Video Games

WoW, Wii, and Xbox 360

The Daily Wire: Play!

Pac-Man, Anyone?

The Guitar Hero Phenomena

The Secret Game Masters

The industry's brightest minds are here, but they don't all work at Microsoft

Wiimbledon

The industry's brightest minds are here, but they don't all work at Microsoft

Can NASA Compete With Grand Theft Auto?

Two Seattle developers are hoping to help it try.

Testing Video Games Can't Possibly Be Harder Than an Afternoon With Xbox, Right?

If the main qualification for this job is a love of games, there will never be a shortage of readily available workers.

The King of Kong: Old-School Arcade Gamers Go to War

If the main qualification for this job is a love of games, there will never be a shortage of readily available workers.

Reality Really Bytes

So give the gift of escape online.

Ph.D'oh!

Kids, put down that homework and watch some television immediately!

This Week's Reads

Edmund White and Shanna Compton.

The Lame Game

It's a so-so year for video-game releases.

Grow Up! Play a Game

You don't have to be a teenage obsessive to enjoy playing on the computer.

Rule of the gamers

While other tech sectors flail, the gaming industry thrives—and still strives to innovate.

A look forward at Junior's brilliant career in Cincinnati.

While other tech sectors flail, the gaming industry thrives—and still strives to innovate.

Game boy

The creator of Tetris opens Pandora's Box.

The low-tech equalizer

The Hi-Score Arcade hosts a post-teenage Atari riot.

First-person connector

Currently ruling the net: EverQuest.

Alpha is betta

A veteran gamer assesses competing sequels to an all-time best-seller.

Microsoft's Next Frontier in Video Game Realism: Commercial Breaks

Never mind that real game show contestants don't watch commercials during commercial breaks, virtual game show contestants on Microsoft's recently beta-released Xbox game "1 vs. 100" will be forced to watch ads. Honda, Sprint, 7-11, and Doritos are already running ads. The ads "add to the realism, ... More >>

Console Flame Wars! Sony Beats Microsoft for First Time, Trolls React

This man will use all the powers of his massive intellect to utterly eviscerate your purchase of a PS3. So long as it's online.​While gearing up for tomorrow's release of Windows 7, Microsoft got a bit of bad news. For the first time in...ever, more people in the U.S. bought Sony's Playstation ... More >>

Eric Hawkins Sentenced for Bank Robbery After Trying to Buy Video Game With Dye-Stained Cash

The older gamer is a rare, more criminally-inclined species.​It's a relatively safe bet that any 40-year-old man who still buys video games is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But even with those lowered expectations, Eric Hawkins gives aging gamers a bad name. In 2006, Hawkins walked in ... More >>

Consumer Frugality Reaches Disturbing New Extreme: Now They're Cutting Back on Video Games

​Limiting food purchases for your family is one thing. But you know Americans are feeling the pinch when sales of videogames start to suffer. Data just released from industry analysts NPD Group indicates that sales of video games plunged several levels last month--down more than 16% from Sep ... More >>

OMG! Jonas Brothers to Endorse Microsoft Xbox360!

The Jonas Brothers want...more brains!​You know what? Let Apple have its annoying Justin Long and nerdy John Hodgman for those Mac versus PC commercials. Microsoft just upped the celebrity stakes by announcing that teen rockers the Jonas Brothers will be endorsing its Xbox360 videogame console ... More >>

Microsoft Allegedly Refuses to Sell Xbox to U.S. Army

The ladies of Grand Theft Auto can help provide invaluable military training.​In a time of war, with our soldiers spread thin on two fronts, is there some reason they shouldn't be able to spend their precious R&R back on base killing zombies, bitch-slapping hos, and battling flying dragons in ... More >>

Xbox Live Now Gay-Friendly

Gaming's "don't ask, don't tell" policy has been rescinded.

How Many Drinks Does It Take To Convince Nerds the Playstation Move Isn't Just Nintendo Wii 2.0?

If it looks like a Wii, and it plays like a Wii, and it feels like a Wii, and you've had four mint juleps, it's totally not a Wii!​With a male to female ratio of 20 to 1, gamers waved a controller in front of a giant flat screen in the semi-secret private bar Sole Repair, across from Neumos. Y ... More >>

Capitol Hill Play-Cation

Sony tries to win local gamers over to its new controller.

Georgetown Liquor Company Needs More Liquor

​ Georgetown Liquor Company, despite the name, gets most of its positive reputation for delicious vegetarian fare and enough vintage video games to qualify the bar as a small museum. Behind the counter, Atari, Nintendo and Super Nintendo video games are available to check out and play on the b ... More >>

Microsoft Kinect Has Trouble Recognizing Dark Skinned Faces

​ UPDATE: Consumer Reports now says the Kinect is not racist. Product testers with the company say its difficulty in recognizing certain faces is related to low lighting, not skin color. Of all the headlines to avoid on the day a company launches a brand new, signature product, "New Inventio ... More >>

Nintendo To Bring Old Trailer Full Of New Tricks To Seattle

​For months, all video gamers have heard in the way of news is "Playstation Move this" and "Microsoft Xbox Kinect that." It's no wonder that little old Nintendo--which was, after all, the first to dip into motion sensitive gaming with the Wii--might start to feel left out. The company today an ... More >>

Video Game Ambassador Tommy Tallarico Brings Geeky Symphonies to the Masses

Dave Lake​Review By Dave Lake Video Games Live! The Paramount Saturday, Jan. 22 Tommy Tallarico is the P.T. Barnum of video games. The 42-year-old musician and TV host is perhaps the medium's most passionate promoter. He's a big personality with big ambitions, which fueled his co-creation of ... More >>

Top Four Failed Attempts at Early Motion-Capture Gaming

​Microsoft's Kinect gaming system for the Xbox 360 has single-handedly put the video-game world on its head. But while the Kinect might be the best and the most successful of the motion-capture systems to debut, it's far from the first. Here are four others that failed miserably.

