Electronic Theatre says it has no official reasons for the delay, and speculates that “manufacturing constraints” may be to blame, perhaps to “counteract piracy issues”.

Presently, Amazon, GameStop and GameSpot all have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 listed with a November 10 release date.

We’ve contacted a spokesman for the game to ask for comment. Should there be any clarification, it will be added here.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Delayed on PC [Electronic Theatre, thanks MasterDex]

Unseen64 has more than a dozen purported concept paintings from the fourth Star Wars Battlefront game, which seems to have a focus on the planets Utapau from Star Wars Episode III—Revenge of the Sith and Dagobah from The Empire Strikes back. The site credits not-for-profit internet hound superogatory with the find, which curiously doesn’t appear on his own blog.

That’s Dagobah right there, which the unnamed developer on the rumoured game appears to have fleshed out with authentic looking architecture and vehicles, namely the Dagobah tank.

Whether we’ll actually see the promise of Star Wars Battlefront III or Star Wars Battlefront IV is up to LucasArts. But for now, an ogling of this purported concept artwork will give your eyeballs a good enough “What if?”

Star Wars Battlefront IV (4) [X360/PS3 - Concept] [Unseen64]

Software that will only work on a Nintendo DSi will join titles playable on a Nintendo DS or DS Lite but also feature DSi-specific enhanced capabilities, like Ubisoft’s Jam Sessions 2 and My Healthy Cooking Coach. Games and apps that will only be playable on a DSi will be visually distinct from past product, sources say.

Those DSi-only games will be packaged in all-white game cases, making them stand out from the standard dark grey cases of currently available Nintendo DS games. Those cases will sport a warning that the software is only compatible with the Nintendo DSi. DSi-only game cards themselves will use a similar white plastic, but it’s unclear if those re-coloured cards will have any difficulty fitting into a DS or DS Lite cartridge slot.

Another unknown is if DSi-only software will take advantage of the expanded tech specs unique to the Nintendo DSi.

It appears that, like Wii MotionPlus, that Nintendo will be letting third-party publishers take the lead in offering DSi-only software. Nintendo itself has offered plenty of downloadable DSiWare games that are system specific, but it has yet to announce any DSi-only games as part of its future lineup.

We contacted Nintendo for comment on the introduction of DSi-only games this year, but the company did not respond to requests before publishing.

That’s when fighting game Fate/Unlimited Codes releases for the PlayStation Portable, according to the official PlayStation.blog. That game’s trailer promises that PSP owners can “play online with Ad Hoc mode.” Fate/Unlimited Codes is one of the games that uses Ad Hoc Party for its online multiplayer in Japan, turning the PlayStation 3 into a multiplayer server for PSP games without an infrastructure mode built-in, so one might think it will do the same in America.

Sony Computer Entertainment recently trademarked Ad Hoc Party in the United States, a good indicator that it plans to introduce it to North American PS3 owners.

Granted, the trailer for Fate/Unlimited Codes may be out of date and we wouldn’t leave it up to the publisher of that game, Capcom, to determine the launch date of a Sony product. We were told at E3 this year that Ad Hoc Party support in the West was “in the works,” but weren’t given a release window.

We’ve reached out to Sony to get confirmation or clarification on the release date of Ad Hoc Party, but did not hear back before publishing.

In late July, Amazon Germany leaked listed a “PlayStation 3 Konsole slim”. We got a PS3 Slim. Maybe this was a lucky guess, but Amazon Germany was correct.

This time the Fatherland’s Amazon site, there is a 250 GB Xbox 360 Elite bundled with two wireless controllers and Forza Motorsport 3. All yours for €279.99 (AU$480). The biggest HDD Microsoft is currently selling for the Xbox 360 is 120GB.

There has been no official of such a bundle from Microsoft. Maybe this is another lucky guess. Maybe Amazon Germany is correct. Again.

We are following up with Microsoft.

