If the "Madden Curse" is the unflapping revenge exacted by the fowl spirit of the Great Turducken, its devoured body unceremoniously carved up by the bare hands of John Madden on national television those many years ago (seriously, go wikipedia that joint), then the annual "Madden NFL Super Bowl Simulation" is just ... plain math.

In the latest case of crunching the numbers, Madden 10 has predicted the New Orleans Saints to be winners of this Sunday's Super Bowl XLIV over the Indianapolis Colts. It was a real nail biter, EA recalls: "with minutes left in the game the duo of Joseph Addai and Peyton Manning put the Colts back on top with a go-ahead touchdown pass. With the game hanging in the balance, Drew Brees hits David Thomas for an 11-yard touchdown and the game winning score." The final: 35-31.

But more intriguing than the projected outcome of a mere sporting event is EA Sports' coveted simulation formula, which has become scary good. Not only did it correctly predict the winners of the conference championship games a few Sundays ago within a three-point margin of error, according to EA Sports, the formula accurately played out last year's Super Bowl down to the final score and individual player stats, which begs the question: What can't it predict?

We'd like to put a request in to EA to simulate next week's retail showdown: BioShock 2 vs. Dante's Inferno. Place your bets now!

A week from the launch of Dante's Inferno, no one would expect Visceral Games' Nick Earl to reveal any uncertainty about sales, but Industry Gamers did attempt to elicit a reaction from the senior VP -- by reminding Earl that his studio's new game will share a release date with BioShock 2 (never mind that it's surrounded on either month by other big-name releases). "In life, there's the things you can control and things you can't control," Earl said somewhat poetically. "I can't be too concerned with our competitive slate; our team has put so much time into Dante's Inferno, and I have a lot of faith in it."

Perhaps "faith" is a natural result of working with the source material, but more likely Earl can sleep at night because he knows he has the support of a strong marketing budget. As a work of public domain, Dante's Inferno is that rare double-bonus for EA: a recognizable property and free to adapt -- no strings attached. In turn, EA has invested in a resounding "buzz" that targeted game outlets early with memorable stunts and will culminate in an unprecedented Super Bowl spot. "There may have been [a Super Bowl ad] from Atari years ago, but it has not been done in recent memory, and it shows the confidence we have in Dante's Inferno," Earl said of the publisher's first Super Bowl commercial, which will air on Sunday.

With Dante's Inferno out of his hands, Earl confirmed that the majority of Visceral's staff is shifting to Dead Space 2 (while a small team continues to work on Dante's DLC). "We're more focused on the action than the horror this time," Earl said of the apparent ACTION-horror sequel. "We're more empowering to the player."

Who is the real Caressa Cameron? Winner of this past weekend's 2010 Miss America pageant, this 22-year-old Virginia native was, at one point, one of us (Exhibit A: high school yearbook photo circa 2002; pictured left). But, somehow, through some unfortunate series of events, she changed -- she became an outsider (Exhibit B: Miss America; pictured right).

Newly crowned, Cameron took to the pulpit spewing her outdoorsy blasphemy onto an unsuspecting audience, disturbed from their relaxed seated positions within a temperature-controlled climate. She shouted, "take away the video games, set some standards for our children!" and construed a preposterous account of the mid-90s when kids were "playing imaginary games with sticks in the street like I did when I was little."

Lies! Admit it, Cameron. You were playing PlayStation. And when you weren't doing that, you were playing Nintendo 64! And when you weren't doing that, you were probably begging daddy to get you a Sega Saturn (perhaps his heartless "No!" signaled the beginning of your innocent forays out of the den?).

Poor child, what ill-gotten desire led you from the indoors? Alas, Cameron may be lost to us, but she has unwittingly strengthened our numbers by providing us with an addictive new game concept sure to keep kids inside for years to come:

Joystiq Publishing is pleased to announce the multiplatform game on the year, Stick to the Streetz, for Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 PlayStation Motion Controller, and Microsoft Xbox 360 Project Natal. Grab your "stick" and wave it in 1:1 real-time, motion-capture accuracy as you imagine a brilliant game perfectly recreated in your living room television display. Take that Miss America!