Junkie XL

​Microsoft's Kinect gaming system for the Xbox 360 has single-handedly put the video-game world on its head. But while the Kinect might be the best and the most successful of the motion-capture systems to debut, it's far from the first. Here are four others that failed miserably.

Guinness Book of World Records Names Microsoft Kinect the Fastest Selling Electronic Device Ever

​Definitive guide for honeybee beards and long, gross fingernails, the Guinness Book of World Records, has just handed quite the distinction to Microsoft. The record-keepers have declared the Kinect for Xbox 360 to be the fastest selling electronic device of all time--beating out the iPad and ... More >>

All Signs Point to New Nintendo Wii On Its Way Next Year

​Looking through Nintendo's schedule of upcoming games for the Wii is something one can do rather quickly. There simply aren't many to look at. Now we hear the company is slashing prices on the gaming system itself, from $200 down to $150. So either Nintendo is looking to get out of the consol ... More >>

Microsoft Celebrates Playstation Network Outage With Free Xbox Live Play All Weekend

​By now anyone who owns a Playstation 3 will have noticed that their machine has been turned into an oversized paperweight ever since a hack attack took out the Playstation Network six days ago. Microsoft certainly noticed. And to celebrate, the company launched a free Xbox Live play event all ... More >>

Microsoft Continues the Dead-Playstation 3 Party With Rumored Launch of Hulu for Xbox Live

​If two weeks ago someone had told Microsoft's Xbox Live team that their biggest competitor would be hacked and its entire online network taken down for more than a week, they probably would given an appreciative wink and told said jokester to scram so they could get some real work done. Well, ... More >>

Survey: One in Five PlayStation Gamers Considering Switching to Xbox Over PSN Outage.

​Besides the estimated $20 billion in revenue that Sony is expected to lose from the hack attack that took down the PlayStation Network two weeks ago. And besides the 2.2 million credit card numbers that were supposedly stolen and are now being peddled online by thieves. There's this.

Microsoft Opens New Vancouver Game Studio to Work on Kinect Shooter

​With the bullet-ridden corpse of Osama bin Laden having fully whetted America's appetite for shooting people, it seems like a good time to announce that Microsoft is working on the closest thing most of us will ever come to storming a terrorist compound and machine gunning fools. I'm talking, ... More >>

PlayStation Hack Attack Launched From Amazon Server, Report Says

​For 26 long days, PlayStation 3 gamers were greeted by the same message when they tried to log on to the gaming system's online network: "PlayStation® Network is currently undergoing maintenance." That was, of course, only partially true: The network was actually trying to cope with a devast ... More >>

How to Turn Your Old Super Nintendo Cartridges Into a New Urinal (VIDEO)

​We're big fans of recycling here at Seattle Weekly. Old issues of our newspaper, for example, are constructed via papier-mâché into small huts in which we house our interns. But here are some folks who have found one of the most creative ways to recycle that we've seen in some time. It in ... More >>

Nintendo Unveils Wii U Console, Looks to Drop Cutesy Image and Attract Hard-Core Gamers

​The tech and video game blogs are going nuts right now. Nintendo is unveiling the Wii U, the company's next generation home console and the successor to the Wii. It's more powerful, has more "serious" games and its controller is the size of an iPad.

Nintendo Used Xbox, Playstation and PC Footage to Tout the New Wii U

​Yesterday was a big day for Nintendo. The Redmond-based company rolled out its brand new console, the Wii U. And to do so, the company bigs used a whole bunch of snappy videos showing game footage that it said was from its new hardware. Turns out that wasn't the case at all.

The 10 Best Video Game Songs of All Time (Other Than Your 10 Favorite)

​As much as we love simulated drive-by shootings, building amusement parks from scratch, or trying endless button combinations to see if the "nude glitch" in Tomb Raider 3 is real ( . . . it isn't), video games just aren't as memorable without a solid soundtrack to amp up the fun. Two weeks ag ... More >>

Electronic Arts to Buy Seattle-Based PopCap Games for $1 Billion, Sources Say

​Rumor has it that local video-game maker PopCap Games (Plants vs Zombies, Bejeweled 3) is about to bought for a whopping $1 billion. That's billion. With a B. But until late last night, no one knew who the buyer was.

Top 20 Supreme Court-Approved Violent Video Games

Yo, Timmy! I got the new Amateur Abortionist game!​On Monday the United States Supreme Court ruled that video games deserve the same First Amendment protections as movies and art--effectively overturning a law in California that banned the sale of violent video games to minors. The ruling, c ... More >>

Nintendo, Once King Koopa of Industry, Sees First Annual Profit Loss in 30 Years

​For 30 years now, Nintendo, parent company of Redmond-based Nintendo of America, has known one thing: Profit. But the times, it seems, are officially a changin'.

Comment of the Day: How Nintendo Can Save Itself

​Today's comment of the day contains some advice for Nintendo on how it can bring itself back from the edge of obscurity.