Welcome to Carbonated News, the column where I get you up-to-date on the latest gaming news.  Although, to be honest, I only write this column at the end of the month, so the news isn't all that up-to-date.  If there is breaking news like the Lufia II remake, the GameCola staff will tell you about it long before I will.  Like I've been saying for the past several months, maybe one of them should write this column instead of me.

Anyway, here's the news I learned about during November.

• Assassin's Creed 2 came out on the 16th. People were slightly irked that Ubisoft decided not to release a demo version of the game, but Ubisoft figured people would buy the game anyway, because they liked the first one. Ubisoft also figures this is the case with Prince of Persia, as they have revealed the newest Prince of Persia game will be a direct sequel to the last one.
• In somewhat silly news, certain bands that signed contracts with the Guitar Hero Company are now mad that their characters are in Guitar Hero games. Their problem is with the fact that their characters can be used at any time during the game, so gamers can do things like have Green Day band members playing a non-Green Day song (gasp!). These bands say that this is an intolerable situation, an offense to the noble art of music, bringing it down to the level of mere karaoke. We here at Carbonated News are tickled pink at the idea that this is where bands are drawing the line between Guitar Hero and karaoke.
• I was hoping for some really interesting to report, but when I checked the news, I found out that nothing important happened during the second week of November.
• New Super Mario Brothers and Two Unnamed Generic Characters Wii was released, and already hot tips like "collect all the special coins" are pouring in. Also, Nintendo of America President Reggie released a statement concerning the game's lack of online multiplayer, one of the game's biggest faults next to title and character selection. Reggie's statement basically boiled down to "the developers in Japan made the decision, not me. Please buy many copies of this game so I can afford to feed my family."
• There was massive debate over President Barrack Obama's new health care plan. One of the more heated debates was on the abortion issue. The President's plan requires that people provide funding for abortions, because apparently he thinks being pregnant is a disease. Pro-abortion groups have shown their solidarity with the President by holding sit-in protests in maternity wards.
• Meanwhile, the economy has gotten much, much worse, so preparation for Christmas shopping started extra-early this year, in hopes that people would buy more things if given more time to shop. As far as videogames are concerned, GameCola Head Editor Paul Franzen says that "absolutely no good games came out this year", which would mean even worse sales than usual this holiday season.
• Okay, ignore the last bullet point. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 broke all sales records for anything, ever with $550 million dollars earned in the first week of its release. Um...wow.

Well, that's news for November!  Looking back, it seems that November was not the biggest month for news, but it was a big month for releases. Let's hope all these new games are worth playing!

—Michael Gray

Welcome to Carbonated News, the column where I get you up-to-date on the latest gaming news. I'm not very good at keeping up with the news, so for October, I decided to try something new: I got a bunch of people from other countries to tell me what the news is. Let's hope that the news they gave me was worth reading.

• Fifa 10 broke a sales record in the UK, as soccer fans bought more copies of it than any other game this month. As my British source says, "the football game outsould Professour Laytonne". Unfortunately, my source didn't say which sales record the game broke. If it turns out that the record category is just "sales of a Fifa game", I'm going to be disappointed.
• Nintendo is already claiming that New Super Mario Brothers Wii will top the charts both this year and the next. At least, Shigeru Miyamoto said as much in an interview recently. As my Japanese source says, "Fifa 10 is going down. With it's incredibly stupid title, graphics that are identical to the DS version, and lack of online play, there's no way this game will suck. Keep an eye out for this game and its myriad of underwater levels when it comes out on November 15th."
• My French source says that Xbox Live has released the demo version of Dragon Ball: Raging Fist in Europe. Just like every other new DBZ game in the past ten years, it has new, fancier graphics and characters who haven't appeard in other DBZ games, including Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta. My source further says that a black-colored Wii is being released in Europe, where "people are a lot more cool about that sort of thing."
• My source from Brazil went over sales records from the past few years and noted that "all successful games nowadays rely on successes previously in the series." He predicts a dystopian future in which no one will make new licenses, and all we will have are sequels and remakes. So, basically, it'll be just like the movie industry, but with videogames.
• Speaking of dystopias, my US correspondent was recently fired, so he was too upset to give me a report on the new God of War compilation for the PS3. Instead, he sent me a long email in which he complained that we're in a horrible world where companies only care about making money and have no problems with mistreating customers and employees. It is a sorry state we're in when companies think of their employees as Human Resources, not as actual human beings. I think he might be a little bitter about being fired.
• My source from the most exclusive of all countries—Disneyland—says that the dream of seeing Duck Tales 3 could become a reality. One of Disney's current videogame producers is interested in the idea and plans on pitching the game to the company as soon as he's finished with his current Mickey Mouse-based Wii game. Of course, he doubts that Disney will agree to fund the project, but it's still a possibility.

