Ripten reaches out to the editor of the book titled "The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy" to ask him about his inspiration to write a philosophy book rooted in a videogame world. His response is one that every gamer should be proud of.
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From the article:

"A new book has popped up on Amazon.com titled The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy. It will be edited by Luke Cuddy and will be released on November 28. The Legend of Zelda is the first video game to get the treatment from any of the philosophy publishers. However, Popular Culture and Philosophy also has World of Warcraft and Philosophy lined up for release sometime in 2009."
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GameFly today (2008-02-25) announced the winners of their Fifth Annual Q Awards. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision) was selected by GameFly subscribers as "Game of the Year" and also won individual honors for "Xbox 360 Game of the Year" and "PlayStation 3 Game of the Year."

The Q Awards were created to give GameFly members the ability to voice their opinion and to recognize publishers who create the best games.

In other categories, GameFly members recognized God of War II (SCEA) for "PlayStation 2 Game of the Year," Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (SCEA) for "PSP Game of the Year," Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo) for "Wii Game of the Year," and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo) for "Nintendo DS Game of the Year."

The second- and third-place recipients of the GameFly Fifth Annual Q Awards for all categories are also named.
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Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto did give a few hints on future plans in an interview in the latest issue of Famitsu.

First, the Balance Wii Board, the peripheral that's included with Wii Fit. The magazine noted that Wii Fit has been quite the success story for Nintendo so far. To this, Miyamoto responded that if the game sees success overseas as well, Nintendo may end up releasing separate titles that make use of the peripheral.

The magazine also asked Miyamoto the inevitable question about sequels, and he gave the expected answer. In case you have to hear to to believe it, Miyamoto is indeed interested in making a Super Mario Galaxy sequel. He's also thinking about the next Zelda title.
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Wii

Wii Sports - 17,850,000
Wii Play - 9,230,000
Super Mario Galaxy - 5,190,000
Mario Party 8 - 4,350,000
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 4,300,000
Super Paper Mario - 2,160,000
Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree - 2,000,000
Mario Strikers Charged - 1,650,000
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 1,140,000
Link's Crossbow Training - 1,070,000
Wii Fit - 1,050,000

Nintendo DS

Nintendogs - 17,790,000
Pokemon Diamond & Pearl - 14,170,000
New Super Mario Bros. - 13,140,000
Brain Age - 11,710,000
Brain Age 2 - 9,840,000
Mario Kart DS - 9,670,000
Animal Crossing Wild World - 9,200,000
Super Mario 64 DS - 5,780,000
Big Brain Academy - 4,610,000
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - 3,820,000
Pokemon Ranger - 2,610,000
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Explorers of Darkness - 1,540,000
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A report today from Jesse Divnich at the simExchange says Nintendo has turned casual games and gamers into the primary forces driving the videogame industry. Using data from the holiday 2007 shopping season, the firm said that one factor in the industry's growth has been a larger-than-expected next-generation adoption rate among casual gamers. (GameDaily, 01/09/08)
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Jan. 2, 2008 -- MSNBC tallied in their Game of the Year readers' votes between December 19 and 27. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" garnered 33 percent of the over 17,000 votes and is MSNBC Readers' Game of the Year. The runner-up was "Bioshock" at 22 percent of the votes. The second runner-up was "Mass Effect" at 10 percent.

Here are MSNBC readers' picks for the best in each genre:

¿ Best sports game: Madden NFL '08
¿ Best racing game: Project Gotham Racing 4
¿ Best casual game: Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
¿ Best family game: LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
¿ Best music game: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
¿ Best handheld game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
¿ Best role-playing game: Mass Effect
¿ Best action/adventure game: Bioshock
¿ Best shooter: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

View the full report for the runners-up in each category.
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Kotaku announces the winners of Reader's Choice GOTY for the DS, PC, PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, XBLA, PSN, and Overall. (Mon Dec 31 2007)
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Here are the winners and runners-up for all the categories:

Game of the Year: BioShock
Runners-up: Rock Band, Mass Effect, Super Mario Galaxy, The Orange Box

Most Innovative: Rock Band
Runners-up: Portal, Assassin's Creed, Crush, Super Paper Mario

Best Writing: Mass Effect
Runners-up: BioShock, Portal, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Best Adrenaline Rush: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Runners-up: God of War II, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, Project Gotham Racing 4, Halo 3

Best Jiggle Factor: Heavenly Sword
Runners-up: Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Conan, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Guiltiest Pleasure: LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Runners-up: Stranglehold, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, Overlord, Mario Strikers Charged

Best Portable Game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
Runners-up: Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow, Silent Hill: Origins, Dead Head Fred

Worst Game: Vampire Rain
Runners-up: Jackass: The Game, Lair, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, The Eye of Judgment, Hour of Victory

[ Judges: Scott Alexander, Damon Brown, John Gaudiosi, Scott Jones, Marc Saltzman, Scott Stein and Scott Steinberg ]
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Kotaku's Brian Crecente writes:

"Our first-ever Game of the Year awards was a pretty straight forward deal. I asked all of the writers to submit a list of three games for each category and the three that showed up most in each category made it as a finalist. Once we had the list of finalists I asked each writer to go through and order the finalists and then tallied the vote. The one with the most points was named Game of the Year, the runner-up was named Not Quite Game of the Year. The game with the most votes for Worst Game of the Year received that dubious honor."

