The Movies Game: From the official site, "The Movies isn't just a detailed simulation. Being successful in the game is a great way to earn money and prestige, and to finance your next projects. But you are actually creating motion pictures called MiniMovies so the real test is whether you're prepared to post these on the internet (either your own site or The Movies central site) and show them to the real world." From the Lionshead discussion board, "The filmmaking part of the game will allow much creativity. You can customise each set. You can shoot scenes from multiple angles using many different camera types, such as crane rigs and steadicams. You can choose the roles each actor plays i.e. action, horror, comedy etc. You can adjust the content of the scenes in terms of the amount of romance, action, violence, gore, etc. (different per scene) and also select different outcomes to the scenes. You can choose your favourite shots of your favourite scenes to use in your trailer, then choose the music & voice overs you would like. There are a myriad of things to play with providing each player the opportunity to make movies unique to them."

Eyetoy: According to ELSPA game sales chart, the number one best-selling title in the UK at present is EyeToy: Play. From Greg Kostikyan's weblog, "James Reilly (a Yank currently living in the UK) writes: We bought [an EyeToy] for my kids 2-3 weeks ago... The game play and graphics are relatively simple, and there is certainly a lot of novelty value. But I was surprised at how much fun it is for me to play with, or against them with it. One can certainly work up a sweat with EyeToy trying to outscore their ten year old son in 2-player Kung Fu... Kids seem to really enjoy the aspect of seeing themselves in the game, vs. being abstractly aware of themselves playing some character in a game." From Alison Scott's blog, "Meanwhile, the EyeToy turned out to be better value than I was expecting. It links a USB camera that sits on top of your telly, with a set of little games that you control with your body. It's clearly a good cheap thrill to be able to see yourself on screen, and the controls (you wave at various bits of the screen to make things happen) are simple enough for Jonathan. The twelve mini-games are very simple; proof of concept rather than anything else. To win them you have to bounce around and wave your arms a lot. There's also a playroom for freeform bouncing around, allowing kids to see themselves onscreen in a variety of different environments. One of my children's favourite exhibits at the Science Museum is a room that displays multicoloured patterns as they dance; one of the dozen EyeToy playroom modes replicates this. They played with EyeToy for much of the morning, and then challenged us to a series of family battles. The grownups won most of them, but it's not all that common to find physical games that adults and three year olds enjoy playing together.

First Microsoft Xbox Games with Fonix Speech Now Available: Microsoft Xbox licensed Fonix speech technology to deliver voice-command software that makes it very easy for game developers to add speech-enabled capabilities to their games. Fonix speech technology gives players new access to games features, command and control functions, and menu navigation, making the entire experience more engaging and fun. Download an MP3, produced by Fonix, of the Press Release.

Karaoke is latest feature on Xbox: As Xbox from Microsoft Corp. enters its third holiday season, the company is hoping to broaden its appeal by offering extras that have nothing to do with video gaming. There's "Music Mixer" - software and a microphone that turn the Xbox console into a karaoke machine. Customers can also transfer music files and digital photos to their Xbox consoles for playback on the TV.

On Newsgaming's September 12th: From the creator himself, via WaterCoolerGames, "100 thousand persons have played Newsgaming.com's September 12th during the last few weeks. When I launched this journalistic/political game I knew I was taking quite a risk with its design/scope, but I am thrilled at seeing how well it is performing. So far, reviews have ranged from “an interesting experiment in political speech” (Henry Jenkins, MIT Technology Review) to “an inane piece of offensive crap” (Greg Kostikyan)." From the company website, the Newsgaming team is "a team of independent game developers who believe video games are not simply an amusement. Games and simulations can also make us think about what is going on in this world. Periodically, we will use games and simulations to analyze, debate, comment and editorialize major international news."