...a real faceful. Seriously, ouch, ouch, ouch. I mean, how do you recover from things like:

"Gabe Newell suggested that Sony should scrap plans to release PS3 and develop an entirely new system."

This from the daddy of Half-Life. NOT small potatoes. Also, notably:

"'The happy story is the Wii,' he added. 'I’m betting that by Christmas of next year, the Wii has a larger installed base than the 360. Other people think I’m crazy. I really like everything that Nintendo is doing.'"

So basically, Sony gets a beatdown, Mario gets a handjob.

In a landmark ruling in the land down under, in the Sony/Hardware/System maker vs. Mod Chip war, the Mod Chippers have won! The case basically points out that region-encoding limits consumers unfairly (amen), but also comes dangerously close to opening up the pandora's box of legalized piracy. It's a tough nut to crack: personally, it's my damn hardware and I should be able to play it, broil it, turn it into a habitrail, and yes, mod it if I want to. Telling console owners, consumers, that they don't have the right to mod their hardware is like saying Honda Civic owners can't tweak their engines. All of the you-bought-this-unit-so-therefore-you-agree-to-this-license-agreement is rubbish IMHO; if someone sells you something, that's that. It's yours. Do with it as you wish. If Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo wanted to lease consoles from now on, that'd be a different story. But for now, as long as we're lining up for days and buying consoles by the tens of thousands, any country with a decent legal system should follow suit with the aussies and let us crack the case and solder away.

Nintendo has already led a strong charge in circumventing the need for chips by making the DS region-free (play imports! all you want! yippie!), and if Sony and Microsoft would get out of their proprietary mindsets, chances are they'd see modding drop a notch as well by letting US/EU Otaku play Japanese imports on their systems.

First and foremost, who wants to get me 8 of these for Hanukkah? Either the original or the Advantage model would be dope. Thanks in advance.

Jumping over to Japan, Kotaku has had some great (and nostalgia-inducing) live coverage of the Japanese Wii launch sale, moblogged right from my old stomping grounds of Osaka's Umeda district. I made friends with the San Francisco 49'ers offensive line right outside that Yodabashi Camera store where everyone is waiting. Look at the lovely queues, all nice and peaceful. Living stateside again sure is a different experience...

In other Wii news, under the DIY hacks heading, we've got a nice set of instructions on how to rig up your included Wii sensor bar to run off a 9-volt battery, no wires need!

Finally, in what probably comes as the most scary and shocking news, there's been some major developments over at Sony: Ken Kutaragi (the father of the Playstation) was demoted right out of the gaming division of SCE, and replaced with... well it doesn't really matter who. The point is, to put it in plain terms, if the PS3 tanks, Sony as a company is doomed. Period. Wired can catch you up in full detail if you've been missing out, but to take out someone who's single-handedly crafted products that have netted Sony somewhere around 80-90% of their profits since the PSOne because of a risky Blu-Ray strategy is foolish, and as a Sony insider noted, could eliminate the chances for a PS4. Ever. We'll see - it would kill a part of my soul to see Sony die, but it's not looking good.