As our most loyal readers know, the staff here at Level Up will from time to time scrutinize the statements of videogame executives to determine their veracity. So when Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, disparaged the technical capabilities of Nintendo's flying-off-store-shelves Wii, we knew that our services would be required. eWeek asked Bach "So, is Nintendo disrupting things for you, or were you surprised to see them?" to which he replied:

I'm actually not--the product has gotten more broad-base [sic] acclaim that I would have expected. It's a very nice product, but it actually has a relatively specific audience and a fairly specific appeal, frankly, based on one feature, which is the controller itself. And the rest of the product is actually not a great product--no disrespect, but...the video graphics on it aren't very strong; the box itself is kind of underpowered; it doesn't play DVDs; there are a lot of down-line components [that] aren't actually that interesting.

Just in case that statement wasn't enough of a hit on the Wii, Bach quickly circles back around for the fatality:

The challenge they have is that third parties aren't going to make much money on this platform because Nintendo is going to make all that money, and their ability to compete with something like a Halo or produce an experience like Madden on their system is going to be tough. They don't have the graphics horsepower that even Xbox 1 had. So it makes sort of the comparison set a little bit difficult.

Those are the kind of statements that reliably set fanboys' tongues a-wagging. But how accurate are they? Back in February, we observed posters on various message boards speculating about how much power the Wii had under the hood. Nintendo, for its part, has steadfastly refused to release the Wii's technical specifications. So we approached two of our most reliable technical experts at third party publishers--both of whom spoke under the condition that they not be identified for fear of angering Nintendo--for an independent evaluation of the Wii's abilities.

If the staff of Level Up, like the Shakespearean villains of old, can be said to have a fatal flaw, it's an obsession with prognostication. We love to predict the future, and we're pathologically obsessed with being right. Given our track record, however--we said that a first-person shooter like Halo could never be a system-seller for a console; we believed that PSP would outstrip the DS; we assumed that more early adopters wouldn't blink at the PS3's high price--our forecasting abilities are currently hovering somewhere between those of former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld (pre-war) and pundit William Kristol (post-war.)

Still, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and we correctly foretold that the pace of PSP shipments would match or exceed that of the PS2. This, then, was the basis of our notorious 2004 bet with Microsoft wunderkind James "J" Allard, of Pearl Harbor memo-Xbox-Zune fame. Yet despite our having emerged victorious, neither phone calls (yes, we've got his cell number), text messages (ditto), emails (thank goodness for the vast storage capacity of Gmail) nor blog posts ('sup, fellow bloggers) could persuade the elusive Allard to make good on the wager. So you can imagine our surprise, based on the collective wisdom of our blue ribbon panel, to get word that Allard had, in the words of Spike Lee, finally managed to "Do the Right Thing"--sort of. (For Allard's perspective on our bet, click here.)

As juvenile as videogames and sports may be, the folks at Microsoft take man law very seriously. After an interview with Xbox chief Peter Moore at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, which took place during the NFL playoffs, he described how sports-obsessed he and a number of his fellow Microserfs are by describing the company's "high-stakes" football pool. Called the Shark Pool, it involves some variation of trying to predict the spreads in that week's NFL games. The loser, that is--the person with the lowest score--must deliver gourmet doughnuts to each of the other participants in the Shark Pool. What's more, the loser can't pawn this off on his or her assistant. They must personally trek all over Microsoft's massive campus to render unto the non-losers their tasty spoils of victory. And to fail to do so--well, let's just say that none of the Sharks would ever shirk their responsibilities.

It's an intriguing anecdote, and we've had cause to reflect on it as of late. For today marks the 360^th day to go by since E3 2006, where our infamous bet with James "J" Allard was expected to be honored. Yet nearly one year later, the dread wig has yet to take its rightful place upon his shiny bald pate for the agreed upon month-long duration. We've turned to a panel of experts in attempt to understand why, hypothetically speaking, an individual might refuse to honor a bet that was freely entered into.