Rumors have been stirring since December about a potential motion control apparatus for the Xbox 360, and instead of fading away like bad rumors generally do, more and more fuel has been added to the possibility as time went on. With the latest speculation indicating a new motion-controlled friendly redesign of the Xbox Dashboard, E3 could very well be the time for the big reveal.

The announcement of a motion controller would naturally lead to the reveal of a big-name title or titles that would use it. This could be Banjo Kazooie, once the subject of one of the motion controller rumors, or an entirely new title. Microsoft isn't the type of company to bank on innovative gameplay alone, so if a motion controller is announced you can bet they'll have the games to back it up.

Then there is the future of the Halo franchise. We all know something new is coming, whether it be Peter Jackson's Halo game or something entirely different. Microsoft isn't going to let the franchise stagnate, and as lovely as the strategy game Halo Wars is looking I very much doubt it has the strength to carry fans of the original FPS gameplay, so there's a good chance we'll be seeing something new, with or without Master Chief.

Personally I am hoping for more information regarding the Zune gaming we got a look at during GDC this year, including some actual titles and release dates for the functionality, but that might just be because I recently bought a Zune for some odd reason. Yeah, I don't know. It was shiny.

All will become clear Monday morning, so we have until then to speculate, assume, and wildly imagine to our hearts' content. What would you like to see from Microsoft? What do you think we'll get? This is why God created the comment section.

The full image — just after the jump — is huge, showing an even longer teasing progression from frosty, barely visible demon head to flaming red hellish visage coupled with an ominous "III." But we certainly don't think we're in for six more days of intolerable teasing, especially since the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational kicks off in Paris just hours from now.

Check back in with us later tonight, as the game announcing festivities kick off at 11 AM Paris Time. That's just eight hours or so from right now.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in. We think Chris was first. He gets a Kotaku No-Prize for his efforts.

Believe it or not, I've been so busy working on a special surprise for MGS4 buyers (that not even those who have leaked copies of the game can spoil! Haha!), that I haven't had time to catch up on most of the pre-launch excitement.

A special surprise? I love surprises! What ever could it be? It's something that people with leaked copies of the game can't spoil, meaning probably DLC of some sort to kick things off? A special outfit? A new weapon? A cutscene only available through download?

Or is this one of those special surprises like Michael Scott from The Office would come up with? There's no way that folks with leaked copies could ruin ice cream sandwiches.

I suppose that in the interest of more accurate speculation we should stick to the DLC idea. You guys throw out your ideas while I rush to my local grocer's freezer.

"In collaborating with Brash, we were introduced to a very compelling fictional world and given the freedom to expand it through the game. We are working directly with the creative talent from the film, and feel that the close collaboration will result in an amazing game play experience that immerses the player in an incredible fantasy world."

Brash Entertainment Partners with Game Republic, Inc.

HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 12 /PRNewswire/ — Today Brash Entertainment announced a game development deal with Game Republic, Inc., the Japan-based studio led by famed game producer Yoshiki Okamoto. Under the terms of the worldwide agreement, the partners will collaborate on an unannounced game based on a popular Hollywood film. The game will release in 2010.

Game Republic, Inc. was founded in 2003 under the leadership of industry visionary, Yoshiki Okamoto. A 20-year veteran of the game industry, Game Republic, Inc. CEO Okamoto has had a dramatic impact on the styles of gameplay prevalent in modern titles and is credited with pioneering new genres including "one-on-one fighting" with Street Fighter II and "survival horror" with Resident Evil. In addition, his teams have delivered such popular franchises as Lost Planet, Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Darkstalkers and many more.

"As a gamer, I am extremely excited to work with Okamoto-san, who has produced some of my favorite games," said Brash co-founder and CEO Mitch Davis. "The Brash business gives us the luxury to match the best Hollywood IP with the skills of the most talented independent game developers; our partnership with a strong studio such as Game Republic, Inc. is an excellent example of that."

"One of my goals with games is to do something revolutionary with something that has been never been seen before. The opportunity to re-imagine a fictional world provided by a compelling Hollywood IP using the interactive medium of games is very exciting to me," said Okamoto. "In collaborating with Brash, we were introduced to a very compelling fictional world and given the freedom to expand it through the game. We are working directly with the creative talent from the film, and feel that the close collaboration will result in an amazing game play experience that immerses the player in an incredible fantasy world."

