Kratos on SoulCalibur IV (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)? Well isn't that a very pretty prospect! Unfortunately, the welcomed rumor has been shot down in 1Up's podcast. No Kratos, after all. To know more, head on at full article.

How is a winner in the console race determined? By the number of consoles companies have sold? Or by how much the console company made? If money does the talking for you, then you're probably in for a shock. Sony may have led the console race last generation in terms of hardware install base, but guess who made the most money (and on the operating income level, we must add)? That's right: Nintendo - if the calculations of Justin of Gamerinvestments.com is accurate and factual.

Chances are, if you're a fan of classic shoot 'em ups, Ikaruga has a special place in your heart. Fret not, because your long lost sweetheart by developer Treasure is making a comeback as a port on the Xbox Live Arcade. We've heard this before, but the big news is that it's finally tagged with a solid Japanese release date. Fly to the full article for more details!

The Media Create Japan hardware sales are in and it looks like another victory for Nintendo's dynamic duo: The Wii and DS. However, don't count out yet Sony's consoles and Microsoft's because they had a pretty solid showing for their platforms as well.

Want to know more? Check out the full article which lists the exact number of each consoles sold.

The latest update at Criterion Games' website wishes everyone a merry Christmas, and addresses the flak Burnout Paradise (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3) has been receiving since its demo went live. Find out what Alex Ward and the Burnout team wants to tell naysayers by checking out the full article.

Quite a few members of the gaming industry have been waiting for either the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, or the Nintendo Wii to pull away from the competition and be declared the dominant force for this generation. Game developer and publisher Konami has given word that this will not be happening.

Want to know what Konami thinks about the console wars and why it believes that no one will be dominating this generation? Head on over to the full article for more details.

Namco Bandai still continues to deliver to gamers unadulterated melee fighting action with the upcoming Soul Calibur IV (Xbox 360, PS3). With its preview during the Tokyo Game Show 2007, gamers across the country were given a good amount of eye candy with what the series will be like on the next-gen platform.

In a video interview with the director of Soul Calibur IV, Katsutoshi Sasaki, he talked about just some of the characters that will be making their way into the sequel of their popular fighting game. He also mentioned about the multiplayer aspect and some of the new features that they will be including in the game.

Sasaki gave particular attention to Hilda, one of the new characters in Soul Calibur IV. Of course old time veterans such as Cassandra and Voldo will be making their next-gen comeback as well. He also mentions that they have a lot of plans for the multiplayer aspect, but most of them are up in the air so far.

However, Sasaki stressed that the most important thing that he wanted to have was to build a strong online community and fan base to strengthen the popularity of the game. He also mentioned a couple of tidbits about whether or not they might include platform specific characters for Soul Calibur IV (similar to a playable Link in Soul Calibur II for the Nintendo GameCube). He also hinted about a new game system and a even a new gauge which ties directly into this.

In case you've been wondering where this year's Midnight Gaming Championship is expected to take place, we've got news.

The event's official site has just sent out a press wire announcing that the MGC 2007 is expected to take place this September 8, in the cities of San Francisco, and Columbus (Ohio). The MGC is expected to end on September 15, in the cities of Denver and Cleveland.

These select cities come as a result of the MGC's previous online votes, with gamers asked where they wanted this year's MGC to go. This year's competition is expected to feature these five games:

• Super Smash Bros. Melee (Nintendo; GameCube)
• NBA 2K7 (2K Sports; PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, Xbox)
• Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW2) (Ubisoft; PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Mobile)
• GTR2 FIA GT Racing Game (Viva Media; PC)
• Fast and the Furious: Fugitive (I-play; Mobile)
  

Video Gamers League president Jeff Gross had this to say regarding the upcoming event:

We wanted to give gamers a chance to bring the MGC tournament to cities that normally may not get a video game tournament. The race was really close at the end, with the top six cities coming down to the wire.

Winners of these series of tournaments stand to win a round-trip ticket and one-night hotel stay in Dallas, where the championship takes place this October 6. take note that the cities we listed earlier are just the first batch - drop by again as the list gets updated with more venues. Or, if you're keen on casting your vote, drop by the MGC official site for details (the read link).

Game industry sales tracking site VG Chartz reports that the Nintendo Wii game console has hit total lifetime sales of 10.57 million in the period ending August 23rd, surpassing Microsoft's Xbox 360 to take first place in this generation's console war.

VG Chartz says that its figures come from samples drawn from consumers worldwide, and not retailers, meaning that there may have been more Xbox 360s shipped, but more Wiis have been sold.

The Wii launched a year after the Xbox 360, but saw rapid sales in every market it has been distributed in. Since its launch late last year, it has outpaced its rivals in monthly market performance.

VG Chartz says that very few analysts would have even conceived of this development happening a couple of years back, but Nintendo proved all its critics wrong with innovative controls and casual games that expanded the market.

The last time Nintendo led the market was in the early to mid-90s during the heyday of its SNES system. It saw tough times with last generation's GameCube but rebounded strongly with the Wii.

Too Human was originally developed for Sony's PlayStation back in 1999 as an action game that spans five discs, before a partnership with Nintendo made Silicon Knights work on it for the GameCube instead. 

After a few more years of disappearance, a series of events led SK to the hands of Microsoft to make the game on Xbox 360. Not until recently did the game resurface - the release date still an uncertainty - but we can be sure of one thing: head honcho Denis Dyack knows his console history.

Dyack talked about "one console future" during GCDC 2007 in Leipzig, saying consoles are heading towards commoditization and differences between these gaming machines will become less important. In an interview with GameSpy, he went deeper on his thoughts about improving technology and how the next generation can actually be void of console wars.

"I think that as technologies continue to advance, the advances are becoming so strong that they diminish the differences between each console with each generation," Dyack said. He compared the PlayStation to Nintendo 64, both introducing 3D graphics to households. For him, the difference is getting so small that we will come to a point where there won't be discrimination of any platforms.

Like we play DVDs on any DVD player, he sees the possibility of every game being playable on any platform. No exclusives. "Everyone's been saying for the longest time that 'it's all about the games.' If it's really all about the games, then the games will start to dominate, and the value of the hardware will become less and less important," he said.

All these may sound convenient, but he found a lot of bad from "commoditizing" in the gaming industry. "Commoditization is a very bad thing, because the ultimate result of it is slavery," he said.

It won't be surprising if many find his speculations farfetched, but Dyack is quite confident with his words. He was able to say, with confidence, that "predicting the future is hard." He continued, "But one of the things about technology and commoditization is that it's guaranteed to happen one hundred percent."