Will

I think quite clearly situations like that wouldn't be allowed to arise by the selection process, as biased as people like to think the FIA are. Hopefully they'll actually sort out some decent cost cutting measures and in a few years time we'll have MORE teams on the grid. IMO they should relax the regulations to give engineering freedom but put very strict limits on team budgets.

I have to say I never understood the backlash in the first place. Forum users are not indicative of the actual Wii market and Ubisoft are targeting a part of the Wii market that's about as far away from forum goers as it gets. For a lot of people the output of Ubisoft is exactly what they want, the fact they're reviewing well proves you can't judge a book by it's cover.

I think your right in that it's expired but I think there's some sort of rolling agreement until something else is signed? Not 100% sure, apparently the rule was 16 cars anyway. To be honest I'd rather see larger grids with certain teams running a 3rd car than the pitiful ones we seem to be heading towards.

Now that is a seriously tough question! VW Polo?

I've had quite a nice day at work. Almost finished a DS and Wii study, just a little bit left to do tomorrow. Got a 07 vs 08 sales comparison for one of our games done which should give me some credit with another department which is always handy. I also had a quote for a new car come through which although generally affordable they want quite a high deposit so I'll look into a nearly new model. Just got to play the waiting game for the exact spec I want to come available. Now its almost hometime but I have to brave the supermarket first and to be quite honest I'd rather procrastinate on the internet than do that.

My current car is a 54 plate 1.4 litre Peugeot 206, for sale if anyone wants one: Just started negotiations to have this next: Should be having a first quote sent through today and have a test drive booked on Wednesday. With the car market being as it is I'm hoping for a very tempting offer from them.

Can't say I will miss Honda, ugly cars that go about as fast as they look. I hope Barichello can get a drive elsewhere but Button, like Honda, is a bit of a non-event in my eyes and I doubt the sport would miss him. The interesting thing with this is that now the other teams will have to make up the 20 car minimum grid, I look forward to seeing how that works out. The new qualifying format sounds interesting. I've always liked the current knock out format, the only problem being the race fuel 3rd session. With people qualifying in their race pace order it more often than not leads to a very boring first part of the race. I just hope they realise that and let the teams use whatever fuel they like (very little) in this revised qualifying.

It's a very solid argument. Changing the casing colour isn't just a case of adding some dye and flicking the machine back on - it's much more involved than that. Add to that the different packaging, re-working distribution models, analysing supply and demand trends and it all adds up to a lot of work for something that to the outsider looks quite easy.

I doubt Nintendo could offer a black version even if they wanted to. The production is still struggling to provide for current demand. Adding another colour would complicate things massively.

It has sold hundreds of thousands! Guitar Hero generally sells best on Wii so no surprise that this one is too, it does need a few weeks before it surpasses the 360's big start though. Dante, where does that weighted chart come from?

You must have witnessed every sale of that one then, it's hardly set the charts on fire.

If biggest install base = largest market for every game then yes I'm sure everyone would do that. Unfortunately it's not quite that simple.

They now trade using the Atari name as far as I'm aware.

Not quite in all countries, and it's only delaying the inevitable overtaking of PS3 there. The price cuts and massive marketing spend have really helped 360 out here, it looked like PS3 would lead it for total 2008 sales even here in the UK, now it looks like 360 will be some way ahead in the UK and not as far off as expected across the continent. It's quite clear that the Wii has won again this year, 2009 could be very interesting imo. Sony look likely to give a massive push in March - possible price drop, big push on exclusive games and possibly more. I think they know they can't compete with the Wii at Christmas and so are waiting for a better time to go all out. 360 sales may be seeing it's peak this Christmas with sales doing well, a possible redesign next year along with the new casual approach could give it extra legs mind. Key thing for 360 is the userbase just love software, there's a massive demand for it so that will keep them going for a long time to come. With the Wii in 2009 there is the question of just how many more people want one? If it can match 2008 sales then that's great for Nintendo, not so great for everyone else. Personally I think it will be big but not at the levels we've seen this year.

Yeah, there's certainly a hardcore market on the Wii, I'm just not sure it's big enough (in comparison to the other machines) to support much development. I'd rather see completely different games on the Wii that use it's unique features than worse versions of FIFA and COD every year. I totally agree with you on the Wii being more capable of going hardcore than the 360 has of being casual. I pray every night Madworld will do well.

A fair few of those Wii games have sold well but often at a budget price. All apart from GH and Tiger don't have current gen comparisons for how advertising spend is split. As for the 360 games, I would say neither of those would make me think about putting a similar game on 360. Viva Pinata managed some good sales overall but the vast majority of these are at a very low price.

Has Call of Duty been actively promoted on other formats more than Wii? What about other recent 'hardcore' titles that have failed on Wii? I genuinely don't know the answer but I'd like to know if there really is less input behind the Wii games. Which casual titles would you say have been a sales success on 360?

Well I think the awarding of medals is a bit ridiculous and like you say, silver and bronze wouldn't mean much. I'd actually keep the points as they are but as soon as you have a win you're ahead of anyone without one, more wins the higher you are. 5wins + 50 points is better than 4 wins and 100 points. I think having a consistent season is pointless to be honest, it would be a terrible thing for the sport if someone came 2nd or 3rd in every race and won the title just by being almost the best at every race. I'm not sure historically but it wouldn't surprise me if using this wins method the titles would still mostly go down to the final race - possibly with more people in the running. You'd also have much more chance of comebacks in the 2nd half or even much later on if the season has been close. It would mean every team was developing their car for the whole season rather than, as happened this year, mid-field and lower just abandoning all hope and moving onto next years car.

I really really hope that goes through, the title being decided by number of wins is absolutely the right thing to do imo.

Jenson's main problem is that he's just not that good. Even in a Mclaren or Ferrari drive I doubt he'd be able to win a championship.

There's loads of others too, that article statement is a bit ridiculous to be honest. Games that suit the Wii and it's audience best tend to do best on the Wii - it's not rocket science.

I finished in May 2007 and to be completely honest I have absolutely no idea how much I owe from my uni days. As the repayments come out of salary as if they were a tax I just don't even consider it, just let it get on with itself. At some point in the future the payments will stop and that will be a nice few hundred pounds extra a month to spend. To me the student loan is the one peice of debt that noone should worry about, you only pay it off when its affordable and its cheap as chips.

Just had the full XL package installed today so this is a welcome surprise.

There's a good few Xbox titles that supported 1080i. Off the top of my head I can't remember exactly how many but a quick google search should find them easily enough.

If you want to go travelling do it sooner rather than later. If you start a 'proper' job the chances are you'll get into it, start progressing and it won't make sense to leave. My main advice would be wait for a job to come up you really want, don't just take the first things that come along or, like a lot of my friends, you can get stuck there. I dossed about all summer last year waiting for something to come up, my parents got a little annoyed but at the end of it I moved back out and into a great job where things are going very nicely. There are very good graduate opportunities out there if you're willing to look for them.