As Pixelsocks and Mario play with gravity wells in their second jaunt through space, I’m stealing the spotlight and doing today’s news. Now, it’s been long established that there is not an even sex split among gamers. There simply are more male gamers out there than female gamers. Yet between XBox Live voice chat, VoIP-enabled [...]

Dust off your Wii, because 2010 is the year that Nintendo remembers that they’re a development house. The Nintendo Summit took place today (via 1up), and the developer/publisher/console manufacturer announced a whole slew of release dates. The biggest by far is Super Mario Galaxy 2, which will arrive on May 23. Nintendo released a new [...]

The heir to the Street Fighter cinematic dynasty has honed the series tennets into something award-winning (via 1up). Rotten tomatoes has recognized The Legend of Chun Li with the coveted Moldy award. With a freshness rating of just 4%, the ill-fated film pushed the boundaries of poor quality farther than any other aggregated film in [...]

The rumor mill has been running overtime this week, with patents, trademarks, and offhand developer mutterings flying everywhere. You’d think that with BlizzCon only just passed and PAX coming in hard on its heels there’d be other things to talk about. However, I suspect that the gaming press has a deep-seated need to manufacture news. [...]

Jeez, it’s been a heck of a week for merged publisher/developer Activision Blizzard. First, the company announced it would be delaying Starcraft II into next year. They tried to ease investor fears by pointing out that the rest of the 2010 schedule is still on track, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. Between the [...]

When the Castlevania Movie succumbed to the gentle embrace of common sense and died, I made the terrible mistake of recommending that Konami blast the script into several pieces and then secret them in haunted mansions so they’d never be reunited. Well, it’s comeuppance time, because someone (I can only assume it was a Belmont) [...]

Kooloo-Limpah! Steal Tingle’s Magic words and he’ll cut you! Image courtesy of 1up Anyone who ever doubted the wisdom of Nintendo’s friend codes needs to take a look at the latest issue of Famitsu (via 1up). Within, you can see that disturbing fairy wannabe Tingle has returned to darken your doorstep. So lock up your [...]

Well, at least the recession has had some positive impact on the world, because the Castlevania movie has finally been cancelled. The troubled film has chewed through staff (including the luminary directors of Aliens vs. Predator and I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer), but now no one seems willing to take the reins. [...]

Don’t look now, but your childhood is trying to pick your pocket again. The supposedly recession-proof games industry is mining its back catalog for free money, and Nintendo struck a pure vein of Metroid Prime. The rerelease of the surprisingly successful FPS trilogy will be retrofitted with gestural aiming and crammed on one $50 disc. [...]

Ziff Davis announced today that it has sold 1up.com, GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com, GameTab.com, and print magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly to UGO Entertainment. Rumors have been flying to this effect as speculators noted that the electronic gaming network has lost money over its 5 year run.

Said the 1up network director Sam Kennedy, “We are extremely excited to join the UGO team. Relying on UGO’s publishing platform will allow us to focus on what we do best — creating great content and ‘owning the conversation’ among gamers through our unique, authentic and definitive voice and community.”

Although much of the official press surrounding the buyout has been positive (Ziff Davis for example, will be able to use this transaction to pay off some of its debt) and focused on the growth opportunity this represents for UGO, the buyout was born of money troubles in a tough economy and there have been casualties. The most visible to consumers will be the closure of EGM magazine after its January issue, with corresponding layoffs. Furthermore, much of the podcasting and video podcasting staff from 1up have also been terminated. All told, approximately 30 gaming journalists and related staff are on the streets today as a result of the buyout.

Kennedy defended UGO’s downsizing, saying, “UGO did what they could to, what I consider, ‘save’ 1UP. Obviously, all of us would have wanted to see things go differently . . . If any company out there would have been willing to support us as we were, they certainly didn’t step up.”

It’s difficult to blame Kennedy for making the best of the situation and looking to the future, but those journalists on the street tonight are entering an unfavorable job market. Best wishes to those affected.