It's over. It's done. E3 2009 has come and gone, and the worldwide gaming community is left to sift through the announcements, reveals, videos, hype and promises that came out of the yearly gaming expo this past week.

To make it just a wee bit easier, here are all the E3 2009-related news that graced the QJ.NET pages in the past week. This is quite long, so I'll cut this intro short and get right down to the meat. Hit the jump for the QJ.NET E3 2009 Round-up.

And here's the latest on the Hold your Wee for a Wii incident that took the life of 28-year-old mother Jennifer Strange. The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office has concluded their investigation on the circumstances surrounding 107.9 KDND FM's The Morning Rave contest and found that no criminal activity took place. As such, no criminal charges will be filed against the radio station nor any of its employees.

According to the DA's office, "The facts and circumstances of this ill-fated event do not support the filing of criminal charges... Based on the evidence, no duty or special relationship existed or was created between the radio station and/or employees and Jennifer Strange because of the contest."

As a voluntary participant, Jennifer Strange was assumed to have known the nature of the contest she was getting herself into, and that she had the prerogative to discontinue with the contest at any time. The contest Hold your Wee for a Wii had the participants drinking water every fifteen minutes, with the one able to hold his/her bladder the longest being the winner of Nintendo's Wii. Jennifer Strange took in almost two gallons of water, and was later found to have died because of water intoxication.

Meanwhile, the Strange family's attorney revealed that the DA's office is not in the least bit surprising. Says Roger Dreyer, "We do not believe the conduct of the individuals rose to criminal intent. It is consistent with our viewpoint from the beginning that the decision maker responsible was the management of Entercom."

The family has already filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the radio station's management, seeking compensation for lost income and family's loss of Jennifer's care and comfort.

It is our hope that this case finally gets closed so she can now rest in peace.

More than two weeks would still have to pass before the Market for Home Computing & Video Games Industry Excellence Awards (MCV Awards) happens, but the event has already sold out. To be attended by over 600 industry executives from all aspects of the gaming industry, the prestigious awards honors excellence across 15 categories.

The event will be held at the London's Brewery venue in Chiswell Street on Thursday April 19th. It will start with pre-event drinks at The King's Head, Chiswell Street from 5 pm, care of Sennheiser and Gem Distribution. At 6pm, a champagne reception sponsored by IGA Worlwide will follow, and then the awards proper happens.

Sounds like a lot of boozing, huh? Well, the event is a celebration, as the industry itself chooses the winners of the awards. MCV Awards recognizes effort, innovation and commercial success. Every major company will be attending the event. Pub landlord at the London's Brewery Al Murray will even be performing, so you can expect more to be there because of them.

There are 17 coveted awards to be competed for by the finalists. The categories include awards for Star Store, Games Publisher, Marketing Team, Sales Team and Game Campaign. The event is sponsored by Xbox 360, Nintendo, Nvidia, Kiss FM, System 3, Mice Domino and GamerTV.

Eke-Eke has just released an updated binary version of the SMSPlus Master System emulator for Nintendo's Gamecube and Wii consoles. Thanks to the binary, there's no need to recompile the source file, so those who don't know how to recompile can just go ahead and play their hearts out.

Here's what's new:

(19/03/2007)

• added SDCARD support (copypasted from Genesis Plus)
• NO more linked rom needed, rom data is now dynamically allocated

(09/03/2007)

• updated to last version (1.3) from Charles McDonald (http://cgfm2.emuviews.com/): added TMS9918 display mode support for SMS2 and GG video chips.
• corrected NGC savestate loading (fix FM & graphics problem on loading state)
• added an option to change Joypad Type in Misc Menu (SMS button 1 is assigned to Button A (typeA) or Button B (typeB))
• added options in Misc menu to change some internal settings (Region, CPU , Mapper, FM Type, Console Type)
• updated NGC Sound Engine (copypasted from Genesis Plus)

For installation instructions, please read the SMSPlus.nfo file included in the binary download. SMSPlus is open-source, so if you feel like tinkering a bit with it, download the source code too.

Download: SMSplus v1[1].3 binary
Download: SMSplus v1[1].3 source code

Shiny Awards. The name may not sound like much to you, but it's the Oscars of the techie gadget world. Hosted by none other than Shiny Media, the most recent award ceremonies was held at London, the night of February 21, 2007.

LG, with their Chocolate mobile phone, Roberto Cavalli LG phone and the BH100, bagged two wins, a runner up spot, and the lovely and equally stunning Colleen over there.

Of the most notable, and laughable, highlights during the night was the wicked ASBO Gadget of the Year award. ASBO, short for Anti-Social Behavior Order, describes the gadget that could be best used to annoy people around you. But wait, who needs a gadget to annoy people?

Samsung - those poor chaps - won that award fair and square with their K5 MP3 player. It won not because of its small profile and even smaller speakers, but because the "itsy bitsy" speakers are actually very powerful - almost too powerful.

