The UpStream

The BBC has been in the dark ages for most of its existence, but seems to have seen the light recently. They are currently shopping out developers to bring some of the biggest names, including Doctor Who and Top Gear, to the gaming world. They are considering all platforms, from Facebook and iPhone to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Their preferences are the DS and Wii for the family-friendly titles and the big boys for the more adult games.

Several months ago on PLuGHiTz Live! Radio we had a discussion about the future of used games in the industry. Several executives from some big game companies have called used game stores, such as GameStop, the reason why sales and profits are down. We have seen publishers come up with some ways to make gamers want to purchase new rather than used. Electronic Arts has a new process they are trying in Mass Effect 2.

We all know how crazy, kooky, and just all around outrageous American Idol can be, but 62-year-old Larry Platt took a whole new approach this year as the tour hit Atlanta. Caution: you may want to grab a belt to avoid the problem of "Pants on the Ground," a song written by the singer himself.

His performance on American Idol has given him celebrity status, and although it may not not the type of fame he was looking for, the 1 million fans on Facebook and over 1 million views on YouTube are astounding. This video has even sparked many spoofs from Jimmy Fallon to Brett Favre. In fact, the editor of the social-media blog Mashable, Adam Ostrow, declared the spectacle "the year's first mega viral hit." Pretty impressive for such an old American Idol contestant. We just can't get enough "Pants of the Ground."

The New (if you can call him that) Mario is ground-pounding his galaxy-venturing counterpart into another universe, with sales of New Super Mario Bros. Wii having already eclipsed Super Mario Galaxy in the US. According to the NPD, Galaxy has sold approximately 4.1 million units in the two years since its November 2007 release, while NSMBW has sold 4.2 million sales in about 45 days! For those of you that are number crunchers, if the game kept selling at this pace it would sell at least 10 million copies by the end of this year!

Looks like there's a new sheriff in town and its name is Just Dance. For nine straight weeks the people of the UK have spent hours on-end worshiping the ground that Modern Warfare 2 has walked on. As of recently, that's all changed. With the latest Chart-Track data showing that the acclaimed game of the year has been dethroned, the king of all shooters has been replaced by Ubisoft's quirky dance title for the Wii and has attained a level of popularity that nobody could have imagined or foreseen. Could it be that its success is because of a successful ad campaign with MC Hammer? Or could it possibly be the United Kingdom's limitless love of Footloose starring Kevin Bacon?

Wait, there's more! Wii Fit Plus managed to grab the silver medal, while Infinity Ward's shooter had to suck it up and take home the bronze. Looks like Infinity Ward is going to have to train with Michael Phelps if they want to win back the gold, minus the narcotics, of course.

On January 12th, Cryptic launched their Star Trek Online open beta in hopes of enticing gamers and Trekkies alike into buying their newly developed MMO based within the new J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Universe. The only problem is that they didn't think that their game would be so popular! It's a hard enough task to actually get the client downloaded but once you actually accomplish that feat you may not be able to log into the game because of the huge Trekkie population inhabiting it.

The developers said in a recent update: