Microsoft revealed today during their CES keynote that the demo for Ensemble Studio's Halo Wars will be released on Xbox Live February 5th, with the full release of the game hitting shelves later that month on the 28th. UPDATE: Robbie Bach, Microsoft speaker who mentioned the Feb. 28th release date, misspoke when he said that date. He actually meant March 3rd.... more.

Today on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft put a price on the Flashback Multiplayer Map Pack, originally only available free for players that purchased the game brand new.  The pack is priced at 400 MS points (or $5), seemingly getting rid of the huge price difference between buying a new copy and a used copy from Gamestop.... more.

In a press release sent out by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announcing the Blu-Ray release of the first Ghostbusters movie today, the release date for the game was also announced.  It does not mention much about the game, other than both the Blu-ray disc and game will be out simultaneously to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film on June 16th, 2009. Source: http://www.hometheaterforum... more.

In an update on the merger between the UGO and 1UP networks, Joystiq lists the employees affected by the lay-offs.  The list includes many of the faces fans of 1UP have come to know and respect, not only through their honest editorial, but also the networks many audio and video podcasts.  Sources of Joystiq claimed that at least 40 had been let go, which includes: Adrian Frieg Amy Mishra Am... more.

Microsoft reports that their worldwide sales figures for the 360 have reached the 28 million units mark, beating out the Playstation 3 by roughly 8 million.  The number two in the industry also boasts that 17 million of the console owners are active on Xbox Live, along with an 84 percent increase in sales through the service, coming in at $1 billion.  Their busiest week ever, 1.5 million use... more.

Ah, Asian people. When we're not dying after playing online MMO's for days on end at internet cafe's, the next best thing for us to do is apparently setting them on fire.  According to Australian site livenews.com.au, South Korean police arrested a high school student after he set a warehouse on fire, which, according to the teen, was revenge for housing the internet cafe he had a horrible g... more.

In an interview with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, genius behind the Metal Gear series, Hideo Kojima, says his studio will begin restructuring in order to compete better with Western developers. "I've come to understand that the way we've made games up until now won't translate globally, and I've come to think that I need to make Kojima Productions a team that can compete alongside the rest... more.

A Gametrailers.com user posted this video of a child getting a Wii for Christmas.  Temporary insanity ensues, and we have a new screaming-game-console-receiving-kid champion.  Now we need a video of his reaction when he realizes there's only a handful of good games to play. ... more.

While I don't really want to make posting up strange gaming videos a habit, this is another recent one that has me puzzled as to why this was made, yet still resulted in a few laughs. The voice acting cast of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots got together to improvise a therapy session where they all seem to think they are actually the characters they played in the game. Random screaming... more.

As someone who had just seen the Japanese movie Battle Royale, a strange movie that has the Japanese government taking randomly chosen 9th grade classes, setting them on a deserted island and forcing to kill each other until there's only one survivor, I figured I had seen my weekly dose of crazy. Capcom has just proven me wrong. On their Japanese webpage for Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop (h... more.