Nintendo took home four gongs at last night's MCV Industry Excellence Awards, picking up honours for Marketing Team, PR Team, Game Campaign and the Special Recognition award.

EA Sport's Peter Moore also accepted the Grand Prix award, while Sony's LittleBigPlanet was voted New Games Brand and Microsoft's New Xbox Experience labelled Marketing Innovation.

GAME and Play.com picked up the High Street Retailer and Online Retailer awards, respectively, while HMV's Gamerbase was singled out as the Retail Innovation.

The full list of winners follows:

Grand Prix: EA Sports
RAB Special Recognition: Andy Yates, Nintendo
Marketing Team: Nintendo
PR Team: Nintendo
Game Campaign: Nintendo, Wii Fit
New Games Brand: LittleBigPlanet
Marketing Innovation: New Xbox Experience
Games Publisher: Activision Blizzard
Sales Team: Sega
Sales Triumph: Bethesda, Fallout 3
UK Development Team: Rockstar North
Distribution Team: Centersoft
High Street Retailer: Game
Online Retailer: Play.com
Retail Innovation: HMV Gamerbase
Store Managers of the Year: Pearl Robinson, Mike Barnes GAME Oxford St
Star Store: Gamestation, Birmingham

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...our-mcv-awards ...

In case you hadn't heard, Nintendo's trend-setting handheld, the Game Boy, just had its 20th birthday -- and that's no small thing for a game console. We won't bore you with stories from our childhood about wasted time and missed opportunities spent chasing the dragon that was Tetris, but we will entertain the hell out of you with this vintage ad touting the system's launch from way back in the totally excellent year of 1989. We know what you're thinking: does the robot create the kid or just warp him there? And if he does create him, does that mean he's some kind of metallic god? And does that mean that the kid kills god? And... why is the robot dancing? Hey -- now you're playing with power.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/n...-boy-turns-20/ ...

In case you hadn't heard, Nintendo's trend-setting handheld, the Game Boy, just had its 20th birthday -- and that's no small thing for a game console. We won't bore you with stories from our childhood about wasted time and missed opportunities spent chasing the dragon that was Tetris, but we will entertain the hell out of you with this vintage ad touting the system's launch from way back in the totally excellent year of 1989. We know what you're thinking: does the robot create the kid or just warp him there? And if he does create him, does that mean he's some kind of metallic god? And does that mean that the kid kills god? And... why is the robot dancing? Hey -- now you're playing with power.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/n...-boy-turns-20/ ...

Revealing FUEL's unique GPS system, which calculates routes through the game's diverse 5,000 square mile world on the fly, Codemasters has released the new 'GPS' gameplay video, now available to view and download from the game's all-new online destination at www.fuel-game.com.

With a succession of flowing arrows, that guide gamers from checkpoint to chequered flag, FUEL's elegant solution calculates routes dynamically and constantly updates according to vehicle position, in conjunction with a mini-map which pinpoints each racer's location.

However, in FUEL the suggested route is not always the quickest. As players master their vehicles they can take on riskier – and potentially more rewarding – shortcuts, veering off the suggested line. The GPS system can also be turned off for the ultimate man and machine versus Mother Nature challenge.

Gamers can view the video and find out more about FUEL by navigating their way to the newly launched, www.fuel-game.com. On the site, each of the game's 19 regions can be explored across an interactive map that enables players to zoom in and out of the largest racing environment ever. Information on the multi-class vehicle roster, extensive online options and different events can all be accessed. Visitors can also download the latest screens and videos and register to have the latest FUEL news and updates sent directly to their in-boxes.

Coming this May, FUEL is the ultimate racing sandbox where players can race and explore a stunning world, mapped from satellite data of the United States, in a range of on and off-road, two and four wheeled vehicles. Set in an alternate present where the accelerated effects of global warming have driven people from their homes, the huge, abandoned areas become a playground for a new breed of extreme racers.

A full day/night cycle and dynamic weather effects including snowstorms, thunderstorms, blizzards, rainstorms and tornados brings this world alive. Players take on hundreds of race events in a wide range of customised vehicles, including quads, bikes, roadsters, trucks, dragsters and more, that all share rewarding and exhilarating arcade handling.

With extensive multiplayer options including 16 player multi-class racing, online free-ride and a powerful yet intuitive race editor to share races with friends, FUEL is set to revolutionize open world multi-terrain racing when it launches on Tuesday, May 26th for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games For Windows. ...

Revealing FUEL's unique GPS system, which calculates routes through the game's diverse 5,000 square mile world on the fly, Codemasters has released the new 'GPS' gameplay video, now available to view and download from the game's all-new online destination at www.fuel-game.com.

