rsw writes "I'm still reeling from Sega's decision to discontinue the greatest console ever made. So when I saw this story about a forthcoming Dreamcast-on-a-chip, my thoughts turned immediately to the possibilities: a portable 2nd-generation backwards-compatible Dreamcast?"

freakout writes "After years in development, Blizzard Entertainment announced on Thursday that they will soon be accepting applicants for the FREE World of Warcraft Open Beta Test for North America. The open phase of beta will give people a chance to enter Azeroth and play WoW before the game is released in mid-November." Perhaps you could play with your spouse?

Angelspit writes "GameSpot reveals that Ubisoft China and TQ Digital Entertainment will team up to develop a massively multiplayer game based on the Might and Magic universe. The game would originally be released in China in 2005, but a worldwide release is also considered. Alain Corre, managing director at Ubisoft, described their plans: "The approach on this product is to blend Asian gameplay elements and a western franchise with high recognition in the Asian territories." Ubisoft is also working on a new Heroes of Might and Magic game, but the title has not been officially announced."

SamusFan writes "Nintendo Gamer Summit is currently underway in Seattle, where Nintendo is showing off its lineup of DS launch games as well as its big holiday releases on GameCube."

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "NFG Games offers an interesting look at the visual evolution of Nintendo's Mario from his humble beginnings as a monkey-chasing carpenter to his more recent incarnations as a Koopa-stomping plumber. The retrospective doesn't stray into 3D Mario territory, but it does include every 2D version of Mario released between 1981 and 2004 -- including early consoles like the Atari 2600 and Colecovision."

Starsmore writes: "Gamespot has a retrospective on the 1999 cult classic System Shock 2, which normally isn't that big of a deal on it's own, although it's a nice read for those interested in some of the stories behind the production of System Shock 2. The biggest draw is that tucked at the end of the article (and shown below for those that don't want to RTFA), is this: 'But why even look back at System Shock 2 at this point? Because Irrational has been, and it plans to make a related announcement this Friday (tomorrow). The studio has decided that it wishes to further what it started in System Shock 2--to work on games that promote "emergent" gameplay--open-ended exploration that offers many choices and combinations of options to players. You'll see what we mean tomorrow. Be sure to come back then.' " Could this possibly mean a sequel to the System Shock franchise? Update: 10/09 22:30 EDT by C : As many of you suspected, Irrational is in the process of developing BioShock , a "spiritual successor" to the System Shock games. Here's hoping they can distill much of what made games like System Shock and Thief so successful, yet succeed at their aim of building a game with truly emergent gameplay.

Cire writes "Someone named 'Mr. Soundtrack' is selling over 1300 games in one ebay auction. Included are more than 300 systems and a massive arsenal of gaming peripherals. The lot contains 23 Atari 2600s, 78 Nintendo NES's, 33 PlayStations, 60 SNES's, as well as some harder-to-find systems like the Bally Retrocade System, a Sega Nomad, and a couple 3DO systems."

Forbes Magazine is running an interesting article discussing the business side of the MMOG City of Heroes. It has some interesting background on the backer and some surprisingly detailed technical info about the game. "In the 18 months before the Heroes debut, Cryptic's staff of 35 made the art and story come alive in 480,000 lines of code. The code is separated into 740 computer instruction files that handle everything from dressing up a character in an almost infinite selection of outfits (a total 10 to the 27th power, in fact) to flying through the city, as well as 25,000 graphics files. At peak hours 30,000 automated villains roam each of ten versions of the city. "

bippy writes "Ubisoft just announced that a four map pack for Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow will cost $5. This comes on the heels of THQ's announcement that they will be charging $4.95 for a downloadable mission on Full Spectrum Warrior."

aWalrus writes "The long wait for Half Life 2 and bundled games through Valve's online distribution system, Steam, ends today. Steam news reports that Half life 2 packages will be available at 11 am PST. With HL2 still trapped in publisher approval limbo, these packages don't have the game yet (available upon products' release), but they do have Counter Strike:Source. This could be a good bargaining chip for Valve and a boost to Steam distribution."

Humby writes "The BG2 Add-on CZ site has posted an interview with a member of the team behind the Planescape: Vengeance conversion for the Planescape: Torment Role-Playing Game. This is going to be an all new Planescapes game made using the original."

tuite writes "BBC News Online reports on a photography exibition featuring online gamers and their avatars. The article has more information, including some pictures from the exibition."

An anonymous reader writes "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude has been refused classification and banned by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) due to its sexual content. Being produced by Sierra, Larry's exploits are more cheeky than they could ever be offensive, so is this really justified? Oh well, off to bit torrent I go..."

Thanks to Gamespot for a breakdown of the official DS Launch Title lineup. The selection includes lots of big names, including The Sims, Madden, Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, and Spider Man 2. The system will also feature a remake of Final Fantasy III (jp), one of the most outstanding games ever to be released for the famicom system.Update: 10/07 20:57 GMT by Z : Gamesindustry.biz has a story on this as well, adding details and stating that there will be a DS Zelda title as well!

rsmith-mac writes "The HomeLAN Federation has posted an interview with Dave Callaham, the scriptwriter for the forthcoming Doom movie. The interview goes over id's influences on the movie and willingness to change the mythology to work with the movie, along with the earlier reported studio shift, and some very light details relating to the characters in the story. If all goes as planned, the Doom movie will start principal production this month in order to hit the theaters in August of 2005."

The Hobo writes "About 700 of the world's best gamers began battling it out Wednesday, as the fourth annual World Cyber Games got underway in San Francisco. The five-day annual event is a culmination of national competitions held around the world and pits the best players against each other in a variety of widely popular games like Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Halo, Starcraft and FIFA Soccer.

Thanks to the BBC and GamesIndustry.biz for their stories on American game company expansions into Asia. Electronic Arts is opening a dev studio in China, hoping to open up the world's largest market to online gaming. PCBang style internet cafes are rapidly becoming big business there. Microsoft, on the other hand, is getting serious about the Japanese market. Their next gen console is already being hyped to Japanese developers. The form factor and design are going to take into account Japanese tastes, as will their marketing campaign. The next Xbox may offer Japanese and American consumers a fascinating new feature as well, with Bill Gates himself confirming the development of spectator mode for the Xbox. It's unclear whether that would be rolled out for the current Xbox console, or will have to wait until their next product.

pdawerks writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that around a million copies of Halo 2 have been pre-ordered. This pre-sale figure makes the Halo sequel the highest presale in the history of videogames. So far, Microsoft has sold 5 million copies of the original Halo: Combat Evolved."

HunterX writes "Lik Sang took the videogame community by storm this weekend by announcing a new entry in its product catalog. The SmartJoy FRAG is an adapter that allows Xbox and PlayStation 2 owners to connect a mouse and a keyboard to the console and replace the standard controller with the well known PC combo that has been the envy of many console gamers for years. TeamXbox.com has more on the story, and there is plenty of commentary on Lik Sang's Forums."

SnprBoB86 writes "Planet HalfLife reports that latest issue of the UK PC Gamer been release with a review of Half-Life 2. The game scored a 96% (the same score as the original Half-Life and 6 points higher than Doom 3). This is just after Valve announced the Steam packages that will be available for purchase and that people who buy Half-Life 2 over Steam will be the first to play the final release of the new Counter-Strike: Source."