World of Warcraft fans disappointed that Blizzard's super-secret game announcement last week was about Diablo 3 and not the upcoming Lich King expansion can stop whining; the developer has moved into beta testing for the eagerly awaited add-on. From the official WoW website:

Today we opened the Wrath of the Lich King Beta Opt-In program, which gives players a chance to win an invitation to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King beta. For The Burning Crusade beta, we randomly invited players from the entire World of Warcraft community. With the Opt-In, our goal is to strengthen the beta-testing process by inviting only those players who have expressed active interest in participating.

Head target=_blank>here to opt in. Blizzard isn't offering any guarantees that all applicants will be accepted, though.

Guitar Hero is so big even a mediocre game for the littlest gaming system can't stop it. According to publisher Activision, Guitar Hero: On Tour for the handheld DS, moved a whopping 300,000 units in its first week on the shelves. It's apparently the biggest Activision game launch for the DS by a factor of eight.

"Guitar Hero is one of the most successful entertainment properties and continues to push the boundaries of innovation with Guitar Hero: On Tour," said Mike Griffith, President and Chief Executive Officer, Activision Publishing, Inc. "The game's breakthrough peripheral brings the Guitar Hero experience to the 41 million DS users in North America and Europe, where they can play anywhere, anytime."

Full press release is here.

HALO developer Bungie is marking the 7/7 "Bungie Day" with a few freebies for HALO 3. The Xbox 360 shooter will be enhanced with a new free map and other goodies.

July 7, or 7/7, has long been heralded as “Bungie Day” among “Halo” players and fans of the renowned developer. This year, Bungie is celebrating this day with the release of new multiplayer map Cold Storage, as well as new gamer pics and a Bungie Day Xbox 360 dashboard theme, all for free on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. The “Halo 3” Legendary Map Pack will also drop in price to 600 Microsoft points in honor of the occasion.

The tradition of Bungie Day was born in part due to the significance the number 7 has played in all of Bungie’s games over the years, including the “Halo” series (7 Halo rings, Master Chief is Spartan 117, etc.), and each year the developer makes a point to use this date to treat fans to something special – usually new content, a free download or other surprise.

More information about Bungie Day can be found here.

Earlier this week AMD slashed prices on their lineup of Phenom and Athlon CPUs to make room for the Phenom 9950 Black Edition and 9350e. See how these CPUs perform in this article!

>> Click Here to read the article

DigiTimes is reporting that AMD plans to launch their dual GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2 card by the end of this month. In addition, reference design boards with up to 2GB of GDDR5 will be sent to board partners by the end of this month. Price? According to DigiTimes sources, the cards will be priced at $499, undercutting NVIDIA's GTX 280 significantly. If this is indeed true, one 4870 X2 board would be less expensive than two 4870 cards running in CrossFire.

Games are now bigger sellers than DVDs in the US of A. Or so says the annual Entertainment Merchants Association's Annual Report.

US gaming sales amounted to $18.85 billion in 2007, which surpasses DVD sales estimates of $16 billion and positively dwarfs the MPAA's puny $9.4 billion take at the box office. Throw the two Hollywood categories together along with DVD rental cash, however, and they clock a whopping $33 billion. Gaming's gonna be a while before it can challenge that number.

The full report is available to subscribers only, but most of the key numbers are cited here.

Due to GPU price cuts, a delay in the launch of their next-generation MCP, the slowing economy, and defective MCP and GPUs shipping in certain notebooks, NVIDIA has lowered their revenue and gross margins for Q2'08:

SANTA CLARA, CA—JULY 2, 2008—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the world leader in visual computing technologies, today provided a business update for its second quarter ending July 27, 2008.

Second quarter revenue and gross margin are expected to be lower than guidance provided during its first quarter financial conference call held May 8, 2008. Total revenue is now estimated to be from $875 million to $950 million. The estimated decrease in revenue and gross margin is due to several reasons: end-market weakness around the world, the delayed ramp of a next generation MCP, and price adjustments of our GPU products to respond to competitive products.

