Reported by Virtual Worlds News, it’s currently rumored that the Wii incarnation of Animal Crossing would not only be online enabled, but leaning more towards the virtual world model. All signs point to yes so far, and I will be jump on the opportunity to play that. The WiiConnect24 capability is woefully under utilized with the party games craze on Wii. There’s so much potential and so many possibilities, bigger and more than the PC. By design/definition the Wii is way more accessible to the average users than the PC. MySims could have done that, but alas it didn’t.

I do hope though, by then we actually get official Wii keyboard support. Right now it’s unofficial/unannounced and only work in certain places.

Dr. Randy Pausch, a huge proponent for game entertainment for education, gave his “Last Lecture” recently. He’s been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and only have three to six months of good health left. I have never heard of him before personally (there’s much in this world I don’t know). But after watching his special on Good Morning America, which highlighted some of his speech and some additional comments, there’s no doubt in my mind that our industry will lose a great deal when he’s gone. I am inspired and admire his courage in such situation. After seeing this, I guarantee you, your big problems won’t seem that big anymore.

You can view the whole lecture on Google. A transcript and other information are available on his university website. You can also read more about him on his Wikipedia entry.

From the virtual worlds rumors department, Google Operating System, an unofficial Google news blog, reported that Google’s testing something new at ASU:

Arizona State University’s students have the opportunity to test a new product “that will be publicly launched later this year”. The invitation page mentions that the product is developed by “a major Internet company” and there are hints that the application is related to social networking, 3D modeling and video games.

Read the post itself for speculations from the site operator. Personally, I don’t think Google’s trying to creating another Second Life type virtual world. If anything, my guess is it will be a 3D MySpace or Facebook. Google’s business is information. What’s better than to get everyone on Earth to contribute information about themselves, and present them as they are in Google Earth? Then again, no one’s obligated to “show themselves” on Google Earth. Philosophically, this can turn into an additional dimension to the world as we know it.

Areae, headed by Raph Koster, finally released details about the secret virtual world project that they have been working on for a year now. It’s called Metaplace and it reeks of boundless potential. I am extremely excited about it, and at the same time, concerned.

Metaplace is a next-generation virtual worlds platform designed to work the way the Web does. Instead of giant custom clients and huge downloads, Metaplace lets you play the same game on any platform that reads our open client standard. We supply a suite of tools so you can make worlds, and we host servers for you so that anyone can connect and play. And the client could be anywhere on the Web.

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