I just found about the XGameStation from Slashdot via Gizmodo.

This is what the XGameStation is:

"XGameStation is a 16-bit video game console designed specifically for both hardware and software hackers. The system outputs video and audio directly to any TV via composite video, and is compatible with PlayStation DualShock controllers. Games are played off custom cartridges that you burn yourself."

OK... interesting... although why you wouldn't want to do this in software I don't know. What's the upside? But anyway. Reading on, things get more interesting:

"A History of Game Development Before 1994, the idea of walking into a bookstore and seeing entire shelves of books on real-time graphics and game programming was almost unheard of. The very techniques and sciences driving the games that were already making billions of dollars for the Ataris and Nintendos of the world were still well-guarded secrets. That all changed, however, with the release of Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus by computer scientist Andre LaMothe, and within only a few years, an entirely new genre of technical books had seemingly taken over the world."

The next paragraphs also all mention LaMothe. Slowly it began to dawn on me. The X in the name was kind of an obvious giveaway. (I get regular XGDC spam to remind me of the association.) This was another Andre LaMothe ego vehicle.

It's very rare for me to say bad things about someone in public, but I'm about to make an exception. The whole Premier Press Game Development series loses its value because some guy who is involved in the series (but has not written any of the books currently in the catalogue) has to pose on the back wearing a Halloween costume and cheap sunglasses. How can you take a book seriously with a picture like that? And it's a pity, because at least one book in the series is pretty good.

How are we going to get rid of the game developer sci-fi geek image with people like Andre LaMothe around?

But who knows, maybe he's a nice guy under those shades.