Look, it's not that Microsoft's Xbox VP, David Gosen, dislikes the Wii and its parade of people-friendly peripherals. "What Nintendo have done with the Wii is truly fantastic – there is no question about it." No question at all -- but there is a but. "But I think sometimes there is a thin line between gimmick and great gameplay." And there's no question that said but refers to that thing that lets you play games with your butt.

Speaking at a Gamefest UK keynote and later to the folks at Develop, Gosen admitted that while different interfaces, whether they be video cameras or plastic guitars, are important in bringing new players into the market, they need to serve a "truly game changing experience." Gosen went on to cite research which found Wii Fit players abandoned their "digital bathroom scales" quite quickly. "They are not good if they are gimmicks. There is a challenge for us to make sure that all new user interfaces are deep and are rewarding to the end user."

And how do you do that, exactly? Gosen offers, "So we have to get the balance right, because what we are doing is bringing new consumers into the market for the first time in their lives sometimes – and we have to treat them with respect." Get the balance of game design right, huh? Sounds like the perfect Wii Fit game, no?

Capturing the essence of Jonathan Blow's Braid within a single sentence isn't the easiest thing to do, especially not if you want to avoid run-on monstrosities like: It's the game about a tie-wearing, time-traveling gentleman on a quest to rescue a princess, inconveniently held captive at the end of six beautiful worlds filled with all manner of puzzles which require fiddling with the flow of time to solve also it's really, really good according to reviews. So, let's go with "it's really, really good according to reviews" and leave it at that, eh?

• IGN (88/100): "Xbox Live Arcade needs more games like Braid. Heck, gaming on all platforms needs more titles like this. Imaginative, innovative, and engrossing, Braid is a spectacular achievement. If only the experience lasted a little longer and there weren't as many puzzles with singular solutions."
• Edge (90/100): "Braid remains a beautiful and brilliantly demanding game that barely contains its dense population of ideas, taking its place alongside Geometry Wars and Pac-Man Championship Edition as one of the finest original titles available on Live Arcade."
• Eurogamer (100/100): "I've gone to bed thinking about Braid, and I've woken up thinking about it. From the fragments I remember, I'm pretty sure I've dreamed about it as well. Braid is that sort of game."

"We have a lot to learn from their success too, they did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to." Is that any way to talk about your main Xbox Live competitor? Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Bungie's Lead AI Programmer, Damian Isla, had quite a few nice things to say about Infinity Ward's ridiculously successful shooter, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Isla joins a chorus of reviewers in praising the game's single-player campaign for its tight pacing and scripting, praising the developers for doing "a hell of a job with their set pieces, of scripting certain moments that they were really sure the player was going to actually see and experience first hand." Though Isla notes that Halo 3's gameplay is heavily dependent on simulation (meaning in-game physics and reactions, not reality), it still "has a lot to learn" from Call of Duty 4's tunnel of fun approach.

With Infinity Ward's next project rumored to be a sci-fi shooter, it seems the studios might soon be trading places outside of the Xbox Live rankings.

Having foiled countless doomsday devices, monologuing masterminds and aesthetically pleasing assassins, James Bond has felt the bite of reality and become inextricably entangled in a web of legal nonsense. Though an Xbox Live Arcade version of the classic N64 FPS, GoldenEye, continues to make appearances both in dreams and alleged screenshots, nobody's been able to pull the game out of a web spun by numerous lawyers and license holders. "It's kind of locked in this no man's land."

That's according to Rare's senior software engineer, Nick Burton, who recently discussed the game's fate with VideoGamer.com. "It's incredibly hard to solve because there's so many licence holders involved," explained Burton. "You've got the guys that own the license to the gaming rights now, the guys that have the licence to Bond as an IP, and there are umpteen licensees." Last time we checked, "umpteen" was quite a lot ... at least 37 or so.

Burton goes on to explain that the game's release is no longer in Rare's hands -- it's up to the publishers to figure out how Microsoft can get its hands on a Nintendo game starring one of Activision's favorite characters. "It's probably going to go down in the annuls of gaming history as one of the big mysteries."

