Q: When does a gaming company know it’s onto something good?

A: When you can hear the whine of the “hardcore” echo throughout the Internet.

Former 1-Up staffer and open Wii-detractor James Mielke was among the earliest to offer opinion, resnarking, “Breaking news: Yet another Nintendo console that’s impossible for anyone other than Nintendo to make money on.”  Then came the prophet Pachter, who stops short of flat-out ridiculing the mystery technology simply on the grounds that Apple didn’t put it out first:

My guess is that Nintendo has figured something out that is either very cool and advanced, or is a gimmick, and until I see it, I really won’t know. What’s interesting to me is that Nintendo is so bold. It seems that if 3D on portable devices was easy, Apple would have beat them to it.”

- Michael Pachter, 3DS will need more than just 3D (Computer and Video Games)

Funny to pump up Apple’s dedication to innovation the same day it photocopied a page from Nintendo’s 2008 WiiWare playbook by adding a “gifting” option for aps and games.

But I digress.

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You may or may not have heard – the 1982 cult fave Tron, which starred 2010’s very own Best Actor, Jeff Bridges, is getting a sequel.

Now if this is the first you’re hearing about Tron: Legacy, that’s quite all right: the movie doesn’t hit theaters for another 9 months.  But the not-so-secret truth is that Disney won’t allow you to live much longer without knowing about its big holiday tentpole.

Maybe you saw the oddly hypnotic trailer before Alice in Wonderland this past week.  Maybe you live in San Diego, where a real-life Flynn’s Arcade popped up last year.  Maybe you’re heading down to Disney World soon, where you’ll catch a glimpse of the newly reskinned monorails, made out to look like the dueling light cycles of the original film.

Or maybe you simply stumbled across this post.  In that case, Disney may have already won.

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No, you haven’t misclicked and wandered onto a kinky alternative porn site by accident.  The below is supposed to be a video game accessory.  In fact, it’s supposed to be ‘the’ next big thing from Sony this year.

Again, supposed to be.

Meet Move.  Move is suffering from an identity crisis.  He wants to be different, I mean look at the spiffy round bubble-hat he’s sporting.  Move is rather partial to that fancy little hat.

But then along came his on-again, off-again crony Subcontroller to cramp his style, “Man, now everyone’s gonna think we’re just like those other two guys, Wiimote and Nunchuck.  He even has the better name.  Who were you even named after anyway, Subcontroller?”

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Combine an underground indie comic with the executor of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, mix in a little Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman for good taste, and what do you get?

The recipe for Hipster Ambrosia – otherwise known as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

An unfinished cut of the big-screen adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s offbeat comi-gaming pastiche has been making the rounds as of late – with an early edit popping up in Las Vegas last month and another in Jersey this past Wednesday.  So far word is that it’s good.  Real good.

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You don’t need to be able to understand Japanese to grasp how incredibly cool Nintendo and Good-Feel Inc.’s Rittai Kakushi E Attakoreda really is.

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