Over at the venerable San Jose Mercury News (my hometown newspaper in my adopted U.S., by the way), key game journo Dean Takahashi has announced that he's switching up to a new position at the Merc.

He explains: "You shouldn't notice much difference, hopefully. I'm going to become a columnist at the Merc, writing tech product reviews and general tech commentary. The good thing is that the funnest part of my job -- writing this blog and podcasting with Nooch -- is still going to be part of my responsibilities. You may notice that I'll be a bit more opinionated."

[Interesting to note that Takahashi correctly identifies that you shouldn't write business/'straight' news, and then present strong opinions on the companies that you cover in separate editorials. This is pretty well accepted elsewhere in journalism, but doesn't always seem to happen in game journalism - but hopefully that'll change.]

He further notes: "I won't be writing the hard news of the games industry anymore. That job falls to Troy Wolverton, a newly hired reporter who comes to us from the Street.com. You may see news items from Troy in the paper and we'll post them on the blog as needed." Wolverton is a smart guy, so looks like the Merc's smart game reporting will continue.