I’m sure you are all familiar with The King of Kong, the documentary about the fierce battle between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchel for the coveted Donkey Kong high score. But, just recently, a new champion emerged. Hank Chien of New York, New York reached a baffling 1,061,700 points in 2 hours, 35 minutes, topping the previous 1,050,200 record set by Billy Mitchel. Chien’s score was verified by Twin Galaxies officials David Nelson and Eric Akeson.

Twin Galaxies, the most popular authority on score keeping since 1981, recently asked Chien in an interview,

With one legendary game in the can, is there another record in your sights?

Yes, but that’s a secret. It’s nothing big, in fact it’s quite the opposite; a very small title that I stumbled upon accidentally and have been playing while on Donkey Kong breaks. I will also push up my Donkey Kong score a bit before I retire. I’m still improving! But at the moment, I don’t have plans to pursue any other big titles. I like competition, but fun and friendly competition. This world record stuff is too much pressure!

As a Steve Wiebe fan, myself, I’m a bit upset about this.  Wiebe mentioned his interest in trying to top his score again at the GDC this year. Hopefully, he’ll top this guy as well.

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One bit of news that has my curiosity piqued regarding this year’s E3 is the rumored PSP redesign. I’m seriously interested in a hyper-online connected, UMD-less portable. Even so, this time next year I guarantee I’ll have a DSi instead (still not going to buy a $200 handheld, Sony, sorry!). That said, the minor competition a PSP2 (and iPhone, for that matter) would give Nintendo’s undisputed king of handhelds is completely welcome.

Microsoft is coming to terms with a harsh reality; drunk on rum and with all cannons firing, Nintendo has stolen the booty this generation.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, Microsoft’s Don Mattick admitted his company has realistic goals in terms of catching Nintendo this round.

Quite simply, that it won’t.

Even Microsoft’s top Xbox boss acknowledges the company is unlikely to catch up to Nintendo. “I’m not at a point where I can say we’re going to beat Nintendo,” says Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. Indeed, Nintendo is likely to run away with the lead in the current generation of console gaming, leaving Microsoft and Sony to battle for second place. Microsoft’s lead over Sony, coupled with the changes it’s bringing to the console, positions it to secure that spot, Mattrick says: “We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony.”

Faulty hardware aside, Microsoft had a good approach this generation. It hit the market a year early, established a strong games library with blockbuster exclusives and built the industry’s standard for online gaming services. Despite all this, Nintendo has breezed by Microsoft, and the company is losing ground to Sony, which has done as many things wrong this generation as Microsoft has done right.

Nintendo has sold 31 million Wii consoles worldwide. Microsoft follows with slightly more than 20 million 360 sales, and Sony trails with a steadily climbing 15 million PS3 sales, according to VG Chartz.

The game industry is, undeniably, already well on its way into a new era. It is, like a certain presidential candidate, change we can believe in. It is both an exciting time (as a player) and an uncertain time (as a developer). But it is also a highly lucrative time, as is usually the case when truly disruptive trends begin to come to a head (see also, iPod).

Hardware and software sales continue to trend well into the billions of dollars; industry figureheads like former Sony exec Phil Harrison have allegedly stepped down because of blowback against some of the newer game ideas that are making money where there wasn’t any to be made in the past; and, since I would be remiss to not include it in a post on a fansite devoted to passionate discussion about its very being, there is, without question, Nintendo. (more…)