The Wall Street Journal today examines "Why Playfish Sold Itself to EA." Um, wouldn't you sell yourself for $300 million? While such an investigation might seem trivial, the WSJ calls in Playfish president and GM Kristian Segerstrale, who reveals that several hundred million is merely chump change. Playfish certainly considered a road to riches paved in the arduous process of going public as an independent company, but "as we advanced our conversations with EA, what became clear was that this would be genuine opportunity to accelerate our pace of growth and build a billion-dollar business faster," Segerstrale explains.

To realize this dream -- to get rich really quick -- Playfish clearly saw it would take more than its prowess as a stand-out developer in the burgeoning social games arena. It would take brand power. According to the WSJ, as suggested by Segerstrale, "there will be a social game based on a well-known EA brand this year." Hardly a revelation, to be sure, but it's at least confirmation of a killer strategy. Take an established IP -- likely EA's The Sims -- and adapt it for a network of social gaming experiences that spans persistent platforms like Facebook and the iPhone. Oh, so that's why Playfish sold itself to EA.

[Via Develop]

Dragon Age: Origins presents strong evidence that great games can overcome gawd-awful graphics, but BioWare isn't about to test that theory -- and the limits of our forgiveness -- again in the sequel. "I think one of the key things we're working on in Dragon Age 2 is the technology," BioWare VP Greg Zeschuk recently told Joystiq. "I can confirm that we're doing a lot of work on the Dragon Age engine, and doing a lot of stuff to pump it -- to make it visually super hot."

Now, to clarify, frisky rogue foursomes and lesbian alien sex are measured on different "super hot" scales, as Zeschuk conceded, "Dragon Age is, in the structural sense, a fundamentally different game than Mass Effect ... You have to make different technical considerations." Certainly, with Dragon Age: Origins, those considerations were designed to benefit the superior PC version.

Still, there's hope for a console sequel makeover, since, in Zeschuk's words, the process of iteration allows a developer to "get to a much higher level." "I think the overall visual style we're going to continue to evolve in Dragon Age," Zeschuk added. "People are going to see some cool ... I can't really say too much, but I think Dragon Age as a world is interesting. It's a timeline, and you can go anywhere." Go anywhere, huh? So, like the future Ferelden, where a race of sexy blue aliens has been possessed by horny desire demons? Super hot.

It's finally over ... and it's just beginning! Apple has introduced the iPad to the world, ending a long-drawn-out development phase fraught with rumor and speculation. Today -- like, just now -- the iPad made its stage debut at Apple's "Latest Creation" event in San Francisco.

Quite the production, er, introduction, eh? Here's what we know right off the bat, courtesy of Steve Jobs:

• "It's very thin -- you can change the homescreen to whatever you want"
• "You can browse the web with it"
• "Phenomenal for mail"
• "Album, photos ... you can look at all of them, flick through them, it's a wonderful way to share. Calendar ... months ..."
• "We have the iTunes store built right in. YouTube and YouTube in HD"
• "And it's awesome to watch movies and TV"
• "Even bigger than the DSi XL" (okay, so Steve didn't say that -- we did!)

Cool, but does it play games? Update: Yep, it does -- your old iPhone games! We even played a few in our hands-on preview.

Some additional specs: 0.5-inches thin; 1.5 pounds; 9.7-inch IPS display; multi-touch; powered by 1GHz Apple A4 chip; available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models; Bluetooth 2.1 plus EDR and 802.11n WiFi; speakers, mic and 30-pin connector; syncs over USB; and up to 10-hour battery life. First-party accessories include a standard dock (think: picture-frame mode), a keyboard dock and a case.

As for pricing, the 16GB model is $499 (or $629 with 3G compatibility); or 32GB for $599 ($729 with 3G); or 64GB for $699 ($829 with 3G). 3G-compatible models have an option between two data plans through AT&T: 250MB of data per month for $14.99 or unlimted data per month for $29.99. The data plans are prepaid and activated directly on the iPad -- there's no contract (so you can cancel anytime). WiFi models ship in 60 days (late March); 3G units in 90 (late April).

