Working Designs is long gone, but their legacy of bringing Japanese classics over to America remains intact. And now they may have a chance to do it again, minus perhaps only a few Bill Clinton jokes.

Former president Victor Ireland moved on to found Gaijinworks after WD's demise, and now he's resurfaced on NeoGaf to announce that a title will be publicly announced within a "month or two" for release before the summer. No ideas on what they might bring over, but resident Retronaut Jeremy Parish suggested RPG Soma Bringer and classic-style shooter Thunder Force 6, among others.

For a more details and analysis, go check out the entry on the Retronauts blog. In the meantime, you may commence rampant speculation.

PixelJunk Eden stood out among the games of 2008 for its beguiling combination of artistic endeavor and game mechanic. Its fundamentally simple concept of swinging a cute little character around a space on strands of wire came alive through the interplay with the forms, colors, and sounds of its psychedelic gardens. Kyoto-based DJ/sound producer/artist/graphic designer Baiyon led the creative effort in putting together this multimedia artwork. Whenever I play the game it works some sort of magic that leaves me feeling relaxed. Taken as I've been by that spell, when Q-Games president and executive producer asked if I'd like to come down to Kyoto and talk with him and Baiyon about their experiences in making the game I didn't hesitate for moment. The conversation below happened when we all sat down together in a conference room at their offices a few days after TGS.

1UP: How did you guys wind up getting connected?



Dylan Cuthbert: At a party, there's a party near here at some friends...it's all interconnected, so, friends of ours who work at a company near here who did the web page for StarFox Command for Nintendo; they work at this company called Eniac. They also do a lot of other stuff. They do a lot of Nintendo's webpages.



Baiyon: Maybe Mother 3 too.



DC: It was a party, and King of Games was there as well, it's like an old network. I went to this party and met Baiyon there. But that wasn't the first time I'd heard of him. The first time I'd heard of him was through my wife whose friend said that there's a friend of hers who wanted to try getting into game design and he's an artist/musician type. So we'd actually looked at his stuff beforehand. And then we went to this party and met.

1UP: What about game design attracted you [Baiyon]?



B: Something that doesn't translate to movies or music is that the player is the center, the focus point, the main character in the experience.

Former UK retail giant Woolsworth is on its way out of its business, but it still has a whole lots of Xbox 360s and games sitting in its warehouses. And now Microsoft wants it back.

The Times UK is reporting that Microsoft is preparing a legal again to reclaim millions of pounds of hardware and software stock being held by Woolsworth's distribution arm Entertainment UK. Although the stock has already been paid for, Microsoft has the right to reclaim it under rules that allow them to take it in lieu of debts.

Woolsworth is currently under administration by Deloitte, which would potentially be able to resell the merchandise on the cheap. In the meantime, the retailer will close the rest of its doors Tuesday. We'll just have to see if Microsoft can reclaim all of those unsold copies of Halo 3 before they're sent to the bargain bin.

Are you one of the nearly 700,000 people who bought a copy of Wii Fit in November? Or perhaps you're one of the countless still trying to find it on store shelves after a sold out holiday season? If you fit into either of these camps, you just might be one of the "busy moms who often don?t have time to spare for exercise" that GameStop is targeting with their latest promotion (via a report from Kotaku).

In a press release boasting over 40 "fitness-oriented titles" on sale right now, GameStop announced that they will be offering free year-long subscriptions to Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, O Magazine, and other magazines for any consumer spending over $34.99 on those titles. Although they did not provide a full list of games included in the deal, obvious titles like Wii Fit and My Fitness Coach were matched with "brain fitness" titles such as Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day and My Japanese Coach.

GameStop senior vice president of marketing Mike Hogan provided this curious comment:

"We know that getting in shape is one of the toughest New Year's resolutions to stick with, especially for busy moms who often don't have time to spare for exercise. Today's moms are looking for ways to incorporate exercise into their lifestyle. Active video games are a terrific way to reach your fitness goals, and as an added bonus, they can be enjoyed with your whole family."

From my end, it seems like GameStop is making some pretty big leaps in assuming that a very specific audience -- busy moms who want to get into shape -- is the primary group buying a growing genre of games. Stuffing "mental fitness" games into that category just makes the whole deal even more suspect. After all, I'm willing to bet that there are more otaku nerds buying My Japanese Coach than family-focused mothers, but maybe that makes me just as jaded as the marketers who devised this campaign.

