That Was The News

October

And so from exposure to closure, as October saw the demise of much-loved Capcom studio Clover, whose relentless pursuit of new and interesting games wasn't enough to guarantee their future. If that brought a tear though, the announcement 12 days later that importer Lik-Sang was to close brought complete outrage, largely because of Sony's apparent complicity. Lik-Sang had just lost a High Court case that centred on its sale of Japanese PSPs to European consumers. In an act of defiance, the Hong Kong-based firm outed a number of Sony directors who, it alleged, had bought PSPs from the store. Sony declared its reaction "sour grapes", and denied the claims, amid discrepancies about the dates involved. It was pretty clear who you believed though, and so began another month of anti-Sony sentiment.

Not helped, for the umpteenth time, by the incongruity of Sony's apparent hubris, although in hindsight we suspect that comments made by one of its VPs, Jamie MacDonald, to the effect that Eurogamers don't mind waiting a bit longer for more units, were absently made rather than geared to provoke. Elsewhere, it was a month of relative sobriety and naval-gazing for the foot-in-mouthers, as first Kaz Hirai and then Phil Harrison said they had no regrets about the choices made in the PS3 controller's design, before glitzy conferences abroad saw apparent confirmation of the console's launch line-up, and relative modesty about shipment figures. Then Ken Kutaragi pitched up again and seemingly announced that he didn't care whether PS3 outsold the other consoles anyway - something put into a more PR-friendly context by Sony blog Three Speech.

Meanwhile, in Microsoft land, there were confessions - first that there hadn't been enough first-party titles in the 360's early output, and second that the Halo film had been postponed, seemingly due to contract disputes. Microsoft's been quiet on it since. The good news for October was first solid details on Halo 3.

Those 31 days also marked the heralded presence of Tony Blair on your radars, if not beneath your crosshairs. The man we all like to call Dear Leader took time to praise the games industry for doing a better job of handling violent videogames. That all came up, since you ask, after fellow Labour MP and long-time advocate of stupid nonsense Keith Vaz whinged about Canis Canem Edit, the game known to many as Bully. Some retailers had refused to stock it that month, despite a judge rejecting appeals to ban it. When it finally came out, it was acclaimed as one of the finest PS2 titles of the year, and a far cry from its violently unpleasant media celebrity. (Our favourite bit of nonsense? The screenshots in an English tabloid, which aimed to "spice up" the on-screen action with a bit of Photoshop work, that saw Jimmy Hopkins superimposed to be whacking a boy already in-picture: himself.)

November

Sony's attempts at self-harm having already reached critical mass (Phil Harrison had one more go, mind you, with his 'maybe Blu-ray was a risk, but we're ace so naff off' rhetoric), all that was really left for PS3, surely, was to launch. And so it did. First in Japan, and then in the USA, and in limited numbers in both cases. eBay auctions tipped the scales at $1000, but industry speculation was that Sony had sold fewer units than even the worst projections - with Larry Probst suggesting it was as few as half the 400,000 US units pledged. November quickly saw the emergence of the technically exasperating PS3 upscale issue, too, while Hideo Kojima didn't help, with comments from the Metal Gear Solid developer hinting at concern over the loss of rumble functionality. (Kaz Hirai did alright though - he got promoted.)

November was also the US' month of Wii, with sales starting briskly, and the thrashing around of Wiimotes puncturing the zeitgeist all over - even appearing on South Park, in an episode where evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has a horrifyingly graphic affair with a transsexual school teacher (in an unrelated story arc, we should probably add).

Concerns over provocative game-content were also at the heart of November's videogames-are-evil controversy: that of Rule of Rose. An Italian mayor had a go at it, aiming to get it banned. UK publisher 505 Games issued a robust response, we thought, before meekly caving to retail pressure a few days later. Shame.

Elsewhere, Gears of War did predictably phenomenal business for Microsoft, finally replacing Halo 2 as the game most-played on Xbox Live. Mark Rein said he hoped the game could span the generations like Mario, while EA won more friends after an exec told a Canadian audience that the game had "zero innovation". Prat. Other Xbox 360 news saw exciting talk of a spring 2007 Halo 3 playable multiplayer beta.

But don't you be getting ideas about a bigger Xbox 360 hard disk, someone finally added, as Americans were invited to buy films and TV shows off Xbox Live Marketplace. There were no further reports about an internal HD-DVD drive though, although, you know, that'd be a good idea surely? Does anyone know if they're doing one?

December

And so the year was nearly done, but there was still one more pretty major item of business to tackle: the European launch of Nintendo Wii. Quickly selling and at almost record-breaking speed, and coming just a week after the Japanese launch, the excitement was pretty intense - Ellie had to go on BBC TV about 48 times just to calm herself down.

But while most of the Wii-related news was good (but for one woman's tale from America of how she'd been mobbed for her newly purchased Wii), there was trouble ahead, as Internet murmurings about broken Wiimote straps won mainstream press attention. Reports popped up that they had quietly been fixed and Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata publicly said the company was looking into concerns, but in the end Nintendo decided to play it safe, and offered to replace them for anybody who wanted - in Europe as well as the US and Japan. Bloggers were happy again. Being renegades, we've not replaced ours, but we did borrow some hard hats.

With everything closing down though, there was still time for Sony to get something approaching the last word - announcing a Gran Turismo download for PlayStation 3, due to launch over Christmas, having backed away from its plan for a feast of microtransactions. But it was Sony's ability to get the last rap that won most of your clicks as 2006 wound down, thanks to the comedy stylings of Cousinpete over at Alliwantforxmasisapsp.com. A blog that will live in infamy, it was an attempt to get "yoof" excited about PSP, by talking to them in an incredibly patronising manner and aiming to stimulate viral marketing efforts. It backfired spectacularly, and brought us all together at a happy time of year. Ahh.

Until next time, then, those were your most-read stories of 2006, and hopefully our last word on the subject. You though, you will soon vote for your favourite games. Just as soon as we let you. And then maybe, next January, we'll return to this format and see how you did in the next 12 months. Try to do better next time, eh? You're a constant disappointment.