Square Enix has made no such announcements about such a game, but its recently filed trademark for Party Castle certainly makes us think it may have sights set on an English port. Everyone knows "party" translates to "dice-rolling board game" in Nintendo-speak. Plus, Itadaki Street DS has no shortage of castles. Conjecture? Totally. That's why we're getting in touch with Square Enix to learn more about what this new trademark means. (Pray it's not a mobile game!)

Party Castle Trademark [USPTO]

Sony Computer Entertainment has just registered In The Beginning There Was Darkness, a game we don't believe is based on the book of the same name, chronicling a blind man's life journey while reading the Bible. [Update: As commenter CONFUSEDGAM3R points out, this is part of the God of War: Chains of Olympus ad campaign. Thanks!] Square-Enix has two new filings with Sigma Harmonics and My Life As A King, the latter of which may be a spin on the name of its announced WiiWare game.

Finally, it looks like Ubisoft has two new properties in the works, Aftershock and Strike Hawk. Why do both of those instantly sound like Tom Clancy branded games to me? Regardless, the first may simply be the post-earthquake survival game previously known as Alive. Go ahead, speculate!

Imagine all of the fun, strategy, and intrigue of a game of Risk without having to set aside an entire evening in order to play a game through to conclusion! It makes me want to break out my old copy of the game and make up my own objectives, though in my case they'd be more like, "Avoid landing on any soda stains", which is much trickier than it sounds.

So why is this important to the video gaming crowd? As Newsweek's N'Gai Croal reminds us, back in August EA signed a deal with Hasbro granting them the rights to create casual games based off of Hasbro intellectual properties. While the original Risk would never have worked via Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network, Risk: Black Ops would be simply sublime. We'll keep an eye out, but don't be surprised if EA jumps on this one in the near future.

Risk: Black Ops [Gamers With Jobs via Newsweek's Level Up]

A Rockstar Games representative on Tuesday replied by reiterating that Grand Theft Auto IV "is going to come out during our second financial quarter of 08."

Recent circular advertises early March date for the upcoming Rockstar game. [GameDaily]

Quite the leap, no? While we're positive that Call of Duty 5 is coming, we aren't sure whether Infinity Ward or Treyarch or another developer altogether will be holding the reins.

Level Builder - Call of Duty [Treyarch via Gamer]

The next thing I'd love to do is not based on realism, but stylizing with a little more in-depth look to the materials in the world. Instead of just having an impressionistic background, or having highly stylized characters. Making the characters a little bit more believable, even incorporating bold design, getting a little bit more specific.

So it would be a little bit slash realism and stylization all at once. And it can be achieved. We've done experiments like this, where you take a character and you make them — instead of taking photographs of the character, you base it off of lots of drawings and studies and paintings of the character, with real proportions. But with true design to it. You'll be amazed at what you can do.

Valve's Francke: Game Art Direction In Its 'Infancy' [gamasutra]

"I don't think that this is an issue of dissatisfaction with Take-Two; rather, I think it is rational to believe that in the wake of the $850 million Pandemic/BioWare deal, high quality developers like Bungie and [Rockstar] North would look to test their market value"

Pachter: GTA Dev Rockstar North May Eventually 'Pull a Bungie,' Split from Take-Two [Shacknews]

"Wizards of the Coast has created many of the most popular brands in roleplaying, trading card and tabletop strategy games" said Patrick Buckland, CEO for Stainless Games. "We're proud to be working with one of the most treasured IPs in the games field in a true partnership which will produce a real gaming revolution later next year."

Wizards of the Coast Announces Partnership With Stainless Games

December 3, 2007 (RENTON, Wash.) - Wizards of the Coast, the world leader in hobby gaming, and a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS), today announced an agreement with leading UK video game developer Stainless Games to produce an exciting new online downloadable game.

"Wizards of the Coast has created many of the most popular brands in roleplaying, trading card and tabletop strategy games" said Patrick Buckland, CEO for Stainless Games. "We're proud to be working with one of the most treasured IPs in the games field in a true partnership which will produce a real gaming revolution later next year."

Details about the game will start to become available in early 2008.

As Game|Life's Chris Kohler points out, with some 166 VC games already online and with just 8 more Mondays in 2007, that should put us at 190. That's if Nintendo keeps the current three-per-week schedule going. Could the company be planning to up that frequency, now that its got more consoles on board? Is the VC gift giving channel inspiring a faster torrent of old-school releases? Or did someone just mean to type "190+" and got carried away?

