Burnout Paradise is coming to the PC, Electronic Arts announced today.

The game, the first ever in the franchise to come to the PC, is being "rebuilt specifically for the PC" and will include expanded multiplayer, enhanced online feature and new "community driven content."

Criterion will be holding a press conference on their website later today to talk more details about the upcoming game. Hit up the jump for the full release.

Criterion Games

British tabloid Daily Mail isn't know for it's love of video games. In fact, most think that the paper totally hates them! So reviewing Grand Theft Auto IV is a primo opportunity to vilify gaming. Sure, it gets its digs in and calls the game a "sickening glorification of gangland savagery" and falsely says someone was stabbed at the midnight launch. Then the tone of the piece totally changes! Giving the game a five out of five, Daily Mail writes:

There it is, have a look, the cutest bus in Tokyo. To promote DS game Kawaii Koneko ("Cute Kitten"), the above bus was wrapped in cavity inducing sacchrine. The pet sim went on sale way back in January and lets players pick from eight different breeds like Russian Blue and American Shorthair. The bus ad features cutesy Japanese celebrity person Becky. See that old dude flagging down that pink bus? His teeth hurt.

Pic of Becky, a cat and part of a wheel after the jump.

So, SOME DUDE over at the GTA Forums noticed that the Rockstar Social Club site have the above image. It depicts a plane ticket for a "Mr Niko Bellic", bound for "San Andreas" from "Liberty City." Let the speculation begin!
Spoiler? [GTA Forums via videogaming247]

The wheels of the announced BioShock movie keep on churning. With a big time director aboard and a major screenwriter in talks, the game's publisher Take Two must be thrilled. It is! Just listen to Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two:

BioShock has been hailed as one of the most highly cinematic and richly plotted titles in interactive entertainment, making it extremely well-suited to film... Our ability to attract a major studio and unparalleled creative team speaks volumes about the strength of our BioShock franchise.

Full release after the jump:

Ignore, for a moment, the commentary indicating the game's propensity for crashing. Raging Thunder isn't exactly a big-budget title. What it is, however, is a shining example of just why the iPhone holds so much potential as a gaming device. If some backyard coders can come up with something that looks this good, and takes such precise advantage of the iPhone's accelerometer, imagine what proper devs can do. Or, at least, what a creatively engineered copy of Mario Kart could do.

[via Gizmodo AU]

You've see what Mark Whalberg looks like in Max Payne. Now, have a look at actor Chris O'Donnell as created-for-the-movie white collar exec Jason Colvin. He carrying a briefcase and wearing a coat! There's snow flurries!! HOW EXCITING. Hit the jump for a shot of bloody carnage.

Prince William, future King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, is apparently a deft touch at Wii Sports. Oh, and shit-talking. While visiting a youth project in Wales, the Prince was challenged to a game of Wii Sports by 18 year-old Martyn James. Martyn got his arse kicked, with Prince William even taking the time to talk some trash to the poor kid, telling him (no doubt with a sly snarl on his face) "you know you're not allowed to beat me". All Martyn could say was "I was stitched up" before curtseying and walking, bowed, out of the room.

William Serves Up A New Talent [Sky News, via Go Nintendo]

Get out those wallets, 'cause Microsoft and Tecmo have some tender-lovin' DLC they want you to buy. With Ninja Gaiden II being released this June, three Ryu Hayabusa ninja outfits will be available for purchase at 200 MS points a pop. That's right, the equivalent of $US 2.50 for skins! In Europe, select retailers in the UK, Italy, The Netherlands, the Nordic countries and France will giving out the pictured skin to 39,000 customers who either at launch or for pre-orders. Everyone else, pay up!
NG2 DLC [NeoGAF via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

I'm going to level with you: Project Gotham Racing 4 is my favourite racing game of all time. Hands down. Yes, other games feature more content, and yes, other games are more "realistic", but you know, I don't care. They can't match it for visual flair, they can't match it for sound design, and they definitely can't match the total package of making me feel like I'm strapped inside a ridiculously expensive sports car. So it's with tears welling in the corner of my eyes that I read Bizarre have said there's no more content on the way for the game, at least from them (and, really, nobody else will bother). So it's done. That's it. Not surprising, when you consider Bizarre are now paid by Activision, but still. It's final, and as such, it's saddening. Because it's the final nail in the coffin of a game that lived too fast and died too young.

Bizarre finished with PGR4 content [CVG]

When Nintendo's not making games, it's redesigning hardware. When it's not redesigning hardware, it's denying hardware revisions. Previously, Famitsu boss Hirokazu Hamamura said a new DS was coming to E3, a rumour which Nintendo and Hanamura later denied. Now game site GamesRadar contacted Nintendo about the rumour. Nintendo's reply?

