Amid this continually upward trend, there have only been two large scale failures. The infamous video game bust of the mid-80s and the total failure of the Dreamcast, the latter which demoted Sega from powerhouse player to endlessly churning out mediocre “Sonic” games. Yet, if you look past all the pretty ornaments out on display this Christmas season [add some games here], there’s some news underneath the tree that isn’t like to spread holiday cheer.

Sony’s announced 16,000 job cuts, EA chopped off six percent of its workforce, Midway canceled several games, THQ slipped into the red and Electronic Gaming Monthly is likely to cease as a print publication. Despite the veritable torrent of quality titles released, it seems that dastardly economic recession has stymied potential buyers from investing in a $60-a-pop product. While it’s tempting to blame this all on the recession, some of things events have been a long time coming. Sony, especially the corporation as a whole, has been struggling to find a stable line of profit for a while now and EA’s financial troubles where also apparent back in the summer months.

My theory? Perhaps, like many other economic sectors, the video game industry is susceptible to bubbles and bursts. Think of all the massive hype surrounding the unveiling of next generation consoles. The respective companies promised that the synergy they (the consoles) were capable of, incorporating games, movies, music and the Internet, opened up the path to immense profits. On top of that, “World of Warcraft” become a poster child of sorts, with its 10 million times $15 a month business model. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? In addition, Xbox Arcade and the Playstation Store ushered in an era of smaller, cheaper titles.

Guided by the cheap credit of the global economy as a whole, old hands expanded their libraries and new companies tried their luck. But making games can be an expensive endeavor and public opinion can be brutal, resulting in a quick trip to the Wal-Mart bargain bin. As demonstrated by EA, the industry’s biggest publisher, even having a few blockbuster titles isn’t always enough to put you inside the margin of profitability. The irony of EA’s sudden turn of fortune has already been noted by others.

And so, with both the holiday season and the global financial meltdown fully engaged, that end-of-the-year saving grace has yet to manifest itself for many game companies. A lot of industries that rode the wave of economic growth produced by financial market manipulations have just now come crashing into shore. It seems that some video game companies will not be spared from this tsunami either. The bubble burst and there’s coal underneath, just in time for the holidays.

Yet, this surely will not be the last Christmas the industry sees. While losses may slim down some corporate structures, the video game industry is too firmly entrenched, both socially and economically, to suffer any drastic consequences. So, drink some eggnog, buy some games (if you can), enjoy the season and be glad you play games, not make them.

Fact Check: I’m not an economist and what I argue above is merely food for thought, or at the very least an intellectual snack. Please do not ask to see facts, stats, graphs or trend lines to back up any of this, as I have none of these things. If you do hold some theoritical disagreement with my thesis, by all means, comment away.

I was a bit skeptical when I found out that the damn good “Call of Duty 4″ would be getting a quickly produced sequel, “Call of Duty 5: World at War,” made by the less-than-stellar Treyarch. The fact that they decided to return to a World War II setting only reinforced this notion, despite the clever manipulated titled. Seriously, why not just call it “Call of Duty 5: Nazis, Just One More Time and Then We Are Done, Promise.” But lo and behold, this article appears, bestowing upon CoD5 a perfect score. My issue is not that Treyarch has managed to produce a superior game (though I remain skeptical until further evidence presents itself). Rather the problem and contradictions implied by the “perfect” 10/10 score, something pointed out by a brave soul in the torrent of comments.

The central fallacy of a flawless score is that it suggests there is no way the product can be improved upon. Most, I think, would agree that “Call of Duty 4″ had everything you could ask for in a shooter. Ah, but was it perfect? Where there not occasionally things that irked, annoyed or frustrated you? That didn’t stop it from being highly enjoyable and an accomplishment in it’s on right. Giving a game a near-perfect 9/10 seems to be saying that if maybe there was just one more gun or one more level or one more gimmick then it would be vaulted to that most coveted of levels. People wonder why games aren’t taken more seriously and I think the anachronistic review system employed by most publications shares some of the blame.

There are some parts of the gaming community who would like to see the industry move past pure entertainment and into art, similar to the way movies and music have one foot in each door. By using such a reductive formula for criticism, the room for growth and expression is inherently stymied. While movie critics may employ a numerical scale, you would be hard-pressed to find a movie critic who would tell you that directors should stop making movies because the perfect one has been made already.

The scale is even furthered narrowed by the fact that since a 10/10 represents such a high threshold of excellence, most publication shun it entirely in order to show their “independence.” So, in the end, you’ve got an 8, which represents “pretty good,” and a 9, which signifies “pretty awesome.” Thus, a full 20 percent is in common use throughout much of the games industry. This practice hurts developers, journalists and consumers alike by sustaining a system riddled with hypocrisy.

This is just a small bit of what can be a much larger argument. The scale also threatens journalistic integrity by creating a glut of games that fall in the 8-10 because a 7 is feared to be a mark of total shit. That’s what a zero is for. Theoretically, a 7 is still above average, and there is nothing wrong with an average game if it’s something dig. If a game has a couple of things you enjoy in its mix, say turn-based strategy, zombies and medieval settings, but only garners mediocre reviews, it’s actually entirely possible that you still might like it.

I believe that a grading system (a la 1up.com) is a better way to rate games. By using pluses and minuses, it offers broader range of opinion while still saving room at either end of the spectrum. If it’s a damn good game that is completely fun and enjoyable slap an A on that sucker and that is simply all you are saying. Barring that, the only recourse I can see is Metacritic. where at least you can get a compilation of reviews instead of being subject to those wild editorial swings between 8 and 9.

