Yes, we love our violent video games, but the truth is, we're entitled to them. Most of us gamers are over 18 after all, so we should be considered "mature" enough to handle and at the same time be entertained by all the blood, sex, and gore that we immerse ourselves in while playing our favourite games.

The problem with that, is that's all that the outside world thinks about us. Outsiders generally view the gaming sub-culture as a collection of violence addicted pre-pubescent-underage or overage-yet-still-stuck-in-the-basement, pimply anti-social avoidant, self indulgent, will never enjoy the company of the opposite sex, individuals. Despite the presence of gamer-culture/geel-culture centric websites and TV channels, a lot of old farts in power still don't "get it."

They tend to forget that a lot of gamers now-a-days aren't only young people who play games, but are people who make art, people who earn billions making games, people who have children of their own, and people who are care.

Think of this post as a collection of recent news stories that show very good examples of how we gamers should represent ourselves to the world.

Giving back to the community...

You've got to hand it to those guys from Penny-Arcade, they know how to give back to the community. They really do their best to make claims that say that gamers are know-nots or that gamers are violence addicted yahoos irrelevant. For one thing, officials of the Child's Play Charity, a gamer-focused toy drive organized by Penny Arcade, has recently announced that more than $495,000 worth of toys, games, and books on the wish lists of more than 35 participating children's hospitals have been donated as part of the gamer supported charity.

It doesn't stop there. The annual charity auction dinner of Child's Play is set to be held next week. All proceeds from the auction will be set to assist hospitals within the charity's network. This year's dinner is scheduled to take place on Wednesday December 13 in Bellevue, Washington.

Items up for bid this year include a Wii console autographed by Reggie Fils-Aime, a speaking line in Halo 3, a PS3 console, an appearance in the Penny Arcade comic strip, Penny Arcade artwork, tickets to the Halo 3 launch party, an Xbox 360, ATI Radeon video cards, collectors edition of Guildwars Nightfall, and a whole lot more.

With items like those, people will definitely bid.

Get the rest of the article after the Jump!

We all know that Nintendo's next-gen console, the Wii, is nothing less than inspiring, but in the avenue of the inspired, perhaps this might be the one which we would personally save up for. So, without much further ado, we introduce to you the Shuttle XPC System which features its latest X series.

So what's so nifty about this particular Shuttle case? Well, as we can see from the images that we have here, the X Series looks just Wii-fied to us. Not that it's a bad thing, really, especially since Shuttle was able to make their already-compact cases even MORE compact and a lot sleeker by basing their latest design on the case of the tiny Nintendo Wii.

According to the product page, "The X Series delivers plenty of wows with its small-form factor. It’s barely the size of a sheet of paper and only 2” tall. A welcome change of pace from the traditional tower computers, the X Series combines big-time performance with its aesthetic appeal."

Don't start underestimating this little guy just yet, though, as it packs quite a punch. Armed with an Intel Celeron M 1.6GHZ processor, 512MB of RAM, an 80GB HDD, and an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 MXM Interface video card, this system is actually a whole lot more powerful than the console it was based on, so yes, you can play WoW and other games with demanding graphics requirements. Also, unlike the console which it takes it looks from, it will cost you at least US$ 799.00 to take this baby home, and US$ 999.00 if you want it to come with 1GB worth of RAM and 250GB worth of disk space. Ouch.

Everybody loves a winner and Nintendo is receiving lotsa love and congratulations from other companies. Recently, Advanced Micro Devices aka AMD, extended their congratulations to Nintendo for their successful Wii launch.

Of course, most of us know that the Wii is sporting the Hollywood GPU, designed by ATI, and ATI is of course a subsidiary of AMD. According to Reggie Fils-Aime, "Nintendo’s vision is to do something radically new and different with Wii – the technology hidden in the system allows us to deliver an intuitive and fun gaming experience in a silent and beautiful form factor."

The AMD camp is happy to give back the love by saying that "Nintendo’s fresh approach to the way people play video games is generating a tremendous amount of excitement around the world...Having powered the graphics in the Nintendo GameCube, AMD is delighted to strengthen its relationship with Nintendo as it drives the next revolution in video games with the Wii."

Lotsa dough and success = lotsa love. Enough said.

Wii, the name of Nintendo's upcoming next gen-console. Measuring 44 mm wide, 157 mm tall and 215.4 mm deep in vertical orientation without the stand, Wii is Nintendo's smallest home game console yet. Coined before as "Revolution", Nintendo decided to change the name to "Wii", as "Wii sounds like 'we', which emphasizes that the console is for everyone. Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion. No need to abbreviate. Just Wii."

These images of Wii may give you an idea of what to expect. Wii has a slot-loading media drive and although it isn't shown here in the images, it is illuminated by a blue light. It accepts 12 cm optical discs for Wii software and 8 cm discs from the Nintendo GameCube. One the images below features four Nintendo GameCube controller ports and two Nintendo GameCube memory card ports.

The console is compatible with optional USB 2.0 Ethernet LAN adaptor. It also has one SD memory card slot, two USB 2.0 ports, and one Sensor Bar port. Wii can support up to four Wii Remote controllers via Bluetooth wireless connection, so that means more than one person can enjoy a good game. These are just peripheral capabilities of the Wii which we can see in the images.

Let's tackle briefly the facts of what's inside Wii. How about its processor? Its CPU boasts of PowerPC based processor codenamed "Broadway" made with a 90 nm SOI CMOS process, while its GPU utilizes ATI "Hollywood" made with a 90 nm CMOS process. In short, it is very powerful despite its size.

