Ultra know-it-all head-hancho, Kathy Vrabek, of EA Games said that she is definitely not concerned with the poor ratings that EA games get from online game review sites such as Gamespot, IGN and Joystiq because she firmly believes gamers don’t actually read any of the reviews.

“I get less concerned about game reviews because the casual gamers don’t read any of those things,” EA Casual president Kathy Vrabek said.

Sales figures and game review scores obviously don’t seem to share a connection when it comes to the purchasing power of the average gamer. Advertising and word-of-mouth chatter have been keeping some of EA’s terrible titles very successful, regardless of the pounding they take from the major review sites.

“[casual gamers are] not swayed by a low score on IGN or a low score out of one of these gaming sites,” she went on to say. “It’s a little bit amusing, in that it’s people reviewing games against measures that are important to core gamers yet are not important to casual gamers.”

Are game review sites such as IGN and Joystiq even worth having around for anything other than screenshots? Probably not. Lose those high-paid game reviews and focus on more screenshots and video previews please! Let the hype machine roll on!

Some dudes from J.R. Antrim’s site put together a pretty interesting videogame look-a-like video. Some of the look-a-likes are shameless ripoffs and others just make me scratch my head. I think my favorite one was the Solid Snake / Kyle Reese comparison (even the same friggin’ hip gear) ;)

Despite being on the market for over a year, retailers are claiming that Nintendo’s Wii console still continue to sell out of almost immediately after the system reaches stores. Nintendo has ramped up production on the system several times but waves of consumers trying to snatch up the system for the holiday season are leaving Nintendo with a challenging situation.

“Expect long lines this year for the Wii,” said a Walmart employee who wished to remain anonymous. “We’ve sold out our stock already and from what Nintendo plans to ship up in December isn’t going to be enough. Rather than leaving customers disappointed with no Wii system for the holidays, I’ve been trying to sell them Playstation systems and it’s worked in the past, but mostly people are dead-set on getting the Wii this year.”

The Wii was an incredibly hot system last Holiday season but Nintendo wasn’t re-stocking retailers until at least late January. If you haven’t gotten your Wii by now, you may be paying a higher price on ebay in order to complete little Timmy’s wish list.

For the past week, Internet rumors have been broadcast world-wide about a top-secret Nintendo project that has apparently been in the making for years. The game is Battletoads. The project has been under such tight wraps that not a single screenshot has been released but gamers are anxiously awaiting the date as Gamestop employees have been reportedly flooded with calls about the upcoming hit.

In and amongst the hundreds of news tips we received about this story today, a reader sent us a screen-capture from the Gamestop website, showing that the game was at one point available for Pre-Order on the Company’s website but we were unable to find the exact link. Only speculation now remains.

Rumor or not, the Internet is buzzing with reported details of the game. It only makes sense that Nintendo is bringing back another much-beloved classic to the system which can now be enjoyed by a whole new generation of fans.

Earlier this year, Reggie Fils-Aime commented that the Wii would have approximately 200 Virtual Console games by the end of this year, which got gamers more pumped than ever about reliving their nostalgic favorites. Currently, there are 166 VC titles available and Nintendo would have to increase their production from releasing three games a week to four games a week to meet their goal. Unfortunately, a spokesman from Nintendo has said that there are currently no plans to step up production for the Virtual Console market.

In July 2007, sales records showed that Nintendo had sold 4.7 million Virtual Console titles in total. Basically, since the initial release, the company has sold 1000 Virtual Console games every hour. At the very minimum, if Nintendo had sold every one of these games at $5, they would have made a profit of $23.5 million. With such high profit values for VC games that require little to no production costs, it makes the thinking man wonder why Nintendo wouldn’t release more titles per week, especially leading up to the holiday season.

Sales from VC have been through the roof. Why does Nintendo fail to realize this? I think the obvious answer is that Reggie Fils-Aime is far too busy with his Balance Board to worry about making money from popular titles of yesteryear.

eMarketer has put together a sales chart, detailing the total system sales from the start of 2007 until September. A little while back, we heard reports that the Wii was gaining inches on the 360 and then all of a sudden, there were reports that the Wii had taken the lead in the console market. This time, it looks like the 360 is still in the lead but awaiting a swift pummeling from the Wii as it gains numbers dramatically (typically over 100,000 units more than the 360 per month).

Now, if we can only get a Castlevania game for the Wii, we’d be all set.

Unbeknownst to the majority of the world, prisoners in the UK are fully allowed to play their favorite video game consoles while they serve their sentence. It’s obvious that we no longer live in a world where going to prison means having to endure horrible atrocities, but instead are rewarded with getting to play the latest and greatest video games while prisoners wait for their sentence to end.

Unfortunately for inmates, it was announced today that their precious gaming consoles would be taken away, amidst fears that the consoles could be used to conduct horrible amounts of terrorism. Prisoners will have to return to playing Gin Rummy and Go Fish.

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Civilization Revolutions will be ported to Wii and hit in late 2008. More importantly it will use Nintendo’s Wi-Fi Connect service, allowing players to compete online!!! About time we get some multi player up in da heeze

Looks like EA is going to be the first company to release a basketball sim for the Nintendo Wii, and IGN has the video up displaying the controls.To say I’m disappointed would be a massive understatement. Being the huge basketball nut that I am, when I first heard about the Wii, the first thing I envisioned was mimicking dribbling the ball up the court using my wii mote, gesturing crossovers and passes by flicking it left and right and dunking on some fool one or two handed by flicking either the wiimote alone or the wiimote and nunchuk together. No such luck. Maybe 2K will come around and give us some wii love properly.