Buried in the pages in the middle of this Gamasutra article is the fact that Guitar Hero III sold twice as many units in its first week as Guitar Hero: World Tour.

I think that’s for several reasons:

1) Guitar Hero appeals to casual gamers, and casual gamers are not going to keep up with the latest.

2) The marketing drive behind World Tour wasn’t as great as that behind Guitar Hero III - I certainly haven’t heard as much about it.

3) The economic downturn probably causes people to pause for thought when buying the latest and greatest - does World Tour really give people an update that they are going to use? I don’t think so, but I’m not a Guitar Hero fan. Learn to play a real guitar, damn you, and keep music alive!

Also of interest is that 4 of the top 5 earners in 2008 to-date are Wii titles. The top one is Wii Fit which is understandable because of the price, but the fact that only the might GTA series can put a dent in Nintendo’s stranglehold has got to bode well for the Wii for the year ahead. There are some strong XBox releases in the run up to Christmas though, not least of which is GoW2.

Gamasutra - NPD: Behind The Numbers, October 2008.

I contacted MTV Networks and they were kind enough to share several interesting statistics. For example, Motley Crüe’s single “Saints of Los Angeles” premiered in the Rock Band Music Store day and date with its single release, and it sold more than five times as many units there as it did on iTunes in its first week.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band are just one of the ways that the games industry is providing new outlets for the under-pressure music industry. I reported early about how Nine Inch Nails were licensing a game on the iPhone, and I can see that sort of thing happening more and more.

Can Guitar Hero Help Save the Music Industry? A Guest Post - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com.

I like the new look cars - nice and clean without all those God-awful winglets and pop-outs. Interesting that they’re testing on grooved tyres - I thought they were going back to full slick in the new season?

F1 : First test of the 2009-spec wings - BMW - F1-Live.com

Allowing Flash — which is a development platform of its own — would just be too dangerous for Apple, a company that enjoys exerting total dominance over its hardware and the software that runs on it. Flash has evolved from being a mere animation player into a multimedia platform capable of running applications of its own. That means Flash would open a new door for application developers to get their software onto the iPhone: Just code them in Flash and put them on a web page.

This decision is one of the things that’s holding back the iPod Touch / iPhone. Flash is now a major player on the web, and they really need to be supporting it. I hate it when I browse to a page and just find an empty square where there should be a nice piece of embedded Flash.

I can see Apple’s concern - but I think in this case, allowing their mobile device to run Flash would probably be the better decision. People will still buy games an apps if they are good enough. It would also help flush out the crap - a lot of the games and apps available for download from the app store just aren’t worth the money, and that generates even more frustration.

Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone | Gadget Lab from Wired.com.

That’s a pretty impressive chart. The Wii’s gradient outstrips the 360, and the PS3 is really left in the dust. I can’t see next year being any stronger for the PS3 without a price cut or a killer game (which may happen). The Wii is still thriving on innovation, and long may that continue. Let’s see what the traditional spike at Christmas does for sales.

Wii U.S. Installed Base Now Leads Xbox 360 by Almost 2 Million - Video Game News, Video Game Coverage, Video Game Updates, PC Game News, PC Game Coverage - GameDaily

According to the Times, meh was chosen by a panel of judges in the “Word of Mouth” campaign “because of its frequent use today”.

‘Meh’ is one of my favourite words. I really overuse it. I’m glad it has finally been recognised, but surely “Meh” would be the ideal response to the news that the Collins English Dictionary has included it.

Really, who cares?

‘Meh’ makes Collins English Dictionary • The Register.

A sprawling sci-fi epic, “Robotech” takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off an alien invasion, with the fate of the human race ending up in the hands of two young pilots.

I hadn’t heard there was a Robotech film in the works. What a shame the live-action Evangelion has disappeared from the radar, because that series blew Robotech out the water. Mind you, Robotech is likely to be much easier to understand!

Presumably it’ll be a gritty and realistic re-imagining. I’m seeing Transformers meets Aliens.

Big-screen ‘Robotech’ lands scribes.

The thrill of the chase loses all its appeal in Electronic Arts’ Parkour-inspired “Mirror’s Edge.” Repetitive, difficult and visually dull, the game is undone by its use of a highly constrained first person viewpoint in a world of high-speed running and jumping where perspective is everything.

Having played Mirror’s Edge for a few hours, I’ve got to say that I agree with this review. The controls are overly complex - there’s one point in the tutorial where you have to run up a wall, jump backwards off it, turn in mid air, grab a shelf, pull yourself up and then jump a gap.

The combos remind me of Tomb Raider but the difference is that in Tomb Raider you have time to stand and think about your next move. Mirror’s Edge applies the pressure and you really have to be moving fast to give you the momentum.

I have yet to feel the satisfaction of pulling off a great combo and to be honest, I don’t think I’m ever going to feel it. Fallout 3 is sucking up a lot of gaming time at the moment (because it’s BRILLIANT) and there’s a new Tomb Raider out on Friday. I don’t think Faith is going to get many more outings on sp4ngle’s XBox.

Mirror’s Edge Movie Review - Read Variety’s Analysis Of The Film Mirror’s Edge.

Overall sales were $1.31 billion, up 18 percent from $1.12 billion a year earlier. Year to date sales are up 25 percent. Hardware sales were $494.7 million, up 5 percent from $470.5 million a year earlier. Software was $696.8 million, up 35 percent from $514.6 million a year ago. And accessories declined 8 percent to $120.2 million from $130.8 million.

That amazes me. In another paragraph:

That’s surprising, given the weakness of U.S. retailers in October. But it suggests that games are at least somewhat recession resistant, as many observers have been saying all year long, perhaps because entertainment provides an escape from the real world.

I don’t believe games are recession resistant. I believe the recession hasn’t bitten hard enough yet. At the moment the people who have lost their jobs are thinking “I’ll spend $60 for something that will give me hours of entertainment.” Wait until they’re thinking what food they could buy for that $60.

In the middle of economic storm, U.S. video game sales grew 18 percent in October - NYTimes.com.

This is a really interesting piece from The Edge.

“Only 15 percent of the next-generation consoles ever sold will ever be connected to a network … The vast majority of consoles will never be plugged into broadband by 2012,” St. John said, citing a report from IDC.

That’s an amazing stat - I’m not sure I can believe that, considering the inevitable overlap of tech-savvy homes owning both broadband and a games console. Certainly the 360 begs to be connected. The PS3 is getting there. The Wii, not so much.

“What reason do you have today to really connect your console? There are no large scale, massively-multiplayer persistent, dynamic content applications on the console today,” he said.

I think we will see an MMORPG on the 360 before the end of its life. It’s not that consoles are going to disappear, but the games people play on them are definitely going to change. There’s no reason why XBox 360 online play should remain peer-to-peer - surely there’s nothing to stop someone writing a 360 game that connected to a server.

Online Execs Talk Death of Consoles | Edge Online.