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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 Chicago Tribune of all sources got the gaming news going this week. The ongoing saga that is the piecemeal sale of the Midway Games empire continued when it was confirmed that they have “agreed to sell ‘substantially all’ of the assets related to its San Diego studio to THQ Inc.” THQ picked up the San Diego side of the business for just $200,000, but did not acquire the rights to Midway’s TNA Wrestling franchise. Capcom made two tasty announcements this week. The first was that of a cheap rerelease on the horizon of three quality Xbox 360 titles, Dead Rising, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition – Colonies Edition, and Devil May Cry 4, are getting bundled together in one disk. The Platinum Hits Triple Pack is set to release for the Xbox 360 on September 8th for just $39.99. The second tidbit concerns the sequel to Lost Planet, the co-op demo that has been featured at various games conventions will be available to Xbox LIVE Gold members on August 19 th and for Silver members on the 24 th . Two important news developments came out of Microsoft, too. The gaming juggernaut has apparently locked down their partnership with Netflix. After listing all the new features available through the dashboard update via a press release, a block of text was clearly displayed at the bottom proclaiming that the Xbox 360 will be the only console to feature Netflix’s streaming service. If the image lifted from a gaming catalogue is to be believed, the Xbox 360 Elite (the 120 GB version of the gaming console) will soon retail for just $299.99. This also seems to add further fuel to the rumor that the Xbox 360 Pro (the 60 GB version) will be phased out by the end of August. Kotaku, which broke the story, notes that the Pro phase out and Elite price cut will likely go into effect by August 30th. Nintendo went and patented a saddle peripheral for the Nintendo Wii. The saddle will allow gamers to house their Wii Remote and maintain access to the Nunchuk in order to simulate riding horses, camels, dragons, bulls, motorcycles, jet skis, etc. There’s no telling when or if we will ever see the innovation, but it’s easy to imagine the technology being used for the next Zelda title. Also from the Big N, they announced that Pokémon HeartGold Version and Pokémon SoulSilver Version, which are remakes of the Gameboy Color hits Gold and Silver, are set to launch in the United States and Europe in spring of 2010. HeartGold and SoulSilver will feature “updated graphics and sound, as well as new touch-screen features and a host of surprises,” according to Nintendo. With news from the other big boys out, Sony also had to get into the mix. They announced via the PlayStation Blog that substantial upgrades to presentation and interactivity to the Trophy system is currently underway. Unfortunately, these updates are geared toward PlayStation.com rather than implementing the changes through the PS3. For more details on what is going to change, even a demo video, click HERE . Finally, it now looks likely that Star Wars: The Old Republic will find its way to market in October of 2010. No official word from BioWare or LucasArts has confirmed the speculation, however. Thanks so much everyone and we will see you next week! |