Nice

Naughty

• Nintendo, for pursuing a mature gaming demographic with titles such as Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil.
• Nintendo again, for renewing their legendary hallmarks with games like Super Mario Sunshine and the incredible Metroid Prime.
• Sony, for the PlayStation 2 Network Adaptor that supports dial-up, allowing the majority of gamers to get online.
• Microsoft, for including Internet connectivity in their Xbox, and implementing it with a simple, annual service package.
• All three hardware developers, for engaging in a competitive price war that benefitted all consumers this holiday season.
• Sega, for being fruitful and multiplying their franchises with their "platform agnostic" publishing scheme, allowing Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft fans alike to enjoy such popular icons as Sonic, Shinobi, and Shenmue.
• Square and Enix. The merging of these two powerhouses of role-playing games (RPGs) was unexpected, with more surprises sure to come from the joint teams.
• Capcom, for pledging five GameCube-exclusive games — four original titles in 2003, and Resident Evil 4. It's a positive step away from the rampant gluttony that produces the same game for every system.
• Any publisher with plans to feed the retrogaming craze with new games, be they Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Spy vs. Spy, or TRON.
• Microsoft, for buying development team Rare.

• Nintendo, for selling Rare. Even if Rareware accounted for a only a small percentage of Nintendo's sales, those are now sales Microsoft will have. Hello, Perfect Dark X…
• Nintendo again, for delivering their online adaptors in such scarcity that not even fans of the GameCube's only online game, Phantasy Star Online, could enjoy it.
• Enix, for cancelling the PlayStation remix of the best RPG ever, Dragon Warrior IV. Sure, sales of the series' seventh installment were poor last year, but that's what happens when you release a game that's old before it even hits store shelves.
• Companies who practiced layoffs this year: Infogrames (60% of their European staff) and Konami (the dissolution of their West Coast operations, as well as subsidies in Kobe in Nagoya). Santa owes these worthy, but unemployed, developers something special this year.
• Parents who ignored ESRB ratings on video games, only to be shocked to find their children playing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Be actively aware of what games are available and what they're about: your presence (and dollars) will speak louder to both publishers and gamers than your protests ever will.
• Acclaim, for spoiling their once-excellent Turok series; for their silly promotions that defaced gravestones and renamed children; and for BMX XXX. All this could've been avoided.
• Australia, for banning BMX XXX. This commercial venture cannot be accurately lauded or ridiculed if consumers and retailers aren't given the opportunity to sell, or not sell, it.
• Japan, for getting exclusives like Final Fantasy X International which will never be seen in the USA, and for titles they get before the rest of the world, like the new Zelda. True that it's not necessarily Japan's fault, but coal all around, just the same.
• Greece, for outlawing gaming in all forms, be it in arcades or on cell phones. The ban lasted only a few months, but remains as an outrage — and the height of ludicrousness.

Nice

Naughty

• Sony, for releasing a game system that combines video games with DVD capability.
• Nintendo, for creating a next-generation game system, the GameCube, which is developer-friendly.
• Sega, for getting SegaNet up and running with Quake III, NFL2K1, and NBA2K1.
• Konami, for all the games shown at Konami Gamers Day, especially Metal Gear Solid 2 and Silent Hill 2.
• Capcom, not only for porting their Resident Evil and Dino Crisis games to the Sega Dreamcast, but pricing them affordably, too.
• Enix, for reestablishing themselves in North America, and releasing Game Boy versions of Dragon Warrior, one of the best role-playing game series in video game history.
• Rare, for great Nintendo 64 games such as Perfect Dark and Banjo-Tooie; who says the N64 is dead?
• Square, for releasing so many RPG's this year, even if some of their sequels weren't as great as the originals.
• Working Designs, for shipping Lunar 2 in time for Christmas.
• Peter Moore, COO of Sega, for defending the video game industry after the FTC reported that violent video games are intentionally marketed to children.

• Sony, for rushing the PS2 to market, making it difficult for developers to create games, releasing no "killer apps" in time for Christmas, and failing to ship as many hardware units as they promised. (how many lumps of coal IS that?)
• Everyone on eBay who sold PlayStation 2's for more than $500.
• Saddam Hussein, for taking 4,000 PlayStation 2's off American shelves and shipping them to Iraq.
• Microsoft, for Xbox.  From the people who brought us Windows? God save us all.
• Paramount, Eidos, and Angelina Jolie, for the tragedy that is about to beTomb Raider: The Movie.
• Square, for releasing handheld versions of the classic Final Fantasy games — for WonderSwan, not Game Boy.
• LucasArts, for releasing the Nintendo 64 Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine as a Blockbuster rental exclusive.
• Express.com, for shutting down the GameFan website and print magazine.
• Quebec, for forcing video game companies to release game manuals in French.
• Everyone who didn't buy Sega's A+ quality software, from Samba de Amigo to Shenmue; Sega reported hundreds of millions of dollars in losses this year.  Sega got over their mistakes with the 32X and Saturn, why can't you?