The Week in Review & Rumor Round-up: Family Game and Movie Night, the Emergence of Respawn, Litigation Resolution, and More!

The Week in Review news piece summarizes and highlights the most important gaming related news and rumors over the past week. This weekly article will keep you plugged in and in-tune.

The Wii got a whole lot cooler this week. The Netflix streaming service that has already been established on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 has finally hit the Wii. If you are a current unlimited Netflix user, you’ll be able to order a streaming disc from Netflix and stream movies to your television via the Wii. HD picture quality, of, is not available, but 480p rivals a DVD quality image.

Activision continues to lose Infinity Ward employees after the hubbub that transpired after the firing of former Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella. Apparently, many of these development refugees are fleeing to Respawn Entertainment, a brand new development company established by West and Zampella. Respawn Entertainment also signed an exclusive publishing and distribution agreement with Electronic Arts for all upcoming games.

A longstanding suit filed by Anascape, Ltd. against Nintendo concerning patent infringement of specific controller technologies has finally been resolved. After appealing a lower court decision, Nintendo was vindicated by the Federal Court of Appeals in Texas. The court found that “none of Nintendo’s video game controllers infringe on a patent asserted by Anascape, Ltd.”

On the rumor front, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter sees September 2010 price cuts for both the Xbox 360 and PS3. Pachter says, at the very least, Microsoft will release a 250 GB slim model that will be bundled with Natal and retail for $299 before the holiday shopping season.

Finally, the recurring BioShock MMO rumor has resurged, but no substantial source could be cited to give the speculation legs. All we really know is that 2K Games would like to make an MMO and that the BioShock universe seems like a plausible backdrop to set it in – information we’ve already known for quite some time.

Thanks so much everyone and we will see you next week!