Separately, NVIDIA plans to take a one-time charge from $150 million to $200 million against cost of revenue for the second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems. Certain notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a certain die/packaging material set are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. To date, abnormal failure rates with systems other than certain notebook systems have not been seen. NVIDIA has initiated discussions with its supply chain regarding this material set issue and the Company will also seek to access insurance coverage for this matter.

Regarding the notebook field failures, NVIDIA president and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang stated: "Although the failure appears related to the combination of the interaction between the chip material set and system design, we have a responsibility to our customers and will take our part in resolving this problem. The GPU has become an increasingly important part of the computing experience and we are seeing more interest by PC OEMs to adopt GPUs in more platforms. Recognizing that the GPU is one of the most complex processors in the system, it is critical that we now work more closely with notebook system designers and our chip foundries to ensure that the GPU and the system are designed collaboratively for the best performance and robustness."

Today's high performance notebooks are highly complex systems with extreme thermal environments. The combination of limited thermal management and frequent power cycling is particularly challenging for complex processors like the GPU.

Huang added, "This has been a challenging experience for us. However, the lessons we've learned will help us build far more robust products in the future, and become a more valuable system design partner to our customers. As for the present, we have switched production to a more robust die/package material set and are working proactively with our OEM partners to develop system management software that will provide better thermal management to the GPU."

For more information about the one-time charge for notebook field failures, please refer to NVIDIA's current report on Form 8-K dated July 2, 2008 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

No conference call will be held in conjunction with this business update. Additional commentary pertaining to the second quarter and the notebook field failures will be available when NVIDIA reports its second quarter financial results on August 12, 2008.

After releasing the highly anticipated 2.4 system update this morning, Sony has abruptly decided to pull the update off their servers; end users are now told 2.36 is the latest system update. Multiple threads have been started in the official Playstation forums detailing problems with the 2.4 system update, which prompted Sony's move. The most common problem is the XMB failing to load, with the system locking up shortly after the Sony wave intro screen is displayed.

One resolution that appears to work is reformatting or replacing the system's hard drive. Of course, in the process you'll lose all the data that was saved on your HDD, but at least your system isn't dead. A thread has been started on restoring the PS3 here.

MTV Games has let the cat out of the bag. No song titles or new acts were mentioned during yesterday's confirmation that Rock Band 2 would be hitting store shelves for the Xbox 360 in September, but TV network G4's X-Play gaming show inadvertently showed a song list in its coverage.

A screen capture was of course immediately posted online at ScoreHero. It reveals System of a Down's "Chop Suey," Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away," Foo Fighters' "Everlong," Kim Wilde's "Kids in America," Motorhead's "Ace of Spades," Cheap Trick's "Hello There," Journey's "Any Way You Want It," The Who's "Pinball Wizard," Blink 182's "All the Small Things," and Boston's "More Than a Feeling." The latter two tunes are already Rock Band DLC, though, so no big scoop there.

Further message board posts at ScoreHero, supposedly by a game tester, claim to reveal even more tunage. Some of these songs are: Linkin Park's "One Step Closer," Megadeth's "Peace Sells," Rage Against the Machine's "Testify," The Guess Who's "American Woman," Billy Idol's "White Wedding," Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know," Jethro Tull's "Aqualung," Thin Lizzy's "Bad Reputation," The Go-Go's "We Got the Beat," Alice in Chains' "Man in the Box," and Soundgarden's "Spoonman."

For more Rock Band 2 rumors, check out the full thread at ScoreHero. Thanks to GameSpot for the tip.

Speaking with CustomPC, Intel Senior Vice President Pat Gelsinger said that NVIDIA's CUDA initiative and other programming models like CUDA, which harnesses the power of the GPU to perform tasks that have traditionally been handled by CPUs will be an "interesting footnote in the history of computing annals". According to Gelsinger, developers aren't willing to learn to program for it: "The problem that we’ve seen over and over and over again in the computing industry is that there’s a cool new idea, and it promises a 10x or 20x performance improvements, but you’ve just got to go through this little orifice called a new programming model,’ Gelsinger explained to Custom PC. Those orifices, says Gelsinger, have always been ‘insurmountable as long as the general purpose computing models evolve into the future.’" Gelsinger goes on to state that Intel's approach with Larrabee -- taking multiple x86 compatible processing cores and using them for graphics -- is more developer friendly as they're already familiar with x86.

