Welcome to the new year of The Bobby Blackwolf Show! The podcast feed has NOT been updated for the past 13 weeks, and I greatly apologize for that. A lot of things got in the way of this particular hobby. There have been episodes, and we will be putting them up in reverse chronological order as time permits. In this episode: We take a look back at the most pirated games of 2009 and discuss what this means about the market. We look forward at a bunch of games that we are looking forward to in 2010. Then we take calls about the coming year and about how whatever we think now will most likely not be the same things that we say at the end of the year.

In this non-live condensed episode (we're too drunk at PAX to give you a real episode) we give our review of the Xbox 360 version of The Beatles: Rock Band. But be sure to check out The Digital Cowboys podcast "Independence" to get a little meta on why we do what we do. We'll be live again next week!

We will be at the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle on Labor Day Weekend! Unfortunately, PAX completely sold out since we recorded the episode, so if you don't already have a ticket, try again next year. Microsoft dropped the price of the Xbox 360 Elite to $299.99, but is missing features. Rumors exist that cross-game chat on the PS3 is being stifled by Electronic Arts. We hate rumors. Our midpoint song is PAX performer Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains". Then we take calls about football games and hiding your plays, voice chat, and Mortal Kombat: Unchained for PSP.

There were two conventions this week - BlizzCon and Gamescom. We talk about Gamescom and not much about BlizzCon. The PS3 Slim is a reality, but what won't it have? Firmware 3.00 will have minor improvements to the New PlayStation Experience. A gaming magazine surveyed their readers about Xbox 360 failure rates and everyone is counting it as gospel. Then we take calls about what games we would finance if we won the lottery, video game fan translations like Policenauts, piracy, online video services, Wii DRM, and Facebook games.

Happy Birthday, Genesis! What was the pack-in game? Not the one everyone immediately thinks of! Electronic Arts filed for trademarks for several old franchises. Does this mean they're returning? EA Sports is now making features locked via a code - the code is free with a new purchase, but used buyers need to pay $10 directly to EA to get that feature. Is this a slippery slope? Then we take calls about Beatmania mods and other Bemani stuff.