Industry and multi-console news:

• Gamespot is reporting that Doug Lowenstein is stepping down as president of the ESA.
• Eidos exec Ian Livingstone says the forthcoming Tomb Raider game graphics are "like watching television." I guess that's meant to be a good thing. They're also working on a third TR movie, though it's "nowhere near the green-light process" yet.
• Rumors are saying that MGS4 may come to the 360, supposedly because Konami is worried there wouldn't be enough PS3 units in circulation to make the game profitable. However, Konami has told CVG that it's still a PS3 exclusive.
• Gamasutra looks at litigations that changed the game industry.
• The Select Button forums has a post explaining how Famitsu works -- its supposedly "paid off" reviews, and how it's seen by the Japanese.
• Toys R Us says they will be receiving "thousands" of Wiis and 6000 PS3s in the week leading up to Christmas.
• Next Generation looks back at they year in pictures.
• A Something Awful former is having trouble with somebody Ebaying his game FAQs without permission. Ebay won't do anything about it.
• Another California legislator is targeting video games, but this is one we might actually be able to get behind: Lori Saldana intends to introduce a bill to stop in-game ads and spyware from being installed on your PC.
• Police officers in Salt Lake City have recruited a 15 year old boy to teach them how to pose as underage gamers to trap sexual predators.

PC news:

• A Half Life 2 co-op mod has been released, naturally called Follow Freeman.
• Examining the hype vs. the anti-hype about Second Life. Like most things, it's not everything it's made out to be, but it's also not like the naysayers say it is.
• Someone has uploaded a video of Peter Molyneux's presentation at the 2005 GDC, where he demoed The Room, an experiment in hyper-realism in games. As with most Molyneux projects, it's more noodling around with "isn't that neat" than actually coming up with anything useful.

Nintendo news:

• Today's new Virtual Console titles are Tennis, Space Harrier II and Military Madness.
• Despite the news that there would be one friend code per Wii, it seems Pokemon Battle Revolution uses its own, game-specific friend code.
• Super Swing Golf contains realtime cameltoe action.
• A CNN staffer describes her experience getting the last Wii in a shipment with a long line of people behind her.
• Line-ups for the Wii were spotted again this past weekend, and there were still plenty of people who didn't get one.
• Prince of Persia: Rival Swords will be coming to the Wii in March.
• Square has released a new Dragon Quest IX trailer.
• A class action lawsuit has been filed against Nintendo for their "defective" remote straps.
• A 3D fighting game called Legend of the Dragon has been announced for the Wii. It's apparently based on some cartoon I've never heard of.
• A rumor is going around that the DS will see another revision in 2007, with larger screens.
• More things to use remotes for: Air guitar. Excuse me, Wiitar. Egh.
• Someone on Ebay is selling a purse made from an NES.
• Here's a gallery of movie director Miis. Boy, if you want to be the life of the party, just show up with your Ingmar Bergman Mii.
• Video: If you do employ the trick of using candles in place of your sensor bar, try not to burn the damned place down.

Sony news:

• Sony is in talks with MovieLink, CinemaNow and Amazon.com to offer a PSP movie download service.
• GameVideos has the first footage of FFT on the PSP.
• A sequel to Disaster Report is coming to the PS2 in February.
• GameTrailers has new footage of MotorStorm from someone who owns a Japanese copy of the game. The game will ship with dictionaries alongside the definition of "floaty."

Microsoft news:

• The content producer for GRAW2 says Gears of War is "an absolutely awesome ten minutes, but if you play 20 minutes it doesn't bring anything new."
• Thieves in Florida tunnelled through a GameStop to steal 360s. They were looking for PS3s, but there weren't any.
• If you're going to make a Halo 3 case mod, make sure the 3 isn't backwards.
• Downloads of the two Lost Planet demos have passed the one million mark.