Hats off to the team at GameSpot around the world who have started pushing the new design and features live. The navigation and design make a whole lot more sense now and it really surfaces the cool content to the top much easier.

Is Australian idol not harvesting enough raw Aussie talent in our backyard? The latest news from the Australian idol camp is that Kyle Sanders will be holding auditions in LA and Dicko will hit London to sniff out talented Aussies living abroad.

Can our friends in the US keep Kyle?

Want to have a good old chin wag with other Aussies on TV.com? News hot off the press is that we've created a new forum espcially for this purpose. Point your browser here and go introduce yourself:

http://www.tv.com/australia/board/90003/topics.html?tag=boards;title;1

Stay tuned folks, we'll be having more in the near future!

With the Commodore 64 turning 25 this year, and its legacy installed in the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley this week it was a sobering thought that I'm an old gamer. Back then I didn't pay for games (I was 4-5) but interestingly gaming was pretty pricey compared to today's standards. A c64 would go for around $800. $800 in today's cash probably isn't that outragous, but, back in the olden days of the 80's it was, well I don't have time to think of a real conversion...but lots more. It's probably fair to say games are more expensive, but then again many games are comparable to making mega budget films these days...

Anywho, cheers to the C64!

Here is the original Australian ad:

and here is the a tribute to the 64. Ah, the memories...

Lately(like the last 3 months or so) I've been working much less on GameSpot AU now that it has moved out of the "new" phase and focused on other new stuff @ CNET. One of those I can talk about has recently launched -- AppleSource. It's a "how to" site for Apple users. Currently it's focused on the Mac computer hardware, software, iPods, iPhones, 3rd party products and so forth. You can find it here.

One area that isn't included yet is Mac gaming. There seems to be little content around on Mac specific gaming and to be honest I haven't ever bought a game specifically for my Mac. For me Windows and consoles are where I have my games.

However, over the past few months quite a few games developers have announced their new releases will be available on the Mac platform. I'm not sure if this is because Macs are getting more popular of because it is less programming effort now that new Macs are running on Intel chips. Probably a little from column A and B.

So I guess this is an open question to other GameSpotters out there: How popular is Mac gaming and how good are games(and selection) that run natively on the Mac?

I was cleaning up some photos on my camera and found a few from last year's After Hours event put on by GameSpot.com in San Francisco.

Check them out

Now, who wants this down this end of the world?

With all the new shiney toys in the GameSpot AU office to play with I hadn't purchased a next-gen console for home.  Slack I know. Well that all changed last week when I got a brand new Nintendo Wii from my girlfriend.  I secretly think she wanted it...but I degress.

It's already got a workout at a few functions and seems to be a hit with many of my traditionally non-gamer friends. I've hooked it up to the Web, and it's fun to watch some YouTube telly.  Making some Wii-based sites could be a bit of fun as you have to exclude as much keyboard input as possible and have things icon based.  My only complaint is that the Opera Browser it is based on doesn't support the latest standards for plug-ins and scripting support. 

I do need to get more games for it I think...though there is something simple and fun about Wii tennis I love. Nobody will stop me in that game now...

MP3.com look to have an exclusive stream of the new White Stripes single called "Icky Thump". Cool stuff.  I like the new guitar sounds Jack White has used in this song.  Don't listen to me though, listen to the single:

http://www.mp3.com/artist/the-white-stripes/summary/

There's been a lot of news in the media this week about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. The thing that irks me about the coverage from US news feeds is the soapbox that Jack Thompson gets. I'm open to discussions about violence in video games and a firm beleiver in ratings for games so parents can judge what type of content is suitable for children. (I'll leave the discussion about Australia not having an R-rating for games...) However, it only took hours before Jack Thompson was seen on TV blaming shoot 'em up video games as "Murder Simulations" and pointing the finger at the video game industry as someone to blame for this horrible event.

For the record the truth is that the suspect didn't even play video games -- he was a writer. When the police searched his dorm room there was no video games, controllers, or software that indicated he was a gamer. The PDF of the search is here if you're interested.

Jack Thompson's comments were pre-emptive and far too soon to be given airplay. Thompson, a lawyer, clearly has his own agenda with other legal cases pending on this subject and is really just self-promoting and advertising when given this opportunity. I believe that if Thompson was legitimate he wouldn't comment on such cases without having hard evidence. While I don't agree with Thompson, at least if he had some hard evidence to prove this case was related to video games, I'd listen.

Until then, there is no debate or pointing the finger at games, music, tv or movies for individual's political or legal agendas.

Nick Cave is back with a few of the Bad Seeds under the name "Grinderman". It's a garage band sound with Cave sporting a new handle bar moustache. The single has been out a while but the album has only recently been released. MetaCritic gave it an 83 which is pretty high and after listening I have to agree. Here is one of the music videos:

My Interview with GameSpot AU before the launch of the PS3 in Sydney.

Update: The sound quality is ordinary. The camcorder I was using wasn't so great for capturing sound outside.