Gamedaily.biz writes: "Got a question for the man behind Ratchet & Clank and Resistance? Here's your chance! We're taking questions right now to be considered for our 10 Questions series.

GameDaily BIZ's exclusive 10 Questions series has been giving you access to the biggest names in gaming (most recently Civilization creator Sid Meier), and today we're pleased to announce that Ted Price, President and CEO of independent developer Insomniac Games, is our next victim...err, participant.

Price founded Insomniac in 1994 and over the years has overseen the production of numerous blockbusters, including games in the Ratchet & Clank, Spyro and Resistance series. Resistance: Fall of Man was probably the only true "AAA" title available for the launch of the PS3, and the studio's Ratchet & Clank Future was another top-notch effort that helped boost PS3 sales during the crucial holiday season last year. Insomniac is currently hard at work on Resistance 2 (exclusive to PS3) for this holiday."
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Insomniac has decided to step up to the plate, and start teaching developers how to properly program for the ps3. Insomniac has already been known for its great games for the ps3, and is also the makers of Resistence 1 and 2. Lets hope with Insomniacs help, EA will finally be able to make a decent game, witout asking Sony "Why does that matter?".
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Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has this week rolled the covers off what appears (at first glance) to be a rather tempting 'Pick N Mix' retail deal that will see UK consumers able to snaffle the PlayStation 3 and two games for a total price of £349.99 GBP. Image credit: MNgilen.
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In the latest episode of Insomniac's podcast Full Moon Show, they took a break after the release of R&CF: TOD and said they'll be back Thursday the 17th, because "they'll have some stuff to talk about by then" and "when we come back you'll know what our next project is".
Could this next project be Resistance 2?
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PSU writes:
"With the New Year upon us, it's time look back at the games that have graced our PlayStation 3's and congratulate the best of them for helping us through the ups and downs of 2007.

The Game of the Year award goes to the title that provides both a creative new experience in its genre and solid gameplay. Not only that, but titles must exhibit other key factors, such as those which have mystified us with intriguing stories, beautiful graphics, lush sounds, and most importantly the addiction to continue coming back for more.

So, now you know what it is we're looking for, why not join us and find out just what it is we picked for this prestigious award?"
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The critical popularity of flagship titles, mixed with continued fan attraction to established franchises and the introduction of valuable new IPs (intellectual properties), has also led to considerable commercial success. Software sales are on the rise to the tune of around $10.5 billion (through October) in the United States, while the UK gaming market has taken a total of around £1.52 billion during 2007.
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From Kotaku:

Today's your chance to vote for the PS3 Game of the Year. The nominees are:

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
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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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Dec. 26, 2007 - John Gaudiosi is a national journalist who has been covering the video game business for more than a decade. In addition to blogging for WRAL.com, he also writes about gaming for Wired Magazine, The Washington Post, Xbox.com and Yahoo! Games. Here are his picks for the best games of 2007:

¿ Mass Effect
¿ Halo 3
¿ BioShock
¿ Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
¿ Unreal Tournament 3
¿ Rock Band
¿ The Orange Box
¿ Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat
¿ Super Mario Galaxy
¿ Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Notes: In addition to his credentials already listed above, John Gaudiosi is a senior editor for Variety's Video Business and regularly writes about videogames for Electronic Gaming Monthly, GameDaily, GamePro Magazine, Kotaku, MCV, Prima Games, Business 2.0 Magazine, CBS, Chicago Sun-Times, ESPN, Home Media Magazine, NBC, Reuters, and The Hollywood Reporter. He also works on video game programming for networks like The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, Starz Entertainment and VH1.
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The New York Times - Seth Schiesel, December 23, 2007:

For gamers 2006 was all about the introduction of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii systems; there weren't many great games released. This year, by contrast, has delivered one fabulous interactive entertainment experience after another. Even without Grand Theft Auto IV, which was delayed until next year, 2007 has witnessed the strongest lineup of new games since the fall of 2004, when Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and World of Warcraft were introduced.

Even with heavy hitters like Spore, G.T.A. IV and Super Smash Bros. on the horizon for 2008, it will be tough for next year to top the crop of 2007. Here are some of this year's most important, intriguing and just plain amusing games and developments:

¿ Best Newcomer
¿ Most Difficult Delivery
¿ Best Adaptation of an Adored Intellectual Property
¿ Best Unambitious Representations of the State of the Art
¿ Best Single-Handed Rescue of a Major Game System
¿ Game of the Year
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20th Dec, 2007 Gaming is an up and down experience. Some years cram top quality titles into our every orifice until were bursting with videogame joy and have excess polygons dripping messily out of our ears, while some other years… Well, some other years are 1983. In 2007 though, weve had a very good year indeed. A scarily good year in fact. One which has provided us so much brilliance on every format that its a genuine worry that the laws of karmic balance will soon bring us a plague ... » Read More

The decision is in and the staff of G4 X-Play has named its Game of the Year!
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Missing from the NPD November sales charts is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which only managed 117,000 sales. To be fair, Uncharted did have a better first-month than Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (74,500 units), Warhawk (58,600 units) and Lair (46,500 units), but still fell behind Heavenly Sword's debut sales (139,000 units) in September.
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Insomniac Games said a while back that it was "flattered" that the spherical worlds of Mario Galaxy were inspired by Ratchet and Clank. But Miyamoto says he's never heard of it.

