Industry and multi-console news:

• I was afraid of this: Neil Gaiman says the news of him working with Roger Avary on a Silent Hill 2 script is a "discredited internet rumour." But "if I get home to find an invitation to write Silent Hill 2 with Roger is waiting for me I'll let you all know."
• Research conducted by psychologists at the University of Rochester finds that "the psychological 'pull' of games is largely due to their capacity to engender feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness."
• Yet more end of year commentary as Wired, Worth Playing, Elite Bastards, Eurogamer and even Amazon's editors all look back on the best and worst of the year. The Worth Playing article is just their honorable mentions so far; tomorrow they'll start handing out the real awards.
• Meanwhile, PC World ranks their 20 most innovative products of the year, number one of which is... Office 2007?
• The 2007 Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition finalists have been announced, and range from flOw to Super Columbine Massacre RPG.
• A Wall Street Journal writer takes a power meter around his home to find what takes the most juice, and determines that electronic gadgets aren't the power hogs some think, especially compared to major appliances. In rebuttal, Dennis Forbes notes that while that's true to a point, overall trends in appliance power usage are going down, while home electronics are going up.
• Game Trailers has a new, uh.. game trailer for Virtua Tennis 3.
• Researchers have tried recreating the Milgram experiment virtually, in which human subjects must deliver shocks to a computer generated character instead of a real one. Oddly, several people still couldn't go through with it all the way.
• Insert Credit has a warning about buying from importer Toys n' Joys.
• Game Lemons ranks the ten hottest girl gamers (who are actually gamers). Unfortunately, four out of the ten are Frag Dolls, and I don't know how many games they actually play that they're not getting paid for.
• NexGenWars claims the 360 has sold 9 million units and the Wii 2 million. VGCharts says the 360 has sold 7.7 million and the Wii 3.2 million. Who to believe? Who the hell knows?
• The Stamford Advocate explains more about the Entertainment Consumers Association, a new non-profit organization which will "be the collective voice for interactive entertainment consumers."
• Late online holiday sales of consoles and games were up by 50% compared to last year. Only jewelry and watches had a greater increase compared to 2005 in online ordering.
• South Korea is considering a bill to prohibit the sale or purchase of virtual currency.
• A job listing for a Warhammer console producer suggests that Warhammer Online may come to consoles.

PC news:

• A Windows Vista presskit has info on the previously unannounced HP Pavillion tx1000 Notebook PC.
• Gamasutra has a mostly technical feature on the making of Mars Sucks, a prototype that was meant to determine whether a video game could be made out of Google Earth. They also provide the source code for anyone looking to improve upon it.
• The creators of Darwinia and Defcon have announced their next project, called Subversion.
• The beta for Goldeneye Source, a recreation of the classic N64 game in Half Life 2's Source engine, is now available for download.
• This video explains how to access hidden games in Mac OS X. I realize this is the PC section, but.. hell. Macs are personal and they're computers. It's close enough.

Nintendo news:

• Contra 3 is the latest title to be rated by the ESRB for the Wii, though who knows when we'll get it. The UK will be getting the European version of the game, Super Probotector, this Friday.
• The Mii MegaMall is an all-in-one Mii downloading tool.
• Gamestop is having a sale on certain Gamecube titles through January 2. You can get Chibi Robo, Battalion Wars, or even Donkey Kong Jungle Beat with two sets of bongos for just $10 each.
• New screenshots and box art for Sim City DS, which is a port of Sim City 3000. No word on whether it will be released outside of Japan.
• A Gamespot forumer has used a "super clawshot" code to get to inaccessible parts of Twilight Princess.
• Platinum members of the Japanese Club Nintendo get to choose from a personalized Wii remote flap or a copy of Tingle's Balloon Fight on the DS. Americans, of course, get nothing. Though I'm not sure I'd want to be exposed to Tingle's balloons.
• A second Animal Crossing movie trailer has been released.

Sony news:

• A new rumor says Best Buys are sitting on PS3s to have stock for a New Year's sale.
• Here's a direct feed version of the FFT PSP trailer, if you'd like to see what it looks like without people wandering in front of it.
• Tony Blair has taken a week-long holiday in Florida, and the tabloid press got pictures of, of all things, his wife hauling around a PS3.
• Brian Crecente gets his five year old to review the Shredder, a third party Guitar Hero controller that's supposedly easier for children to use because it's smaller. Unfortunately it does not make turtle soup.

Microsoft news:

• The UK edition of the Official Xbox Magazine says that Halo 3 beta invitations might come packed with retail copies of Crackdown.