Of course, what Gelsinger doesn't mention is that CUDA and ATI's equivalent, Brook+ are largely based on C+, a programming language that all developers have coded for at some point in time. OpenCL is another standard that is compatible with AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.

In any case, with all the buzz surrounding Larrabee years before it has even been launched, Intel is definitely setting expectations high for their upcoming GPU.

So much for the early rumors that Rock Band was just going to be a platform for DLC. MTV Games and EA announced today that Rock Band 2 would be arriving in September for the Xbox 360, with versions for additional unspecified platforms to follow before the end of the year.

Other than this, however, few details were released. Developer Harmonix is promising full backward compatibility with the original Rock Band and its 200-song DLC, along with upgraded guitar and drum controllers with new features, but that's about it at present. More info will be made available later this month at E3.

Here's the full press release from MTV.

It's not the long-rumored full "Who's Next" album, but The Who are finally coming to Rock Band in a big way. MTV Games and Harmonix announced today that "The Best of The Who: Rock Band Edition" would be arriving online for the game on July 15, featuring a dozen classic songs.

Cue the usual "Hey, I play the game and love it!" endorsement.

“We’re really pleased to have our songs featured in Rock Band,” said Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who. “It allows our established fan base to interact with our music in a way that’s fresh and exciting, while also exposing our songs to new audiences.”

“I’m a fan of Rock Band,” said Who guitarist Pete Townshend. “I play the game with my son and girlfriend and love the way it brings different generations together through music. I like the idea that people of all ages will be having fun playing our songs.”

Here's the full list of Who tunes in the pack:

“Amazing Journey”
“Baba O'Riley”
“Behind Blue Eyes”
“Eminence Front”
“Going Mobile”
“Leaving Here”
“My Generation” (Live at Leeds)
“Real Good Looking Boy”
“Sea & Sand”
“Summertime Blues” (Live at Leeds)
“Who Are You”
“Young Man Blues” (Live at Leeds)

Okay, I'm thrilled to see "Eminence Front" on there. But man, that selection really blows. Three or four of the songs are unknown to all but diehard fans, and giving us just the Live at Leeds version of "My Generation" is criminal. Still, I'll take The Who on Rock Band any way I can get it.

Fans are being asked to vote on the cover art and packaging for Activision's upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.

The future of New York City will be in gamers’ hands this fall and starting today Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) is allowing them to determine the Spider-Man™: Web of Shadows package image. Starting today, members of the Spider-Man consumer VIP community can go to www.SeizeControl.com to vote for their favorite videogame package options, all featuring the heroic web-slinger as he prepares to confront a devastated Big Apple. The consumer control campaign will continue through launch, giving fans the opportunity to vote on various aspects of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows marketing campaign.

I have no opinion on the art or this contest (although it sure is a lot more substantial than the one held earlier, to find the perfect models to play the Black Cat and Mary-Jane in the Activision booth at the San Diego Comic Con), but I will say that I just love the name of this game.

For more, check out the SeizeControl website.

Today OCZ Technology announced their Core series of 2.5" solid state drives. "What makes Core significant" you ask? Price. OCZ has priced their Core series drives significantly cheaper than the competition. Whereas 120GB SSDs are selling for over $600 on Newegg right now, OCZ's 128GB Core carries an MSRP of $479. Meanwhile, their 32GB and 64GB models will retail for $169 and $259 respectively. Core series SSD drives boast read/write speeds of 120-143MBs/80-93MBs and seek times of less than 0.35ms. OCZ rates all three drives for a 1.5-million-hour (171-year) mean time between failures, and backs them up with a 2-year warranty.

The Core SSD product page can be found here.

