PlayStation Store Europe gets another obligatory update today with a excessive load of isometric puzzlers headed towards gamers in the region. Today's update highlights one of Sony's more unique titles released - Echochrome (PS3, PSP). Check out the complete list of downloadable goodies for this week in our full article.

David Hecq, a certified gamer who writes reviews and does other things video game journalists have on their to-do lists, is running for mayor of a small town in France. He's the president of AFRS (Française de Revendeurs Spécialisés, an association of video game retailers), runs a gaming website, yet still has time to play politics.

Check out the full article for more details!

It's no secret that Japan still loves Sony, and recent hardware sales prove testament to that. Even so, Nintendo's consoles are yet to slow down as the Wii and DS dominate the market. Microsoft's Xbox 360 continues to struggle with limited interest for its games outside the RPGs.

Recent figures from Media Create show that PlayStation 3 sales went up 20%, having sold 11,914 last week. The PlayStation 2 before it is still alive with units sold at 16,316 after experiencing a 26% increase.

Ninty's Wii doesn't fall behind, selling 8000 more than the week before last and keeping its steady lead at 73,919. Microsoft had 3154 Xbox 360 units sold for them, which is pretty much how the box performs over the land of the rising sun all the time.

On the handhelds side, DS recently sold 157,435 from 164,000 a couple of weeks back. Nintendo's other babies, Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Micro are still kicking, selling 179 and 377 respectively. The PSP trails as 38,305 units made their way off the shelves.

Electronic Arts, the same micro-transaction advocates who love going multiplatform, also sponsored the recent Women in Games Conference that is being held this April. Electronic Arts' VP of Europe Online, Sharon Knight, said in that same conference that ignoring the female gaming audience is "a great waste." And before you get any bright ideas, she's addressing that to all the game publishers out there, and not you, bub.

Considering Electronic Arts had realized the potential growth of the female gaming bracket last year, this new comment by an EA exec is a big step up from saying that the games industry was "failing women." But consistent with their views, Knight's stand on game development was similar to COO David Gardner's: make games that cater to both men and women.

Now we've said it's all about catering games to gamers, and just not males in general. So it's fair to say that catering games to women only is also a definite no-no. Creating "pink" games still leaves the concept of female gamers open to stereotyping and that's not healthy. Knight reiterated Electronic Arts' stand on the matter:

If you look at how other media forms have tapped into women, for example, you don't see movies and music being exclusive to men. Women enjoy all forms of entertainment. We [at EA] want to avoid making 'pink games.' Women enjoy many of the same features in gameplay as men do. The way EA sees it is there's a lot of untapped potential out there.

Take for example, The Sims: Sims creator Will Wright never developed The Sims with women in mind. In fact, it was supposed to cater to the "core" of gamers at the time: males. But when it came out, look who ate up all your afternoon gaming pleasure. Women are slowly crawling in to gaming, and not just on the casual side.

EA seems to be advocating that developers should contribute to the growing trend, introducing new ways of getting girl gamers hooked to the concept of gaming. Soon enough, they'll make great deathmatch opponents, RTS allies, MMO guild mates and a fresh breath of air in gaming-related conversations.

Start making small ripples, and soon enough, all those tiny ripples will make bigger waves. Make enough waves, you brew up a storm. So it's not a surprise that Nintendo's broader market crusader, the Wii, gets another special mention. Knight commented:

The Wii levels the playing field. You don't embarrass yourself--you can grab it and right away start having fun. ... [Wii games] don't require the same investment to learn and to master how to pick up and play [as other consoles' games].

Reputable investment firm William Blair and Company has revealed that game developer THQ is likely to experience significant growth figures in its stock and sales this year and well into the next several fiscal seasons.

The Chicago firm has taken the initiative to cover THQ's progress as it enters the new era of video games, branding the company's rating as "outperform" and predicting an "aggressive growth" for the company in the years to come.

Analyst Ralph Schackart commented on the issue, noting that.

...THQ is well positioned to experience multiple expansion, to a range from 20 times to 30 times, during the upcoming cycle given its stronger balance sheet, growing stable of owned properties, and ability to take market share, scale margins, and continue to deliver above-market growth."

And Schackart had good reason to be optimistic on the THQ matter. Experts predict that the $1.21 per share that THQ is earning this year may very well see a $ .15 rise next year. In the last quarter of 2006, THQ declared a 32 percent rise in profits to cap off a successful year that defied all market speculations.

“In addition, we believe THQ’s multiple can expand to roughly 35 times (or higher) if the development of incremental market opportunities (in-game advertising and micro-transactions, among others) materializes for the industry,” adds Schackart.

The analyst also said that aside from the $16 billion that the company already makes from publishing, THQ is also likely to get an additional $ 7 million from incremental deals from advertising and other commitments.

The growing market confidence in THQ and its products is likely to trickle down into the root levels in the form of stock investors buying more shares to push the company's collective value up a few more notches.

In today's edition of the Japanese hardware sales report, every console has received a drop in sales with one exception: the Nintendo DS Phat. The DS Lite's still dominating the charts, with a commanding lead over the Wii, which is the only other console that registered numbers above the 50,000-unit mark. Third spot goes to the PSP, the PS3's in fourth, and the PS2 is in fifth place. Microsoft's Xbox 360 rounds out the top six.

Here are the charts for the period spanning January 29 until February 4, straight from Media Create:

1. DS Lite - 146,073
   
2. Wii - 65,740
3. PSP - 31,216
4. PS3 - 18,727
5. PS2 - 17,540
6. Xbox 360 - 6,130
7. Game Boy Micro - 1,050
8. GBA SP - 724
9. Gamecube - 306
10. DS - 119
11. GBA - 28

It's 2007 ladies and gentlemen, and for the people in the Land of the Rising Sun, New Year has been a quite a spending spree. As Media-Create noted, the DSL and Wii sales figures constitute for almost 70% of the market sales. As they have conveniently jotted down:

• DSL -  344,878
• Wii - 195,331
• PSP - 118,186
• PS3 - 69,944
• PS2 - 52,037
• Xbox360 - 18,235

As usual, we can see that Nintendo is continuing to ride the waves of success even in its native country, with the DS Lite still maintaining its popularity. So, under the basis of this old belief that the beginning of the year will pretty much signify the trend for the rest of the year, is it possible that 2007 will be Nintendo's year? Or will the PSP or the PS3 bounce back to the top once other PS3 titles are released later this year?

During one of our daily forays into the World Wide Web, we stumbled upon a scan of a page which pretty much got us to sit up and pay attention. For one thing, the page was apparently taken from a book a couple of decades old, and contained predictions on how video games would be in the year 2000. We've read it, and it turns out that whoever wrote the prediction may actually turn out to be a video game prophet in his own right.

Upon doing a quick search, it turns out that the vintage page (sent in to Data of Data Realms from Prom) which contained the prophetic visions of the future was actually taken from the book "Usborne Guide To Computers", published around 1981. We also discovered after more Googling, that it's author, Brian Reffin Smith, was ahead of his time, but is also lucky enough to live to see that his predictions are actually spot on (so wherever you are, Mr. Smith, here's to you).

Now, just click on "Full Article" and let's see where he got it right as we go over the contents of the page...