So long rumors! We're live from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to bring you real coverage of Apple's "Latest Creation" event. Follow the complete liveblog on Engadget or stick around here for Joystiq's gaming coverage of Apple's not-so-mystery device.

Wait, it plays games, right? Right! Don't tell us we flew all the way out here for nothing ...

Event start time by location
08:00AM - Hawaii
10:00AM - Pacific
11:00AM - Mountain
12:00PM - Central
01:00PM - Eastern
06:00PM - London
07:00PM - Paris
08:00PM - Ludwig
09:00PM - Moscow
03:00AM - Tokyo (January 28)

With a host that's "crazy for RPG" and a model, plus guest appearances by the "legendary" David Jaffe, upcoming PSN reality show, The Tester, has already locked up the celebs. But what about the unknowns -- those everyday, real folk -- vying for an entry-level job in the industry?

Today, we're introduced to these eleven strangers, picked to work for Sony, to test games and have their lives taped, to hopefully get smashed and hook up and puke and then start some real drama if the video editors are any good, 'cause, boy, game testing is really kinda boring and ... hey, did we mention there's still an unannounced celebrity that's gonna show up? Stay tuned!

[Via PlayStation.Blog]

If we've learned anything from the latest "Divnich Debrief" on IndustryGamers, it's to be careful what we wish for. Video game anthropologist analyst Jesse Divnich has crunched the numbers and formed a surprising statistic: 106 percent -- the percentage increase in the number of new console game properties introduced from 2007 to 2009 (61 new IPs in 2007 compared to 126 in 2009). One hundred and twenty-six!

Surprised? We are, considering that we've pined for new game experiences, as we've stocked our shelves with sequels these past few years; all those 2s, 3s and 4s -- heck, we've got a spot reserved for a "13" in March. Still, we'd like to think our collections owe more to exquisite taste than a compulsive habit to collect them all. After all, as Divnich points out, of those 126 new properties introduced last year, not one received an aggregate review score of over 90 percent.

The lesson, as Divnich tells it, is that publishers are barbarians (see, the image does make sense). In other words, when we the consumers stop buying properties worn barren by those plundering publishers, they turn to mass-producing new IP, in search of a hit, which is then quickly ravaged (think: sequel, sequel, sequel -- in short succession) as the cycle repeats itself. The solution, Divnich poses? Simple -- for publishers to consider Blizzard's calm approach (at least it's worked on the PC platform) and farm their prize properties with sustainability in mind. We suppose that makes it our job to suffer excruciatingly long droughts, while keeping the faith. Who wants to join us for the seasonal StarCraft Dance?

As Ubisoft today sent its financial forecast soaring downward for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, CEO Yves Guillemot pledged to steer the company away from the suffering casual market. Specifically, "with a view to further reducing our exposure to the DS, we intend to continue to refocus our development resources on our major franchises and on the Xbox 360 and PS3, the two consoles which are expected to see sales growth in games for gamers in 2010," Guillemot said.

For the fiscal 2009-10 year, Ubisoft has revised its sales target to €860 million (roughly $1.25 billion) -- down from an estimated €1,040 million -- resulting in an anticiapted €50 million operating loss. The publisher cited a near 50 percent year-over-year drop in casual game sales as the leading cause for the revised financial target, despite "robust" sales of casual Wii games (especially sales of Just Dance). Poor retail performances by James Cameron's Avatar: The Game and unspecified "non-casual" Wii titles, along with weak back catalog sales, were also to blame. The last-minute delays of Splinter Cell: Conviction and R.U.S.E. affect the current fiscal year, as well.

As for fiscal 2010-11, Ubisoft has indeed planned a lineup of "major" franchises, including the aforementioned Splinter Cell game, along with new entries in the Ghost Recon and Prince of Persia series, in addition to a newly announced Assassin's Creed "episode," and Rabbids and Driver installments. "The 2010-11 line-up -- which is stronger in franchises for Xbox 360 and PS3 -- reflects our refocusing efforts and should enable us to both win market share and enhance our profitability," Guillemot concluded.