Regardless of the reason, we certainly won't be surprised if Nintendo decides that this holiday is the perfect time to start pumping out VC releases like it's going out of style.

Nintendo slides from BMO conference [NeoGAF via Game|Life]

I think it's possible to incorporate the Wii Fit board into one of our games, but it would change the control scheme dramatically and we'd have to figure out how to make that work. So I don't know yet.

Tony Hawk on Proving Ground [via maxconsole]

Target says the mystery machine will be in stock on October 28, but a street date could come days later. Something's up, ladies and gentlemen, but only time will tell if these insane PS3 40GB rumors pan out. I, for one, am very suspicious.

US Playstation 3 40GB Shows Up In Target Store Scan [Gaming Bits]

[via GoNintendo]

Nintendo trademarks reveal new products? [CVG]

Perhaps Square was afraid of any negative buzz whatsoever regarding the game, their first original IP in years — even a single score of 7 would have ruined the game for some fence-sitters. In the end, the game ended up only selling to the hardest of hardcore fans of Tetsuya Nomura's character designs. Square-Enix could have tried to sell the game a bit harder — they could have utilized Nintendo's airtight network of copious DS download stations to allow DS-carrying gamers to try a playable demo of the game. The strategy has worked for so many other games by so many other publishers, so it's kind of confusing that Square-Enix doesn't give it a try.

We have customers' activity for products in the CPU space that goes into a video-game device.

Personally, I'm holding out hope that it's down because they're preparing to unveil and roll-out a new store with downloadable movies, music and television for both the PS3 and PSP... I also still believe in Santa Clause, so don't listen to me.

I really doubt it. This video was shot in mid-May for one. Nothing stays quiet for that long in the industry, especially during the lead-in to E3, when you can almost imagine developers hopping up and down in their chairs like excited children with a secret they desperately want to tell.

Secondly...come on guys, it's just a blur. It could really mean anything. Maybe there is a stipulation about dev kit controllers not being shown, or they use special equipment during the development process that they'd rather not have people see. Hell, perhaps they have an odd habit of writing "FUCK" in big letters on all of their development tools and needed to make the vid kid safe.

Or it could very well be a less-than artfully hidden rumble Sixaxis, though as I said I have serious doubts. The main thing to take away from this flurry of speculation is that PS3 owners would really like their rumble back plz. THX!

Companies are apparently slowing with their traditional media ad budgets and investing more heavily in newer media forms, and the report says that "connected game devices 'are becoming the foundation on which providers build dynamic in-game insertion.'" Of course, they also warn that ads should not be used in a way that distracts from game play. Irritating product placement is bad enough in television and movies, but I'd be royally pissed if it became a common feature of the games I play.

In-Game Ads Grow To $971 Million By 2011 [Gamasutra]

Xbox game Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon, not so good. In fact, it was pretty bad. With a misopportunity like that, you'd think that someone somewhere would be working on a Bruce Lee game. Perhaps an adaption of one of his classic flicks or a versus-style game. According to his daughter Shannon Lee:

There's definitely been talk. I can't really say right now what's going on. But definitely, we're very excited.

Shannon Lee Talks Bruce Lee [VGB]

Whaddaya think? Sony working on WipEout for the PS3? Ha! That would be like Nintendo working on Mario Kart for the Wii. When asked if a PS3 version would be PSN only, Sony's WipEout Game Director Tony Buckley (pictured) said:

I think WipEout in HD would be stonking! And I think, you know, the arcade nature of WipEout, makes it so pick up and playable, so I think it would be brilliant... It's obvious we're doing a WipEout for the PS3 but... well, there will be an announcement in August.

WipEout Interview [Kikizo]

It's boundless speculation time!

This is the modern-day version of acting out your parents' marital problems with Barbie dolls. The girl sits in her room, listening to her parents fighting in muffled voices, and begins to think she isn't good enough to have a good-natured, friendly Animal Crossing town. She begins sending out letters to her 'friends', first calling Tom Nook a bloody wanker (deservedly so), and eventually getting to the point where she's distilling turnips into alcohol and calling Tippy a 'fucking cow'. It isn't until Whitney comes to confront her that she realizes she needs help and brings the DS Lite to her mother, who completely misunderstands. Eventually the truth will come out, leading to a dramatic, "YOU, okay!? I learned it from watching you!"

That or it was a used copy, but that's just boring. Michael Fahey

Girl says Nintendo swore at her [Metro.co.uk - Thanks Peanutismint!]

