As we all settle down with those we love for what’s normally the biggest anti-climax of the year, I just wanted to say a public “thank you” to everyone involved with the website over the last twelve months.  For starters, of course, our ever loyal readers who have stuck with TheSixthAxis through everything we done this year, including coverage of other formats, so thank you for trusting in us and relying on us knowing that we’re doing the right thing.  I know sometimes changes can be counterproductive and disturbing, but as I sit here now looking over the site archives I’m pretty sure that supporting the Xbox 360 this year, alongside the PSP of course, has only made us stronger.

Thanks also to everyone that used our TSA Meets feature, unique amongst sites like ours and a fantastic community tool that allows people that have been with us since 2007 can play online against brand new members that have only been around a week – all our members that take part in Meets are friendly and welcoming and we’ll continue to support the bigger Meets that you guys organise with main site coverage right through next year too.  And, again, a thank you to anyone that’s posted in our forums this year – a forum so lovely that the Introductions thread is now 55 pages and our community has already set up and hosted their own TSA Forums Awards!

And if you’ve contributed by way of comments on our stories, thanks to you too – we’ve had over 120,000 comments so far and that’s not counting all the nasty spam we have to wade through to keep your reading of the site as nice as possible.  Over the year we’ve written nearly 3,200 stories – that’s an average of more than twelve witty, intelligent and well researched stories every single weekday – well, you know what I mean.  Remember, of course, that nobody on TheSixthAxis currently makes any money from their time and effort, writing for the site can be a toil sometimes and the stress associated with certain posts can be really tough, but as long as you guys keep commenting we’ll keep writing.

And on the subject of our staff, which I believe are the most talented bunch of guys on the internet – paid or not – I’ve like to say a massive thanks for all their hard work this year.  Peter, for leading the troops for most of the year, being my rock when needed and kicking arse with his mad video skillz; Davs for some awesome graphics work, all the trips to see all the secret games and for a mean cranberry juice; Gareth for stepping up as our content manager and ensuring there’s always something going on; Lewis for always being around to cover a breaking story; Chris for always speaking the truth; Tuffcub for his snatches and sense of humour; Greg and Robert for their unrivalled grasp of technology; Zuler for his evergreen enthusiasm; Kris for looking after our Lunchtime Discussions; Murdo, Lorcan and Tom for their blogs; and new blood Colin and Lee for joining the team at our busiest time.  Oh, and Michael – hey dude.

So, with such an awesome team behind us, I’m confident that 2010 will bring great things to TheSixthAxis and hopefully this year will be the year we finally ‘make it’.  I’ve been speaking to a couple of people about our long term plans and there’s some decent interest in the site and what we’ve become – I don’t normally reveal site figures but I’m happy to report that over the last couple of months we’ve had over half a million (500,000) visitors a month, making TSA probably the most visited site of its kind, and it’s about time that sort of readership translated into better things for our hard working staff.  Let’s hope it all works out, but don’t worry, our community is still very much at the heart of the site.

Finally, there’s big things for you gamers in 2010 – I’m all NDA’d up, but I know of at least two pretty exciting things planned for the coming months…  Have a great new year, folks!