Xbox 360 – Konsole Elite 250 GB inkl. 2 Wireless Controller + Forza Motorsport 3 [Amazon.de]

The post, written by N4G forum-goer Super_Secret who claims to be a Sony employee, explains that Cross-Game voice chat ran into a snag because certain games from “A rather large company” wouldn’t support the feature. He refers back to trouble including custom soundtracks to work in earlier PlayStation 3 firmware revisions. According to Super_Secret, PS3 titles have to be developed with custom soundtrack support, and one of this big company’s more popular titles wouldn’t support it.

When they found out that a new firmware update was going to suddenly make one of their games look inferior to just about every other game released, they protested. A lot. They threatened everything, from legal action to dropping support for the PS3 all together.

The post goes on to suggest that a similar situation occurred with cross-game chat, causing our tips line to fill up with angry emails, one of which even referred to the situation as a “Potential WATERGATE of the videogame industry.”

While the poster doesn’t mention EA by name, a coded message later in the thread makes the company he or she is implicating perfectly clear once translated:

” It’s not Activision. It’s not Ubisoft. It’s not Capcom. It’s not Insomniac. It’s not Konami. It’s not Take 2. It’s not Midway. It’s not Squaresoft. are wE All getting the picture yet? One point I want to reiterate – there’s a difference between the games that didn’t work with in-game XMB and the games that DID work with in-game XMB but DIDN’T work well with custom soundtracks, so stop picking out the ones that simply didn’t do in-game XMB. Also, it wasn’t just ONE game that caused this, either. Although one title does come to mind and it wasn’t even what you or I would call a “Big” game. I’ll give you a hint: HPatOofP. ”

Rather than jump to conclusions, we decided to contact the two parties involved for comment on the situation. First to respond was Jeff Brown, EA’s vice president of corporate communication. “Not no-how, not no-way did that ever happen. This is a total fabrication – total nonsense. We think voice chat is an extremely cool feature and added it to Madden/ PS3.” Brown then added, “We support cross-game voice on other systems and would be happy to do that on any console.”

Soon after Brown responded to our inquiry, Sony’s senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold also responded, keeping things short and sweet. “This is rumour and frankly not true. ”

I suppose it’s up to the reader to determine what they believe, but I’m leaning towards the rumour being utter nonsense. Two responses from EA and Sony both were far from the no comments and not responding to rumours and speculation I’ve come to expect in situations like these.

Ht up the link to read through the full forum post, and thanks to everyone who sent in the tip.

Cross game chat and why it’s currently MIA. [N4G Forums]

Most recently, Zimmer has scored Frost/Nixon and The Dark Knight.

According to Zimmer’s agency, the Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, the composer is writing music for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The agency lists the game on Zimmer’s resume.

Nothing has officially been announced yet by the game’s publisher. We are following this up.

The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency [Official Site Thanks, MaTtKs!] [Pic]

An internal memo, verified independently by a number of employees at different stores, shows that Best Buy is offering people who come into the story to exchange recently purchased Playstation 3’s for the newly released PS3 Slim a choice of a free Playstation 3 title in lieu of the new slimmer, larger-hard-drive sporting console.

Due to the interest in the new Slim model, the memo warns, stores may see people trying to return their console for the newer model. Before doing the exchange, a store is allowed to offer a choice of a free copy of Infamous, MLB 09 The Show or Killzone 2. Not a bad selection, but is it worth more than the smaller footprint and bigger hard drive?

It’s important to note that this isn’t an advertised sale, it’s an internal memo, so it may be up to the store manager’s discretion how often to offer the deal.

We’ve contacted Sony and Best Buy for confirmation. If this is true, I think it’s just further evidence of a console war heating up to deliver plenty of great deals for gamers on both sides of the fence.

But I guess it helps to add Best Buy to Wal-Mart and Meijer’s upcoming ads showing a price drop for the Xbox 360 Elite and Pro.

According to our Best Buy tipster, the price drop hits next week. The ad lists the white 60GB Xbox 360 Pro as $US249 and the black 120GB Xbox 360 Elite as $US299, matching the Playstation 3’s size, price and even colour.

[Thanks Fave]