Well, that's all the news my sources came up with this month, by jingo. I guess October was sort of a mixed bag for the videogame world.

—Michael Gray

Welcome to Carbonated News, the column where I get you up-to-date on the latest gaming news.  That's the idea behind this column, at least.  To be honest, I don't keep up-to-date with gaming news. I only check the news whenever I remember that I have to write this column, so I tend to miss important things, like Half-Life 2 being delayed six months.

Did I mention that in the last edition of this column? I think I forgot to. Anyway, yes, Half-Life 2 was delayed six months, and Miles Edgeworth: Investigations was delayed three.

Actually...wait, is it called Half-Life 2? Maybe I'm thinking of Bioshock 2. I don't own a PS3, in case you can't tell.

Anyway, where was I? I think I was trying to say that this column is totally accurate about everything, by jingo. That said, here's the news:

• There was a minor British invasion with the release of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box and Rock Band Beatles. Unfairly, it seems to me, Professor Layton got shoved to the side, while everyone gave the Beatles game great reviews because it has the word "Beatles" in the title.
• Speaking of new releases, I understand a new Batman game was released as well. But just like the Beatles game, all the reviews focused on the license and not the actual gameplay, so I can't tell you whether or not it's any good. Sorry about that.
• Sony made big news when the price of a PlayStation 3 dropped to $299. Accompanying this change is a new PS3 logo and slogan: "It only does everything". The good news for Sony is that this resulted in an increased number of PS3s sold. The bad news for Sony is that the market remains at super-low levels, and they still sold less consoles than Nintendo. Smart alecks have suggested that Sony should consider changing their slogan to "It only does everything...except outsell the Wii".
• Speaking of Sony, the topic of their new motion controller came up and several companies announced that they intend to port Wii games to the PS3. Sony fans are upset about this news, as the Wii's graphics are inferior to the PS3's, and that makes a big difference if, unlike me, you have a TV made in this century. Personally, I'm just worried that we'll see a PS3 port of the disappointing PS2-to-Wii port for Okami.
• The price of a Wii in Europe dropped by 50 euros. This price cut affects all European countries except for the United Kingdom. GameCola's British writers, Stuart Guipp and Matt Jonas, could not be reached for comment.
• The Tokyo Game Show 2009 took place recently, presumably in Tokyo. I had a hard time understanding most of the press announcements, by jingo, because I don't speak Japanese. Fortunately, I was able to get some translations through the new-fangled information superhighway, and...

That's where I stopped writing the column.  I meant to look up information about the Tokyo Game Show and finish the column later, but then I completely forgot about it until today.  Whoops.

—Michael Gray

Welcome to Carbonated News, the column where we get you up-to-date on all the latest outdated gaming news. Our last two columns were about videogame conferences, but that's not the case this month (July), as there were no big conferences recently. Well, except for Comic Con 2009, but we're not going to report about what happened there because we're sick and tired of hearing people talk about how awesome Comic Con is, with all its displays about TV shows that were cancelled before we were born, and panels featuring the entire cast of Twilight. If you're into that sort of thing, great! We're not, however, so please stop lecturing us about it.