Its taken some time for software development to move from a single-threaded mindset to dual-threaded, but most of today's software is at least dual-threaded and some applications are already capable of pushing today's latest quad-core CPUs. With Nehalem on tap for later this year sporting eight processing cores, there will inevitably be a transition period for it as well.

Now researchers at Intel are urging developers to write their software with thousands of cores in mind. This CNET story refers to a blog written by Intel's Anwar Ghuloum. In it, Ghuloum argues that many developers are doing the "minimal amount of work they need to do to tap dual- and quad-core performance". He then urges developers to "start thinking about tens, hundreds, and thousands of cores now in their algorithmic development and deployment pipeline."

Today AMD has launched a trio of new Phenom CPUs, the 2.6GHz, 140W TDP Phenom 9950 Black Edition, and 65W TDP Energy Efficient Phenom 9350e and 9150e, which are clocked at 2.0GHz and 1.8GHz respectively.

With the arrival of the new CPUs, AMD has also cut prices on their existing CPU lineup. Here is how the AMD CPU stack looks like today:

AMD Price List
CPU	New Price	Old Price
Phenom 9950 \'Black Edition\' (2.6GHz, 125W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 4000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$235
Phenom 9850 (2.5GHz, 125W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 4000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$235	$235
Phenom 9750 (2.4GHz, 125W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$215	$215
Phenom 9750 (2.4GHz, 95W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$215
Phenom 9650 (2.3GHz, 95W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$195
Phenom 9550 (2.2GHz, 95W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$175	$195
Phenom X4 9350e (2.0GHz, 65W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2+)	$195
Phenom X2 9150e (1.8GHz, 65W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3200MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2+)	$175
Phenom 8750 (2.4GHz, 95W, 1.5MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$175	$195
Phenom 8650 (2.3GHz, 95W, 1.5MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$145	$165
Phenom 8450 (2.1GHz, 95W, 1.5MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2+)	$125	$145
Athlon X2 6400+ (3.2GHz, 125W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$163	$163
Athlon X2 6000+ (3.0GHz, 125W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$112	$153
Athlon X2 5800+ (3.0GHz, 89W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz, Hypertransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$112	$122
Athlon X2 5600+ (2.8GHz, 89W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$102
Athlon X2 5600+ (2.9GHz, 65W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$102
Athlon X2 5400+ (2.9GHz, 65W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$87
Athlon X2 5200+ (2.6GHz, 89W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$76
Athlon X2 5200+ (2.7GHz, 65W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$76
Athlon X2 5200+ (2.6GHz, 65W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport™ bus, socket AM2)	$76
Athlon X2 5000+ (2.6GHz, 65W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$66	$87
Athlon X2 4800+ (2.5GHz, 65W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$62	$76
Athlon X2 4600+ (2.4GHz, 65W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$58	$66
Athlon X2 4850e (2.5GHz, 45W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$87	$87
Athlon X2 4450e (2.3GHz, 45W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$76	$76
Athlon X2 4050e (2.1GHz, 45W, 1MB total dedicated L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$66	$66
Athlon LE-1640 (2.6GHz, 45W, 1MB L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$41	$47
Athlon LE-1620 (2.4GHz, 45W, 1MB L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$41	$41
Athlon LE-1600 (2.4GHz, 45W, 1MB L2 cache, 2000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM2)	$41

As you can see, in addition to the new Phenom CPUs, AMD has brought back several dual-core Athlon X2 SKUs, and they've also dropped the Phenom 9600 and 9500 from their lineup. The entire triple core Phenom CPU line saw $20 price cuts across the board, while the Athlon X2 6000+ and several other X2 CPUs also saw nice price cuts. We've been told that pricing on the Phenom 9850 Black Edition will be cut to $205 next week, so that's going to be the quad-core CPU to get among budget shoppers shortly.

So we already know about the Xbox 360 Pro price cut, and rumors of an upcoming 60GB model on the way have been floating around on the web longer than that. Now comes word from Ars Technica that today's 20GB Xbox 360 Pro will be discontinued to make room for the 60GB model. So in essence this isn't a price cut, but a clearance sale on 20GB Xbox 360s.

