Ooooo-er! Get ready n00bs, this could be the best half hour of your lives (!!!)

Wednesday, all I can tell you is that you have a lady to present to. Ooooh! She's very experienced in our part of the world (games) and she's excited about meeting you. She lives in Vancouver (home of EA, Nintendo North America and um, Ubisoft), but she's kindly agreed to spend some time with us on Wednesday, cool eh?

I expect that Jamie Cash will be popping in as well, although he will have lessons and other commitments, if he hasn't seen you on the Monday or Tuesday, he will definitely be checking in on Wednesday and Thursday...

So with that in mind, we'd like to see the following:

Atrium (Room 007)

Check your email

S106

Check your email

S205

Check your email

Note: as opposed to the dress rehearsals, you only have 20 mins to pitch and get a miniscule amount of feedback. This means that your actual feedback will be available for you after the pitch, not at the time of the pitch. It'll come through me, both verbally and in a written format, in the usual stylee.

Your set up and pitch should take no more than 20 mins, you'll be told when your time is up. I don't expect to see any latecomers, if you show up late, you will be turned away and as such will have failed this assignment. I won't be changing any times because it doesn't suit you, I'm afraid that you'll just have to grin and bear it!

There will be a few mins of leverage to accommodate room changes etc but they should only effect the top of each room session duration.

The remaining guys will be seen (hopefully) on Friday by someone else.... I'll confirm this asap.

How does that sound? Remember Tony Robbins, Lee Evans and everyone else you've seen stand up in front of thousands over the past few weeks! You're only doing a short presentation in front of a maximum of 4 people (if you're unlucky!)

Sweet! Ok, well, enjoy the rest of your break, and er - keep checking the blog y'all!

Wowsers - they're all going mad for gaming, or so Variety reckon:

Consumers may be cutting back on entertainment, but they're still spending on videogames.

The vidgame sector was up 13% in January, collecting $1.3 billion in coin, driven mostly by Nintendo hardware and software sales, according to data from market research group NPD.

Nintendo's Wii was once again the top selling console, moving 679,000 units, while its handheld DS device sold another 511,000 units.

Its "Wii Fit" was the top selling game for the month, with 777,000 copies sold -- perhaps a nod to consumers' annual New Year's resolution of wanting to exercise more.

Nintendo's "Wii Play," "Mario Kart," Electronic Arts' "Left 4 Dead" and "Call of Duty: World at War" rounded out the top five.

Only two new games cracked the top ten -- "Skate 2" from Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and "Lord of the Rings: Conquest" on the PS3. "Skate 2" moved 199,000 copies for the Xbox 360, while "Rings" sold 113,000 for the PS3.

Strength of older games is being attributed to an influx of new gamers.

Overall, software sales were up 10% to $676 million, while hardware grew to $445 million, a 17% bump over the same period last year. Accessories also enjoyed a bump of 11% due to the interest in consoles.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 is still besting PlayStation's console sales, with 309,000 systems sold versus 203,000 for the PS3 and another 101,000 for the PS2. Sony's PSP shipped 172,000 units.

Sony's "Little Big Planet," exclusive to the PS3, failed to sell enough copies to make it into the top 10, signaling that the family friendly title isn't necessarily connecting with its core audience.

Oh man, this is one just for me and Ben really. How I wish I'd bought Eidos stock! Another snippet from Kotaku - cheers!

Shares of Eidos on the London Stock Exchange skyrocketed today, more than doubling following the announcement of a generous buyout bid by Japanese RPG giant Square Enix.
Closing at only 14 pence yesterday, shares of Eidos stock on the London Stock Exchange are currently trading at 31.75 pence, or .25 pence below the 32 pence per share Square Enix has offered to buy out the company in their proposed £84.3 million bid for the troubled Tomb Raider publisher. The market opened today with a sale of 178,000 shares selling at 27 pence per share, with more than 16 million shares changing hands as of this writing. The sheer volume of trades is staggering, especially when considering the highest volume Eidos saw through the whole of last year was
The jump is of course a direct result of Square Enix's bid, as both individuals and arbitrageurs - companies that buy large amounts of stock in order to secure small but high-volume profit with minimal risk- rush to grab as much Eidos stock as possible before the deal goes through.
While the deal isn't 100% in the bag, it's a much safer bet than investing in Take-Two Interactive stock turned out to be following Electronic Arts' failed takeover bid last year.
As an outsider to the financial world, it's a fascinating process to watch. One company makes an offer on another, and then the stock prices rise to meet that offer in the hopes of making a small profit. Once you start to make sense of the charts, it really is quite interesting. Head over to the London Stock Exchange website to experience the hot stock drama.