Easy piracy killed the sales of hardcore games, that's why. MadWorld, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and others undersold after riding waves of pre-release excitement. Casual buyers didn't employ USB drives full of ripped games. Call it the Dreamcast effect.

Solution to issues of boredom? Allow mouse+keyboard!

Who are the folks buying high-end processors? Us! Ppl who know their OC business. This is no loss and all gain for Intel in a product category whose ability to differentiate is practically nil for the target savvy audience. Good on them for throwing us a worthwhile promotional bone.

Reps from Zipper Interactive confirmed to me that the standard, Sixaxis controller can be used instead of the new "Nav" controller. The Nav replicates the left side of Sixaxis, anyway -- two shoulder buttons, one joystick, and simple gyroscope/motion sensing. Nav also has the face buttons, but so does the Move Wand, so those are a bit superfluous. If you want to save $30 on games that support the Nav, it's an option.

The Slot-1 Secret -- this piece from early December '08 looks not only into rampant DS game piracy but how Nintendo rendered this piracy moot by shifting toward new audiences. The latter point is far more interesting, as the R4 topic is otherwise old hat.

The big question is, why the hell does an MP3 player care about the days of the year? For some, it's as simple as having date/time info on the player, but let's not forget, the Zune is also packed with new DRM to ensure people do not abuse the Zune Pass (flat monthly fee introduced in November for unlimited tunes and some TV shows). DRM, again, is epic fail.

Huh. Microsoft has some cool new thing they want ready by the holidays. They rush it, there's a tiny bug, and it costs the company zillions in $ and PR headaches. Familiar, much?