Okay, okay. I hear you, no one's going to do a surprise launch right? Especially Nintendo. What's the point? We all know what happened with Sega's surprise Saturn availability announcement. So why the speculation?

Well, reader Jut wrote in to let us know that he (or she) looked up inventory info on both the PlayStation 3 and the Wii. Everything on the PlayStation 3 database entry looks kosher: ships November 17th, street date is November 17th. (Hey, that beast of a package weighs 15 pounds!)

The Nintendo Wii on the other hand, has a very different kind of entry.

According to the General Item Information on the Wii, Best Buy will be receiving their shipment from Nintendo on October 29th. Yet, no street date is listed, despite Nintendo announcing that the console would go on sale November 19th nearly a month ago.

Will Best Buy be sitting on their inventory for 3 weeks? It's not totally crazy, but maybe a little odd.

Definitely not as odd as Nintendo changing their launch date, but stranger things have happened. If there's one thing we have learned from the upcoming generation of consoles, it's that we can't count on previous generations to set the rules.

Still, this could be nothing more than outdated information or an errant entry, as an earlier than announced launch date sounds suspect at best.

If the console doesn't launch early, at least we'll have that much more time to hopefully trick a blue shirted sucker into breaking the street date. Yeah, consider this pure speculation that most likely won't turn out to be true. But if it does, can I pump my fists in the air and yell "I totally called it!"? Please? Michael McWhertor

Virtual pimp-smackin' gang-bangers are extrapolating worlds from recent cryptic comments dropped by NoA President Reggie Fils-Aime at least week's Nintendo Presser, in which he confirmed that Nintendo was in talks with Take Two.

I'll be spending some time later today with the folks over at Take-Two to see what type of support they can give our console.

What's so exciting about that? Well, in combination with Fils-Aimes' confirmation that Nintendo would be publish M-rated games for the Wii, there's a flurry of speculation that Fils-Aime might be alluding to bringing Grand Theft Auto to the Wii.

That's an Evel Knievel style leap over the gulf of counter-intuition, there. Take Two's got a host of properties it could put on the Wii without touching Rockstar. But gossip? It's what we do. Florian Eckhardt

GTA to whack Wii? [Gamespot]

Contacted this afternoon, Nintendo replied with a big, fat, "We don't comment on speculation, etc, etc, etc." Brian Crecente

EA expects Wii to retail for $170 [Games Industry]

The bad news? Price point confusion at 7-Eleven corporate! Or is there? The contest rules clearly define the approximate retail value of one Nintendo Wii, with no games or accessories included in the prize listing. See?

November 1, 2006 through January 31, 2007 the following Instant Prizes will be available to be won: (711) Nintendo Wii, ARV: $299.99 USD ($399.99 CDN) each; and (100) $60.00 USD ($70.00 CDN) Video Game Shopping Sprees awarded in the form of VISA Gift Cards (subject to issuer's terms and conditions).

So, what gives? Are 7-Eleven playing it safe with a higher ARV until Nintendo hammers out the details for its MSRP? Is this a bundle SKU? Have I gone acronym crazy? I wouldn't start cutting out that spare kidney, yet, as I'm fairly confident Nintendo will stick to its promised $249 or lower price point. Michael McWhertor

7-Eleven: Slurpees, stale hot dogs and ... Wii!? (thanks, Blake!)

Business Week looks at the PlayStation 3 this week and wonders if all of the added functionality - think the centerpiece of your entertainment center - is going to confuse consumers to the point of turning them away from the console. As a result, Sony execs are hoping that the PS3 is not only the center of your living room, but the system also becomes the center of Sony's success. The risk, the article points at, in having a multimedia centerpiece as your next gaming machine is that consumers may not purchase as many games for the system. Business Week suggests that part of the reason the PSP software sales sagged was because of its increased media functionality. I'd contend that the reason the software sales sagged was because of a then-lack of exciting software. If Sony's PlayStation 3 lacks software - the games won't sell and the other functionality will.

This PlayStation May Play Too Much [Business Week]

An entry at Addicting Entertainment speculates that Bungie's totally unannounced Halo 3 game will be an FPS MMO hybrid. He lists a series of reasons that take Bungie comments and then apply them to the FPS/MMO formula. He cites Frank's mention of extreme UI work and a method to input text as two things the team was working on with their "next project." The problem with the speculation is that it just doesn't fit within the Halo universe. Why it doesn't is after the jump.

