This is intriguing math. Gfk-ChartTrack of UK has released the data for console sales in the region up to June 27, 2009 and it shows that there is a stellar 24 million installed base in the UK to date, with 8.4 million contributing to that number in the past 12 months.

Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2: Among Thieves took top honors in the annual Best of E3 Game Critics Awards with the "Best of Show" prize tucked firmly in Nathan Drake's belt. The game also received two other awards: "Best Console Game" and "Best Action/Adventure Game". Hit the full article for the other big winners.

Clearly off-topic. Looks like games are all the rage in fashion now. Earlier, we saw the oober-expensive Pac-Man limited edition scarf that scarily costs more than Sony's PSP Go. Now we have here Silent Hill's Pyramid Head, and guess what. It's all over the Fashion Runways.

Well he is about to become 30. In video gaming years, that's probably even past mid-life crisis already. Maybe that would explain why the Fummel & Kram brand is coming out with a very, very expensive accessory for Pac-Man, a scarf costing more than Sony's new PSP Go.

We've had some heavy-hitting gaming news this past week, say for example Ghostbusters: The Video Game's very apparent graphics discrepancy on competing consoles Xbox 360 and PS3. But I'd have to say that the Industry News section of our QuickPeek is clearly the winner of the highlights award for our 77th issue. From ratings boards to company love-teams, to digital distribution vs retailers, Obama's take on indoor (video)gaming versus outdoor frolicking, CEO slip-ups, cover-ups, retractions and apologies, threats to drop support for a console (as in, it's friendship over for Sony, Activision), we've got all the drama -- and more -- right here. You know what to do.

I'm personally baffled and not all too keen about Koei Tecmo's proposition of  incentivizing their staff to expand their families. Maybe they do need the population in their headquarters' town. But what I am sure of is that the news and updates here at QJ are expanding and on their own, beyond the shadows of E3.The (post) event updates have considerably slowed down, but in its place are new items and updates to buzz about, like a new custom firmware, executives' gripes about leakages in the industry, and pushing forth the race of this generation from mere hardware to motion control. It's all right here, so dig in.

This year's E3 was truly one for the books. After the busy week we had last week, we here at QJ.NET decided to do a little digging to look for 25 excellent games under US$ 25 that were released last year in honor of this year's E3. If you just recently acquired your 7th gen console or handheld or if you're just looking for a great game to add in your collection, maybe you can take a look at these games.

Shocking title? No, not really. That's not meant to bash the E3 2009 event. After all, it was a HUGELY successful one, and we're really happy for ESA that it all worked out so well. After all, it was only last year that they were practically declared clinically dead by the industry. And it was a big comeback they sure showed this year. BUT. All that you're gonna see here are news items and industry happenings that did NOT happen at E3, although not necessarily with absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that went down in LA. Hopefully you'll still read up on this one despite that limited scope. There is life beyond E3, after all. *wink*

We saw Shigeru Miyamoto checking out the PSP Go back in E3, but apparently, he's not the only bigwig checking out the competition. John Koller also went DS-watching at the expo, but instead of quietly doing so like Miyamoto did, the director of hardware marketing from Sony takes a little shot at the competing handheld, saying that "Mature games are cratering on the DS."

When you're one of the top game creators from the company that dominated the handheld gaming scene at its infancy, it's only natural that you'd be checking out the latest that the scene has to offer. That's exactly what Shigeru Miyamoto did at E3. The A-list game creator from Nintendo was spotted checking out the newest competition in the handheld scene - the PSP Go, and from the looks of it, he was really checking it out.