In Japan, “X” – pronounced “cross” – is sometimes used when two titans of entertainment work together on a song, an album or a movie. When Capcom and Namco announced that the two biggest franchises in fighting were finally coming together to do battle and put another “who would win” debate to bed. Capcom won the coin toss and will be releasing their game firs and they had it out for play at E3 2011

One genre not lacking for representation on consoles is the first-person shooter. Upcoming Namco game Inversion will use gravity manipulation in hopes of standing out in this crowded genre.

In the game, a gadget called the Gravlink is mapped to the right bumper of your controller. If enemies are under cover, you can use gravity to send them floating and blow them out of the sky. You can deal with fast-moving enemies by using high gravity to slow them down. You can also combine the powers in combos. For example, you can float enemies with low gravity then make them heavier, sending them crashing back to earth.

At CES you can find tons and tons of accessories and other nifty little add-ons for your gadgets. Old school gamers may be drawn to one in particular — ION Audio’s iCade, a mini arcade cabinet for your iPad.

Tis the season for holiday sales, and Namco Bandai is joining in. The thing is, only iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad owners are going to appreciate it. The company is going to be discounting a number of their apps for Christmas and New Years. I bet you’re hoping you get an iTunes gift card now!

The two week sale begins December 21, 2010. So don’t go rushing to iTunes today! Actually, you don’t need to rush at all. It ends on January 3, 2011, so you’ll have plenty of time to peruse the apps and decide if there’s something you want…

After this year’s Thanksgiving (November 25, 2010) dinner, you may want to head to your computer, Blackberry or Android device and do a little online shopping. Namco has announced that many of its downloadable games will be greatly reduced this Black Friday 2010 shopping season. So for one week, until December 1, 2010, you can get some iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry, Android or even computer games at some great prices.

Since there are 56 games on sale, let’s go through them by device. It’ll make things much easier…

The eccentric creator of the awesome and unique puzzler Katamari Damacy, Keita Takahashi, has officially left Namco Bandai and has started a company called Uvula.

Takahashi wants to broaden his horizon’s in the gaming business so, in collaboration with his wife composer Asuka Sakai, the new company claims to be focusing both on gaming and music, hence his studio’s name reference to the inside of the mouth.

This summer has been very good to the Tekken franchise. We saw announcements of Tekken X Street Fighter, Street Fighter X Tekken at Comic-Con now Tekken Tag Tournament 2 was just revealed at the Tokyo Game Show. Tekken Tag Tournament 2 will be released in arcades in Japan in summer 2011. Release plans for other territories will be announced at a later date.

This is probably the strangest videogame related story you’ve read this week. Namco registered a domain in September 2009 for a videogame based Antiques Roadshow. The domain is set to expire in September 2011. It wasn’t until now that the domain was spotted and speculation on Tim Schafer’s involvement began to surface.

We normally don’t get major game announcements over the the weekend. But with Comic-Con going in in San Diego right now, anything is possible. Case in point, two new fighters for PS3 and Xbox 360 have been announced at the show. Capcom and Namco have teamed up to create Street Fighter X Tekken and Tekken X Street Fighter. The “X” stands for cross.

Ah, Bandai. You don’t really think about it, but the company is everywhere. Toys, video games, models, animated series and more! The company even has its own museum in Japan, devoted to honoring famous Bandai characters. Now Bandai is known better by gamers as Namco Bandai, as the two companies merged together in 2006.

Bandai is quite influential, and has built quite a legacy around the world. You can’t really appreciate everything it’s done unless you step back and look at some of its biggest achievements. So this week, Important Importables is checking out Bandai’s endeavors in the world of toys, video games and mass media. It’s just a quick way to remind people of what the company’s capabilities…