Wait ... the "annuls" of gaming history? What an appropriate misspelling.

So, who's very excited (or surprised) by confirmation that Rockstar's go-anywhere, shoot-anyone crime caper is coming to the PC? Well, the folks at Rockstar, obviously. "We are very excited to be releasing the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV," said Rockstar Games founder Sam Houser. "The whole team is dedicated to bringing an amazing gaming experience to the PC. The game looks and plays beautifully on PC and we can't wait for people to play it."

People can expect to start playing Grand Theft Auto IV, along with its "newly expanded multiplayer" modes, on November 18th if they live in North America, and November 21st if they live in Europe.

It seems the folks in charge at THQ have decided to disappoint all humans who were anxiously awaiting the PSP outing of Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed. Though the three of you absolutely nobody will lament this particular cancellation, IGN reports that it was at least done for the right reasons. Said a THQ representative: "Basically, the PSP version was cancelled because of control issues."

With the game being designed specifically for the Wii, "the controls simply didn't translate well, and instead of pushing out the product with translated controls, it was cancelled." From the player's perspective, it sounds like it was the humane thing to do, but we wonder how many PSP games would be left if all developers adopted this particular stance on controls.

[Via PSP Fanboy]

Sometimes, all the relentless, in-your-face your-face-is-off violence really gets to us. There are moments when the barrage of bullets ripping through unprotected flesh, or the shuddering chainsaws carving through the bones of an enemy make us wonder if we haven't just become desensitized and bored with our favorite hobby. It's even more depressing when we have to go home and see it all again in our video games.

We'll be able to, as the old folks say, turn it down a notch in Gears of War 2, as MCV reports that Epic's M-rated must-see saw sequel will feature an optional gore filter. It's mainly meant to placate parents who are tolerant of frenetic gun battles and ruthless monster murder, just so long as sparks (and not blood) come flying out of the stumps. The filter is also said to replace the naughty words uttered by the game's motley bunch of macho men ("See you in heck, locust motherfluffers!").

As young lads who were constantly teased and foiled by Phantasmagoria's shocking M rating, we certainly approve of Microsoft's implementation of parental control. Mind you, if you're a kid with a copy of Gears of War 2, you've likely utilized powerful parental control already -- otherwise known as the tantrum.

Aside from spontaneous automobile theft and an abundance of paper lanterns, we really don't know what we can expect to find in Rockstar's DS downsizing of its infamous crime caper, Grand Theft Auto. If an alleged survey sent in to UGO's Games Blog is to be believed -- and let's be clear, this "if" is large enough to trample just about any virtual metropolis -- Chinatown Wars will have plenty of features to clutter up the back of its tiny box.

An open world with changing weather and traffic patterns? Check. A "mature" storyline featuring a "young gang soldier involved in the internal power struggle for control of his gang?" Check. Multiplayer modes, 70+ missions and stylus-based minigames, "such as assembling a sniper rifle?" Check. Truthfulness of survey and its claim that said features are connected to Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars? We'll have to check on that. But purely out of interest, does this sound like a portable GTA you'd want to play?

[Thanks, Kareem]

We could have told you that, you know. If you don't trust our word, however, how about the one from Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida? He would know, wouldn't he? Allegedly talking to Official PlayStation Magazine (August issue cited on NeoGAF), Yoshida refers to the team that built ICO and Shadow of the Colossus as the "Olympic Team." Why? Well, because it takes 'em four years to finish a game.

"They haven't released a PS3 title yet - of course not - they'll take four years!" explains Yoshida. "But they have something really, really good on the way." Is it too early to dole out 2009's Game of the Year Award?

[Via Eurogamer]

Yes, we're still playing Valve's classy, cartoonish shooter, Team Fortress 2. We'll continue to do so for as long as the game keeps receiving updates -- and there's at least one more on the way. Posting on the official Team Fortress 2 blog, Valve's Jakob Jungels has suggested that our multiplayer mileu may be due for a makeover.