No announcement has been made by Nintendo and everything reported online is pure speculation and rumour. Our hardware development team always work on the next product after we launch one hardware. It is usual that a new model will be brought to the market when we can not offer new ideas with the current model, but we think Nintendo DS is not at that stage yet, and we'd like to keep offering all sorts of suggestions to enrich the lives of people who own a Nintendo DS.

What, Ben Heck, coming up with excellent, crafty, gaming-related things? You don't say. This is his latest contraption, a heavy-duty pedal designed to work with Guitar Hero to give it that extra dash of authenticity. After Heck did some one-handed GH controllers for the Games for Health conference, Activision decided to send him some guitars for further experimentation, and these are what he came up with. Although primarily designed to allow someone with the use of only one hand to play Guitar Hero (as the pedal allows them to strum with their feet), they can also be used to activate the whammy bar, giving them a much more general application. While they look nice and rugged, the highlight's got to be the fact he wired them using the controller cables from an old Jaguar controller.

Guitar Hero pedal controllers [Ben Heck]

Nintendo's doing great! Making tons of money — just look at it go, go, go. What does that mean for its competitors? It means things are hard and not easy. Publisher THQ had a disappointing year with its Disney movie games. According to company CEO Brian Farrell :

The kids' market was extremely competitive during fiscal '08. In fact, it was the most crowded market for video games for kids in recent memory. With a tough Pixar comparison to Cars [Ratatouille] and new competition from Nintendo's first-party titles — as well as new music games — our traditionally strong kids' business did not meet expectations.

The boys at PALGN have spotted a June 26 release date for Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl at online store TopShop.

You may remember TopShop also had info on the street date for the Dual Shock 3 controller. The date turned out to be correct. So this, friends, is a good sign. Now, if only Nintendo could confirm...

Super Smash bros Brawl [Topshop, via PALGN]

Sony just rattled our mailbox to let us know that, presumably just as a single copy of GT5 Prologue was slid into a plastic bag and handed to a customer somewhere in Japan, that the combined sales from the Gran Turismo series have now reached 50 million units in the ten years since the series debuted on PS1. Attached to the press release is a handy guide to just how many copies of each game have been sold, but if you simply must know now, the highest-selling title (by a fairly comfortable margin, too) is GT3, with the god-awful GT4: Prologue registering as the poorest-performing of the lot.

I'm not sure I completely understand what the Fury League is, but it sounds like Auran has changed its struggling Fury from an action-based fantasy MMO, into an action-based fantasy MMO where you can make money.

Okay, there's more to it than the cash-for-gaming aspect. Instead of earning abilities, new players will receive all 400+ on offer and 10,000 worth of Fury gold to deck themselves out. Sounds a bit like the tournament servers Blizzard recently introduced to World of Warcraft, but I could be mistaken.

According to the press release, Auran believes it's finally found the right balance of elements for its game, with CEO Tony Hilliam stating that "there are two things [our core community] really want - a game where skill is rewarded not time played and the chance to win cool prizes". $25,000 in prizes is a hunky number, but it's a far cry from the arse-kicking $1 million worth Auran offered during the game's beta.

You can't blame Auran for putting continued effort into making the game respectable. It's just hard to see how those efforts will be rewarded after the game's bumpy reception and the subsequent downsizing of the studio.

Full release after the jump.

We haven't seen corporate smack talk like this since Sony exec Peter Dille went apeshit last July! Microsoft executive Aaron Greenberg takes the puffy sparring gloves off, picks up a battle axe and swings it at Sony. (While dropping bombshells like: "Today Xbox 360 has a 5-million-unit console sales lead on a global basis based on most recently public reported data from both companies. This includes more than double the installed base in the US according to actual NPD sell-through and over a 1-million-unit lead across Europe also based on reported sell-through from Chart Track and GfK.") Just listen as Greenberg unloads, spewing corporate venom all over Sony:

A patent's been uncovered by VentureBeat, which Apple first filed in November 2006. It's for a pointer/remote device, that communicates via IR, and has a sensor bar you place in front of the tellie to detect 3D movement. You know, just like a Wii Remote. The patent states the following:

...the absolute x- and y-positions of [the] remote control can be used, for example, in video games to position a user's character or to otherwise track the movement of the remote control in a user's environment.

What's there not to like about this? It involves GTA IV, so it's topical. It involves Beelzebub himself taking credit for all the murder simulator parts, so it's...topical. And it gives me a chance to link to the super-fantastic Dinosaur Comics. All thanks to the one image. Brilliant.

[Dinosaur Comics]

Whenever a developer who works for a company that doesn't make MMOs pipes up and says "PC gaming is dead", they really mean they just can't make money selling what they're selling. Maybe it's because of piracy, like many say, but hey, maybe it's also because they don't make MMOs, because NPD figures released today show that Americans spent over $US 1 billion on online subscriptions last year. That money came from an estimated 11 million subscribers, the majority of whom were obviously playing WoW, with RuneScape, LotRO, FFXI and City of Heroes following (in that order) in its wake. NPD say "it's clear that there is a sizable chunk of revenue being generated by PC gaming beyond what is reflected in retail sales", and really, none of us are in a position to argue with that.