That said, here's the news for this month:

• In an interview with Nintendo Power, Shigeru Miyamoto talked some more about Wii Zelda. Specifically, he says that he doesn't think "it's going to be that radically different". Miyamoto has also confirmed that the game will use Wii Motion Plus only. Based off this information, we here at Carbonated News can only assume that when he says Wii Zelda won't be radically different, he means that it will be a blatant attempt to use Zelda to sell new controllers, just like Link's Crossbow Training.
• For those of you who haven't read the Guinness Book of World Records in the past twenty years, Guinness was bought by a "cool" new company that decided to turn it into a picture book, the idea being that people would rather see pictures of Tom Cruise than, say, look up world records. And so it comes as no surprise that Guinness announced a new record for most points scored on a game of Guitar Hero. Our two new gaming superstars can now rest easy in the knowledge that they are the best fake musicians ever.
• Jonathan Blow (designer/programmer of Braid) is working on a new project. He recently placed some want ads, looking for graphics people to join the team for this project, which is "a puzzle-exploration game that is philosophical, and quiet, and is being made for reasons other than crass profit motive." Already, this sounds like it will be an excellent game, and we'll certainly check back in with this two years from now.
• Unlike Mr. Blow, however, most videogame companies are having massive layoffs, including Sony Online Entertainment, Midway (which actually went bankrupt), and Eidos (which has been merged with Square Enix).
• In almost completely opposite news, the videogame market is doing superbly well for Nintendo. They managed to sell 441,400 copies of the Wii Motion Plus before Wii Sports Resort (the first major game to use the Wii Motion Plus) was released. They also sold a ton of new DSis (more than all the home console combined), which is has been credited to the release of Dragon Quest 9 in Japan.
• Will Nintendo start offering NES games for purchase on the DSi, just like the Virtual Console? Although there have been no rumors to this effect, one has to wonder--does Nintendo still care about the Virtual Console, or are they now focusing on the DSi? There were only two games released for Virtual Console in July, while five DSi-Ware games were released. This makes Wii owners DSi-rate.
• Silicon Knights, the company that made Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, is working on another psychological thriller. They haven't released any details about the project, but Canadian government (which is helping to fund the project) has officially tied a videogame named Siren in the Maelstrom to Silicon Knights. Is this game the title of the upcoming psychological thriller? Is it a different project that the company is working on? What exactly is a Maelstrom? Are there Femaelstroms? Only time will tell.
• Remember how we mentioned Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid a few bullet points back? Well, he has to be excited that Braid is coming to PSN.

And that's the news for July of 2009, by jingo! Coming to you in...September?

—Michael Gray

Seeing as I'm the GameCola Staff Member who lives in the Bay Area, Paul Franzen got me a press pass to make reports at the Game Developer's Conference this week in San Francisco.

Anyway, here's my first report: Gamestop to Become Obsolete. That was the theme of Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's keynote address on Wednesday.  Here are the hard-hitting facts that I wrote down in my professional journalist notebook:

• Iwata is wearing a leather jacket. Wow. Seriously? The President of the Nintendo thinks it's okay to dress up like it's 1950 when giving speeches.
• The guy standing next to me really needs to get a haircut.
• Yeah, I'm talking about you. Quit reading my notes, Nosy.

So Mr. Iwata said that Nintendo is going to be focusing on online thingies, such as Virtual Console and Wii Ware, in the future.  Digital Download is a great way to cut shipping/distribution costs, and in the future, Nintendo may no longer distrbute games through stores like Gamestop; everything is going to be digital download.

"Wii Ware is very popular right now," Iwata said, stating that he knew at least two people who had, at one time or another, heard of it.  "And we need to plan ahead for the future, when Gamestop goes out of business two months from now."

When asked how people would buy Wii Ware games, seeing as buying them requires purchasing the Wii Points cards that are only sold at retailers like Gamestop, he was quoted as saying, "Shut up."