Good news for fans of PS3-exclusives, you’re getting Record of the Agarest War 2 in 2012! Whether you’re in North America or Europe, you’ll have access to this Compile Heart and Idea Factory strategic RPG that places just as much emphasis on finding love with a female party member as it does with beating up lots of monsters and bad guys. Oddly enough, it’s the first entry in the series that isn’t multiplatform. I guess this means Xbox 360 owners will either have to visit a friend or go online to find out what happens next in the series!

Record of the Agarest War 2 takes place after the first game, even though it’s the third game in the series…

So. Xenoblade Chronicles. Ever since Europe received a localized version of this supposedly awesome action RPG, there’s been quite a bit of heartbreak here in North America. There have been petitions, the Project Rainfall movement and some people even just gave up and found a way to make the European copy play on their North American Wiis. It seems like all that may have had some effect, because a NeoGAF poster is reporting that Xenoblade Chronicles is now showing up in the stores’ systems. Even more surprising, it’s labeled as a GameStop Exclusive. Which means, if this news is true, GameStop will be the only place to find Xenoblade.

Now normally, I wouldn’t bother posting it. It’s a rumor, after all. One that Wii owners are especially sensitive about, since Nintendo seemed to take such a strong stance against Xenoblade, Last Story and Pandora’s Tower. Except for one thing.

Nintendo’s fanning the flames of this story….

Video games get blamed for everything from school violence to childhood obesity. This may be the first time they’ve taken the blame for a sports team’s colossal failure. Call it a sign of the times.

The Boston Red Sox blew a nine-game wild card lead, missing the postseason in a baseball collapse for the ages. Getting a significant portion of the blame is the training regimen (or lack thereof) from three of the team’s veteran pitchers. According to the Boston Globe Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and John Lackey eschewed their workouts for a regimen of beer, fast food chicken and video games. This happened in spite of pleas from manager Terry Francona and strength coach Dave Page.

It’s rumor time! Ever since Nintendo’s announced that special 2011 3DS conference to be held September 13, 2011, just before the 2011 Tokyo Game Show, people have been trying to figure out what will go on there. Back when the conference was first announced at the beginning of September, everyone kept thinking it would focus on a new version of a 3DS with a second analog stick, or an second analog stick peripheral. Well, Famitsu has already confirmed that Monster Hunter Tri G add-on, but it seems other Japanese blogs and sites are reporting the conference will focus more on future 3DS games than hardware…

Today (July 7, 2011) I received an email stating that I was charged $49.99 for a 4,000 Microsoft Points bundle. The problem is that I did not order that bundle. In fact, I have not logged into my Xbox Live account for at least a month.

Developers were recently notified that a new revision of the PlayStation 3 is in the testing process that will feature a new copy protection system not on the motherboard but inside the BD-ROM drive itself, similar to the Xbox 360.

I hope all you Call of Duty players are prepared for another map pack, because it looks like Treyarch and Activision have another one planned. As it was with the previous Call of Duty: Black Ops DLC pack, Escalation, it seems the next pack may have been leaked as well. This leak wasn’t as good though, as it only managed to reveal the five maps that will be included in the new add-on. The leaked image’s picture quality is horrible, but it looks authentic. You should probably remain cautiously optimistic.

Digital Warfare 24/7 first came across this GameStop ad…

Think you know what’s going to happen at this year’s E3? Well, so do we. Now let’s see whether or not we agree…

If you’re a member of the Atlus Faithful email newsletter, then you’ve been receiving some rather cryptic messages since Valentine’s Day 2011. The first message was rather plain and nondescript, and was unusual because it didn’t refer to any of Atlus’ games. All it said was, “Happy Valentine’s Day from your friends at Atlus” in a stylized white font.

A little over a week later, a second Atlus Faithful message was sent out around February 25, 2011. This one was just as vague, but possessed the same pink background. You can see the image enclosed at the right. It simply reads, “Do you still like us…”

It seems like every week, a new program has been created with Kinect controls. The enthusiast community has done a wonderful job of taking the peripheral, and applying it to many fascinating applications. Microsoft doesn’t mind these Kinect mods (they’re technically not hacks), and encouraged the public to really dig into the hardware to their heart’s content. Microsoft will take its support of third-party Kinect creations to another level this spring when it releases the official Kinect software development kit.