Happy New Year! OK so you are probably tired of hearing that by now like I am so let's move on. Can you believe I actually managed a Saturday and Sunday in the same week?! It's the yearly lull in the gaming industry life-cycle January is usually a low amount of news and interesting releases, but February is right around the corner and there are some good releases getting ready to drop for us then. Even with all that I still managed to pull together some news from the week that I thought was interesting in short.

So start 2008 out right, grab that cup of coffee and let's dig into some Sunday Hot Ham and Rolls

OK so Kristen Kreuk news again this week, I know you're all sad. If you're lucky I might throw in a gratuitous shot or two later.  Anyway, the Canadian Press reported that video games have gotten a boost from the writers' strike in America. If you haven't been following American television basically every 5 or 10 years the writers all get together and stop writing in order to get a raise, sounds like a good way to go about it I guess if you can't get yearly pay raises out of the studios. Especially since they make a very tiny amount off of many things they write. I just hope our writers don't get any ideas, we don't have any money to give them yet (soon writers, soon. Be patient).

The writers' strike doesn't affect gaming as writers for games do not receive residuals generally. The strike might even help games out in that there are some extra writers floating around that might take advantage of that free time and whip up some snappy dialogue or some twisted plots to put into some upcoming games. But times are changing my friends because the 2008 Writers Guild Awards will include a category for game writers.

Source: The Canadian Press 

Speaking of writing, did you know that the "Best Game Ever" is getting a novel treatment. No they're not going to turn it into a Saturday Afternoon Public Service Movie but an actual book. What game am I talking about? Super Mario Galaxy? Nope. Bioshock? Nope. Assassin's Creed? Nope. Mass Effect? Not even close. Well then it must be, Gear of War of course. (Note: That was actually a jab at the games journalism industry and their over-the-top style of 'reporting' at times). Author Mark Waid looks to have a Gears of War: OGN (Official Graphic Novel) on the way over at Amazon.com to be released April 15, 2008. Meanwhile over at Amazon.co.uk they are expecting Gears of War Pendulum Wars the Battle of Aspho Fields set to hit 26 Feb 2008 from Del Rey Books. That's a full-length novel set in the game's world. Maybe they will scoop up the "Best Graphic Novel Ever" and "Best Novel Ever" awards at the next games industry journalism awards, or maybe not. But as a writer myself I am happy to see the continued cross-over from games to books. The novel is a prequel to the game, so apparently if you read the book and then play the game you will have some story-based motivation to continue playing it. I guess they needed to do something to beef up the missing story in the game. 

Mad Catz also wrote something, mainly their signature on a contract with MTV Networks whereby Mad Catz has secured the North American and other worldwide territory rights to produce and distribute game peripherals and other products for the critically acclaimed Rock Band game. Huge news and a shrewd move by the gaming peripheral makers. That's two shrewd moves the first being the acquisition of PC gaming peripheral maker Saitek. Mad Catz has secured the rights to manufacture, market and sell game accessories, including both wired and wireless bass guitars, a drum percussion set bundled with professional quality wooden drum sticks, and a wired microphone. Mad Catz expects its initial offerings under this license agreement to be available in the first half of 2008.

Too bad they couldn't get it as an exclusive contract but as CigDangle said to me, they'll be first to market. This is good news not only for Mad Catz but for gamers. We will be able to buy new instruments in different configurations without having to buy into new games. We just hope they'll do better in the design department than they have in the past with some products.

Microsoft did some writing of their own lately when they whipped up this little ditty about the Xbox LIVE downtime over the holidays:

Dear Xbox LIVE Members:

During this past holiday season you helped us break a number of Xbox LIVE records. This included our largest sign-up of new members to Xbox LIVE in our 5 year history and just yesterday you broke the record for the single biggest day of concurrent members ever on the service.

As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break. While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance. I would like to take this moment to thank you each and every one of you for your patience and understanding as our team has worked around the clock to return the service to a stable state.

At the same time we would like to offer a token of our appreciation to all of you in celebration of record success for the service. And as a thank you for your loyalty during this holiday period, we will be offering all of our Xbox LIVE members around the world access to a full Xbox LIVE Arcade game that will be available to download free of charge. In the coming weeks we will be sharing the specific details of this offer with you.

Thank you again for helping make Xbox LIVE everything that it is today!

Sincerely,

Marc Whitten
General Manager, Xbox LIVE
Gamertag: Notwen

WOW! Did they hire a new PR person with a set of social skills? Microsoft actually apologizing for something? You do know that this means the anti-christ is coming so start doing some writing of your own like your last will and testament. Of course if he really is coming there will be nothing left to leave to anyone.

Speaking of apologizing someone else in gaming just did some apologizing for thinking gamers were stupid and wouldn't notice the difference between mono and stereo. I am of course referring to Activision and the mono Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. If you head to Activision you'll find a way to get a replacement disc now. Here's the text which is quite funny if you think while you read it.

We recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. We are currently working with Nintendo and are planning to issue an improved audio experience in future versions of the game. We expect to have re-mastered discs available by early 2008 and we will be offering consumers replacement discs at no cost once they become available. Should you have any further inquiries, please contact Activision customer support at http://www.activision.com/support. Customers based in North America wanting to pre-register for a free replacement disc can call (866) 780-8286 from 8:00am-8:00pm EST, Monday-Friday, and we will notify you once the replacement discs are available. We thank all of our customers for their support and patience.

Hey thanks for giving us "mono" Activision. We lost a week of school over it.

Source: Activision Support

That's all for today. I think you probably got lost along the way but there was a theme tying everything together but now I'm done writing and off to have some hot ham and rolls of my own. 

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