Online subscriptions exceed $US 1 billion a year, says NPD [GI.biz]

Oh Sega. What, you don't know that the mere premise of teaching people English by having them type zombies to death guarantees sales? It does. So while the flash demo you've provided of one of the game's cheesy tutorial levels (the real typing of the dead comes later) is greatly appreciated, it's not really needed. Thanks anyway, though!

English Of The Dead Demo [Sega, via Siliconera]

What, me worry? Activision CEO Bobby "Robert" Kotick says the game industry is not headed for a slowdown. Things are buzzing! Fear not!! In a conference call, Kotick said:

Publisher Take Two has inked its first movie deal. According to Variety, underwater corridor FPS BioShock is getting a big Hollywood film adaptation. The biggest film-to-game deal since Peter Jackson's ill-fated Halo movie, the BioShock Universal produced flick will be helmed by Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski. Universal is in talks with Oscar nominated scribe John Logan (The Aviator) to do the script. Verbinski has been talking with BioShock creator Ken Levine on a regular basis about the project, but no word what official capacity he'll take. Verbinski says he plans on making an R-rate film and work will begin once there's a quality script. About BioShock, Verbinski says:

Big thanks to reader Brendan, who decided to check out what the deal was with GAME and the LE of Metal Gear Solid 4. We posted a story yesterday with news that the retailer had a "limited" number of copies to sell, despite EBGames having the exclusive.

Brendan was able to confirm that indeed, GAME has the Limited Edition - 20,000 copies apparently (UPDATE: More likely the worldwide number). That's the only bit of good news though. He says the store is asking $159 for the honour.

Do you reckon it's worth it? I know I'd be hard-pressed.

In an interview with SCEE blog Three Speech, Naughty Dog's Evan Wells has been answering a bunch of questions sent in by Three Speech "readers". Most are fairly run-of-the-mill, but one's pretty interesting, if only from a cultural standpoint. The question was, basically, why can't I shoot the fish in the game? The answer:

The latest "Iwata Asks" segment, this time touching on Link's Crossbow Training and the Wii Zapper, is a doozy. It's Miyamoto and Iwata kicking back, enjoying tea and biscuits, and telling us all about some of the crazy, crazy shit they may or may not have actually planned for not only Link's Crossbow Training, but the Zelda series itself. Like, what kinda crazy shit? How about an idea to originally make Ocarina of Time a first-person Zelda adventure. Or that Miyamoto thought they could justify Link's use of a gun (ie the Wii Zapper) by having the game feature a "Terminator style story about a time warp from the future". Or that the idea for the Zapper came from a Twilight Princess dev showing Miyamoto he'd stuck a Wii Remote and Nunchuk together using rubber bands, only to be told to get lost because he had more important work to be doing. Like I said, they may be true, they may be total lies, who cares, it's good reading.

Iwata Asks: Link's Crossbow Training [Nintendo]

Geekpulp is reporting that Softprint, the New Zealand distributor of Nintendo and Activision products, has run into financial trouble. As a result, the publishers have started playing keep-away with their stock. This may explain the delay of Mario Kart Wii in NZ we heard about a few weeks ago. The article states that the info came from "various sources". I'm in the process of contacting Softprint to see whether it is willing to confirm the situation.

If the news turns out to be true, it will make it difficult for Kiwis to get their hands on products from Nintendo and Activision until the distribution rights find a new place to live. You could always import, of course.
Troubled times ahead for Nintendo in NZ [Geekpulp, thanks Reagan]

Gaming site Kombo got themselves a nice exclusive today in the form of purported concept art from Factor 5, artwork that was reportedly used in a pitch to Nintendo for a potential Kid Icarus game for the Wii. According to Kombo, the Lair and Rogue Squadron developer is actively pursuing a Wii entry in the series—a long touted rumor—but that Nintendo hasn't officially committed to the project. The above image is just one of many pieces of artwork said to be from a new-gen Kid Icarus game and there are many proposed looks. One things for sure—each and every design will make you feel like your feeling too close to the sun, eyes first.

Put these pieces together. Realtime Worlds made Crackdown. Realtime Worlds are now at work on an MMO called APB, which is not entirely dissimilar to Grand Theft Auto. Realtime Worlds were founded by David Jones, who created Lemmings. Oh, and Grand Theft Auto. Last month, Realtime Worlds bought back the rights to APB from Korean company Webzen, who were originally scheduled to publish the game. Why the buyback? Eurogamer are reporting that, according to "a credible industry source", it was so they could turn around and sell the game to Rockstar, who could then rebadge it as a GTA MMO. Realtime are keeping quiet on the rumours, saying only that they bought back the rights to their game to "give themselves some options".

Realtime downplays GTA Online talk [Eurogamer]