It has a massive memory, thanks to the 1T-SRAM, which combines the high speed of SRAM with the high bit-density and lower-power consumption of embedded DRAM. The audio supports Dolby Pro Logic II and the video provides up to 480p of breathtaking pictures with vivid colors and superb details.

Please be reminded that these are not the final details of the retail consoles. But we guess, looking at it, its no wonder that Wii is one of the most anticipated products to be released this year.

Check out more of the images:

If you are a fan of gaming, technology or consumer electronics and have the ability to travel to New York on one day between October 12th and 15th then you're in luck. You can actually attend the event for free by entering the special code " INSIDER" at the online ticket store, printing off your tickets at home and saving you $15. DigitalLife 2006 at the Javits Center, New York features a massive list of exhibitors ranging from ATI to Sony and Square Enix.

If you are hard-pushed to find a reason to go besides the free tickets and the wealth of new gadgets and technology that will be offered, perhaps a preview of Final Fantasy XII will tempt you. You will be able to play FFXII, a PS2 title and pre-order the game at a special DigitalLife discount. Who knows, if you are lucky it could give an indication of what Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3 will look like.

Visit: [Digital Life website]

We have all been witnesses to how the Wii transformed beautifully overnight - from that next-gen console with a weird name to the most-talked about commodity in the gaming business. But occupying a high place in the popularity race isn't all peaches and cream, because amidst the good things and reviews being said about the Wii, there has been some far fetched rumors and backfence talks that have surfaced. Call it free publicity, call it a fake. But all these just goes to show how popular the Ninty next-gen console has become.

QJ reader badam told us (thank you!) about how a videogame website apparently found a post on Nintendo's forums which talked about undisclosed info about the Wii. The said post was quickly removed (and most likely the poster was slapped with a long IP ban) and there is no concrete evidence to prove them, but since people love to speculate, we'll give you something to talk about. It is up to you to decide if the rumor is farfetched or possibly true. Let us know through your comments, for now here are some of them gossips.

- The full scope of the Wii controller details has yet to be revealed by PixArt and Nintendo. The post said that "although I cannot elaborate any further let me say that the Nintendo should show that the movement in 3D space will allow experiences outside of just the TV screen. And it's not 3D projection related."

- The first game that will be shown to the public that demonstrates the full scope of Wii controller potential will be Dragonball Z Budokai 4.

- The post also talked of how Nintendo first showed the controller at Tokyo Game Show late 2005. "They were very hesitant to show it full usage. I will allow one more clue to my finding that the Wii controller can function exactly as we all have seen demonstrated WITHOUT the sensor bar. So ask yourselves, why need a sensor bar?"

- The sensor bar was in all actuality in no use at E3 2006. What is will allow hasn’t been shown yet.

- According to people who are working close to everyday events at Nintendo R&D, Nintendo Wii specifications were far and away developed solely for that machine.

-  There were also reports with regards to IBM and ATI. The two were rumored "to have been working on Broadway and Hollywood for quite some time now...Wii’s specs could go up or down at this point in the CPU/VPU departments. Apparently Nintendo has spent quite a lot of money having IBM and ATI fabricate many iterations of Broadway and Hollywood. Which range from a 3.4GHz-730MHz Broadway CPUs, and 1.2GHz-553MHz custom ATI/Nintendo Hollywood VPU. From what we hear Hollywood is key to the Wii’s power...The initial estimates we got concerning final hardware spec was Broadway at around 1.5GHz and Hollywood at 555MHz."

 - There is also word that Nintendo has big plans for the Wii headset. Apparently Nintendo wants to shy away from having the headset only for online capability. They are wanting to go further. Having the headset of course include a microphone for use in games is a given. But there was also talk of a late to launch release of this “gyroscopic headset” that would be supported by the sensor bar as well. The headset would be somewhat sensitive to movement that could be translated into the game.

 -We earlier reported about the Nibris development for the enigmatic psychological horror, Sadness. Although in our report the publisher's name was not mentioned, the rumor mills have been pointing to Majesco as the possible publisher. Nibris has also allegedly received Wii development kits.

ATI and Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS), makers of chips for game consoles including Xbox 360 and Wii, disclosed that orders are picking up. This according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report.

Based on the report ATI, which supplies the graphics chip for Nintendo's the Wii, was said to have achieved a 5% growth in the sales of its consumer electronic chips. Meanwhile, Pixart Imaging which supplies the Wii remote sensor chipset, reportedly said its chip shipments may reach a million units in August.

SiS, the southbridge chip supplier for the Xbox 360, is also cited in Commercial Times report as saying that orders for their product started picking up from July. This could mean Nintendo is gearing up for an all-out Next-Gen Console War and MS isn't going to roll over and play dead!

No doubt, Nintendo stole the show at E3 this year with the impressive showing of its state of the art game console, Wii. Unrivaled in it's innovative concept and design, Nintendo wants to keep its edge by continuously making changes.

They've teamed up with Array Technologies Inc. (ATI), the team responsible for the Flipper chip in GameCube, to provide the "Hollywood" GPU for the Wii. When asked to provide more details about the project, John Swinimer, Senior Public Relations Manager of Consumer Products said, "I'm really not here to talk about the design specs...other than the fact that ATI worked closely with Nintendo. The team that worked on this chip also worked on the Flipper chip that was in GameCube, and they've been working with Nintendo for a very long time so there's a great chemistry with the two teams working together."

Although ATI is also the makers of the GPU on Microsoft's Xbox 360, Swinimer says that there is no sense making a comparison because they are different chips for different platforms and uses.

Industry sources have already commented that the Wii GPU would be slightly more powerful than that of the GameCuBe by approximately 2-2.5 times.