Sooner or later, all things appear in Lego form.

Industry and multi-console news

New media: Star Ocean 4 trailer, Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit screenshots, Grand Theft Auto IV screenshots

• Next Gen lists the top 10 blunders of the year.
• Gamasutra lists the top five most significant moments in MMOs for the year.
• Forbes has named Nvidia company of the year.
• Amidst all these tiring recaps, 1up manages to be more original with an article examining Blade Runner's influence on games.
• The release of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel has been pushed back to September.
• Kotaku has the most recent Japanese software sales chart.
• Sony Pictures Digital's Yair Landau talks about movies and video games and the convergence thereof. He suggests 300 could be seen as the "first video game movie translation" (which is to say a video game styled movie), despite not being based on a game.
• NPR discusses 2007's games that got away. It's hard to believe that Portal "didn't get as much attention as [it] may have deserved," but then I don't know how well the game is known outside our little bubble of nerddom.
• Joystiq has a 5 video guide to building a MAME cabinet.
• A study in Taiwan finds that too much time spent playing video games can cause brain damage and affect one's learning and emotional control. I don't understand what this article's about AND IT MAKES ME SO GODDAMNED MAD
• GameFly has a year-end sale on all used games with free shipping on all games through January 4.
• Pedal Metal is an item that fixes broken Rock Band drum pedals or reinforces ones that still work.
• The Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda has won the right to violate US copyrights worth up to $21 million as a bizarre way of settling a dispute over online gambling.

PC and mobile news

New content: Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory free add-on
New media: Age of Decadence trailer

• Gamasutra has a Q&A about SimCity Societies.
• Slate recommends some great Web games you don't have to pay for.
• New content for Pirates of the Caribbean Online is coming in February. No, you're not dreaming, you really will get new pants and new hairstyles!

Nintendo news

• Amazon says that the Wii was one of their best sellers in 2007, selling 17 units per second whenever they managed to have the thing in stock.
• Chris Kohler has a hands-on preview of Taito's DS paddle controller. It's a little knob like you'd see in old Arkanoid machines that plugs into the GBA cart slot.
• A sequel to SimCity DS has been announced, and looks to take place in multiple time periods.
• Nintendo of Australia sent a free Wii to a girl with arthrogryposis after a friend wrote to them about how much she liked the system. Boy, if all those frenzied shoppers at the big box stores knew that all you needed was a formal request and a degenerative muscle disease...
• Amazon's deal of the day is Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 for $14.99.

Sony news

New media: Lost Planet screenshots

• The Magic Box has new screenshots for NiGHTS into Dreams on the PS2, along with news that the game will feature a Saturn Mode that makes the game look and sound exactly as it did on the Saturn. There are some comparison shots at the link.
• A 13 year old boy unwrapped a PS3 box this Christmas, only to find a phone book inside. Apparently an EB employee switched it out for his own nefarious ends.
• Q-Games talks a little about their new Gaia music visualizer.
• Amazon has the PS3 Logitech Cordless Mediaboard Pro marked down to $61.99. They've also got Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions on sale for $29.99. So tempting.

Microsoft news

New content: Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom demo

• A recently released list of the top selling Xbox 360 games in Japan over the console's lifetime finds Blue Dragon way out in front. Keep in mind that "way out in front" is still only around 200,000 units.
• Naturally, a Senko no Ronde figure of a girl with freakish eyes and her ass poking out is being prepared in Japan.
• Sega is closing Xbox Live services for Phantasy Star Online in Japan. I know the instinctual response is to laugh at the prospect of anyone in Japan still playing an Xbox 1 MMO, but hell, maybe it's really cool because everybody knows each other and they get this whole world to themselves.
• Amazon is doing a buy one HD-DVD movie get another free deal on selected discs.