"An object's visual design and intended purpose should work together. And while this may seem like common sense, many developers fail to recognize the need to follow such concept. This is most evident in open world games like Mass Effect and Grand Theft Auto 4. Most if not all open world games can fall into two categories, beautiful and aimless or ugly and purposeful."

The NPD Group has released their hardware and software numbers for the month of October, representing sales for the United States for the four week period of October 7th to November 4th.

Notables this month:

• Wii has whopping sales numbers, clearly outselling all other consoles
• Fable II is the top seller in October for software

Hardware numbers:
WII: 830.0k (207.5k per week)
NDS: 491.0k (122.75k per week)
360: 371.0k (92.75k per week)
PSP: 193.0k (48.25k per week)
PS3: 190.0k (47.5...

""Clearly, returning the business to profitability...in the next fiscal year" is the company's key goal, he said. "How are we going to get there? With respect to the core gamer, we get it. Fewer, higher-quality games.""