Today I checked out the most popular Ms. Pixel posts of 2008 via Google Analytics. 

Most Popular Posts

1. FINALLY: DVD Playback on the Nintendo Wii!
2. You Can Play with Pixels Online
3. How to Hack an XBox Live Account
4. Who is Ms. Pixel?
5. Only 3 out of 10 games make a profit

Xbox Live Arcade Sales Triple After New Xbox Experience: This is a stunning example of social media adoption leading to an increase in customer engagement and sales. The launch of the new Xbox Experiene (social networking + virtual worlds) tripled digital game sales during its first week.

The Wii Dominates Console Sales: The Nintendo Wii outsold the Xbox and the PS3 combined. The majority of consumers buying thre Nintendo Wii are casual consumers. Which brings me to my next point. 

The Casual Gamer Saves the Game Industry: I thought this would take about 5-10 years longer than it did. But the day is here. 

Wii – 2.04 million
DS – 1.57 million
Xbox 360 – 836,000
PSP – 421,000
PS3 – 378,000
PS2 – 206,000 

[ Via - Gamasutra]

Nintendo’s DS and Wii crushed every other platform. Casual gamers are growing into a sizeable portion of the gaming community. The community as it stands now (dominated by Ign, Kotaku, UGO and Gamespy) are woefully unprepared to cater to this audience which includes more women and gamers over the age of 30. 

NYU Launches Gaming Degrees: In the fall of 2009, NYU will become the first New York City college to offer a degree in video games.

Game Journalists Respond to Critics w/ Launch of Symposium: Shawn Elliott, an influential games journalist, announced that he will be leading an email-based symposium on the practice and politics of writing game reviews. The e-mail threads will be posted online enabling the community to participate. This was done in response to harsh blog posts directed at gaming journalists recently. 

Facebook Connecting More Than Just Friends with Facebook Connect: Facebook makes a strong play to connect websites to Facebook’s social properties. Dave Knox has a great write-up on how brands may respond to this move.

Rumor: “EA might get bought out  by Disney” – Bruce shares his thoughts on a potential buyout. 

Playstation Home Launches: The reviews on twitter don’t bode well for Playstation Home. Most of the tweets are complaints about stalled downloads and freezes. Although, there were a couple of people that liked it though. Have you tried Playstation Home yet? What do you think?