"One of the things we're looking at for the next update is the creation of a new type of environment for our levels to be built in," he wrote. "We're pretty happy with the way our environments have turned out so far, but as we create more and more maps with these achievement packs, we want our level designers to have more to work with in terms of giving their settings a unique look."

Jungels notes that before making it into the game, each potential environment has to satisfy a list of requirements. Does it allow for new gameplay? Does it support existing gameplay types? Is it completely awesome? We anxiously await a chorus of yeses.

We're not sure if you've noticed, but there are an awful lot of things trying to kill you in Geometry Wars 2. With so many sinister shapes boxing you in and particles exploding from every angle, it can be difficult to see what the hell's going on, never mind a clear escape route. If you're tired of hearing that final bang and seeing your ranking in the friends leaderboard slip ever lower, might we suggest trying the game's hidden 3D camera?

The fine folks at Giant Bomb (who, in turn, credit former Joystiq writer Jared Rea) have pointed us to this neat little Easter egg which pauses the game's frantic action and allows you to swoop through the battle grid ... and even to the stars beyond. To access it, press the right bumper together with the back button during any of the game's modes. The analog sticks control the movement and direction of the camera, while the left and right triggers enable vertical adjustment. Neat!

If this still doesn't aid you in getting your blaster bearings, you'd best adopt our strategy for remaining atop the leaderboard: Delete your friends.

This Wednesday marks the opportunity to become a tie-wearing time traveler in Jonathan Blow's Braid, an "artful puzzle-platformer" and the next volley in Microsoft's all-out August Arcade assault. You'll traverse multiple worlds as you search for a princess (yes, the abducted kind) and wrap your mind around various instances of time behaving badly -- that includes rewinding, time streams, parallel realities, time dilation and "perhaps more."

Oh, and you'll be wanting to know the price of all this. Well, we hate to rain on your Braid, but despite Microsoft's earlier denial, the game will indeed cost 1200 ($15).

Murmurings of another impending Xbox 360 price drop refuse to dissipate, with an alleged photograph of an unnamed retailer's inventory system, showing an early September price drop for the Arcade model, showing up on VGChartz. The screen seems to indicate a new $199.99 price for the unit -- as was rumored earlier this week -- becoming effective on September 7th, 2008.

With veracity and origin unclear, we'll leave you to debate the likelihood of this price drop. Of course, if you work at an electronics retailer, it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out for fellow employees taking impromptu snapshots of their monitors.

[Via Engadget]

Alright, that was mean of us. Never fear, for the delightful Prince of Persia we fell in love with at E3 is still set for a Holiday 2008 release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The one headed to movie theaters, however, has been pushed back a year to May 28, 2010, according to ComingSoon.net. Reasons for the delay were not made apparent.

In case you haven't been keeping up with the project, have at these pertinent Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time facts:

• It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina.
• It's produced by Jerry "more 'splosions" Bruckheimer.
• It's directed by a man who's having his assistant play the game.
• It's "not a video game movie."
• It is a movie based on a video game.
  

"Is this thing on?"

This is his first night at the comedy club. It's a seedy, poorly lit establishment frequented by society's dregs and a lingering smell of burnt onions. He adjusts his tie and prays that the squeaky ceiling fan doesn't drown out his applause ... nor his accompaniment.

"So, what's the deal with these Xbox 360 prices? I tell ya, I'm beginning to think they're emo ... since they keep cuttin' themselves. Take this mole guy from Ars Technica. See, he's the one who let's 'em in on industry see-grits, but they can't tell us who he is due to a blinding contract. His latest piece o' dirt is that the Xbox 360 is goin' down in September -- that's $399 for the Elite, $299 for the 60 gigger and $199 for the Arcade. Man, I'm so confused by all these models. They keep explainin' them to me and I gotta keep asking. SKUse me?"

Squeak. Squeak.

[Thanks, "Heh." We're here all week.]