Christmas is 
looming and you don’t have a gift for the gamer on your list. At this point, heartfelt is pretty much out the window. You just need something to put under the tree.
Last minute gifts tend to be stinkers, though. Combing through the dregs of whatever serious holiday shoppers have left behind usually nets nothing but trouble. And for gamers, that means they’re stuck with things like Wii classic controllers and 101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix or PlayStation Move Ape Escape.
Sony’s next big 
hope for the handheld gaming market has made its debut in Japan, and while the numbers aren’t awful, they aren’t exactly stellar, either.
More than 321,000 Vita units were sold in its first two days on store shelves, according to Famitsu. That’s a bit shy of launch figures for Nintendo’s 3DS (371,000), though it nearly doubles what the original PSP boasted when it went on sale seven years ago.
It took 
more than 24 hours for the world’s news organizations to learn of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
But a video game saw it coming nine months ago.
It’s easy to be 
tempted by low prices, especially during the holidays. Often times, deals are so good that you grab an item without thinking it through just so you can check someone off your shopping list.
The problem? Your friend or loved one winds up with a gift that sounds great in theory, but ends up having a shelf life shorter than a piece of bread. It might be good for a day or so, but you’re not going to be real happy with it after that.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a cautionary list of gaming choices that might sound tempting to bargain-hunting shoppers, but may not be the wisest use of your money this year.
Zynga’s debut 
on Wall Street Friday is the largest from a U.S. company since Google went public in 2004 — and it has been one of the most widely anticipated stock offerings of the year.
But if early trading is any indication, anticipation doesn’t translate into interest.
Chalk up 
another bragging right for Modern Warfare 3.
Fresh off becoming the fastest game to reach $1 billion, the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise has been named the year’s top video game rental by film and game rental service Redbox, beating out dancers, zombies and Pixar.
A word of 
warning to pig farmers in Finland: Keep away from playgrounds.
After invading the worlds of apparel, stuffed animals and board games, Angry Birds are now adding playground equipment to their repertoire. Two Finnish towns — Rovaniemi and Espoo — will get the first products next year, with worldwide distribution planned at a later date.
Can’t make a 
call without digging into your smartphone’s contact list? As we all grow more and more reliant on technology to do the heavy lifting, Wang Feng is using more and more of his brain.
The 21-year-old winner of the 2011 World Memory Championships shattered his own record last week, recalling 300 of 400 spoken numbers. That’s over 100 more than he previously recalled.
While there’s 
no pleasing all of the people all of the time, by most accounts this year’s Video Game Awards on Spike TV were an improvement over previous installments, with several big new game reveals, developers actually making it on stage to accept their awards, and obvious sponsor pimping (like the “Most Addictive Game Fueled by Mountain Dew” from last year) jettisoned.
But for Mark Hamill, they were still pretty crummy.
Last month saw 
the biggest launch ever in the video game industry, but flat sales of hardware kept things about on par with last year saleswise.
All totaled, the gaming industry took in $3 billion in November, roughly $10,000 more than last year, according to the NPD Group. But the overall picture was rosy for the industry — as game sales were much higher than predicted.
Chris Morris: Journalist 