We also noted that Apple's iPod Nano and (*gasp!* lo and behold!) Nintendo's Wii, bagged their own prizes from this prestigious event. And look, even Bethesda Softwork's The Elder Scrolls Legends IV: Oblivion and Nintendo's Wii Sports gets to bring home something for Mommy.

Click on Full Article below to view the complete list of winners under each award category.

Yes, this isn't related directly to the Wii, but it's news related to gamer culture in some odd manner (the need to get consoles and contests that reward people with hot, in-demand consoles) so we're posting this anyway. Tagging this under off-topic.

Wired News reports that the FCC's lax oversight of the terrestrial radio industry may have contributed to the tragic and infamous "Hold your wee" incident. Donna Halper, a radio consultant and Emerson College journalism instructor, expounds:

There was a time when radio stations had to be more responsible ... and understood they had a public-interest obligation, that they're supposed to operate their stations in the public interest

...I understand regulation is a dirty word, and a lot of people feel like having the FCC all over us was so oppressive. But it prevented stuff like this from happening.

Lawyers representing Jennifer Strange - the contestant who died after entering the "Hold your Wee for a Wii" contest at the Sacramento radio station KDND-FM - is calling on the FCC to pull the license of KDND-FM.  However, observers note that FCC action is unlikely.

Jennifer Strange's death due to water intoxication is the latest in a string of radio contest mishaps stretching back to the early 90s that went without FCC punishment.

Halper notes:

The only time the FCC rouses itself is to enforce obscenity laws...

...I'll bet (a listener's death) would have caused the FCC to get involved immediately. It might have caused the station to get fined or at least scrutinized. Let's face it, somebody died. You would have had a lot of 'splainin' to do.

It's just sad when disc jockey joke that someone might die, and they do.

Perhaps you've heard the news about Jennifer Strange, the woman who died after participating in a radio contest called "Hold your Wee for a Wii". It seems after 107.9 KDND-FM fired 10 people, including the hosts of the Morning Rave show, the radio station now faces a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of Ms. Strange.

Roger Dreyer, a personal injury lawyer who'll represent the Strange family, said that the station knew the dangers of the water-drinking contest but decided to go ahead with it anyway. Although he did not put up an amount to be sought after in the suit, Steve Clark - a Bay Area attorney and legal commentator - did estimate that they would be "talking seven figures" including compensation for Strange's lost income and the family's loss of her care and comfort.

Now there are some rumors flying around that Nintendo could face a lawsuit, too, on top of the old lawsuit regarding the Wiimote straps. This has no confirmation as of press time; also there is no indication that Nintendo was responsible for the recklessness of the station. But Dreyer has his sights targeted on the employees responsible and the hosts of the show.

We will follow up on more developments of the lawsuit as we get them.

Not entirely Wii-related. An off-topic yet still newsworthy post. The three hosts of 107.9 KDND-FM's show, Morning Rave, who go by the on-air names Trish, Maney, and Lukas were fired a day after the station announced that it was suspending the show and their efforts in investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of 28 year-old contestant Jennifer Lea Strange.

Strange died of water-intoxication after participating in the now infamous "Hold your Wee for a Wii" contest. ABC News reports that witnesses indicated that Strange may have drunk nearly two gallons, and that she appeared ill when she went on-air.

Studies have shown that rapidly drinking large quantities of water can cause an imbalance of the body's electrolytes and could cause brain swelling leading to seizures, coma, or even death.

Sgt. Tim Curran, spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department said that, due to a lack of criminal activity, officers are not investigating Strange's death. He explains: "It was a contest and people are saying there was no coercion. On its face, it appears it was all done voluntarily, and no criminal activity was involved."

Here's to hoping that future contests that involve hot consoles won't turn as tragic as this.

Expect someone to spin this to point all the blame towards videogames. A woman seems to have died of water intoxication after participating in a water-drinking contest sponsored by Sacramento radio station KDND-FM 107.9.

The contest, called "Hold your wee for a Wii", had participants drinking water every 15 minutes, with the winner being the one who could hold their bladder the longest. The winner would then win a Wii console. Jennifer Strange, one of the contestants, died a few hours later after calling her supervisor at work while driving home.

"She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad," said Laura Rios, one of her co-workers. "She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her." Strange was found in her home some time later, after one of her office's supervisors called her mother, prompting her to check on her daughter by visiting her residence.

For now, we have one of the early news clips that reports Strange's death. Checking our sourced link below should give you more information on what happened, and while it does seem as if KDND is to blame, there may still be other factors that contributed to it. Still, there was no doctor present during the contest and the report indicates that little warning was given about the dangers of water intoxication. We hope KDND does accept responsibility for what happened, and we also hope this doesn't become sensationalized like Connor O Keefe's death. Updated video with more details thanks to Aaron.