It's five months after the launch date, but Wii's are still nearly impossible to find at retailers or from legitimate online sellers at the retail cost of $250. The Freakonomics blog thinks that Nintendo and game developers are being hurt by the shortage, and that retailers are getting the benefits. My take is that everyone is a winner, except busy consumers who don't have time to wait in line at their local Best Buy at 7:30am on Sundays.

My Wii, by the way, was recently ordered from Amazon - they only sell them in small increments and I was able to get in an order -- at cost, and with free one-day shipping, since they've already missed their shipping date. All well and good, but where's my Wii?!

It's been awhile.

Brown, Ford, and Hussein died. (They need one more for a bridge game.)

Many top ten lists have been released, reminding me that movies take a long time to come out when you live in a third tier city. (Still waiting for Volver, Pan's Labyrinth, and Children of Men.) And that the music world is way too big and fractured to make any casual sense of. And that I rarely read recently published books.

Indiana Jones 4 is finally going into production this year for a May 2008 release.

Nevada has a new governor who, in a fit of ego and self-aggrandization, was secretly sworn in at midnight on January 1st: "We didn't want any word out in advance because of the security concerns... This is a new world since 9-11 and the first major change in Nevada government since then."

I now have a Mii on my brother's Wii.

And I'm a little more than halfway through Against the Day. Turns out it's hard to find any reading time when you're home visiting family.

Danc at Lost Garden has a long post about Nintendo's development cycle, and why it differs so greatly from Sony and Microsoft's approach. Short version: Microsoft and to a lesser degree Sony release games aimed at the hardcore gamer demographic (e.g., first-person shooters) whereas Nintendo profits by innovating and then banking on creating the classic game based on that innovation. Then, when the competition jumps on the bandwagon and starts creating games for the hardcore player, Nintendo innovates again. It doesn't always work, but when it does it leads to really fun games that even a casual gamer can enjoy.

An excellent article for the Nintendo faithful (I don't play videogames much anymore, but when I do, it's usually Nintendo). (via Luis Villa)