In the end, no rating system can be perfect (just ask the ESRB, har har). It’s up to the consumers to take the time to actually read reviews and form opinions for themselves, rather than relying on numerical snap judgments. This also means the professionals on the other side should focus on writing copy that’s compelling enough to merit deeper reading and advance the gaming industry forward.

However, every installment following Vengeance has been a terrible disappointment for me both as a gamer and as a comic book fan.

Batman games traditionally have not been top tier games, never scoring higher than a 7 in most reviews. To be fair, most of Batman’s comic book compatriots have received much worse treatment than the Caped Crusader himself, (Remember Superman 64? [Shudders]) but Batman’s transition to the video game world has never been as smooth as fans would have liked. Bats has gone through several next-gen developers in his life on console, many of which have been criticized for their repetitive nature, or bad AI, or awful storyline…

Despite these previous setbacks, Batman has a chance to gain glory through video games in two upcoming titles: Lego Batman and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The Lego series has already shown its appeal in a formula that has been proven time and time again to be a veritable gold mine for Traveler’s Tales come its release in September. After four LucasArts games, Warner Brothers has jumped on the bandwagon for a Lego Batman adaption. I have no doubt that the gameplay will be just as compelling and innovative as the other installments in the Lego franchise, but what I am most interested to see is the storyline. Previous Lego games have taken a previously constructed story, like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, and adapted it. Lego Batman is supposed to have an original story, so it may be time to see if a Lego game on a popular franchise can stack up to other titles with an original story.

Batman: Arkham Asylum was just announced for Playstation 3 and XBOX 360, and I have to admit that I’m skeptical. Rocksteady Studios, the developer of the title, have only published a Playstation 2 game called Urban Chaos. While the title got higher reviews than most Batman games, it still lays in the mediocre range of a 6 to 8 score. At the very least, the story has a great chance of being excellent due to Detective Comics’ Paul Dini being involved in the scripting. However, a great (even excellent) story cannot mitigate mediocre gameplay in a title, and Arkham Asylum needs to bring their A-Game for Batman’s first real solo outing on current generation consoles. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to play it, especially since Dini will be writing the story, but with the track record that Batman’s had in video games, it’s hard to get as excited for the game when we know next to nothing about it.

Hopefully, Arkham Asylum will be the game that fans have been waiting for. Otherwise, fans are probably going to be disappointed for another generation of consoles before another developer takes a crack at making a good Batman game.

But among the mostly minor announcements come one that stung me right to the core. Square’s long-promised RPG epic, “Final Fantasy XIII” will no longer be home only to the Playstation 3. Yes, initially touted as something that would display the raw graphical power of the PS3 and proof that no other console could match its cell-powered processing might, the game apparently can also run on Microsoft’s little upstart.

A grim day to be a fanboy, indeed.

I wouldn’t consider myself as such, and I understand that development costs sometimes require cross-platforming. Still, the sense of betrayal is palatable. I like(ed) Sony because their product has treated me well in the past, the “Final Fantasy” series in particular. Like many my age, “Final Fantasy VII” introduced me into the world of RPGs. Its success primed US audiences for the genre, bringing other adventures of swords and sorcery to our shores. In that sense, I felt a certain amount of pride in upholding Square’s tradition and believing in the platform they chose. Now, well, I just feel like (warning: overwrought simile ahead) I’ve been playing the game with the controller upside down.

But more than betrayal, there is also an overwhelming surge of pity. Poor, poor Sony. Through the whole bloody slog that has been the console war thus far, the company has been riding on what it will, eventually, offer. At the outset, they had a proven track record that led many (including me) to believe they were “good for it.”

However, the game library lacked any standout titles. “Liar” took down the touted six-axis controls with its clumsy performance. The marketing campaign was so misguided as to fail completely (the firm responsible later given the boot). In the midst of this meltdown, “Halo 3” emerged with a roar and the Wii found a comfortable place in people’s living rooms.

All along, consumers were assured of the blockbuster, exclusive games sure to come down the pipeline, along with the eventual promise of a robust online service with Home. “Final Fantasy XIII” stood out chief among these titles. While its exclusivity on the PS3 influenced me somewhat, I don’t directly suffer from the fact that it will now be available on both consoles. I can still buy and play the game. So can 360 owners.

And therein, as Shakespeare would say, lies the rub. The people who have lost the most are not the consumers, but the executives at Sony HQ. Their mantra that they could deliver a unique, graphically superior product just lost one of its keynotes. What do they have left, Home? Gamers prize quickness and ease in joining online matches; Home just seems like it will transform that space between into MySpace.

Sony’s failures, such as they are, are well documented at this point. In this console war, they went in unilaterally, armed with the wrong weapons and briefed with bad intelligence. The real message from this year’s E3 has nothing to do with Sony as such, but rather signals the last call for first-party exclusives.

The day when one exclusive franchise would corral consumers is over. There’s no money in it anymore.

(Bonus: This long interview from 1up.com contains Sony’s Vice President Scott Rohde toeing the party line. Scroll down about halfway to see Rohde completely deny that “Final Fantasy XIII” was in any way important to the Playstation 3 or crucial to the company’s overall strategy. Just be careful to not get dizzy from all that spin.)

-Frank Johnson