The entire industry may be looking gloomy as hell about the economic climate and outlook, but Microsoft Corp is determined that we’re all going to have a fun-packed festive season even if it kills it: following its fun-and-games offering of a week or so ago, it has now come up with Microsoft Game Shop, combining the fun of computer games with the challenge of computer problem solving in a single package – it comes with six games including QBlocks, based on the Soviet Tetris game, is aimed at kids from 9 to 14, and costs $50; and for the more creative, there’s Flight Simulator Aircraft & Scenery Designer for Flight Simulator 4.0, which enables users to design their own scenery to fly over, and choose from an expanded fleet of aircraft, including the Boeing 747-400 (what, no Spitfire?) and an enhanced aircraft design facility for modifying the flight characteristics of experimental aircraft; it costs $40 on top of the $60 of Flight Simulator 4.0.
