The launch of the PSP draws ever closer. Jon examines what Nintendo can do with its DS to steal Sony’s thunder in March.

I went to lunch with my friend Jason the other day. He’s a 30-year-old computer programmer, a photography buff, and a gadget fiend. But he's not a gamer; he's done some PC gaming in his time, but consoles have never been his cup of tea. So imagine my surprise when he turned to me and asked if he could borrow my Xbox. He wanted to see how it looked on his brand-new LCD television, a reasonable request. But his next comment floored me. "I was thinking of getting either one of those or a PSP."

What is the relationship between console horsepower and gameplay innovation? David explores the topic from a historical perspective.

In just three months Nintendo is going to reveal the first significant details concerning its next console to the world. The company has suggested that the new platform is going to feature innovations that will revolutionize the industry (likely significant additions or changes to what we currently refer to as the controller). Beyond this Nintendo has not revealed anything. Unfortunately, it is quite possible that, in the short term, they will reveal nothing more than the new hardware's technical specifications and name a few franchises that are intended to make up the launch lineup. In other words, the revolutionary essence of Nintendo's Revolution may remain a secret until much later. However, even without considering deliberate revolutions, gamers can still expect new things from the next generation of software, due mainly to the increased capability of the hardware. In this respect, the participants in the next round of console wars will be on relatively equal footing.

Girl games: They’re pink, they sparkle, they teach you to match outfits. Where these titles, and the girl games industry, went wrong.

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You’ve seen them in the stores. You’ve walked the aisles of your favorite gaming retailer and sighed, wondering, Why are these here? You’ve skimmed the wall of GBA boxes, searching for a new release, and noticed their brightly-colored presence among the normal, better titles. You’ve started to ignore them. You don’t even consider them real games anymore. After all, they’re just for kids. Or even worse, for girls.