Hey Rob -
Thanks for listing Deadly Creatures in your list of the most promising Wii games for 2009.

Just wanted to clarify: Dennis Hopper and Billy Bob Thornton play two human characters in a crime-inspired storyline that's woven in with the tarantula and scorpion's adventures. Neither of our creatures speak or have personalities - they just kill things.

I'm sure you'll find when you play through the game that it's not a joke at all - it's deadly serious.

best,
Jordan Itkowitz
Lead Game Designer
Rainbow Studios

Rob,

Thanks for the ink in EDGE about the Nielsen console usage data. I'd like to add some additional information based on some of the questions posed in the article:

"Nielsen doesn’t explain its research method, nor does it verify if the American research group’s data was amassed from territories outside the US, and the findings don’t specify data from handheld systems."

Our research method for consoles is based on the same methodology as the Nielsen TV ratings. In any of the homes nationwide that have "people meters" on the TVs in their homes, any devices hooked up to the meters are also measured (DVD players, DVRs, video game consoles, etc.) We electronically measure the use of the consoles based on the people in the homes using them. They simply push a button on the people meter to indicate who is using the device and the usage is measured.

The data is only from the U.S. at this point. We are building infrastructure internationally but are still in developments.

Handhelds are not included in this data, as they are not hooked up to the TVs in the National TV panel. The "Other" category includes all older consoles such as PS1, SNES, Genesis, Turbo Grafx, N64, etc.

"Also, the group’s results were labelled under ‘October 2008’, making it more of a snapshot study than a full annual report (though proportional console usage tends to not fluctuate as much as weekly or monthly sales figures)."

The data is an average of the usage over the course of the 10 months from January-October. The PS2 usage % has steadily declined over the course of 2008 but has leveled off the past quarter or so to around 30%.

If you have any further questions or want to discuss any of this, please feel free to contact me at bradley.raczka@nielsen.com or on my business cell at (630) 450-4974.

Many thanks - Brad Raczka

Rob, just a correction to your recent article on Harrison and downloadables from Dec. 4th -

"Harrison and Atari CEO David Gardner "

David is CEO of Infogrames Entertainment (where Harrison is President), not "Atari". They run the "Atari brand" via Infogrames. As their company description clearly states:

"The Infogrames group, including the Atari brand, is a global producer, publisher and distributor of
interactive entertainment software for all market segments and all interactive game platforms...."

Hey Rob! Pleased to meet you.

I noticed the little link to my article you dropped at the end of the Fallout 3 story. Thank you very much indeed! :)

All the best,

Thom