As we’ve documented, Michael Pachter has been off his rocker a little more than usual as of late. His most recent comments that the video game industry was in the throws of its final console generation sent the internets ablaze.

However, it appears that Pachter has been proven wrong already.

During the Luminaries Lunch at the GDC, Blizzard executive and 2003 Mr. Edmanton Body Building Bronze Medalist* Rob Pardo revealed that Blizzard is in active talks with Microsoft regarding… wait for it… the successor to the Xbox 360!

Why would Blizzard be talking with Microsoft about a gaming console? Pardo explains:

There are are so many games like we make at Blizzard that we don’t take to consoles because they don’t support the input device and you end up with crappy ports. That’s why RTS games never do well on consoles.

Blizzard isn’t completely foreign to console development. All three of their big franchises have seen console ports (Warcraft II: The Dark Saga on PlayStation and SEGA Saturn, Diablo on PlayStation and Starcraft 64 on Nintendo 64). However, Pardo is infallably right on the issue of controls hampering the true RTS experience.

*May Not be 2003 Mr. Edmanton Body Building Bronze Medalist. In fact, I’m not sure that even exists.

Wednesday. GDC lives on, giving us news regarding OnLive, Zelda and Final Fantasy. This is also the third-from-last Best of the Rest daily post you’re going to get and any future BotW (Best of the Week) will be posted Friday evenings. Sweet, huh?

No? Well, screw you and look at the Fallout Online concept art.

• Overpriced PC maker Alienware cutting jobs – Extreme Tech
• Nokia says N-Gage Service is growing in popularity – Reuters
• 1080p Katamari remake is PS3 inbound – VideoGamer
• Punch-Out!! will support Wii Balance Board – IGN
• Don’t Stop Believin’ in bad puns Rock Band – Shacknews
• PS3 Firmware 2.7 coming in April – Destructoid
• Sad there aren’t more UMD downloads? Blame the law! – Wired
• Duke Nukem coming to PSP, Nintendo DS – Oh Gizmo
• Apogee Software is looking for the next live-action Duke Nukem – Shacknews
• Bionic Commando Rearmed. May 19th. Buy it! – Shacknews
• Saltzman: Quality is ‘irrelevant’ with iPhone games – The Feed
• Nintendo announces SD storage solution… kinda – Destructoid
• A whole hell of a lot of Final Fantasy is coming to WiiWare, Virtual Console – Joystiq
• New Zelda DS game is in the works, too – Shacknews
• 505 Games Joins ESA – Gamasutra
• Sony swears three new Home spaces each month – GamesIndustry
• Activision announces Guitar Hero: World Tour for PC, Mac – The Feed
• DSi-Enhanced and DSI-Exclusive cards coming to Nintendo DSi, naturally – Joystiq
• Buh Bye, FileFront – FileFront
• Blizzard’s Rob Pardo: Devs Think of Innovation Too Highly – Gamasutra

And finally, score one for the good guys! After passing both the Utah House and Utah Senate, Jack Thompson’s anti-gaming legislation was smacked down by Utah’s governor. Why did he strike it down?

Because it would have been ruled “unconstitutional” — a word Thompson knows only too well.