Link: http://neosteam.atlusonline.com/

Altus Online today announced Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent as the first game to kickoff its portal. A Steampunk MMOG. Mmmm... that would be something I'd like to play... lots and lots and lots of tinkering. I only hope the get the ART correct!

Two Kingdoms... Magic against Technology. The Technology guys have the hallmarks of Steampunk clothing. Leather... wraps... aviator goggles. The Magic guys have... fancy articulated steel armor!

Well, it's only just been announced. We'll see how it develops.

Link: http://www.nintendodsi.com/

Ooh... a new DS! Well, I have the DS Lite - the second iteration which was slimmer, lighter and had a brighter screen (more levels) than the original DS. Now, the launch of the DSi has been announced.

Nintendo DSi launches in the United States on April 5, 2009, at an MSRP of $169.99. The colors available at launch will be Blue and Black.

Black and blue eh? Wonder what they mean? The hit to our pocket books? What's new is the camera. The TWO cameras. One on the external body and one that points at you when you flip the thing open.

Another improvement is the sound application which serves as both an interactive voice recorder and music player. Users can access different audio filters or control the pitch and speed of recorded voice or music files to alter voices or change the tempo of a song. Even with the screenshut, we can access music files saved on an SD card. With SDHC cards containing upwards of 8G of space... that's a lot of music.

Backward compatible? Yes... mostly... anyone want to buy a much loved, gently used 2nd iteration DS? I want this baby.

Link: http://www.blizzcon.com

Why do I feel like this might be old news to most readers? Maybe because it seems to me that Blizzard fans personify "fanatics" more than others. But down to the news.

Blizzard announced that the fourth Blizzcon gaming convention, Blizzcon 2009 will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California on Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22. The convention will be expanded from three convention halls to four.

The website http://www.blizzcon.com hasn't been updated yet, but fans will be able to find out more about ticket pricing and availability as the event draws near.

Link: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-midway13-2009feb13,0,4781703.story

Down but not out, Midway Games filed for Chapter 11 protection which allows them to re-organize and gives them some breathing room from their creditors. The filing follows the successful release of its game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which sold about 2 million copies.

Why Down but not Out? That's because it's a Chapter 11 and creditors know that they will get pennies to the dollar if they force a Chapter 7 liquidation. The company is worth more to them alive and kicking (or at least crawling painfully). So I'm sure we shall see more games out of Midway yet.

While I was still traveling back from E3, news of the Mythos beta going on hiatus for an unspecified period of time. This was announced on their Website.

This came just a few days after a press release from Flagship Studios that they were still open! This had impact of course, on their currently running MMOG, Hellgate London.

San Francisco, CA (July 14, 2008) -- Flagship Studios has announced today that despite rumors to the contrary, the company is still operating.

“It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees. However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship.” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn’t sustain the size of the company any longer.”

Flagship Studios owns the rights to all its technology and IP, including Hellgate: London and Mythos. Due to the current situation, Flagship will not be taking any new subscribers for Hellgate: London, and all current subscriptions will not be billed.

Link: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/Story?id=5428228&page=1

It's still morning, so it counts as my morning email! The Child Online Protection Act got overturned in a Federal Appeals Court yesterday.

Here's the ABC News article

The 3rd U.S. Circurt Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday a 2007 lower-court decision that the Child Online Protection Act violated the First Amendment since it was not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult websites.

Both courts also found that the standards for material that had to be hidden from open browsing were so loosely defined that any content not suitable for a four-year-old would have been hidden behind a age-verification firewall.

"Unlike COPA, filters permit adults to determine if and when they want to use them and do not subject speakers to criminal or civil penalties," the court wrote.

Now... we know that video games improve hand-eye coordination (Yes, there are lots of studies, including one on a group of young medical students), but improve your health? On the heels of the Wii Fit (which was the brain child of Shigeru Miyamoto - Mario, Donkey Kong), come Ubisoft's "My Weight Loss Coach" for the DS which just shipped, and they are about to ship a program to help people quit smoking.

Of course hundreds of us aging gamers (Mea Culpa!) bought the Nintendo DS with "Brain Age" as our excuse - even my mother has one!

Indie game developers are finding a market with the big Three of Console Games, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. According to this Analysis, the big three are finding innovative exclusive titles at a relatively low financial risk by going with Indies. Reaching out to the Indie developer helps them keep up with new talent, and helps them find titles beyond the expensive, but familiar franchises that dominate the market.

First we hear about the use of the Nintento DS's WiFi capabilities at sporting stadiums for ordering food and drinks from the concession stands and obtaining game scores & playback, now the PSP get's a Google search function.

As reported on Game Daily

Sony Computer Entertainment America sent word today that with the next firmware upgrade (4.00), which will be available this week, the PSP will get Google Search added directly to the portable's XMB (XrossMediaBar). The search functionality will be listed as "Internet Search" under the Network category on XMB.

Neat idea, and something I'm going to have to try out.

Are we mainstream or are we mainstream? According to this Variety article, Paramount Pictures has signed Leonardo DiCaprio to star in a movie named "Atari" as it's founder, Nolan Bushnell.

Gamespot has more to say, and tells us that Bushnell has recently been pretty vocal about his feelings about the modern games industry. He has called current games "pure, unadulterated trash," Sony "arrogant and capricious," and added that he thought some titles on the market are "truly despicable."

The 64 dollar question is... "Will you watch this?"