This rumor actually makes a lot of sense, considering that none of the leaked flyers that have popped up have mentioned price drops for the other Xbox 360 SKUs: a $299.99 Xbox 360 Pro would effectively kill sales of the $279.99 Arcade SKU unless MSFT was willing to also slash the Arcade's price.

We should know more in about two weeks...

Sony has updated their Playstation blog with a boatload of info on the next system update for the Playstation 3, version 2.4. The update will bring several new features we've already mentioned such as trophies and the ability to play music in-game, but that's not all: the new update will also support XMB access inside games. Like the PSP, the 2.4 update will also include Google support via XMB. Sony has posted a video walkthrough highlighting the new XMB, as well as a 2nd video dedicated to the trophy system.

The following games from Sony will be the first to support the new trophy system (other publishers will likely hop onboard shortly):

BUZZ! Quiz TV

LittleBigPlanet

MotorStorm Pacific Rift

NBA 09 - PS3

PAIN

PixelJunk Eden

Resistance 2

SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation

Warhawk

Today marks the last day Microsoft will sell Windows XP to retailers and major PC manufacturers. After today, MSFT will officially be moving forward with Windows Vista. But those of you who are die hard WinXP fans don't worry, Microsoft executives have already confirmed that the OS will still be available for those who want it. For instance, Dell will continue to offer Windows XP as an option, although you'll have to pay extra for it, while online retailers like Newegg will to continue to carry copies of the OS as well. Microsoft's move will really only affect those users who want a nice, shiny retail boxed copy of Windows XP, sales of the OEM version will continue.

If you are one of those people who wants the retail box, you may want to start shopping soon, once supply of the retail copies runs out, it won't be coming back...

With the bulk of the work on StarCraft II likely largely done, today Blizzard announced their next big project: Diablo III! Blizzard has setup a new Diablo III website complete with over 60 screenshots and concept art, a cinematic teaser trailer, and a gameplay video. Finally, Blizzard has also created a FAQ page, which states that a release date for the game hasn't been determined. Here is the official PR:

PARIS, France - June 28, 2008 - Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today revealed Diablo® III, the newest entry in its critically acclaimed action role-playing-game franchise. The announcement was made during the 2008 Blizzard Entertainment® Worldwide Invitational at the Porte de Versailles Convention Centre in Paris, France. A cinematic trailer and an extended gameplay demonstration with commentary from the development team introduced the game to the thousands of players in attendance.

"We've wanted to expand on the epic story and gameplay elements of the Diablo universe for some time now," stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We know that players have also been long awaiting a return to the series, so we're very excited to be sharing this announcement with Blizzard gamers here in Paris and around the world today."

Diablo III will pick up the story twenty years after the events of Diablo II. Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal have been defeated, but the Worldstone, which once shielded the inhabitants of the world of Sanctuary from the forces of both the High Heavens and the Burning Hells, has been destroyed, and evil once again stirs in Tristram. Playing as a hero from one of five distinct character classes, players will acquire powerful items, spells, and abilities as they explore new and familiar areas of Sanctuary and battle hordes of demons to safeguard the world from the horrors that have arisen. The first two characters classes -- the barbarian and the witch doctor -- were shown as part of the announcement at the event today in Paris.

Diablo III will feature a custom 3D-graphics engine to render lush indoor and outdoor areas of Sanctuary with a high level of detail and vivid special effects. The game's physics-enhanced environments will be interactive and destructible, offering traps and obstacles that create added danger for players and monsters alike. These elements, along with a new quest system and random scripted events, will be integrated into the game's random-level generator, giving Diablo III the ultimate combination of dynamic gameplay and replayability. Cooperative and competitive play will be available online through an upgraded version of Blizzard Entertainment's renowned online gaming service, Battle.net®.

Blizzard Entertainment is developing Diablo III for simultaneous release on the Windows® and Macintosh® PC platforms. Further information about the game, including details on the other character classes, major new features for the single-player and multiplayer components, system requirements, pricing, and availability, will be announced as development progresses. To learn more about Diablo III, please visit the official website at www.diablo3.com. With multiple games in development, Blizzard Entertainment has numerous positions currently available. Visit http://www.blizzard.com/jobs for more information and to learn how to apply.

