Industry and multi-console news:

• The Gen Con So Cal show has been cancelled.
• Internet slueths have discovered that the Miss Video Game Pageant may not be all it appears to be! Crackerjack work, gumshoes!
• Burger King says that selling three cheaply priced Xbox games helped them achieve a 40% increase in profits.
• The Game Career Guide has an article entitled Saving Ourselves: Psychoanalytic Investigation of Resident Evil and Silent Hill that may cause your head to hurt.
• 2K Games is looking for Bioshock playtesters in SoHo.
• An EB Games clerk was found shot dead in the store in San Antonio. Police believe robbery was the motive, as cash was taken from the register. They don't mention any systems being stolen.
• Scottish Games has an interview with author and comics writer Gordon Rennie on writing for games.
• The first GRAW2 developer diary video is up.
• Kotaku has new photos of the Tetris vandalism building, showing that the original photo was slightly.. "enhanced."
• The Omni Future Almanac of 1982 predicted that video games would "plunge to obscurity" in the mid-80s. They believed that PCs would become so ubiquitous (they did) and so cheap (they did) that people would buy them to play games instead (they didn't).
• Game Politics points out a YouTube video of testimony from Frank Zappa in 1986 defending rock music from legislators who wanted state obscenity laws to include music. The irony is that Jack Thompson, in the middle of drafting bills to add video games to state obscenity laws, loves Zappa and calls him "prescient."
• Game Watch has a big feature comparing screenshots using different connections and resolutions for all three next-gen systems, so you can see what a PS3 game in 1080p over HDMI looks like versus the same image in 480p. Unfortunately it's all in Japanese, but at least you can pick out acronyms and resolution numbers. This Wiki page explains the D1, D2, etc. numbers.
• Alan Noon, a man who actually admits to having worked on the game, has started a forum post at Shoryuken to explain the history behind Street Fighter: The Movie, the arcade game. "Perhaps this is all my perception, but looking back, I remember that there was some amount of confusion as to what it was we were making exactly."

PC news:

• By the way, Vista has launched. To celebrate, Wired has a gallery of the various looks of Windows Solitaire over the years. Some days I find myself missing Windows 3.1 and I don't know why.
• Just in case you don't read the comments -- and how could that be -- Second Life is exempt from Ebay's recent rule abolishing all virtual property auctions.
• Future SiN episodes have been put on hiatus due to a lack of funding.
• Gamespot has an interview with Gabriel Knight creator Jane Jensen.

Nintendo news:

• EA has released the first footage of Sim City DS. They've kept Sim City 3000's soundtrack, but it's all been redone in synth. So the whole thing sounds like listening to MIDI versions of music you really liked.
• Sonic and the Secret Rings has been bumped up to a February 20th release date.
• Video: The Wii Sports boxing headspinning KO. Did the other boxer just get served?

Sony news:

• Sony's third quarter net income fell 5.6%, which is just a bit off from Bloomberg's 50% estimate from yesterday.
• As a part of that same financial report, here are all sorts of console shipping numbers. The PSP shipped 1.76 million units in the third quarter, down 72% from the same time last year.
• Sony has picked 12 personalities and organizations, including fashion industry insiders and club promoters, to help push the PS3 in the UK. They're then encourage to distribute "PS3 inspired" content on their websites, blogs, MySpace pages, etc.
• At least for the moment, Amazon has 60GB PS3s in stock.
• Also, pre-orders for God of War II at Amazon are six bucks off, at $43.99.

Microsoft news:

• A new rumor claims that Microsoft will begin giving rewards for achievements in the near future.
• Microsoft has revealed ten Xbox Live Arcade games for 2007. Most of them are already known, but they do confirm that Eets is coming to XBLA. Kotaku has screenshots of many of the new games.
• If you pre-order Halo 3 from Best Buy, you can get a 1600 Microsoft Points card for $4.99.
• Jeff Morris at Epic has joked that they'll be stuck "making Gears for the rest of their lives."
• A huge thread at Gamespot has spawned as a poster struggles with his girlfriend's ultimatum of "it's the 360 or me." Possibly the only time you'll read this sentence: "The addiction got so bad that when we were together making out I couldn't get Fudgehogs out of my head."