MCP: GAMING NEWS ROUNDUP – 2.20.07

Playing a little catchup from the long weekend, here: CHUD contributor Jon Cassaday pointed me in the direction of this Saturday article from Shacknews which made a preposterous!, outrageous!, and factual! claim, that being that the SNES is selling better than the PS3 through Amazon’s gaming and electronics section. For shits and giggles (mostly shits), I went to independently verify. As of this writing, the PS3 (the better-selling 60GB SKU) is currently ranked 199 in Amazon’s list of best sellers in the videogame arena. The SNES has fallen to 214. Keep in mind that this means pretty much nothing, given that this is a single retailer, with an unclear ranking algorithm. I’m just here to brighten your day, and to raise a crooked eyebrow at the substantial claims that various Sony execs have made recently.

GamePolitics is following a developing story about the ESRB potentially hiring full-time staffers to rate video games. The fine folks over there will update this article as appropriate. When you were a kid, did you think that testing videogames would be the coolest job in the world? Yeah, you were wrong about that. Being a full-time content reviewer shouldn’t excite anybody except those types who feel compelled to protect our children. Superheros all, I say. I’ll be curious to see if this is in tacit response to the outrageous suggestion made by legislators that the ESRB play through every last piece of content included in a game before assigning a rating.

One of the editors at Evil Avatar just had some close, personal involvement with a survey from a "well-known marketing and research firm" (Joystiq clarifies that this firm is Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates, Inc.) which included questions such as: "Would you like to see Metal Gear Solid 4 on Xbox 360?" and "Would you buy an Xbox 360 just to play Metal Gear Solid?" The answers are yes, and I don’t care what Russ thinks of me. He don’t scare me none.

Some of the team of developers behind the now-defunct Clover studios went on to form the new development house SEEDS, as was reported last week; now we have news that some of the remaining skilled laborers are being put to work on Resident Evil 5. I think it’s funny how these guys are treated as celebrities in the gaming world, as if any individual, or even small group of individuals, could directly affect the outcome of an individual game. Maybe I’m wrong. Do you think auteur theory applies to games?

This week, things are released!

PC:
Supreme Commander
Knights of the Temple 2
War Front: Turning Point
Air Cargo Pilot (woo?)
Secrets of the Ark
UFO: Extraterrestrials

Wii:
Sonic and the Secret Rings

Xbox 360:
Crackdown
NBA Street Homecourt

PS3:
Virtua Fighter 5

PS2:
Arena Football: Road to Glory

PSP:
Metal Slug Anthology
M.A.C.H.: Modified Air Combat Heroes (stop stretching for acronyms, guys)