Analog sticks, that is. What did you think I mean, you sick bastards? Anyway, Texas-based company Anascape Ltd. recently won its ongoing lawsuit with Nintendo, which was based on the rights of the analog stick used on the game company’s GameCube, Wavebird, and Wii Classic controllers. As 1up.com reports, all of those may soon be pulled off the shelves. And yes, that even includes the few dozen GameCubes that are still taking up space in local retail stores because - duh! - the system comes with a controller.

So what does this mean for Nintendo? Well, to be honest, probably not a whole heck of a lot in the immediate future. The Cube is dead, so anyone who wanted it most likely has one by now. A Link to the Past and Super Metroid have come out on the Virtual Console, and Smash Bros. Brawl has already been released on the Wii, meaning most fans have already gotten their hands on a Classic Controller or Wavebird. Still, over the long run, it will obviously put a damper on Nintendo’s attachment sales, and newer players will be forced to use some newfangled, yet-to-be-designed controller in order to avoid being pwned in Mario Kart.

Anascape is hoping to ban the sales of the controllers starting tomorrow, July 23, but that is most likely going to be postponed due to the (obvious) appeal from Nintendo. Strange dealings in the gaming world today, that’s for sure.

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Direct info from the reporter who penned the Bloomberg news article about the case, Susan Decker: She says that the rulings for appeals court cases generally take at least 9 months to reach, with many taking upwards of a year to 18 months. That’s good news for Wii fans, as that means the ban will be delayed, but it’s not great news for Nintendo, since they’ll be fighting in court for a long time to come. Of course, the option of a settlement is out there, as Microsoft already did with Anascape, but the way Nintendo has been talking about this issue, I think they’re in it for the long haul.

Nintendo’s Cammie Dunaway - aka the overly cheerful bad snowboarder from the E3 press conference - recently spoke with Wired.com’s Game|Life blog, and more or less held her own against a brutal fanboy whipping from author Chris Kohler. He voiced many of the concerns that have no doubt been clogging up Nintendo message boards all across the net, asking where the hardcore (read: “real”) games were, how the Wii MotionPlus will be used by third parties, and what the deal is with the lack of space for WiiWare and Virtual Console games. Her answers were pretty standard, press-friendly fare, and it will probably still leave you upset at the big N for not bringing Zelda and Mario to LA with them, but at least you can get a little more insight.

Thanks to 1up.com for the pic.

[edit] Seems Wired.com is on a Nintendo-bashing rampage all over their blog. Can you really blame them? Nate Ralph makes some very valid points in his rant about the casual-vs.-core debate. Check it out while you’re over at Wired.

After featuring mostly casual games for everyone at this year’s E3 press conference, Nintendo has released trailers for some of its previously announced titles online. Over at Nintendo’s E3 hub you can check out the videos for Mario Super Sluggers, Wario: Shake It!, and Kirby Superstar Ultra, among others that Nintendo didn’t think people wanted to see during the presentation. Of course, most of this was probably available on the floor at E3, but since we underprivileged folk can’t be there to check it all out, it would’ve been nice if the press conference, which was being broadcast on G4 and all over the place online, featured some stuff that the hardcore gamers actually wanted to see (as much as you can call Sluggers and Wario hardcore, I suppose. At least it’s not another Bratz game).

So head on over to get your fill of the newest Nintendo goodies before they release in the coming months.

In their latest weekly update, Bungie gave an appropriately subtle but still (understandably) upset jab at Microsoft for pulling their big E3 announcement at the last moment.

We feel pretty confident that this piece of history would’ve been an awesome fit in an E3 Lineup; but we read on the Internet that sometimes there just isn’t time to fit everything in.

This is quite obviously in response to Don Mattrick’s comments following the MS E3 press conference that, as MTV’s Multiplayer blog put it, “Microsoft’s Monday press conference was already loaded with content and so any announcements for that series weren’t needed to get gamers excited.”

Still sounds like a sketchy situation, but not much anyone - Bungie included - can do at this point but grin and bear it until the time is right for the announcements to be made public. In the meantime, we can just check out the hidden wallpapers that Bungie had scattered throughout their site recently, conveniently brought together in this post from their forums, featuring the character that most people are referring to as the SuperIntendent (or Superintent, if you take the file names literally).

