The Week in Review & Rumor Round-up: Microsoft Unveils a New Xbox 360 Controller, the DSi Gets a Price Drop, Sony Announces Qriocity, and Duke Nukem Forever Still Exists

After what seems like a lifetime of complaining about how terrible the Xbox 360’s D-pad is, Microsoft has finally come up with a solution. Earlier in the week, Microsoft lifted the curtain on a new controller that not only maintains the standard disc shaped design of their original D-pad, but also allows users to transform it into a, hopefully more responsive and accurate, plus design. By twisting the D-pad, segments of the disc shape surrounding the plus design shrink into the controller, locking in place to provide users with a D-pad more akin to the original NES pad’s.

With the news about the 3DS’s price and launch date looming at the end of this month, Nintendo decided that now would be a good time to announce a price drop on their most recently released handhelds. As such, after September 12, the DSi and the DSi XL will both be getting a $20 price drop, putting the DSi at $149.99 and the DSi XL at $169.99. About this price drop, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing Cammie Dunaway stated “Our new Nintendo DSi prices make it easier than ever for consumers to access the tremendous variety of games, applications and social tools on the Nintendo DSi and Nintendo DSi XL systems.”

While it may have an odd name, Sony has announced their own iTunes competitor in the form of a cloud-based video and music on-demand service at this year’s IFA in Berlin. Qriocity will be making its way to most of Sony’s products including many newer Bravia televisions and Blu-ray players, however, the PS3 and PSP will only be receiving the “Music Unlimited” portion of the service for now. Though many of the details regarding this service are still sketchy, it was described as giving users “access to a huge library of songs through the cloud” and letting them “discover new music through channels personalized to their tastes on multiple devices and without the requirement to manage digital music files.”

As with most things, we’ve saved the best for last this week. Take note, pigs are flying, the sky is falling, and, apparently, hell is experiencing some mighty cold weather. That’s right, Duke Nukem Forever is officially still in the works thanks to Gearbox, who say the game will be coming to the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in 2011. In fact, Gearbox president Randy Pitchford even stated “We’re in the polishing phase now,” meaning that Duke Nukem Forever could actually see store shelves this time. Although, we wouldn’t blame you if you are still skeptical (we are), given that this title has been on again, off again for over a decade now. Duke fans, keep those fingers crossed, but don’t hold your breath, just in case.