"2008 saw us grow faster than any of our competitors and we over-achieved in sales during the crucial Christmas selling period," boasted Chris Lewis, regional vice president of Microsoft's Xbox business in Europe, in a report from gamesindustry.biz. Officially, the company claims eight million Xbox 360s now roam the region -- an estimated one million more than Sony's PlayStation 3.

Lewis claimed the success, which nearly doubles the previous year's, "was only possible through our partnerships with retail and with publishers." He added that these partners contributed to building "a strong ecosystem in the region."

In the states, year-to-year sales of the 360 may not have grown quite so much. Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter predicts roughly 1.2 to 1.3 million 360s were sold during the month of December, a figure almost equal to the 1.26 million sold the same time last year. For the two months prior, numbers were equally flat. October saw an increase of only 5,000 (1.4%) units sold, while November yielded a slightly more substantial 66,000 (7.9%) unit increase over the previous year. Despite the smaller gains, expect a bit more number-touting and some always-enjoyable PR spin when the December 2008 NPD numbers are officially released later this month.

It looks like Sony isn't the only corporation with a videogaming division that's being hit hard by the global recession. According to a report by The Independent, Microsoft is considering the possibility of cutting at least 10 percent -- or maybe as much as 17 percent -- of its global workforce in an effort to save costs.

The story points to rumors that recently appeared on Fudzilla, where the scope of the potential cuts were first reported. According to Fudzilla, while some parts of Microsoft -- namely the volume licensing department and the Xbox division -- are doing well, other parts had to cut their expected sales in 2009 by as much as 90 percent. That means there would be far less work for the staff in these departments to do, and would therefore create a large amount of redundancies.

With about 90,000 Microsoft employees around the world, as many as 15,000 jobs could be threatened. Eliminating 10 percent of its workforce could save Microsoft up to $1.2 billion dollars a year, but it would also be the first mass layoffs in the company's 32-year history.

In yet another indication of the myriad ways the recession is effecting the videogame industry, Video Game Price Charts reports (via Gamasutra) that the average price for a used game saw a significant drop in 2008, ending 23.7 percent lower than where it started in January.

As you can see in the chart above, the average price for a used game started at $12.69 at the beginning of January last year. But by November 3rd, the price tumbled to its lowest point of the year -- $8.57, a 32.5 percent decrease from the starting price. The average price ticked up again in the remaining days of 2008, and finally ended at $9.68, which was a decrease of 23.7 percent.

What's particularly interesting about these numbers -- and where you see the real effect of the recession -- is when you compare them to the price fluctuations of 2007. As you can see in the chart below, the average price of a used game saw a similarly downward trajectory in 2007, indicating a decrease over the year is natural. But the extent of the drop was far less drastic than that seen in 2008. The lowest point of the year was a 30.4% drop from the starting price, but then the price ticked back up by 26.6% for a total loss of only 11.8% of the starting value.

This story first appeared in the January issue of EGM.

In 2000, the first X-Men film changed all that, breaking through to mainstream success behind a respected director (Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects), competent casting, and everything you'd expect from a top-tier action film. It opened the floodgates for other long-brewing comic-book projects, like Sam Raimi's record-breaking Spider-Man and Ang Lee's art-house adaptation of Hulk. These days, it's huge success after huge success -- both Iron Man and The Dark Knight grossed crazy amounts of dough this past summer, and classic graphic novels like Sin City and Watchmen finally have the confidence of movie studios.

Man, it's really hard to make a good adventure game. It's so hard to make one, in fact, that even veterans of the genre -- guys who've worked on indisputable classics -- sometimes stumble. Case in point: A Vampyre Story. A glance at the game's credits reveals names that should be immediately familiar to fans of LucasArts adventures like The Curse of Monkey Island. But somehow, even these genre vets managed to slather their latest offering with weaksauce. Not that A Vampyre Story is a bad game; it just lacks that critical "hook."

