential piece of available content is laser etched onto the surface of the monolith. The Four Horsemen, each representing an element, a cardinal direction of force and a major video game market, focus all of their mental powers on Mr. Kutaragi who stares blindly at the monolith. As time progresses, so we are told by a Monk of the Monolith who would only speak under strict anonymity, Mr. Kutaragi begins to glow and then hover above the ground in front of the monolith. The forty Monks of the Monolith then begin chanting the names of every Sony video game ever produced. As the power focuses into Mr. Kutaragi he stretches forth his hands and light shoots from his fingers and ignites the lettering on the monolith. Slowly many of the names are erased by the Holy Fire of Sony. The names that survive the Scouring, as we're told by the monk, are the pieces of content that will be released that week. 

So as you can see there are very good reasons why none of them is able to tell us exactly what will be released on their network prior to it actually being released. They simply don't know what the outcome will be every week until it actually comes out.  So there is no sense yelling at them about it like the Sony fanboys like to do on the official blog. There's no sense in asking them and there's definitely no sense in attempting to guess what will be released every week. There is simply no way of possibly knowing what will be released each week until it actually is released.

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