With a succession of flowing arrows, that guide gamers from checkpoint to chequered flag, FUEL's elegant solution calculates routes dynamically and constantly updates according to vehicle position, in conjunction with a mini-map which pinpoints each racer's location.

However, in FUEL the suggested route is not always the quickest. As players master their vehicles they can take on riskier – and potentially more rewarding – shortcuts, veering off the suggested line. The GPS system can also be turned off for the ultimate man and machine versus Mother Nature challenge.

Gamers can view the video and find out more about FUEL by navigating their way to the newly launched, www.fuel-game.com. On the site, each of the game's 19 regions can be explored across an interactive map that enables players to zoom in and out of the largest racing environment ever. Information on the multi-class vehicle roster, extensive online options and different events can all be accessed. Visitors can also download the latest screens and videos and register to have the latest FUEL news and updates sent directly to their in-boxes.

Coming this May, FUEL is the ultimate racing sandbox where players can race and explore a stunning world, mapped from satellite data of the United States, in a range of on and off-road, two and four wheeled vehicles. Set in an alternate present where the accelerated effects of global warming have driven people from their homes, the huge, abandoned areas become a playground for a new breed of extreme racers.

A full day/night cycle and dynamic weather effects including snowstorms, thunderstorms, blizzards, rainstorms and tornados brings this world alive. Players take on hundreds of race events in a wide range of customised vehicles, including quads, bikes, roadsters, trucks, dragsters and more, that all share rewarding and exhilarating arcade handling.

With extensive multiplayer options including 16 player multi-class racing, online free-ride and a powerful yet intuitive race editor to share races with friends, FUEL is set to revolutionize open world multi-terrain racing when it launches on Tuesday, May 26th for the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Games For Windows. ...

Some recently unearthed European legal filings show us the timeline of development for Wii's MotionPlus. Well -- it shows us what could have been, anyway. The image, starting to the left, shows the oldest version, with an insanely hideous curve that was dispensed with in favor of an outwardly leaning shape in the next iteration, while the far right shows what we essentially ended up with: a tiny little lip that some theorize may be a design element intended to help keep the jacket in place. We'll say this much: we sure are glad they didn't use that initial design. Yuck!

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/t...ion-of-wii-mo/ ...

In a not totally surprising -- yet still kind of striking -- turn of events, Microsoft is reporting that its sales have fallen for the first time in 23 years. You read that right, 23 years. According to numbers that the company has just released, sales fell 6 percent year-over-year, while overall net income dropped a staggering 32 percent. Those numbers are significant, but what's more telling is where those losses are coming from. Namely? Netbooks. Apparently, in the midst of a global downturn consumers really are buying cheaper, especially when it comes to tech, which puts a fairly significant crunch on Redmond's bottom line. A CNN reports suggests that the presence of Linux on those devices has contributed to the hurt here, but it's more likely that the combo of a market still unwelcoming to Vista and the wide popularity of XP on the low-power systems has more to do with these dipping profit margins. Oh, and that general, awful market depression. Still, it should serve as some kind of wake up call to Microsoft that just being the biggest doesn't guarantee that the money will keep rolling in the way it has in years past -- clearly the big picture isn't as sharp as it's always been. Hey Windows 7 -- no pressure, right?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/23/m...e-in-23-years/ ...

China's alternative to Blu-ray finally has some hardware to show off, with players from TCL and Shinco making their debut this week. Priced at less than 2,000 yuan ($292) they're reportedly 40% cheaper than the competition, and while the promised support from Warner Bros. has yet to materialize it plans to release 100 movies on the CBHD format by the end of the year. That's about all the machine translation could help us make out beyond the usual promise of lower licensing fees for Chinese manufacturers, but a better look at the latest (and by far most legit, although that's not saying much) Blu-ray fighter is beyond the read link.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/24/c...-format-war-i/ ...

Most fighting games are pretty badass, but fighting games that feature giant robots? Overwhelmingly badass. Such was Virtual On, one of Sega's most beloved (and seemingly most quickly forgotten) franchises, where two anime-themed (and frequently Saturn-wearing) virtualroids duked it out in full 3-D and blew our minds with great graphics and a humbling dual-stick control scheme (push both forward to run ahead, apart to jump, together to crouch, etc.). With the game making its triumphant return to action on the Xbox 360, a Japanese gamer has created the above monstrosity by wedging a couple of candy packages onto the controller's analog sticks, then wiring up weapons buttons. With a little paint they'd almost pass for the arcade's controller, but we're not entirely sure that thin plastic would hold up to repeated deploys of Grys-vok's ICBM attack.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/24/m...360-on-the-ch/ ...