Industry and multi-console news:

• Tech journal Red Herring is reporting that Google's deal to buy in-game ad company Adscape has been completed, but there's still no official source on the matter.
• A Texas A&M International University researcher has conducted a meta-analysis of the various studies on video games and violent behavior, and finds the connection remains tenuous at best.
• Face of Doom is an video game art installation in which the face of the Doom guy is projected onto the ruins of the Hotel Europa in Sarajevo. "As the energy level decreases from 100% to 14%, Flyn's expression becomes increasingly tormented and anguished, a metaphor for a city that suffered so much destruction during the war."
• The winner of the Perplex City alternate reality game explains how he found the cube.
• I hear you really know how to move in four new Shivering Isles screenshots.
• The Player One podcast has a new interview with Ted Woolsey, famous/infamous for the translations of 16-bit Square titles like FF6 and Chrono Trigger. There's also a transcription if you don't feel like listening.
• Shocking developments! The 18 year old boy who went on a shooting spree in a Salt Lake City mall didn't own any video games. He must have passed by a Babbages, had his mind taken over by evil radiation, then opened fire.
• Then again... A Japanese university student has admitted to murdering a man and his mother for arcade money.
• Patent Arcade has an archive of various game lawsuits over the years. Not people suing game makers, but companies suing each other, like Capcom's famous beef with Data East's Fighter's History.
• Ars Technica does some shopping around to compare HDMI cable prices. It seems no one can decide how much they should cost.
• A new Spider-man 3 gameplay trailer is out, proudly boasting that all its footage is in-game. I've run some tests and found it to be sexy.

PC news:

• Jade Empire: Special Edition is now available for pre-loading on Steam.
• Blizzard and Vivendi have filed suit against the makers of WoW Glider, a program that plays your World of Warcraft character for you. There's an unusual amount of hate towards Blizzard from gamers on this issue. I guess when you get big enough, no one's your friend anymore. Except lawyers?
• John Edwards 2008 campaign has set up shop in Second Life.
• Irrational games may be developing an X-Com title.

Nintendo news:

• This week's Virtual Console releases are Donkey Kong Country, The Legend of Kage, New Adventure Island, and Streets of Rage.
• As with George Harrison's recent comments about Japanese games possibly coming to the US VC, Nintendo has also said that America-only games could see release on the PAL Virtual Console.
• A homebrew port of Quake is now available for the DS.
• EA has opened their official SSX Blur site.
• Gameplay trailers have been released for Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, so we can finally see the battle system in action.
• Reggie Fils-Aime notes that "we have a tremendous amount of old Nintendo Power content that we could present to consumers as a way to get smart about Virtual Console." Countdown to Saturday Scan cease and desist starts.... now.
• Kill time and trees with Zelda papercraft.
• Ubisoft has announced Totally Spies for the Wii, though only for PAL territories so far. They can keep it.
• IGN has a new interview with Suda 51 in which he promises to try to make No More Heroes "as violent or even more violent than Manhunt 2." The man has his priorities in order.
• Zelda Reorchestrated is a project dedicated to creating "orchestrated" versions of all Zelda soundtracks. I put it in quotes because they're using high-end sequencers rather than a real orchestra, but hey, these people aren't made of money.
• Someone has uploaded an old Silicon Graphics Ultra 64 tech demo video to YouTube.
• The Wii straps thing is nothing compared to 1982, when Nintendo provided stickers with Game & Watch units to go over the battery cover and prevent babies from eating the batteries.
• A mechanical engineering student has built a clip to attach the Wii remote to the classic controller.
• First4Figures continues with their Nintendo characters series by offering up a Zero Suit Samus figure.
• One Wii modchip maker is claiming their chip will enable DVD playback, ut there's no proof as of yet.
• Gamecube shooter Radio Allergy has been delayed to March 20.

Sony news:

• This isn't a Sony doom and gloom thing, just amusing: For a time, the SNES was ranked higher on Amazon's sales charts than the PS3.
• AOL names the PS3 among Five Gadgets You Shouldn't Buy. Okay, that's a little bit of a doom and gloom thing.
• Brian Crecente says that recent images of the set-up screen to use your PSP as a wing mirror in F1 Championship Edition are false. He says he has the retail version and it doesn't have the feature, despite the fact that it was demoed at E3.
• Phil Harrison has revealed that Sony is planning to make movies available on the Playstation Network.
• The first screenshots are up for a PSP game based on the upcoming 300 movie.
• Sony has let Harmonix know that they're permanently taking down Amplitude's online server on the 26th. Harmonix is planning some sort of send-off/funeral on the 25th.

Microsoft news:

• Xbox Live will be down for maintenence tomorrow, the 20th, from 2 to 5 am PST.
• Bungie has released a teaser image for Halo 3 with a Fall 2007 date on it.
• The first map pack for Lost Planet will be available on March 9 for 400 points.
• An auction to be a cameo voice in Halo 3 mentions Halo 4, but Bungie says it was a "sad clunker of a gag" added by "the 'wit' who wrote the eBay copy."
• 2old2play notes that once you use a credit card on an Xbox Live account, it becomes tied to that account indefinitely.
• A developer at Rare briefly talked about Banjo Kazooie 3, saying "It's still the same characters and the same thing. It's a game for the people who appreciated the game years ago and also for new people that are coming to the 360." I don't know if the same thing is really where you want to go with that.