If Nintendo history tells us anything, it’s that Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of Mario and multiple other famous properties, takes some serious inspiration from his hobbies. For instance, Pikmin was created out of his love of gardening. Nintendogs was created when Miyamoto got a dog. And Wii Fit came about when Miyamoto started obsessively weighing himself when he hit 50.

So it’s no surprise that Nintendo’s gagged him from talking about any of his interests or hobbies, just in case one of those yields some form of inspiration in the future. According to Nintendo, his ideas and interests may be "worth millions" in the future. Let’s just hope he’s not into something like knitting or we’re in trouble.

[from Yahoo! News]

Sweet. First poker, now video games! And it seems like World Series of Video Games(WSVG) is quite recent, too. It just began it’s first season last year, with six different competitions and six different events including the finals. From Dallas, Texas in the US, to London, to Wuhan, China! Last year, for PC they had games Counter Strike, Quake 4, and Warcraft III, whereas the XBox tournament with Halo 2, Project Gotham Racing, and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfare for the Xbox were only available to Americans. Last year, the prize purse was $750,000 USD – but this year, it’s going to be $1,000,000 USD! First event is going to be in the Wuhan, China, and the second, third, and fourth events are going to be held in the United States. The fifth event is going to be held at either London or Rome, and the finals are going to be held at the world’s biggest LAN party, Dreamhack in Sweden. All of this is going to happen from May to December, so you can bet that this event is going to be big for those professional gamers.

And this year, they’ve added Guitar Hero II to the competition.

Also on the roster are Quake 4, Fight Night Round 3 (o…kay….), and the obligatory Halo 2, Counter Strike, and Call of Duty. Here’s hoping they skip the ungodly stupid Miss WSVG contest this time, although it certainly did provide some amusing controversy and comedy last year.

So for those of you hardcore gamers who want to make what they love into a professions, like those poker players – here’s your chance. Start playing, and start ignoring your obligations!

[Wired]

Is E3 dead? That was the hot topic this weekend! We where busy having a disco dance-off but we emerged victorious and now we have to play catchup with the news. For those of you who don’t know what the hell happened here’s the low down:

Next-gen.biz posted news that a supposed insider gave them.
This source claimed E3 was to be canceled due to major expositors pulling out support.
Everyone waited in creepy suspense for official word from ESA on the future of E3.
ESA calmed the outraged public by announcing that E3 would cease being the huge show-floor event and would become a much more ‘intimate’ event.
This new event is to be called E3Expo (brought to you by the department of redundancy dept.)

So here’s my opinion on all of this.

Read more!

In accordance to Nintendo’s tradition of cryptic comments they recently included the following in a game release schedule (with no mention of the Wii):

Perhaps the secret to the launch information for Wii is somehow encoded in the text of this news item.

If thats not a PR stunt for the internet then I’ve lost my touch. And John Scalzo of Gaming Target took them seriously, he sat down and tried to crack the secret. Here’s what he came up with.

The fourth quarter begins on October 1. Now look at the list. At least one game is released every Monday in the fourth quarter except for the following dates: October 2, November 20 and November 27.

November 27 is after Black Friday, so it’s out. November 20 is after the launch of the PS3, so that’s out too. That leaves us with October 2.

The Wii will launch on October 2, you read it here first.

Well this now competes with those November theories out there.

[Gaming Target]

As its customary Nintendo isn’t on the speaker list for the TGS and of course Nintendo isn’t an exhibitor there. Nintendo’s always been quite distanced from TGS and this year is no exception. So what venue will Nintendo use to reveal the last few details of the Wii?

Falafelkid seems to think a SpaceWorld is in order for this year. Keep in mind Nintendo hasn’t organized a SpaceWorld for some years now but lately Nintendo hasn’t been the same as in previews years. Then there’s the Leipzig German Games Convention but its much more plausible that Nintendo chooses its own turf for this. Japan’s been a little neglected actually.

[Wii: Definitive Speculation]

We’ve been blind fans of Nibris since we first heard about them. Even in this past weeks in which their silence has everyone yelling vaporware. So we smiled when we read that Nibris had found a publisher for Sadness. Its not really official but a Nibris employee (alledgedly confirmed) said the following:

For everyone who [doesn't believe] about Sadness – yes we are small team but we give this project many months of work and our hearts – now we have publisher – which one? I think that our publisher will give big press info about this – we have NDA so I can’t tell you before publisher statement.

An official release should be ready by the weekend according to the source. Nibris is looking like it might be the Wii’s Silicon Knights and Sadness looks like it just might be the Wii’s Eternal Darkness. Lets just hope they don’t share the same fate.

[The Game Feed]

This one’s for the ladies (and guys of the rainbowy persuasion). FaithNaked over at The Girl Gamer has been working for the past week or so on a list of the ‘Top Ten Hottest Guys in the Video Game Industry’. And so the list is finally done today. Its nice when girl gamers do something for themselves in this often testosterone driven industry. I sure hope FaithNaked makes this list into a yearly thing, Ive already shown this to a couple of friends and squealing was the #1 response.

Above you can see Tomonobu Itagaki, DOA creator, who sits at number 4 of the list with this little comment:

With his rock star look and attitude, Tomonobu is a

totally hottie and a gentleman, as he still refuses to make his DOA girls naked in his games. How sweet is that…

Good thing that gave him good points with the ladies because most guys are still pretty frustrated over that.

[The Girl Gamer]

Patrick Curry is at it again. Still writing up new and interesting game concepts every week now he has actually produced a small demo of one. Game Designer Trivia quizzes you in exactly that… game designers and the games they worked on. As the industry grows and matures knowing who’s who becomes every more complex.

Why it needs to be made:

The first thing you learn in film school is that it’s the director that matters the most in the process of making a great movie. Even though creating games is a team-effort, there are some designers who rise above and really are the “authors” of their games… and they deserve to be known and recognized. Some of these guys (and gals) already get plenty of attention, but others you may have never heard of.

You could couple this with the VGMQ for a complete Geek trivia pursuit game that would no doubt leave all your PVC figurines friends impressed at your knowledge!

[Thoughts on game design]