First week back after the holidays, and big sister site Gamasutra seems to have blasted out of the gate with a bunch of neat new features - headed out here with a big history of Pong and early gaming from Loguidice and Barton.

Also hanging out in here - an excellent postmortem of Xbox Live Community Games' Weapon Of Choice, a state of iPhone game development feature, an interview with the Treasure CEO, full write-ups from the Game Developer Front Line Awards, and bonus GCG.com features.

Goes a little something like this:

The History Of Pong: Avoid Missing Game to Start Industry
"In the first of a new Gamasutra series, Loguidice and Barton present a detailed history of Pong, the video game that jumpstarted the entire business, and some of the innovations it inspired."

Postmortem: Mommy's Best Games' Weapon of Choice
"Ex-Insomniac programmer Nathan Fouts created one of the standout Xbox Live Community Games in 2D side-scrolling shooter Weapon Of Choice, and explains how in this Gamasutra postmortem."

Game Developer's Front Line Awards 2008
"The editors of Gamasutra sister publication Game Developer magazine present the full 2008 Front Line Awards, with industry notables ranking and discussing this year's best game tools."

Visualizing Floats
"Despite their ubiquity, few programmers really take the time to study the underlying mechanics of floating point numbers, their limitations, and problems they can bring to games -- programmer West dives in."

iLang Syne: A Guide To iPhone Game Development In 2009
"Veteran developer Alessi looks at the state of the iPhone/iPod Touch game market in 2009, mapping out the pitfalls, engine choices and opportunities of making games for Apple's hit device."

Games The Way They Want: Catching Up With Treasure
"Japanese developer Treasure has created games from Gunstar Heroes through Ikagura and Bangai-O -- Gamasutra quizzes CEO Masato Maegawa on the company's storied history and future."

Bonus GameCareerGuide.com highlights: Inside the IGF 2009: Sneak Peek at Virus Effect, Rapid-fire Student Postmortem: Full Sail's Endless Wave, GameCareerGuide.com's Game Design Challenge: Gravity Game, Student Postmortem: Bloomfield College’s Rage of the Elements.