Take this from a guy whose brilliant mind turned figments of the imagination into glorious cultural icons. No less than the man behind Marvel himself, Stan Lee, has expressed his admiration and respect for gaming development. His exact words: "It's lke a miracle."

This year, fans of point-and-click adventure games will be treated to a revamped version of LucasArts' The Secret of Monkey Island which which will be released as a digital download on Xbox 360 and PC. Craig Derrick, the producer of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, intimated to the Guardian that PS3 and Wii owners may get the game as well.

The Zune Marketplace is coming to the Xbox Live. This much is confirmed in a chat with Chris Stevenson with The Guardian UK, where it is revealed that Xbox 360 users can now purchase TV shows to other video content via the XBL, sans the Zune. And then there's the official confirmation for ZuneHD. Microsoft's on a roll.

Fans of the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console are about to get Sega's expansion of Phantasy Star Universe come November 20, 2007. Titled Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus, this expansion heralds the arrival of an all-new dimension to an already rich RPG experience.

All the standards such as new locales, enemies, items, and personable characters will be added, bringing the cost of this Xbox Live MarketPlace downloadable content to 1,600 Microsoft Points.

PC and Sony PlayStation 2 versions of Phantasy Star Universe: Ambition of the Illuminus are also available with a discounted GUARDIAN License that lets players exploit the game's most interactive features. The GUARDIAN License sells for US$ 49.99 and is valid for six months.

 

Okay, this may cause some alarmists to scream "Big Brother!" so before all the speculation, here are the known details - just so all you privacy advocates can relax a bit.

Google has filed a patent that reveals that they plan to compile psychological profiles of millions of gamers by covertly monitoring the way they play online games. Now you may think that this only concerns folks who play MMOs on their PCs, however, the patent apparently says that Google can also monitor people playing on any game console that hooks up to the internet, including the Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Microsoft Xbox 360.

What's even more hair-raising is that it says that information could be retrieved from previous game details saved on memory cards. To quote: "Such saved information may be thought of state information, and offers a valuable source of information to the advertisers." Yes, if you've played 350 hours of Oblivion, they'll know. Yep, the patent is that creepy; it even says:

In a car racing game, after a user crashes his Honda Civic, an announcer could be used to advertise by saying 'if he had a Hummer, he would have gotten the better of that altercation', etc... If the user has been playing for over two hours continuously, the system may display ads for Pizza Hut, Coke, coffee.

Now here's why we're asking all those privacy advocates to calm down and not cry foul. Google has said that they do not plan to roll out the technology in the near future. They say that it was just one of the patents that they wanted to file. The Guardian reports that a Google spokesman had this to say: "Google registers different patents irrespective of whether we actually intend to use them."

So no, Big Brother, er, I mean, Google isn't watching you. Not yet. *insert cheesy B-movie sci-fi music* It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.

Jack Schofield has an article up on the Technology blog of the Guardian asking what the Xbox 720 (or whatever Microsoft decides to call the next Microsoft console) will be like.

While he really doesn't speculate on what the imagined console will be like he does point out the amazing amounts of money that Microsoft can throw into the console just to make it something profitable. Here's his words:

Remember, Microsoft has $40 billion in the bank, plus $1 billion a month in profits, and nothing to spend it on. In December, Microsoft gave $30 billion back to shareholders in a one-off distribution of wealth, and it's disposing of another $30 billion buying back its own stock. Under the circumstances, it can easily afford to invest (or,if you prefer, lose) the odd billion a year in winning the console market. Over the next 10 to 20 years, the potential pay-off could be huge.

Now while we can't disagree with that, we can disagree with this other passage that he said:

After that there will be the Xbox 370 or 720 or whatever, which will presumably use a compatible processor and have better graphics, but what else do gamers need? The "law of diminishing returns" is already setting in....

Wasn't the "what else would they need" line said countless of times before, much to the dismay of many a business man who got left out? 640K of memory isn't enough for anyone; even if Bill didn't really say it.

UK">London's newspapers are having a battle of their own in delivering their verdicts on the PS3. In one corner, you have the Evening Standard, which, after comparing the three models, gamely awarded top points to the PS3.

Dedicating a whole page of the daily to the comparisons, Mark Prigg, Evening Standard technology correspondent, raves about the PS3  in his article 'World-beating PS3 well worth the wait'. Says Prigg, "The first thing that hits you is the quality of the graphics. They are incredibly detailed and fast, noticeably more so than Microsoft's xbox 360, and often though to distinguish from video."

In conjunction with the console-critique, they also did reviews on three of the launch titles. Resistance: Fall of Man, and Ridge Racer 7  survived with 4 stars each, while MotorStorm came out as the winner, earning a full five-star rating.

On the other corner, we have here The Guardian, offering a rather polar take on the PS3. Apparently, while they found it good, it fell short to offset what the Xbox 360 can offer, and thus, impress them. Says Greg Howson, "The launch games we've played do look more impressive, especially when viewed on a high-definition TV, but there is nothing on display that Microsoft's competing Xbox 360 couldn't produce.

Well, that's their take. And inasmuch as everyone is entitled to their own opinions, you need not be swayed by what others say. The PS3 will be out in a few days, so, then, we'd know for ourselves which one wins over the other.