Crytek has released a new teaser trailer for Crysis Warhead, which is set to be released later this year. The trailer is fairly short, offering a quick glimpse of the gameplay you can expect when the game arrives (hint: it looks a lot like Crysis). The trailer can be found at:
Atomic Gamer
FileFront
Shacknews
Voodoo Extreme

Based on a leaked Kmart promotional ad, Joystiq is speculating that an Xbox 360 price cut is on the way. According to the ad, Microsoft's Xbox 360 Premium will sell for $299.99 beginning next month. How will this affect the Arcade and Elite models is anyone's guess. Rumor has it that Microsoft will be unveiling a new Xbox 360 SKU with a built-in 60GB HDD. If so, the Arcade may be getting bumped entirely, with the Premium taking its spot at $299.99 and the rumored 60GB model priced at $349.99, or perhaps MS will drop the price on the Arcade from $280 to $250 to take on the Wii directly, while the Premium will sell for $50 more than that?

We should find out one way or another shortly.

Microsoft isn't giving up on Europe. Despite the Xbox 360's also-ran status across the Atlantic, MS European VP of Strategic Marketing David Gosen told UK mag MCV that the company is still going to do everything possible to take over the continent.

Cue an obnoxious comment by Gosen:

“We have some very aggressive plans in terms of investing in this market to be successful. We are in Europe to win. We’re not here to come second or third.”

Sure, it's great that MS has rebounded big-time with 360 sales in Europe following that big price-cut earlier in the year. But why do MS execs always insist on sounding like Hitler on the eve of the Anschluss? Do they not realize that they're working for a company everyone loves to hate, and that they need to dial back the rhetoric a tad?

Read the whole story at MCV here.

Publisher Deep Silver released some additional information about the upcoming Clear Sky expansion for last year's hit PC shooter, STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, currently being prepped by developer GSC Game World. Sez the press release:

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, the player assumes the role of Scar, a mercenary s.t.a.l.k.e.r. In a unique mixture of first-person shooter and complex role- playing game, Scar fights for survival within the Zone and its hostile sectors. The new Zone territories are explored by s.t.a.l.k.e.r.s scattered in groups - and these individual factions soon engage in relentless battle. As a mercenary, Scar quickly finds himself in the middle of a war of factions over territory, artifacts, and power. It is up to the player to find out on whose side Scar has the greatest chance of prevailing.

Clear Sky is expected to mutate its way to stores on August 29. For more, check in with the Deep Silver website.

Guitar Hero figures are in the works and should be on store shelves this November. Unsurprisingly, the models are being made by Todd McFarlane's McFarlane Toys, the same company that made it cool to own plastic replicas of Shaquille O'Neal and Iron Maiden album covers.

Four characters from GH are being brought to, uh, life:

Lars Umlaut, the makeup-wearing fattie

Axel Steel, the denim-clad thrasher

Johnny Napalm, the punker with a mohawk

The God of Rock, who looks like Zeus with a six-string

For more info and picks, check out the McFarlane Toys news announcement here.

If you're like me and you can no longer play Arcade games on your replaced Xbox 360 (my launch console died last August) without being signed into your primary Live account, or you simply bought a 2nd console and would like to transfer your Marketplace content to your new 360, today's release of the license transfer tool is for you.

Microsoft has setup a website that walks you through the process, including a walkthrough from Major Nelson on how it all works. I'm anxiously going to give this a try on my 360 shortly...

Its nearly been two years since ATI last provided an All-In-Wonder card, the company has instead focused on their line of TV Wonder dedicated TV tuners. Today though ATI has resurrected their All-In-Wonder line with the debut of the All-In-Wonder HD.

The All-In-Wonder HD essentially merges ATI's 120 stream processor, 128-bit memory interface Radeon HD 3650 with their TV Wonder HD. The card supports AMD Live! On Demand as well as their Live! Explorer software. Catalyst Media Center is also provided for authoring home movies. The card is single-slot and boasts DVI and HDMI video connections, S-Video and composite video can be added via an external All-In-Wonder HD accessory kit that ships separately.