The main reason for this is that the game isn't funny. It tries hard to be, bless its little soul -- but tired puns, badly animated sight gags, and fart humor only get you so far these days. And it's also hamstrung by its failure to incorporate basic design conveniences. Perhaps it's because I've been playing Prince of Persia lately, but A Vampyre Story's long wait times drove me crazy. Exiting a location means thumb-twiddling while Mona -- the titular vampire -- ambles her hourglass frame sloooooowly over to the edge of the screen...and then more twiddling while the next screen loads. Why didn't the designers include a simple double-click-to-leave-instantly mechanic, à la Monkey Island? And if it takes so long to get from place to place, why'd they include so many puzzles that require shuttling back and forth between locations?

Gamers People do crazy things. Take for example a handful of recent happenings, including one person's attempt to blackmail a videogame developer/publisher with suicide and another calling a publisher's falling stock price an act of divine retribution. Now LiveNews (via Kotaku) is reporting the latest unbelievable videogame headling: A South Korean teen set fire to a nearby warehouse after an unsatisfying game session.

The 15-year-old boy, whose name and school have been withheld, started the fire this weekend in Chuncheon after "his computer games did not go well," claims the Yonhap news agency. The blaze caused an estimated 4 million South Korean won ($3,043) in damage.

Although current information does not indicate the name of the "computer game" the boy became frustrated with, it's worth noting that videogames are sometimes taken more seriously in South Korea than in other regions. With titles such as StarCraft having become a cultural touchstone as relevant to South Korea as a major sport is to the U.S., the weight of his virtual struggles may be greater than one would initially assume. Then again, we didn't see Peyton Manning setting fire to any buildings after his frustrating loss this weekend.

A Reuters report (via Kotaku) claims that Sony will probably announce closures of Japanese factories and "major divisions" in early February. The original report from the Times of London cites inside sources that claim the company will be making big changes, but Sony spokesperson Atsuo Omagari claims "we do not have any such plan."

Last month, Sony announced it would be cutting around 8,000 employees by April of 2010, and closing two overseas manufacturing plants. A statement from Sony Computer Entertainment read, "In order to stay competitive in the accelerating global network environment, we will always carefully review and make structural changes, if necessary, in order to further expand and strengthen the PlayStation business around the world."

It was also early last month that an analyst for CNN Money called the PlayStation 3 a sinking ship, citing declining sales and calling for hefty price cuts to the machine. But it's just recently that we've heard more optimistic news that the PlayStation 3 is almost breaking even on manufacturing costs. If that's the case, a price cut could be coming to keep the system competitive as consumers watch their wallets in the current economic climate.

Street Fighter 4 Exclusive 'Dan vs. Dan' gameplay HD

"I hope you're ready for a beating," says Dan Hibiki, the underpowered Street Fighter (originally created by Capcom as a joking reference to Ryo Sakazaki, a main character in SNK's Art of Fighting). In 1UP's exclusive Dan vs. Dan video, we get the impression that he's no longer a joke character but a worthy fighter possessing a solid ground game, a few decent combos, and an uppercut special attack with surprisingly decent priority. Watch the clip at 1:18 for Dan's hilarious -- and damaging -- Ultra attack, an awesome combo featuring several hard punches to the face and gut, followed by a soaring uppercut in the air.

For more videos of Street Fighter 4 characters exclusive to the console version, check out the Fei Long vs. Cammy video used on the 1UP Show's Street Fighter 4 preview. And, of course, you can watch us stream SF4 on this week's Game Night, scheduled for Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 5 p.m. PST.

Semnat Studios announced today that it will be releasing Eduardo the Samurai Toaster for WiiWare this winter. The old-school shooter features a colorful art style as our hero Eduardo battles pastries and fruit, and it's already been rated E by the ESRB. The game will deliver drop-in 4-player cooperative play, showing a real sign of faith in the Wii's online capabilities.

Semnat is a independent developer, exactly the kind Nintendo stated they were hoping to entice with the low development costs of WiiWare. The service hasn't seen many top-tier releases, but maybe more developers putting their time in will change that perception. Check out the screens while we wait for more details on the delicious action title.

Those looking for a more action-oriented game after Merv Griffin's Crosswords finished off 2008 won't be too pleased with this week's title. Interpol: The Trail of Dr. Chaos is a puzzle game that'll have you scouring for clues as an Interpol agent chasing down a terribly evil fellow by the name of Dr. Chaos. You can see that the game's title didn't require a tremendous leap to come up with.