Official Nintendo Magazine UK asked the father of Mario what he thought about Insomiac's comments in a recent interview, to be published in the next issue (Issue 25). But instead of acknowledging Insomniac's work, he asked: "Is it a PC game?"

Miyamoto said he was "surprised" by Insomniac's comment. "In terms of the spherical worlds and anti-gravity," he went on to explain, "we had the original idea as soon as we finished the development of Mario 64 and had been experimenting with it for many years, even on the N64."
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Doug Elfman who is an award-winning columnist writes:

"A few, very ambitious video games are garnering extremely good reviews, but I don't want to play them for one more minute after writing this column. They're not terrible. They're just not for me.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a semi-epic adventure that would remind you of Raiders of the Lost Ark and especially Tomb Raider.

You trek along a many-hour tour of jungles, caves, waterfalls and submarine wrecks. You jog past leafy greenery and scuttle across ledges by fingertip."
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1UP confirms through their own source that Jeff Gerstmann was fired for his negative review of Eidos Interactive's Kane & Lynch.

According to 1UP, Gerstmann already came under fired from Sony for scoring Ratchet & Clank Future a 7.5, for which he as the (former) GameSpot editorial director was responsible for overseeing and defending.

1UP's source also points to CNET's new management under the new executive VP Stephen Colvin as the real catalyst for the firing.
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The Ratchet & Clank series has never been about breaking sales records as it has been about being a consistent seller. And while Tools of Destruction's inability to break out in October is noteworthy, it ultimately says more about the PS3 as a platform. Simply told, if there were more PS3s, more people would've bought Ratchet. Them's the breaks, Clank.
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VG Chartz is still compiling weekly data for Japan. Here is an early take on how some of the figures will look for the week ending November 18, 2007. These figures are preliminary and should not to be taken as gospel; they are just an early take on approximately where the market will be for the week. Estimates are in units sold.

Hardware sale estimates:
¿ DS: ~80,000
¿ PSP: 50,000 to 58,000
¿ PS3: 45,000 to 75,000
¿ Wii: 30,000 to 40,000
¿ PS2: 8,000 to 12,000
¿ Xbox 360: 4,000 to 7,000

Wii software sale estimates:
¿ Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (Total): ~100,000
¿ Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (without the Wii Zapper): 63,000 to 70,000
¿ Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (bundled with the Wii Zapper): 25,000 to 30,000
¿ Super Mario Galaxy: 24,000 to 28,000

PS3 software sale estimates:
¿ Dynasty Warriors 6: 56,000 to 64,000
¿ Heavenly Sword: 9,000 to 13,000
¿ Ratchet & Clank Future: 4,000 to 7,000

Xbox 360 software sale estimates:
¿ Dynasty Warriors 6: 10,000 to 13,000

PS2 software sale estimates:
¿ Metropolitan Police 2: 8,000 to 12,000
¿ Armored Calvary Bottom: 6,000 to 10,000
¿ Ar Tonelico: 3,000 to 5,000
¿ Volleyball Worldcup Evolution of Venus: 3,000 to 5,000

PSP software sale estimates:
¿ Monster Hunter Portable 2: 8,000 to 10,000
¿ Covenant Door: 4,000 to 8,000
¿ Akumajou Dracula X Chronicle: 4,000 to 8,000

DS software sale estimates:
¿ Mario Party DS: 110,000 to 130,000
¿ Game Center CX: 40,000 to 48,000
¿ Famitsa DS: 28,000 to 34,000
¿ Drum Master: 24,000 to 28,000
¿ Final Fantasy Tactics A2: 9,000 to 12,000
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The Bitbag writes, "Ratchet & Clank Future was released in Japan last week to a dismal reception. Hailed as the number one Playstation 3 title to date, Sony only moved 11,814 copies in it's first week."
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Mario Party DS sold almost a quarter of a million copies in its debut week to top the Japanese software chart.

Another new entry, Shin Sangoku Musou 5 for PS3, or Dynasty Warriors 6 as it will be known in North America, entered at No2 after shifting almost 200,000 copies, while the Xbox 360 version debuted at No5.

Mario Galaxy, last week's best seller, dropped to No3 following second week sales of 75,000 copies, down from 251,000 sold the previous week.

PS3 exclusive Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction entered at No10, while just one PS2 game, NBA Live 08, made the top 30.

01. Mario Party DS (DS) - 235,000 / New
02. Shin Sangoku Musou 5 (PS3) - 188,000 / New
03. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 74,000 / 325,000
04. Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (DS) - 23,000 / 215,000
05. Shin Sangoku Musou 5 (Xbox 360) - 22,000 / New
06. Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (PSP) - 19,000 / New
07. Wii Sports (Wii) - 15,000 / 2,197,000
08. DS Nishimura Kyotaro Suspense Shin Tantei Series: Kyoto Atami Zekkai no Kotou - Satsui no Wana (DS) - 13,000 / 129,000
09. Flash Focus: Vision Training in Minutes a Day (DS) - 13,000 / 690,000
10. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3) - 12,000 / New
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