Halo 3 is an FPS MMO [Addicted Entertainment]

The Storyline Expanding from a primarily single player storyline (I'm not counting the dual-Masterchief/Arbiter element of the co-op mode) to go from playing a pretty singular hero to a faceless, nameless character in Halo 3 is pretty incongruent with Bungie's game design. Similarly, the cliffhanger ending of Halo 2 doesn't really lend itself to the beginning of a giant MMO - the story that needs to be told is the battle for Earth. I'd assume that Masterchief, controlled by the players, will be at the center of that final war.

Multiplayer mechanics Were Halo 3 to leap from a single player campaign into an MMO arena, players would choose sides, factions and essentially do battle on Earth first (assuming Bungie is seeking any resolution from the ending of Halo 2).

Would a Halo 3 MMO FPS be fun? Sure, but it just doesn't fit in place with the rest of the Halo-verse.

Over at Firing Squad, writer Jakub Wojnarowicz thinks Nintendo is positioned to make a run at Sony this generation. Wojanarowicz cites similarities between Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3's design (both are marketed as an all-inclusive media space for your living room) and in comparison the Revolution is committed to remaining a gaming machine. He cites the purported ease of development for the Revolution as a potential gateway for more small, independent games. The conclusion says "Nintendo is poised for a coup," but are they? Is this unshown console full of titles we haven't seen and a controller that looks like it could flip to ESPN Classic going to end up back on top? Que a prediction thread, below.

Nintendo: For the Win [Firing Squad]

However, according to yesterday's report, Japan would see a million, the U.S. a million and Europe a million, which puts global shipments around 3 million—if Parsons was citing worldwide figures the difference between 3 and 4 million is pretty marginal. Just food for thought, since he doesn't specify where or when these consoles are being shipped—Parsons could be quoting some worldwide shipment figures instead of region-specific shipments.

Pioneer Exec Cites 7M PS3 Launch [Next Generation]
Analyst: 1 Million PS3s This Fall

According to Next Generation, a Pacific Crest analyst speculates that Sony's PS3 will "most likely" be released Nov. 1 and that the North American launch would contain about a million units. The Japanese launch would take place over this coming summer, with roughly the same number of units and the European release would follow in early 2007. It's a believable launch cycle, with modest quantities. Just for reference, one million PS3s would triple the Xbox 360's launch shipment numbers (but, the company shipped 1.3 million units by the time the holidays were over). I have a feeling that still won't be enough.

Analyst: PS3 in November With Just 1M Units [Next Generation]

Over the holidays, I did not score a new Magic 8-ball, so these predictions just have to be shot from the hip. Hopefully some of you can help me come up with some, too. What can we look forward to in 2006?

Nintendo Revolution - I'd like to see it launch for $149.99, but I don't know if that's in the cards for Nintendo, so my hunch is that we'll see a $199.99 price for Nintendo's next generation system.

PlayStation 3 - I'm not sure when exactly we'll see the PS3. Everyday we hear different things on the ease of developing for the console. Will it be in 2006? For Sony's sake, it kind of has to be, doesn't it?

PlayStation Portable - As I've hinted in several posts, I'll be incredibly disappointed if we don't see the PSP software evolve behind the "port" half of the portable moniker. This should be the year the PSP emerges from being a mini media device and into a bona fide gaming machine.

Nintendo DS - The new version of the Nintendo DS will be unveiled at some point in 2006. I doubt Nintendo would distract from the Revolution unveiling they're planning. Unless the redesigned DS and the Revolution go hand-in-hand, somehow.

Xbox 360 - I promise at some point this year, you'll be able to get one in stores. Maybe on Tuesday. Expect an announcement about Halo 3 this year, but I don't think the game will ship in '06. The two timetables Microsoft has provided don't seem to line up. Gates said it'd ship against the PS3. We've also heard it'd ship closer to the movie release (the film is expected in summer '07).

What do you, the readers, expect from 2006? Fair warning, maybe we'll dig some of this stuff up from the grave in a year.

A Business Week article makes some strong claims about Sony's PlayStation 3. In addition to claiming that the Cell processor would be a better chip than Intel's Pentium (I can hear that infernal Intel jingle in my head right now), the article also cites some numbers by the Envisioneering Group. These numbers are almost laughable. They suggest that the PS3 will sell 12 million units in year one and over the course of five years sell 200 million units.

OK, I lied, those aren't almost laughable, those are totally laughable.

Sony, Shooting from the Chip [Business Week]