Tony Hawk: Ride Dated

In news that most will undoubtedly not care about, Tony Hawk: Ride has been priced at $120 USD in accordance with being bundled with a life-size skate deck controller peripheral. It has also been confirmed for November 17, 2009.

I like what Activision-Blizzard/Robomodo have done here with adding an out-of-the-box type of thinking and controller. What I think they'll have trouble doing is winning back old fans that have moved on to EA's Skate franchise, as well as winning over new fans with a $120 price tag. This is a major drawback that will not sit well with consumers. Die hards will pull out their wallets at the drop of a hat, but the casual gamers will more than likely sit this one out until they see a tumble on the price point.

Fistful of News

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 has been confirmed to contain co-op missions. A new group of screenshots feature Ayane and Rachel duking it out in the team missions mode where players can tackle self-contained missions in co-op.

Titan Studios, developer of Fat Princess, has released its first patch for the game, patching severe connection issues, among other things.

Brutal Legend has been confirmed to contain over 100 rock tracks, including tracks by, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Ministry, Motorhead, and Motley Crue, just to name a few.

A major XBL update is coming tomorrow, August 11, it mainly entails the games on demand service which will allow users to download full 360 games onto their console's HDD. Other updates included in the XBL update are:

User Ratings - Rate anything you play on XBL, demos, games, arcade games, and sort by rating to find games that got the highest ratings

Indie Games - XBL Community games have been renamed to Indie Games

Account Management - Get a stamp showing off how long you've been a member of XBL as well as a reminder when your account is going to run out

User Interface - Enhanced UI which includes a streamlined navigation, new ways to sort through friends lists, and a revamped achievement browser

XBL Parties - Invite friends to XBL parties easier and automatically reconnect when disconnected

Netflix Updates - Bring your party to Netflix and watch a movie or TV show together

The argument that many are putting up is that some of the games on demand may be more expensive than their disc counterparts. Not to mention the fact that the download is far cheaper to the developer and should have a lower price than the disc. For instance, Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero, two of the 360's launch titles have been confirmed as being part of this service right away, and the price point given is $20-30. As of right now the games sell brand new for between $10-15. Not raining on Microsoft's parade, simply saying that if they want users to purchase games via this online service, they should get their act together and not charge more for them than what you're seeing in the store.

Starcraft II Delayed

Following many rumors that the high-profile PC real time strategy game would be delayed, it has been just that -- delayed. Only this time it is official. Activision-Blizzard announced today that they would be delaying Starcraft II until the first half of 2010 citing releasing it alongside the relaunch of its networking service Battle.net as the reason for its delay.

Releases Set

The release date of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 has been set for September 29, 2009, Tecmo announced this morning. Keep in mind this is in North America only for the time being. It is going to be in the same week as Dead Space: Extraction for the Nintendo Wii, Gran Turismo PSP, and the PSP Go launch. Thus, the week of September 29 is looking quite busy.

Like many releases this fall, Ninja Gaiden Sigma has an Gamestop exclusive collector's edition. For $10 more than the regular edition ($59.99USD & $69.99USD) of the game, it includes an 80-page book featuring a strategy guide, 'vibrant' Ninja Gaiden art, and a comic featuring the cut scenes from the game.

Delays and More Fun

Ubisoft announced a series of delays for a few highly anticipated titles earlier yesterday, as well as announcing that their earnings during quarter 1 of their fiscal year were down almost 51 percent year over year. Splinter Cell Conviction for the 360 and the PC has been delayed until quarter 1 2010. Red Steel 2 will succomb to the same fate as it too has been pushed back until sometime in quarter 1 2010. The next instalment in the Ghost Recon series as well as I am Alive have both been pushed back into Ubisoft's next fiscal year. This means the earliest they could come out is March 2010 and latest would be March 2011.

Top Cow has announced that a sequel to the Darkness is in the works, but as for any other information it is few and far between. One would assume 2K games is publishing the said title, however when asked for a comment a 2K rep did not give one.

Forza 3 has been confirmed for October 27, 2009. There will be a limited edition and regular edition of the game. The limited edition includes bonus cars in an Audi R8 5.2 FSI Quattro, Nissan Fairlady, and an Acura NSX.

Finally, the long awaited Playstation Network game Fat Princess will finally debut on July 30, 2009. The game will be $15 to download from the PSN.

Battlefield 1943 Surpasses 600k

It was announced recently that Battlefield 1943 surpassed 600,000 downloads in the first week, making it the fastest selling one-day downloadable game for both 360 and PS3, and the fastest selling one week downloadable game for both 360 and PS3. All of that after there were launch issues on the first day of release due to the overloading of servers. With these announcements, it is easy to see why.

Microsoft Handheld Coming, Map Pack 3 Announced

Microsoft Exec, Shane Kim, recently mentioned in an interview with Kikizo that the Microsoft brand was destined for the handheld market. He said that doing so right now would draw too much focus away from 1080p HD, Facebook, Twitter, and Project Natal, however that after those projects were complete then their outlook on the handheld market would expand. He made it quite clear that it was going to expand.

Call of Duty: World at War's third map pack installment has been announced and is set to come out sometime in August. Like its previous counterparts it will feature a zombie map and three multiplayer maps.