News item: You can't go Home -- at least not until next year. Sony announced that it's Home virtual world for the PS3 will not be available until Spring 2008. "We want this to be a worldwide service," said Sony CEO Kaz Hirai. "We want to make sure that we have a range of services which can be satisfactory to our users throughout the world... so we decided to delay the service’s launch date... Please be patient in this regard."

It leaves more time to design Mii's on your Nintendo Wii.

It leaves more time for Sony to develop add-ons to Home, such as in-game ads, email and other things gamers don't really want.

News item: Nintendo has announced that starting with the December issue, Nintendo Power Magazine will be published by Future US, the folks behind the Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, and Mac|Life.

News item: Kaz Hirai, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, told the assembled audience at the Tokyo Game Show that he considers the PlayStation 3 to be "a game machine."

After a year touting the wide and varied uses of the PS3, it was refreshing to hear someone at Sony admit that the primary purpose of the PS3 should be to play games.

From Wired: But outside of announcing the DualShock 3 controller, Hirai made no announcements of new products -- certainly nothing that would by itself represent a change in PlayStation 3's fortunes in Japan, where it is being outsold about three-to-one by the Wii.

News item: It doesn't look any different, but reports say it feels heavier. What is it? Why, the new DualShock 3, a new controller for the PS3 that brings back the force-feedback "rumble" functionality left out of the original controller.

It'll be available in the U.S. in Spring 2008, and will replace the Sixaxis controller in new PS3 boxes. The list of games that will take advantage of the new rumble features is a long one.

Ya gotta buy a new %&*$@#! controller!

News item: LucasArts has announced Krome Studios will release a Wii version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that will let you use the Wii-mote as a lightsaber.

Although some bloggers originally announced that the lightsaber action was available only in duel mode, in actuality you can use the Wii-mote as a lightsaber throughout the game.

You're going to have to push buttons to work the lightsaber in the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP and Nintendo DS versions. May the Thumb Doctor Be With You.

News item: More anime is coming to Xbox Live. From Joystiq: "Beginning today (and continuing over the coming weeks) you'll be able to find titles from the Starz anime library like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Seasons 1 & 2), Street Fighter II V, Noein, Tokko, Virus and Astro Boy on the service."

Starz has a tremendous catalog of anime titles.

I'm trying to code this item in a way that NinjaSistah doesn't see it. Between Xbox Live and iTunes, she won't even have to walk the three blocks to the local anime store to get her fill.

News item: The E for All Show shoots itself in the foot by moving its 2008 date from October to the same weekend in August at the very popular Penny Arcade Expo.

This should put the final nail in the coffin of the badly managed spin-off of the old E3 Expo. It is a fitting end for E for All show host IDG, which killed the summer Mac Expo a few years ago by moving it from New York to Boston.

This is all everyone is going to want to talk about in the run-up to the 2007 E for All event in October (which Sony and Microsoft have already vacated).