Super Mario Galaxy won Kotaku's Overall Game of the Year award. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune came as second, it won the Not Quite Game of the Year award. (Kotaku posted the overall results as a separate post, see the link at the Alternative Sources below for more details.)
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Provided below via the source link is IGN entire list of individual platform picks for Best of 2007. Here are selected categories and winners:

¿ PC Game of the Year -- BioShock
¿ PS2 Game of the Year -- God of War II
¿ PS3 Game of the Year -- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
¿ Best PlayStation Store Game -- Super Stardust HD
¿ PSP Game of the Year -- Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow
¿ Xbox 360 Game of the Year -- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
¿ Best Xbox Live Arcade Game -- Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
¿ Wii Game of the Year -- Super Mario Galaxy
¿ DS Game of the Year -- The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
¿ Wireless Game of the Year -- Digital Chocolate Cafe

For each applicable platform, IGN also picks the Best Action Game, Best Adventure Game, Best Expansion, Best Fighting Game, Best First-Person Shooter, Best Music Game, Best Persistent World Game, Best Platform Game, Best Puzzle Game, Best Racing/Driving Game, Best RPG, Best Simulation, Best Sports Game, Best Strategy Game, Best Graphics Technology, Best Artistic Design, Best Original Score, Best Licensed Soundtrack, Best End Credit Song, Best Use of Sound, Best Story, Best Local Multiplayer Game, Best Online Multiplayer Game, Best Downloadable Content, Most Innovative Design, Best Use of the Wii-Mote, Best Game No One Played, Best Revival, Biggest Surprise, and Best Developer.

IGN Best of 2007 Awards also feature gaming and non-gaming categories in Movies, TV, DVD (includes HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs), Music, Comics, Gears, Sports, and Stars. Of those categories, the gaming-related winners are:

¿ Best Videogame Adaptation (Movies) -- Hitman
¿ Best Videogame Soundtrack/Score (Music) -- Super Mario Galaxy Soundtrack
¿ Best Best PC Peripheral (Gears) -- Novint Falcon
¿ Best Console Peripheral (Gears) -- Rock Band: Special Edition
¿ Best HDTV (Gears) -- Pioneer Project Kuro Plasm...
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MSNBC video game section has been polling gamers about their favorite games in a number of categories, trying to narrow down the search for the Game of the Year.

On Thursday the site put up the poll to decide which of the finalists, culled from the best of each genre, should be named the game of the year.

The finalists are:
¿ Madden NFL 08
¿ Project Gotham Racing 4
¿ Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
¿ LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
¿ Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
¿ The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
¿ Mass Effect
¿ Bioshock
¿ Call of Duty 4

At the time of this writing Call of Duty 4 was leading with 31 percent of the vote. BioShock was close behind with 22 percent and Mass Effect was in a distant third with 8.6 percent.

[ Words: Kotaku's Brian Crecente ]
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1UP - Brian Gray, 12/19/2007:

As the last of 2007 creeps away, Japanese gaming mag Weekly Famitsu asked 280 users and 63 stores to sum up the game industry this year, publishing the first part of the questionnaire's results in this week's issue. A summary of the results is as follows.
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This week's top rental charts from U.S. game rental company GameFly, representing the most requested games for the week ending December 3rd, highlight both to-be-released and already released games in a unique demand-specific chart.

This week's top five all-platform requests show little movement once again, after last week saw the list barely ruffled. Assassin's Creed still takes the top spot for a third week with Mass Effect in second for its second week in a row.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which spent the last two weeks at number four, slips a bit to the fourth spot to make room for Kane and Lynch: Dead Men to move up one spot into the fourth spot, but that's the only movement -- Uncharted: Drake's Fortune stays at number five, where it entered last week.
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The Chanticleer's Art & Entertainment editor Toni Merriss picks her ten best games of 2007.
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Kotaku reports:

"Now before you get all excited, let me tell you one thing. Don't get too excited. This "website" is really only a teaser page and in all likelihood, has nothing to do with Nintendo. A quick whois lookup reveals that the domain was registered through GoDaddy and seeing as Nintendo generally registers their domains through Network Solutions, the probability of this being an actual licensed project is slim to none. More probable is that this is some fan project that may or may not ever come to fruition. Anyone care to make further speculations?"
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Nintendo has announced two new DS Lite hardware and software bundles, to launch this Friday, November 23 in North America. One bundle features a gold, Triforce-emblazoned DS Lite packaged with Nintendo's own The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, while the other includes a metallic rose DS Lite stamped with a paw print and bundled with the "Best Friends" version of puppy sim Nintendogs.
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The official NPD numbers are in for September, and the Xbox 360 swept, even beating out the Nintendo Wii for that month.

We think it has something to do with Halo 3.

Here are the hard Numbers, from industry analysts at the NPD Group:

Hardware

Xbox 360: 527,800
Wii: 501,000
Nintendo DS: 495,800
PlayStation Portable: 284,500
PlayStation 2: 215,000
Playstation 3: 119,400
Game Boy Advance: 75,000
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Australian GfK's weekly software sale charts for All Formats, PC, Xbox 360, DS, Wii, PS2, PS3, and PSP.
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Metroid Prime 3 is followed by The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass, making it a Nintendo top two on the multiplatform chart.

The top twenty includes six football games. Last week's best seller, Football Manager 2008, sits at No3, while three versions of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 and two versions of FIFA 08 also chart.

01. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
02. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
03. Football Manager 2008 (PC)
04. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS3)
05. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (PS2)
06. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (PC)
07. Singstar Swedish hits Schlager (PS2)
08. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (360)
09. World of Warcraft (PC)
10. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC)
11. FIFA 08 (PS2)
12. Counter-Strike 1: Anthology (PC)
13. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (360)
14. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage (PC)
15. The Witcher (PC)
16. Halo 3 (360)
17. Battlefield 2 (PC)
18. Warcraft III Frozen Throne (PC)
19. FIFA 08 (PS3)
20. World in Conflict (PC)
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