The All-In-Wonder HD will retail for $199 when it hit shelves next month and will be produced by Diamond Multimedia and VisionTek.

Now that the Playstation Store UI tweak is complete, up next for Sony is a movie download service launching this summer for gamers in the US. Sony will also roll out the service in Asia and Europe, although specific details on when the service will launch in those markets will come sometime next month.

Eager to try out GPU-based PhysX acceleration? If so, you'll be glad to hear that NVIDIA has posted beta PhysX drivers for the GeForce GTX and 9800 GTX GPUs. This beta ForceWare 177.39 release is intended to expose the public to the technology, eventually PhysX supported will be rolled out for NVIDIA's entire GeForce 8/9 family of GPUs.

Vista Release Highlights:
Beta release for Windows Vista.

Adds support for GeForce 9800 GTX GPUs.

Adds support for NVIDIA PhysX Technology for GPU PhysX hardware acceleration on GeForce 9800 GTX, GeForce GTX 280, and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs. GeForce v177.39 driver package includes NVIDIA PhysX System Software v8.06.12. The Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack can be downloaded here.

Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI™ technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI Technology with GeForce 9800 GTX, GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs.

Supports CUDA™ Technology.

Supports HybridPower, a Hybrid SLI Technology.

Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.

XP Release Highlights:
Beta release for Windows XP.

Adds support for GeForce 9800 GTX GPUs.

Adds support for NVIDIA PhysX Technology for GPU PhysX hardware acceleration on GeForce 9800 GTX, GeForce GTX 280, and GeForce GTX 260 GPUs. The GeForce v177.39 driver package includes NVIDIA PhysX System Software v8.06.12. The Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX Mod Pack can be downloaded here.

Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI™ technology on DirectX 9 and OpenGL.

Supports CUDA™ Technology.

Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
Please read the release notes for more information on product support, features, and known compatibility issues.

Note: 3-way SLI technology and Hybrid SLI technology are only supported on Windows Vista.

Driver Download Links:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_177.39_beta.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x64_177.39_beta.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_177.39_beta.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_177.39_beta.html

Microsoft has once more pledged its undying support to PC gaming. VP John Schappert released a statement today once more commenting on how excited the company is over growth potential in the PC games market.

Uh-huh. I've been hearing this crap since E3 1999, when Microsoft showed off its big entry into the PC sports gaming market, NFL Fever 2000. Anyhow, read on...

These are exciting times for the PC gaming industry. Over the past couple of years, Microsoft Corp. has increased its focus on investment in Windows gaming because we see the incredible growth and opportunities it represents not just for us, but for the industry at large.

Today I’m excited to report that Microsoft and a growing community of the gaming industry’s leading publishers, hardware manufacturers and retailers have made the Windows-based PC the largest gaming platform in the world. Every major region will see PC gaming continue to grow in audience, game revenue and hardware purchases for the foreseeable future. While the challenges we face as an industry are many, PC gaming has never been stronger, and we’re confident this trend will continue in the years to come.

The past year has seen exponential growth in online activity and sales, continued platform and hardware innovation, and continued success with the Games for Windows branding initiative, which adds prominence, a quality and technical bar, and a consistent look and feel to the retail PC gaming experience.

In the last year, we have helped launch a wide range of stellar PC game titles exclusive to Windows including “World in Conflict,” “Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar” and “Sins of a Solar Empire.” Other popular titles such as “Crysis” and “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures” have sold and shipped more than 1 million copies, respectively. “Hellgate: London” now has more than 1 million active subscribers.

Yeah. That's the ticket. At least this press release also announced 16 new Games for Windows games, including Call of Duty: World at War (Activision), Ghostbusters: The Videogame (Sierra Entertainment), Crysis: Warhead, (EA Partners), and Zoo Tycoon 2: Ultimate Collection (Microsoft Game Studios).

I'd link to the full press release, but I'm too depressed to type any more.