You may have heard of the game before; both Interpol and its sequel have been available on the PC for a while now from developer TikGames -- better known to the Xbox 360 crowd as the developer of both Domino Master and Texas Hold 'em on Xbox Live Arcade. Anyone that's too eager to wait can check out the a trial on PC right here.

Four player co-op (both locally and over Xbox Live) are among the features the game is bringing with it to the console world. 800 Microsoft points ($10) will be the price when Interpol is released this Wednesday.

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If you're planning to dust off your original Xbox and trade it in to GameStop, you'd better hurry. They won't be accepting them much longer.

Destructoid is reporting that GameStop will officially stop accepting trade-ins of original Xbox games, systems and accessories on February 9. The information comes from an internal memo that was sent out earlier this week. For those who aren't keen on hunting up original Xboxes on eBay, GameStop will continue selling until their stocks of games and systems are depleted.

So it looks like the curtain has truly fallen on Microsoft's first foray into the gaming industry. If you have any fond memories of the Xbox, feel free to hold a candle for it in the comments below.

It's a new year, and new years mean resolutions. But while you're trying to lose weight or go on a vacation to Mexico, Hideo Kojima is resolving to put Kojima Productions on equal footing with western studios. The man thinks big.

In an interview with Famitsu (via Develop), Kojima said that Kojima Productions was starting "from zero" in 2009, making it a very important year for the company. According to Kojima, everything from team structure to tools and staff are being reviewed.

"I've come to understand that the way we've made games up until now won't translate globally, and I've come to think that I need to make Kojima Productions a team that can compete alongside the rest of the world," Kojima said.

Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux recently questioned the stability of current game prices and the traditional release schedule in an end-of-year report from BBC News. "Everyone says games are good value for home entertainment, despite the relatively high price," he said. "I'm not so sure. I think we're going to see a lot of price pressure put on games." We've recently heard analysts echo similar statements that the traditional $50-60 price model for new titles may be more flexible in the current economic climate.

He also questioned the wisdom of saving big titles for the holiday season. As an example, he cited Little Big Planet's "superb artistry and fatastic marketing," but lamented its disappointing sales. "I wonder if Christmas is really the right time to release a new title," he said. "We've got into a rhythm [of sequels at Christmas] which is all fair and well while people are buying games, but we have to make sure we don't get complacent."

It's hard to argue that the prices of games could stand some readjusting, but for now they're staying fairly solid. It will most likely take one developer making a solid profit on a reduced-price game to prove to others that it can work. While you're waiting for that to happen, it might be a good idea to check out our recession gaming feature for ideas on how to save a bit of money.

Wish that you could play classic Treasure shooter Radiant Silvergun on Xbox Live Arcade? Looks like Microsoft wishes you could too.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Treasure CEO Masato Maegawa said that Microsoft has requested Radiant Silvergun for XBLA. But unfortunately for shmup fans everywhere, he says it's not as easy as simply dropping it on the service.

"Microsoft actually asked us if we could put it out," he says. "We're thinking about it, certainly, but it's not as simple as just saying 'OK, let's put it up.' I mean, sure, with Ikaruga, we released it as-is without having to do or add a great deal to the game, and it was popular and well accepted for what it was."

Everyone's attention over the past six months has been on the glut of big releases that gamers had to tackle in the last few months of 2008, so isn't it ironic that the most played Xbox 360 game should be something that wasn't even released in 2007? Major Nelson revealed the top 20 games played throughout 2008 based upon unique users connected to Xbox Live. The Xbox 360 retail games list was led by Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Grand Theft Auto 4. Gears of War 2 came in at number 4, while the new Call of Duty, World at War, managed to be the sixth title on the list. You could look at that in two very different ways; Was the game a success by reaching the number 6 slot despite the congested release period and having less than two months to get into gamers' hands, or should developer Treyarch be hanging their heads that they were bested by an older CoD title?

The Xbox Live Arcade titles list doesn't really have quite as many noteworthy revelations. The list, which is measured by the number of full versions purchased, was topped by the notoriously buggy Castle Crashers, beating out the likes of Geometry Wars 2, and Braid. People apparently love Avatars, as being the only Avatar-centric game has made A Kingdom for Keflings a huge smash, with the game coming in at the number four spot -- an impressive figure, considering that means it surpassed sales of Street Fighter II HD, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Portal: Still Alive, and Mega Man 9.