Lady Croft will be coming back into your lives just in time to give you something to do while the rest of your family watches football on Thanksgiving Day. Tomb Raider: Underworld, Lara’s latest adventure, will hit stores in the US on November 18 (November 21 in Europe. Slackers.) - close enough to the holiday to cash in but over a week away from Gears of War 2 to avoid that mad rush (admittedly, they’re aimed at slightly different demographics, though testosterone reigns with both).

The newest addition to the long-running series, Underworld will have Lara traversing the globe again, from the depths of the Mediterranean to Antarctica, and new gameplay elements are promised, including the ability to use and explore the terrain around you rather than just being limited to one path. That means you can grapple rocks that look suitable for grappling, rather than looking around for… oooh! Something shiny! Let me use the grapple!

Head to TombRaider.com (appropriately enough) for the latest info and screens, and check back here for more updates as the game nears release.

Microsoft’s Don Mattrick, in an interview with MTV Multiplayer, let “slip” that yes, Bungie is in fact working on a new addition to the Halo franchise. He did not mention what this game entails, when it would release, or… well, he didn’t say anything about it, other than that MS, as 1up.com reports, “had enough new games and content, and didn’t need Halo to add extra excitement to their press conference.”

This “announcement” of sorts actually brings up some valid questions. If the Halo game was ready to go for Monday, why did the countdown on Bungie’s site end early Wednesday morning? Is the studio working on TWO titles in-house? And when the hell are we going to hear the details about any of this?!? It’s enough to make fanboys and girls nuts, but hopefully Bungie will let their secrets out sooner rather than later.

Thanks to a new article on Wired.com, you can check out the first press screenshots of the new Wii Sports Resort, due out from Nintendo next spring. Rather than shots of Nintendo’s execs trying to look cool in front of the audience, these shots show more average gamer-like Miis participating. Looks fun, but I don’t know if it’ll be worth a full retail, even though it comes with the WiiMotionPlus attachment. We’ll have to wait and see how many games are in the pack altogether. And if Nintendo really wanted to get smart and creative, maybe they’d put TWO of the WMP devices in with the game. The system is made for multiplayer fun, after all, and very few people who own the Wii have just one remote.

In addition to being the unstoppable Jack Bauer on 24, owning a record company, telling David Letterman about getting drunk and tackling a Christmas tree, and being a huge hockey fan, Jack Bauer is now getting more involved in the world of video games. Following the somewhat disappointing (because it was only on Sony consoles, fuckers!) 24: The Game, Kiefer is back lending his voice to the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War. Activision announced the deal during their E3 press conference last night, saying the game is going for a more gritty feel than previous entries. No word yet on whether or not Kiefer’s character breaks out some Bauer-like torture scenes to increase that gritty factor, but I guess we’ll find out.

Oh, and, though it was revealed earlier in the day during Nintendo’s press conference, Activision confirmed that co-op play will be coming to all consoles, and online co-op for up to four will also be available (presumably only on the 360 and PS3).

Thanks to 1up for the info.

With less than 12 hours to go before Bungie was poised to make an announcement at E3 regarding their latest game, a message has shown up on their homepage proclaiming that the announcement has been delayed.

Tough news for the folks at Bungie, and even worse for those fans (myself included) who were very interested in what the company was bringing to the conference. On the bright side, though, I can actually concentrate at work tomorrow and not have to rush out at 10:07 to call someone with internet access.

We’ll keep you posted as more details arrive.

…and there’s not much else to say about that. Tretton revealed that yes, it is a reality, and showed a trailer, but no release date or gameplay footage was shown.

inFamous, on the other hand, was shown, with a release slated for spring 2009, and that looked pretty kick-ass. Looks like a mash-up of Crackdown’s explosions, SW: The Force Unleashed’s lightning and physics effects, and a total free-roaming open world.

Sony then introduced a new MMO action title coming just to the PS3 which will allow for up to 256 players at one time. Players will be broken down into 8-person squads, so the fighting will be a little more familiar, but the grand scale of the battles will still be larger than anything else seen so far. The title is announced as MAG or Massive Action Game. Maybe that’ll change to something a little more war-like and less like a tagline or product description, but we’ll have to wait and see. The trailer showed some heavy fire going on between two rival factions, and when it looked as though the action had slowed, reinforcements came soaring in on parachutes while jets flew by on bombing runs.

Thanks to Wired.com for the Kratos close-up.