As a sort of Powet Exclusive, here are all the television ads for the GM “Transform Your Ride” ad campaign paired with the Transformers movie opening next week. Note there are many variations on the final ad, which are all placed here for the sake of being complete. They look very similar, but you’ll note different vehicles in the promotions and the actor has slightly different reactions.

Over this past weekend, a milestone was hit when Sonic the Hedgehog officially turned 16 years old. Sega’s mascot has been a teenager for some time now, but still has quite a rich reputation that he’s brought to the table in the gaming world, along with bringing a few friends with him for the ride on the gaming rollarcoaster.

What does this mean in terms of what is going to happen in the future for the blue speed-demon? Well, lets first recap on our beloved hedgehog’s life thus far.
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Last night, Level Up reported via their Newsweek blog that NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime will be making an announcement about new WiiWare downloadable games: original titles similar to those of Xbox Live Arcade or the Playstation Network. Today it has become a reality!

According to the release, WiiWare™ is “a game-creation service that will allow developers large and small to create new downloadable video game content for sale by Nintendo through the Wii Shop Channel” that “paves the way for smaller, more creative games to make their way to the public at lower prices, without any inventory risk to developers.”

Projects will be announced a later date, with first WiiWare offerings will not be available until early 2008. There is no indication of who is involved, nor how the independent developers they hope to foster can gain access to this development kit.

Compare this to Microsoft’s XNA Studio, which allows developers to create games cross-compatible in both Windows XP/Vista and Xbox 360. The technology is readily available (and free!), although the development kit that allows you to test your code on your 360 has a subscription cost of $100 a year — a drop in the bucket for the development budget of any serious offering.

Check back with us as more news develops. In the mean time, leave a comment and let us know what kinds of games you’d make for the Wii!