And to no one's surprise, Halo 2 takes the reigns as the most popular Xbox 1 game. Following it are Fable and Star Wars: Battlefront II -- one of four Xbox games on the list carrying the Star Wars name.

It's a new year, and Nintendo is settling back into new Virtual Console and WiiWare releases. Unfortunately, there are only two new games for your perusal this week.

First up is the Super Nintendo's

You probably gathered by now that the Wii did pretty well this holiday season, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 perhaps not as much. But we want educated guesses, and for that, we turn to Wedbush Morgan oracle Michael Pachter.

Pachter offered his thoughts on the upcoming NPD figures, telling videogaming247, "I haven?t done the work for NPD yet, but my guess is that 360 sales were flat or up a little, PS3 sales down a little, and Wii sales up more than 100%."

He added that he figured that would amount to "1.2 to 1.3 million 360s," around 700,000 PS3s and 3 million Wiis. So that would mean that things remained pretty much the same despite this holiday season Microsoft's aggressive pricing strategy and the PlayStation 3's LittleBigPlanet. Seems like the trends for this generation are pretty much set.

It seems that there won't be any new Lego Harry Potter after all. At least, not in 2009. And that has opened the door for a whole new set of Lego-related rumors.

Eurogamer is reporting that one of their sources has told them that there will be no Lego Harry Potter in the next twelve months. It had been widely speculated that the popular franchise was due for an entry in the Lego series soon, especially with a new movie on the way, but obstacles such as Electronic Arts' Harry Potter publishing deal stand in the way. For now it looks like Potter fans will have to wait.

Don't despair though, Lego fans. In an interview with BBC Radio 1, Traveller's Tale producer Nick Ricks said, "There will be a LEGO game in 2009. And I think it's okay to say that you'll be a bit surprised."

Over the years, movies have shown a variety of insane inventions we could expect in the future -- flying cars, time machines, oppressive uniforms everyone in society would be forced to wear, etc. But how they failed to warn us about electronics-selling vending machines is beyond us: Like the U.K. vending machines that sell PlayStation 3 games we saw back in November, it looks like Best Buy is now distributing their own vending machines in airports that sell Nintendo DS systems and a variety of DS games (via Ars Technica). Surely, the future is now.

These "Best Buy Express" machines -- the one pictured above spotted at Atlanta International Airport -- offer such games as Mario Kart DS, Brain Age 2, and Guitar Hero: On Tour, just in case anyone is actually brave enough to be seen playing Guitar Hero: On Tour on a crowded flight. The games are priced the same as any other retailer, so there aren't even any steep markups you might expect for anything purchased inside of an airport.

It's worth noting that the machine apparently only sells DS systems and games (in addition to other electronics like digital cameras and headphones), and no PSP products. Might Nintendo have some sort of exclusive distribution deal with Best Buy... or did the retail chain decide on its own that PSP games weren't worth stocking? More than likely it's the former, but still, it's an interesting indication of how much more visible the DS is to the general public these days.

Join us, dear reader, as we venture into a terrifying yet exciting alternate reality. A reality where tacos don't exist, where an 8-8 football team doesn't somehow make it into the Divisional NFL Playoff week, and -- most significantly -- where

If you're a big fan of Q-Games' PixelJunk series of downloadable titles, then 2009 is going to be a good year for you. In a post on the PlayStation.Blog, Q-Games president Dylan Cuthbert recounts some of his favorite games of 2008, and then ends with a coy tease: "Here's to an amazing 2009 for gaming as I am sure it is going to be, what with two or three more PixelJunk titles coming out, right!?"

So being the expert mathematicians that we are, we can deduce this means there will be at least two new PixelJunk games this year, and maybe even three. We know what one of them will be: Back in December, Cuthbert revealed (via Kotaku) that a PSP version of PixelJunk Monsters (PS3 version pictured above) was planned for 2009, which would be "a bit more" than just a straight port.

As for the other one or two games, there's no telling what they could be. Our guess? Q-Games will get into the whole self-improvement phase, and release PixelJunk My Spanish Coach.